e360 Video Report

The Warriors of Qiugang:
A Chinese Village Fights Back

For years, the chemical plant in the heart of the Chinese village of Qiugang had polluted the river, poisoned the drinking water, and fouled the air — until residents found the courage to take a stand. An exclusive Yale Environment 360 video report, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject), tells the story of the villagers’ determined efforts to stop the pollution — and how in battling to transform their environment, the citizens of Qiugang found themselves transformed as well.
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e360 Video Report

When The Water Ends:
Africa’s Climate Conflicts

As temperatures rise and water supplies dry up, semi-nomadic tribes along the Kenyan-Ethiopian border increasingly are coming into conflict with each other. A Yale Environment 360 video report from East Africa focuses on a phenomenon that climate scientists say will be more and more common in the 21st century: how worsening drought will pit groups — and nations — against one another.
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Interview: Forging a Defense
For Rhinos in Troubled Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe ranks number 4 on Foreign Policy magazine’s “Failed State Index,” with its shattered economy, pervasive hunger, and entrenched dictator. And that makes it all the more surprising that Raoul du Toit, who was awarded the 2011 Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa this week, has managed not only to spend nearly 30 years protecting the critically endangered black rhino in his homeland, but that Zimbabwe actually saw an increase in black rhino numbers this past year. Du Toit says that with the number of black rhinos still abysmally low, this is no time for complacency. The problem is poaching, which is on the upswing because of the demand for rhino horn for use in traditional Asian medicines. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, du Toit discusses his hopes of getting Zimbabwean communities and schools involved in programs to protect the rhino, and he talks about the challenges of trying to protect wildlife in a nation where the political leaders show virtually no interest in environmental issues. “In general,” he said, “I have to bluntly say that they don’t normally give a damn about conservation.”
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14 Apr 2011: Invasive Mussels Trigger
Major Ecological Shift in Great Lakes

The rapid spread of non-native mussels in the Great Lakes has caused an unprecedented ecological shift in lakes Michigan and Huron, stripping the massive freshwater lakes of life-supporting algae, according to a new study by University of Michigan researchers. While the increased number of zebra mussels has been observed in the lakes for decades, an even greater threat in recent years has been the spread of the closely related quagga, a fingernail-sized mussel that thrives in the lakes’ deep muddy bottoms. Each quagga mussel, billions of which now blanket the bottoms of lakes Huron and Michigan, filters about a quart of water daily, and feeds on algae that is a critical food source for other lake organisms — including the shrimplike Diporeia, which has long been a pillar of the Great Lakes’ food chain. Researchers say algal production in both lakes in 2008 was 80 percent lower than in the 1980s, a phenomenon that coincided with the spread of the quagga. “These are astounding changes, a tremendous shifting of the very base of the food web in those lakes into a state that has not been seen in the recorded history of the lakes,” said Mary Anne Evans, lead author of the study, which will be published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

14 Apr 2011: Threats from Mekong Dam
Highlighted as Construction Decision Nears

As the governments of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia prepare to decide next week whether to proceed with construction of a massive dam on the Mekong River, a new report from the conservation group WWF warns that the dam could have a devastating impact on fish in the river and threaten the food supplies of millions of people. The Xayaburi dam, which would be built in Laos but provide electric power mainly to Thailand, is the first of 11 proposed dams for the lower Mekong River. The WWF report says that environmental impact studies conducted by various governments were poorly prepared and grossly underestimate the effect of the dam on river species, including the endangered giant Mekong catfish and 70 migratory fish species that spawn above the dam. The WWF report said that fish ladders designed to ease fish passage above the dam were poorly designed and would probably be ineffective. Assurances by regional governments that the dam would have minimal environmental impact were not credible, WWF said. Similar assurances were given about the construction of a dam on the Mun River, a Mekong tributary, but the dam has led to the disappearance of 56 species and reduced catches of 169 species.

Interview: Extolling the Value
Of Forests Shaped by Humans

Susanna Hecht, a political ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been a controversial figure in the conservation community, which is not surprising given her assertion that many of the world’s deforested lands are recovering and that forests altered by human activity play a vital ecological role. Her studies of humanity’s interaction with forests have revealed how major social forces, such as globalization, affect our environment, sometimes in unanticipated — and positive — ways. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Hecht argues it’s time to start thinking about a new strategy for the world’s forests, one that focuses less on setting aside preserves for wildlife and biodiversity and more on the unprotected areas where people live. Hecht espouses what she calls the “new rurality,” which wrings the most biodiversity from a patchwork landscape of crops, pastures, agroforestry plantations, and abandoned farmland reverting to forest. “There has been a recognition,” says Hecht, “that inhabited environments can have major conservation values.”
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13 Apr 2011: U.S. Congress Strips Wolves
Of Endangered Status — A Legislative First

For the first time ever, the U.S. Congress has intervened to remove an animal from the Endangered Species List, attaching a rider to the federal budget that ends federal protection for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. The new provisions would instead put management of wolves in Montana and Idaho in the hands of state agencies, a shift that a federal judge had recently refused to approve, in part because it could increase the likelihood of commercial wolf hunts in the two states this fall. Environmental groups called passage of the budget rider a dangerous precedent that would allow Congress, rather than a science-based federal agency, to remove endangered species protections. “Now, anytime anybody has an issue with an endangered species, they are going to run to Congress and try to get the same treatment,” Michael T. Leahy, the Rocky Mountain region director for Defenders of Wildlife, told the New York Times. The budget compromise reached by Democrats and Republicans last weekend also cut the budget for the federal Environmental Protection Agency by 16 percent – a reduction of about $1.6 billion.

13 Apr 2011: EU Biofuel Targets Encourage
Unethical Practices Worldwide, Study Says

European biofuel targets are encouraging unethical practices worldwide, from human rights violations to deforestation, and should be suspended until better safeguards are in place, a new report says. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent organization that studies ethical issues in medicine and biology, says current European Union and UK policies intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — including an EU directive requiring that 10 percent of transportation fuels be derived from biofuels by 2020 — have backfired. Such targets have triggered a boom in production of biofuel crops that has resulted in the displacement of indigenous peoples in the developing world, higher prices for food crops, and forest loss. In addition, the current policies provide few incentives for developing new biofuel technologies that would avoid such problems, the report says. “We want a more sophisticated strategy that considers the wider consequences of biofuel production,” said Joyce Tait, scientific advisor to Edinburgh University’s Innogen Centre and chairwoman of the study.

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