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Australia will miss its 2030 climate targets unless more renewable energy projects move beyond the planning phase and start getting built.

The post Enough wind and solar in pipeline, but not enough actually being built to meet 2030 target, scorecard finds appeared first on Renew Economy.

The U.S. Forest Service is rewriting its longstanding Travel Management Rule, which determines where off-road vehicles (ORVs) can travel across national forests and grasslands. This is the tool that land managers use to designate areas and trails for motorized use while also setting aside areas for human-powered recreation, wildlife habitat, and preservation of cultural sites.

The Trump administration wants to change—for the worse—how Utahns and other visitors experience national forests throughout the state, from the Wasatch Front to the redrock country outside of Escalante, Kanab, and Moab. The proposal places a heavy thumb on the scale to prioritize ORV use at the expense of all other uses and values, including the protection of wildlife, cultural sites, healthy streams, and the solitude of wild places. This will not improve access to public lands, but it will make the experience worse for all users, including hikers, bikers, hunters, anglers, and ORV riders.

The Forest Service is accepting public comments through Wednesday, September 23. Please tell the agency to protect national forests by keeping the Travel Management Rule intact!

Elk Ridge, Manti-La Sal National Forest. © Scott T. Smith

 Among other things, the Forest Service’s proposal would:

• Allow motorized vehicles everywhere on national forests and grasslands except where they are specifically prohibited, flipping longstanding policy.
  
  
• Force every forest or district to reconsider each year whether non-motorized trails, roads, and areas should be open to motorized vehicles.
  
  
• Create new pathways to expand ORV use with less public review.
  
  
• Eliminate the “minimization criteria,” which require the agency to locate motorized areas and trails to minimize damage to wildlife habitat, soils, watersheds, and vegetation and to minimize conflicts between different users.

In Utah, national forest lands help connect Bureau of Land Management landscapes proposed for wilderness designation in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act. These include the important watersheds of the Manti-La Sal, Dixie, and Fishlake National Forests.

There are already hundreds of thousands of miles of Forest Service roads nationwide, and they’re facing a $9 billion maintenance backlog. Added to that is a $300 million Forest Service trail maintenance backlog and a $29 million recreation backlog. An expanded route system will only exacerbate these problems.

Both the proposed Travel Management Rule change and the proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule (see our alert from earlier this week) are part of the administration’s systematic dismantling of the rules and safeguards that keep national forests healthy and safe for the benefit of all. Undoing these rules will bring increased chaos and uncertainty for everyone who uses national forests.

Click here to submit your comments by September 23

The post Tell the Forest Service to Keep the Travel Management Rule appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

by Roger Coryell
September 7, 2026
The Mendocino Voice

[Excerpt:] Dutch Charlie Creek drops over moss-covered rock west of Laytonville, Calif., on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021. The state has spent more than $1 million since 2012 pulling legacy roads out of the watershed to keep fine sediment off the gravel where coho spawn. (Philip McGarvey/Friends of Dutch Charlie Creek via Bay City News)

MENDOCINO CO., 9/7/26 — Logging on 926 acres in the hills west of Laytonville is stopped under two court orders at once.

…

The fight is over two timber harvest plans the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection approved on July 2 and 3. The agency’s notices list Redwood Timber Company LLC as landowner and Redwood Forest Operating Company LLC as the plan submitter. The larger plan, called Hot Tuna, covers 594 acres. The smaller one, Lincoln Logs, covers 332. Both call for selection logging rather than clearcutting. Court papers also call Hot Tuna by a second name, Lincoln Ridge. 

Friends of Dutch Charlie Creek, which litigates as Friends of Shaahnaa Lhook, sued Cal Fire on July 7, four days after it says the logging began. Its claim under the California Environmental Quality Act is that the plans never assess the sediment they will send into the creek, one of two reliable coho spawning streams left in the upper South Fork Eel, the group says. Coho on the Eel side of the county are listed as threatened under both the state and federal endangered species acts. 

. . .

Dutch Charlie Creek is the same water the state has spent more than a decade and a million dollars trying to repair.

. . .

The group’s press release says the timber harvesting plans include three miles of new road construction, including on steep slopes and near the creek. Its website says “millions” in state money went into road removal in the watershed. The grant record shows at least $1.03 million from the fisheries program. Other state funding sources were not checked. 

Roads shed fine sediment into streams, and fine sediment buries the gravel coho spawn in. The appellate court’s own briefing order in July asked the parties to address whether it is undisputed that logging would add sediment to what the court called an already impacted stream system. Cal Fire’s response to public comment says the Hot Tuna plan itself recognizes that the waters downstream are listed as impaired for sediment and temperature. 

. . .

To read the complete article, visit The Mendocino Voice:
Judge halts logging above Dutch Charlie Creek with most of it already done

Del 3 al 5 de septiembre, miembros de GAIA y de Break Free From Plastic en América Latina se reunieron en Santiago para compartir experiencias, celebrar logros y construir prioridades estratégicas para seguir fortaleciendo el movimiento. El encuentro recibió a 44 organizaciones de 14 países de la región. 

Septiembre, 2026 – El objetivo central del encuentro fue fortalecer la articulación regional, celebrar los aprendizajes colectivos y construir prioridades estratégicas compartidas para orientar el trabajo conjunto de los próximos años por la justicia ambiental y basura cero. 

En la primera parte de la jornada, se pensó colectivamente en la realidad política, social y ambiental de los distintos países. Se coordinaron espacios de conversación que trataron temas relacionados con basura cero en espacios educativos, pirólisis y residuos orgánicos, para luego dar paso a la celebración de los hitos que han marcado el trabajo desde la última vez que nos encontramos en Lima, en 2023.

Foto grupal encuentro de miembros GAIA y BFFP América Latina, Santiago, 2026.

Para Karla Escoto de Basura Cero Nicaragua, “Haber sido parte del encuentro ha sido gratificante, renovador.  Estos espacios no sólo nos permiten intercambiar las experiencias y acciones que están realizando cada unas de las organizaciones que trabajamos hacia basura cero, también nos permite tener ese contacto directo, humanizar nuestras acciones, compartir, replantearnos, y saber que a pesar de las diferentes circunstancias y contextos de cada país seguimos avanzando desde nuestros territorios, trabajando de la mano de la juventud, las comunidades y recicladores de base.”

Otros espacios importantes fueron las instancias de formación ejecutadas por los mismos miembros y las conversaciones que se dieron en torno a las prioridades estratégicas de la región, con el fin de avanzar en puntos comunes que permitan orientar el trabajo conjunto en los próximos años y reconocer las capacidades que existen dentro de la alianza. 

“El encuentro significó confirmar el valor de compartir lo que hacemos desde las comunidades. Pudimos llevar la experiencia de León Cortés, pero también escuchar y aprender de otras organizaciones de la región. Ese intercambio fortalece nuestro trabajo y nos recuerda que, aunque nuestros territorios son distintos, podemos aprender unos de otros.”, comenta Julia Picado de la Asociación Defensores del Monumento Natural Zona de los Santos, Costa Rica.

Los tres días de encuentro terminaron en un ambiente festivo con la feria de causas, donde las organizaciones presentaron el trabajo que están desarrollando en sus territorios. Las experiencias compartidas permitieron conocer mejor la diversidad del trabajo que sostiene el movimiento y las distintas formas en que las organizaciones están impulsando la justicia ambiental e iniciativas de basura cero.

Para Tania Ricaldi, de CESU-UMSS, Bolivia, “El Encuentro de Santiago fue un espacio de diálogo, escucha e interaprendizaje que permitió compartir experiencias de prácticas de basura cero que muestran que desde el accionar local, el trabajo solidario y creativo se están construyendo y reconstruyendo relaciones y transformaciones esenciales para el cuidado de la vida.”

El encuentro en Santiago será recordado como un momento donde se celebró lo construido y donde se delinearon los pasos para construir las estrategias que permitirán avanzar hacia nuevos objetivos y reforzar logros ya alcanzados. 

The post Tres días de encuentro para compartir y construir el futuro de nuestro movimiento first appeared on GAIA.

The Burnham government has confirmed it will not ban lower-volume fracking.

Energy minister Martin McCluskey. Photo: Parliament TV

In one of the new administration’s first public statement on the subject, junior energy minister Martin McCluskey said there was a distinction between the promised ban on fracking for shale gas and low volume hydraulic fracturing techniques which would still be allowed.

The minister was closing a backbench parliamentary debate, which called for a total ban on fracking.

He said of lower-volume techniques, such as proppant squeeze:

“This is not the same as hydraulic fracturing for shale gas extraction. This is not associated with the same safety issues.”

Like fracking in shale, operations like proppant squeeze also inject fluid at pressures high enough to fracture rocks to increase the flow of gas.

But they are not prevented by the current moratorium on fracking in England because the volume of fluid they inject is below the legal threshold (more than 1,000m3 for a single fracture stage or 10,000m3 for an entire operation). Opponents have described the threshold as a legal loophole that is being exploited by oil and gas companies.

Operators are currently seeking to carry out lower-volume fracking at three sites in England: Burniston in North Yorkshire, West Newton-A in East Yorkshire and Wressle in North Lincolnshire.

Mr McCluskey told MPs:

“There is no clear evidence that [lower-volume fracking] induces seismicity that is felt on the surface.”

He added:

“Low volume hydraulic fracturing operations are routinely used on conventional oil and gas operations. They target different types of rocks, create fractures close to the wellbore and are typically short single stage operations, as opposed to the continuous fracture characteristic of shale gas fracking.”

The minister said the Energy Independence Bill would meet the government’s commitment not to issue new exploration and production licences, both on and offshore, including those that could be used to frack for shale gas. He said:

“That will deliver on our commitment in law to ban fracking.

He added:

“There is no loophole and no hidden route by which shale gas fracking can resume.

“The effective moratorium remains in place and the government will not issue new onshore licences in England, including those that could be used for fracking for shale gas. That is a reassurance, that communities across the country are entitled to hear.”

Opposition

The Lib Dem Claire Young, who opened the debate, urged the minister to commit to defining fracking by its purpose and its effects, not by what she described as “an arbitrary measure of fluid used”.

She said:

“Proppant squeeze is just hydraulic fracturing at lower fluid volume.

“The intent is identical, fracking. The technique is identical. A company injects fluid at high pressure to fracture rock and release the gas inside, but because the volume is lower, the law treats it as something else entirely and waves it through.”

She also called for a ban on all forms of fracking.

“This government has been in power for two years and yet I see no indication that a full ban is due.

“It seems that this government is not taking decisive action to stop all fracking activity.”

Alison Hume, the Labour MP for Scarborough, whose constituency includes Burniston, said:

“There is strong evidence to suggest that small-scale fracking carries the same risks as large scale operations, particularly around seismicity.”

She said:

“Unless the government acts boldly and closes the loophole communities across the country, such as those in West Newton and Burniston, will have fracking operations on their doorstep.

“These communities love where they live. Don’t they count? It doesn’t matter to them, whether it’s a mini frack or the full-scale version.

“The net result is the same: drill pads, drill heads, gas flare and noise, 24/7 lights during the exploration stage and continuous HGV lorry movements.”

She added:

“Unless we legislate to ban all forms of fracking in our upcoming Energy Independence Bill, then our fracking ban will be symbolic rather than material.

“We have a unique opportunity to show climate leadership. We have an opportunity as a government to stand up to the frackers, to make our legislation watertight to safeguard the natural environment.”

Other arguments

Reform’s Richard Tice said it was “dogmatic and stubborn” to ignore what he called the “most valuable economic treasure of shale gas”. He said companies had already invested more than £200m in the potential for UK onshore shale gas. This proved, he said, that they believed the reserves were “very considerable”.

But the Lib Dem’s energy spokesperson, Richard Foord, said:

“There is a real danger that investments in fracking will be a catastrophic mistake as the fuels, the facilities and the resources become stranded assets.”

Labour’s Phil Brickell said:

“Fracking became a symbol of a political establishment refusing to listen to communities and refusing to recognise where public opinion had already moved.”

This nesting season was a historic one on Lea-Hutaff Island, with the largest Least Tern count ever and the return of Black Skimmers, which haven’t nested successfully on the island since 2022...

Two massive wind and battery projects are the latest referred to state's independent planning arbiter because of the number of mostly long-distance objections.

The post Two massive wind and battery projects held up by weight of objections, including 13 signed by one individual appeared first on Renew Economy.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 15 SEPTEMBER 2026 SLF-2007-058 The Sakhalin Papers XLVIII: “A Philosophical Difference” — When Regulatory Compliance Was Not Enough for the Scientists In November 2020, Sakhalin Energy and its independent scientific advisers arrived at an unusually candid point of disagreement. The company could satisfy Russian regulatory requirements and still fail to satisfy the evidential standards expected by the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel. The meeting record captured the difference in a phrase rarely encountered in corporate environmental reporting: there would always be a “philosophical difference” between conservation scientists and an oil company.

1. A meeting held in exceptional circumstances

The 21st meeting of the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel — WGWAP — took place by videoconference from 17 to 19 November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By then the Panel had spent well over a decade advising Sakhalin Energy on the protection of the endangered gray whales feeding off north-eastern Sakhalin.

Shell’s own Sustainability Report 2020 described WGWAP as an independent scientific panel established by IUCN to help mitigate environmental impacts. Shell stated that the Panel continued to advise Sakhalin Energy, in which Shell then held a 27.5% interest, and that WGWAP was preparing its final conclusions for release in 2021. (Shell)

This matters.

The dispute examined in this instalment was not between Shell and an environmental protest organisation standing outside the project.

It occurred inside the independent scientific-advisory mechanism that Shell itself cited in its sustainability reporting.

2. The company had data — lots of it

There was no suggestion that Sakhalin Energy had simply stopped studying whales.

Its monitoring programme was extensive.

Sakhalin Energy’s own 2020 sustainability reporting stated that the company and the Sakhalin-1 operator continued their integrated monitoring programme off north-eastern Sakhalin, which had begun in 2002.

The company reported that 175 individual whales were preliminarily identified during the 2020 field season, including nine calves and two previously unidentified adults.

It also reported acoustic monitoring at the boundary of the Piltun feeding area and said the measurements indicated a low level of anthropogenic noise from company facilities. (Sakhalin Energy)

WGWAP likewise acknowledged extensive monitoring and treated the annual photo-identification reports as useful.

The dispute was not primarily about whether information existed.

It was about what conclusions could legitimately be drawn from it.

3. Counting whales was not the same as estimating a population trend

The 2020 WGWAP report records a fundamental methodological disagreement.

Sakhalin Energy’s reporting had characterised the feeding aggregation in strongly positive terms.

The Panel considered the underlying surveys insufficient to support such broad conclusions.

Its concern was that annual counts, locations and observations were being treated too readily as evidence of population stability or growth without sufficiently rigorous adjustment for matters such as survey effort, timing, observation-platform characteristics, observer capability and environmental conditions.

WGWAP therefore recommended a proper multi-year statistical analysis before strong claims were made about abundance and distribution.

That distinction is elementary but important.

More whales seen during one survey does not necessarily mean more whales exist.

A vessel can change.

Observers can change.

Survey routes can change.

Weather can change.

Timing can change.

The amount of effort can change.

Without accounting for those variables, apparent trends can be misleading.

4. Then came the remarkable exchange

The Panel said Sakhalin Energy’s reports appeared to satisfy Russian regulatory requirements.

But it also said the potential of the accumulated datasets was being under-used and that some conclusions were therefore insufficiently supported.

According to the official meeting record, Sakhalin Energy representative Jane Alcock accepted that there would always be a:

“philosophical difference between the goals of conservation scientists and those of an oil company.”

The minutes went on to explain the distinction.

One of the company’s objectives was compliance with the regulatory requirements under which it operated. It was therefore unsurprising, in Alcock’s view, that company reporting might not satisfy every scientific standard expected by WGWAP.

This was not an accusation extracted from a leaked activist memorandum.

It appears in the formal WGWAP meeting report.

And it is unusually revealing.

5. Compliance and knowledge are different tests

A regulator asks:

Has the operator met the legally required standard?

A conservation scientist may ask:

Do we understand what is happening to the ecosystem well enough to detect a subtle or long-term effect?

Those are related questions.

They are not identical.

The distinction becomes especially important when dealing with endangered wildlife.

Regulatory compliance may establish that an operator has carried out the prescribed surveys and mitigation.

Scientific confidence requires something different: sufficient data, appropriate controls, rigorous analysis and enough continuity to distinguish genuine biological change from statistical noise.

That is the heart of the 2020 disagreement.

6. The missing seabed data returned to the argument

The previous instalment examined the disappearance of long-term benthic monitoring after 2016.

That issue resurfaced directly in 2020.

WGWAP said the lost benthic time series made it substantially harder to interpret the reduced presence of whales in the nearshore Piltun feeding ground.

Sakhalin Energy maintained that it should not be expected to collect benthic information outside the area in which its activities could potentially affect the seabed.

That difference goes directly to the meaning of environmental responsibility.

The company’s position defined responsibility principally by reference to its potential operational footprint.

The Panel’s scientific question was wider:

What information is necessary to explain what is happening to the whales?

Those two boundaries were not the same.

7. The 2019 prey warning still hung over the discussion

This disagreement cannot be understood without the warning WGWAP had issued the previous year.

On 11 July 2019, IUCN publicly reported the Panel’s concern that the nearshore Piltun feeding area might be losing its capacity to support recovering gray whales.

The long-running benthic programme had shown a steep decline in amphipod prey biomass before monitoring was terminated in 2016.

At the same time, whales appeared increasingly to be using the more productive offshore feeding area. (IUCN)

WGWAP did not claim that Shell or Sakhalin Energy had caused the prey decline.

Natural oceanographic and ecological explanations remained entirely plausible.

But without continuing benthic measurements, it became harder to distinguish competing explanations.

That evidential gap was exactly what the Panel was still complaining about in November 2020.

8. Noise produced another disagreement over the strength of the evidence

Sakhalin Energy deserved credit for restarting some acoustic monitoring in 2020.

WGWAP expressly welcomed that decision.

Preliminary information suggested underwater noise had decreased, possibly in part because quieter service vessels had been introduced.

But the Panel objected to a categorical statement in Sakhalin Energy’s Marine Mammal Protection Plan that the company’s noise-generating activities had produced no effect on gray-whale abundance and distribution.

WGWAP considered the analysis insufficient to prove such a definitive proposition.

Again, the distinction is subtle but fundamental.

Failure to demonstrate an effect is not necessarily evidence that no effect exists.

That is particularly true where data were collected at incompatible temporal or spatial scales.

9. Sakhalin Energy had spent very large sums on mitigation

The meeting record also contains evidence that deserves to be placed firmly on the company side of the ledger.

Sakhalin Energy presented a high-level self-assessment of its compliance with International Finance Corporation Performance Standard 6, which concerns biodiversity and critical habitat.

According to that assessment, the company had spent more than US$300 million on impact avoidance and more than US$45 million on mitigation since the project design phase.

Sakhalin Energy concluded that its remaining impacts on gray whales had been reduced to levels it regarded as not significant and not measurable, and that it had complied with the principal requirements of the standard.

Those figures are part of the documentary record.

They should not be omitted merely because this archive is critical of Shell.

10. But “not measurable” was itself disputed

The Panel discussion immediately exposed the difficulty.

There was broad agreement that industrial operations at Sakhalin had not produced demonstrated acute lethal impacts on gray whales.

But WGWAP participants said there was no equivalent consensus concerning possible non-lethal chronic effects.

A biological effect could be real but too small, diffuse or complex to measure reliably.

And because Sakhalin Energy operated in critical habitat, the possibility of residual effects remained relevant even after substantial mitigation.

This is an important evidential distinction.

Not measured is not synonymous with non-existent.

Nor does the converse follow.

An inability to exclude a chronic effect does not prove that such an effect occurred.

The correct documentary position is uncertainty.

11. The argument therefore cut both ways

It would be misleading to portray the November 2020 record as scientists discovering environmental damage that Sakhalin Energy was trying to conceal.

That is not what the documents establish.

The company had financed extensive monitoring.

It had implemented significant mitigation.

It had restarted acoustic monitoring.

It had accumulated decades of whale observations.

Its own sustainability reporting continued to treat gray-whale conservation as an important environmental programme. (Sakhalin Energy)

But it would be equally misleading to convert those facts into a conclusion that every environmental question had therefore been scientifically resolved.

WGWAP plainly did not think so.

12. This is where the “philosophical difference” really mattered

Sakhalin Energy had to operate a major oil and gas project.

That meant engineering targets, production targets, safety obligations, regulatory requirements, financial constraints and environmental conditions.

WGWAP had a narrower institutional purpose.

Its task was to ask whether available science was sufficient to protect an endangered whale population.

Those missions overlapped.

They did not coincide.

What an operator regarded as enough information to demonstrate compliance could still be regarded by scientists as insufficient to resolve an ecological question.

And what scientists regarded as desirable long-term research could reasonably be regarded by an operator as extending beyond the impacts for which it considered itself responsible.

The November 2020 exchange is valuable precisely because neither side disguised that structural difference.

13. It was disagreement without institutional breakdown

The documentary record also prevents a more sensational interpretation.

The meeting did not end in rupture.

At its conclusion, representatives of WGWAP, Sakhalin Energy and IUCN all acknowledged the value of the process.

The Panel report described WGWAP as having provided a forum for frank, constructive and transparent exchanges which had often produced workable solutions to difficult problems.

That matters.

Independent scientific oversight is not proven effective because company and scientists always agree.

Arguably the opposite is true.

A panel that never disagreed with the company financing the process would deserve considerably more scrutiny.

14. Shell’s own public reporting confirms the relationship

Royal Dutch Shell plc’s authenticated Sustainability Report 2020 presented the IUCN relationship positively.

It stated that IUCN had been Shell’s global biodiversity partner for more than twenty years and that WGWAP continued advising Sakhalin Energy on assessing and managing its effects on western gray whales.

Shell also reported that the Panel was approaching the end of its mandate. (Shell)

Thus the criticisms in WGWAP-21 cannot sensibly be dismissed as observations by an organisation hostile to Shell.

They arose from the very independent advisory mechanism Shell highlighted in its own sustainability report.

15. The High Court record remains historical context only

The English litigation surrounding Sakhalin II belongs in the background.

In Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin), Mr Justice Mitting dealt with access to environmental information concerning proposed British export-credit support for the project.

The judgment records the scale of the financing request and the environmental controversy surrounding Sakhalin II. The High Court dismissed ECGD’s appeal against disclosure. (vLex)

But the limits must again be explicit.

The court did not determine the adequacy of 2020 whale monitoring.

It did not rule on benthic sampling.

It did not decide whether Sakhalin Energy’s acoustic activities affected whale distribution.

It did not interpret IFC Performance Standard 6.

The case is relevant because environmental transparency around Sakhalin II had already reached the British courts more than a decade earlier.

Nothing more should be attributed to it.

Documentary Findings

Established: WGWAP considered Sakhalin Energy’s reports capable of meeting regulatory requirements while still falling below the level of statistical rigour the Panel wanted for some scientific conclusions.

Established: A Sakhalin Energy representative acknowledged a “philosophical difference” between conservation scientists and an oil company concerning objectives and standards of analysis.

Established: The Panel continued to regard the loss of benthic monitoring as scientifically important because it impaired attempts to explain reduced nearshore whale use. Sakhalin Energy maintained that it should not be responsible for collecting benthic data outside the area of its potential impact.

Established: Sakhalin Energy conducted acoustic monitoring in 2020 and WGWAP welcomed its return, but the Panel rejected the evidential basis for a categorical company assertion that noise-generating activities had produced no effect on whale abundance and distribution.

Established: Sakhalin Energy’s IFC PS6 self-assessment cited substantial expenditure on avoidance and mitigation and concluded that residual effects were not significant or measurable. WGWAP discussion recorded continuing uncertainty about possible chronic non-lethal effects.

Not established: The 2020 record does not prove that Shell or Sakhalin Energy caused the decline in nearshore prey.

Not established: It does not prove that Sakhalin Energy’s operations produced population-level damage to western gray whales.

Not established: Nor does the Panel report support a claim that Sakhalin Energy ignored conservation science wholesale. The documentary record contains repeated examples of mitigation, monitoring, expenditure and cooperation.

Commentary

The phrase “philosophical difference” could easily be turned into an accusation.

That would miss its real significance.

The problem identified in these documents is more fundamental than a dispute between good scientists and bad oil executives.

It concerns the boundary between regulatory environmental management and scientific understanding.

A corporation asks what effects it is responsible for measuring and mitigating.

A conservation scientist asks what evidence is necessary to understand the species and its ecosystem.

Sometimes the same dataset answers both questions.

Sometimes it does not.

The benthic argument illustrates the difference perfectly.

From Sakhalin Energy’s perspective, requiring it to collect environmental information beyond the zone of its potential seabed impact could become an open-ended research obligation.

From WGWAP’s perspective, without those wider data scientists might never discover why whales were abandoning part of their traditional feeding habitat.

Both propositions can be rational simultaneously.

What the documents expose is the gap between them.

There is also a larger lesson for corporate environmental reporting.

Statements such as:

no effect

no measurable impact

stable population

and

regulatory compliance

sound definitive.

Scientifically, they may describe very different levels of certainty.

One of the most valuable functions of an independent advisory panel is therefore not merely to recommend mitigation.

It is to challenge the language by which uncertainty gradually becomes corporate fact.

That is exactly what happened at Sakhalin in November 2020.

Source Record

The principal primary record is the Report of the 21st Meeting of the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel, held 17–19 November 2020. It contains the disagreement over population analysis, the “philosophical difference” exchange, the benthic-monitoring dispute, acoustic-monitoring discussion, Sakhalin Energy’s IFC Performance Standard 6 self-assessment and the Panel’s response.

WGWAP — Report of the 21st Meeting, November 2020

Royal Dutch Shell plc’s authenticated Sustainability Report 2020 confirms Shell’s 27.5% interest in Sakhalin Energy and records that the IUCN-convened WGWAP continued advising the venture on western gray-whale impacts. (Shell)

Royal Dutch Shell plc — Sustainability Report 2020

Sakhalin Energy’s 2020 Sustainable Development Report records continued whale monitoring, preliminary identification of 175 individual whales during the field season and acoustic monitoring at the boundary of the Piltun feeding area. (Sakhalin Energy)

IUCN’s contemporaneous 11 July 2019 public report provides the immediate background to the 2020 benthic dispute and records WGWAP’s concern about declining prey biomass and termination of the long-running benthic programme. (IUCN)

IUCN — Scientific panel calls for investigation of decline in prey of western gray whales, 11 July 2019

The judicial background remains Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin) and is cited solely for the earlier Sakhalin II environmental-information and UK export-credit context. (vLex)

Archive disclaimer: WGWAP was an independent scientific advisory panel, not a court or regulatory authority. Its criticisms of methodology and interpretation were scientific judgments. Sakhalin Energy’s statements concerning compliance, mitigation expenditure and environmental impact are identified as company positions where appropriate. No causal finding against Shell is inferred where the documentary record does not establish one.

Site-wide disclaimer applies.

Next instalment The Sakhalin Papers XLIX: “Unfinished Business” — Seventeen Years, More Than 600 Recommendations, and the End of the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel

The November 2020 meeting was already preparing for an ending.

The Panel’s mandate was due to conclude in 2021.

Its final meeting took place that November.

Then history intervened.

In early 2022, the Panel set down what it called its “Unfinished Business”: long-term monitoring, transparent data sharing, prey studies, underwater-noise assessment, population modelling and the need for all operators to be judged on the same scientific basis.

It also recorded an extraordinary new uncertainty.

Shell and Exxon were withdrawing from Russia.

The advisory structure painstakingly assembled over seventeen years was disappearing just as the political and corporate foundations of the Sakhalin projects themselves were being transformed. (IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group)

The next file examines the final reckoning:

What did seventeen years of independent scientific oversight actually achieve — and what remained unresolved when the Panel closed its files?

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 15 SEPTEMBER 2026 was first posted on September 15, 2026 at 9:46 pm.
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Overview

Job Location: Solano County/Greater Bay Area
Projected Position Start Date: December 1, 2026
Job Classification: Salaried, Exempt
Salary Range: $70,000 – $90,000/yr
Reporting To: Senior Director of Planning and Research

APPLY HERE About this Opportunity:

Greenbelt Alliance is looking for a Climate Resilience Campaign Manager who will be the primary field representative for our Solano County work, supporting local efforts to shape a future for the county that includes vibrant, affordable cities, a thriving agricultural community, and protected ecosystems. This role includes managing the Solano Together coalition, identifying and supporting new and ongoing Solano projects focused on climate resilience and adaptation, and fostering partnerships across the county.

This is a special opportunity to be at the helm of a high-profile campaign and coalition that has continued to grow, evolve, and is eager to engage in shaping their community’s future. It is a great fit for someone energized by connecting and coalition building and passionate about political advocacy and community organizing, who enjoys springing to action when needed.

This role requires frequent interfacing with the press and public officials, as well as periodic attendance at evening and weekend in-person meetings or events. Greenbelt Alliance’s offices are in Oakland, CA. Greenbelt Alliance has a hybrid work schedule which is based on the location of primary work responsibilities.

What You’ll Be Working On

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to

• Manage day-to-day operations of the Solano Together Coalition, including workplan implementation, budget oversight, and planning and facilitating regular Coalition meetings, driving strategic action and follow-through.
• Partner with the Greenbelt Alliance marketing and communications team to produce compelling social media, web, email, and print content for Coalition audiences.
• Build and sustain relationships with local elected officials, agency staff, and community stakeholders.
• Serve as a public-facing spokesperson, engaging press and community groups on the Coalition’s positions and priorities as well as representing the organization and the Solano Together Coalition at public meetings and other events.
• Support volunteer trainings, canvassing, tabling, and outreach events.
• Advance the Solano Sea Level Rise Adaptation Planning Project through public engagement and event support.
• Cultivate new and existing partnerships to expand climate resilience work across the county.
• Supervise and mentor at least one part-time Resilience Fellow.

Desired Skills and Qualifications

Required:

• 5+ years of experience in community organizing, coalition building, campaign management, or government/legislative affairs
• Demonstrated success building and maintaining relationships with elected officials, agency staff, and community stakeholders
• Experience managing multi-partner projects with competing deadlines, including budget oversight
• Strong public speaking and writing skills, with comfort serving as a spokesperson to press and public audiences
• Ability to regularly and reliably attend in-person meetings and events across Solano County
• Availability for evening and weekend meetings and events, as needed
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with a diverse team
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience

Preferred:

• • Experience with land use, housing, or environmental policy advocacy
  • Familiarity with Solano County’s political landscape, local government structures, and/or the California Forever development
  • Experience supervising staff, fellows, or volunteers
  • Spanish or other bilingual skills
  • Background in sea level rise, climate adaptation, or resilience planning

How to Apply

Applications for this position will be considered on a rolling basis; however, priority consideration will be given to applications submitted by October 12, 2026. Please allow several weeks for a response as we are reviewing applications. Be sure to attach both a cover letter and professional resume as PDF documents to your application. Apply Today.

About Greenbelt Alliance:

Greenbelt Alliance’s mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate to ensure the Bay Area’s lands and communities are resilient to a changing climate. We work at the intersection of climate resilience, land-use planning, and equity to protect natural and working lands while advocating for climate-smart housing and community resilience.
We focus on data-driven and innovative policy solutions, foster much-needed regional collaboration to plan and invest in resilient communities, and leverage our expertise to realize a climate-resilient Bay Area.

Work Authorization:

At this time, Greenbelt Alliance is unable to offer assistance to noncitizens or nonresidents in obtaining employer-sponsored work visas. All employees must have authorization from the federal government to work lawfully in the United States of America. Authorization would include US citizenship, US permanent residency (“green card”), or any other type of unexpired work authorization visa issued by the federal government.

Equal Employment Statement:

Greenbelt Alliance is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, disability, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other category. We strongly encourage people of color, LGBTQIA+ persons, people of different levels of physical ability, people with diverse national and class origins, and all qualified persons to apply for this position.

Greenbelt Alliance encourages candidates of all abilities to apply to this position! In the case you may require any kind of special accommodation in order to complete the application or hiring process, please contact Sadie Wilson via email.

Photo: Rain garden installation in Suisun City.

The post Climate Resilience Campaign Manager appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

Royal and Sandwich Terns have been nesting in North Carolina for decades, but little is known about their foraging habits during the breeding season, the route they take to get to their wintering...

From the Salton Sea to California's coast, from deserts to urban communities, protecting birds means protecting the habitats, ecosystems, and communities that sustain us all. Bringing these voices...

From the Salton Sea to California's coast, from deserts to urban communities, protecting birds means protecting the habitats, ecosystems, and communities that sustain us all. Bringing these voices...

On Monday evening, Sept. 21, Food Tank will host a food and agriculture film festival during Climate Week NYC 2026, in partnership with Kat Taylor, President of TomKat Foundation; Halter; The Henry Ford; The Rockefeller Foundation; and Groundswell.

The invitation-only festival will feature a screening of Food Tank’s first original documentary film, “Irish Farmers: A Love Story,” which follows three Irish farmers across three generations.

“Farmers are storytellers. There is a love story in every practice of agriculture, and as we face an increasingly mechanized world, stories coming from the heart is the path towards a more sustainable, prosperous, and empathetic future,” says Director Haven Worley.

“It is an honor to be part of a story bigger than ourselves and to come together in a festival that highlights farmers, advocates, artists, ranchers, and community members as the storytellers of a resilient climate future.” 

Through film and conversation with filmmakers, farmers, and food system leaders, the event will explore the challenges and opportunities shaping the future of agriculture while celebrating storytelling as a catalyst for education, connection, and action.

“We believe there is real opportunity for innovation in our food system, and we’re seeing it happen in communities across the country,” says Spence Medford, Senior Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer at The Henry Ford, a national cultural and educational institution that uses the stories of American innovation and ingenuity to inspire people to imagine a better future. 

The evening will kick off with a clip from “Farm to School Lunch Across America,” The Henry Ford’s film capturing a national school-supported agriculture initiative, which uses school food dollars to buy fresh, nutritious food from local and regional farmers and producers. “It means better food and better fuel for the next generation, while supporting farmers who are taking care of the land and creating a dependable market for what they grow,” says Medford. 

“Through our Farm to School Lunch Across America initiative and new documentary, we’re bringing people together and sharing the stories of the school meal leaders, farmers and chefs who are already showing us what’s possible.” 

This will be followed by a fireside chat with clips from “Language of the Land,” a film showing how Oklahoma ranchers Zach and Kacie Scherler-Abney embraced technology to achieve environmental and economic sustainability.

“For Zach and Kacie, what started as a personal health journey quickly became a soil health journey; a testament to their commitment to producing healthy and nutritious beef in harmony with the landscape they ranch on,” says Mikaele Ymker, Sustainability Lead at Halter. “Learning and mentorship are at the heart of Zach and Kacie’s ranching philosophy … We hope the audience will come away with an understanding of how ranchers are developing solutions that balance economics and ecology, without compromising their quality of life.”

Another discussion will feature clips from “Groundswell,” an award-winning environmental documentary following farmers, scientists, and Indigenous leaders who are rebuilding topsoil, restoring ecosystems, drawing down carbon, and fighting desertification across five continents.

“The films at this festival bring overdue visibility to the farmers and ranchers who feed us, regeneratively steward the soil, and are often the bedrock of local communities. We are bringing those stories to the fore and helping people see that agriculture writ large could be so much more than what currently ends up on grocery store shelves,” says Kat Taylor, President of TomKat Foundation.

“Regenerative agriculture, to us, is the largest delta solution to climate change, quelling up to 30-40% of global greenhouse gases, while re-sequestering 200 gigatons of carbon every decade in American acreage alone. I hope audiences leave as inspired as I have been by the glimpse these films give us into the way farmers and ranchers are already showing us what a new-old economy rooted in community, resilience, and care for the land and each other can look like.”

The evening’s final discussion will include clips from “Food 2050,” a documentary film narrated and executive produced by Academy Award winner Viola Davis that explores how to sustainably feed a projected global population of 10 billion people by the year 2050.

“The vast majority of films and books set in the future offer a dystopian nightmare – a world no one hopes becomes real. By giving such little creative effort to imagining the future we actually want, the hope we need to write a better tomorrow feels like it’s dwindling,” says Sara Farley, Regenerative School Meals Co-Lead and Vice President for the Food Team at The Rockefeller Foundation. 

“Food 2050 proves that when invited and empowered, communities are ready to put forward inspirational, transformational and totally feasible blueprints for the year 2050 that show we can live connected to food systems that are nourishing, regenerative and equitable.”

The event will begin at 6:30pm at WNYC-NPR Studios’ The Greene Space in New York City, with food, drinks, and live musical performances. A reception will follow, with programming concluding at 9:45pm.

Speakers include Xiye Bastida, Climate Justice Activist, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Re-Earth Initiative; Sweta Chakraborty, CEO of North America, We Don’t Have Time; Mary Culler, President, Ford Philanthropy; Sara Farley, Regenerative School Meals Co-Lead and Vice President for the Food Initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation; Spence Medford, Senior Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer, The Henry Ford; Helen Moore, VP of Commercial Strategy, Halter; Danielle Nierenberg, President, Food Tank; Kacie Scherler-Abney, Fifth-Generation Rancher, Scherler-Abney Land & Cattle; Zach Scherler-Abney, Rancher, Scherler-Abney Land & Cattle; Jennifer Sherman, Program Director, Alice Waters Institute; Kat Taylor, Founder, TomKat Ranch and TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation; Rebecca Harrell Tickell, Director and Producer, Groundswell; and Haven Worley, Director, Irish Farmers: A Love Story.

The Food and Agriculture Film Festival will also feature a special musical performance by Brandon Burks, a Broadway actor, singer, and dancer currently in the new show Midnight. He will be joined by Elijah Caldwell, an OBIE Award-winning actor, singer, pianist, and music director whose credits include A Strange Loop Off-Broadway and the national tour of Shucked.

This summit will be streamed live on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel, here. Join the Food Tank newsletter list for reminders, and click here for Food Tank’s full lineup of events at Climate Week NYC 2026.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post Film Festival Highlights the Future of Agriculture appeared first on Food Tank.

Canary hues of sunflowers and goldenrod, nighttime temperatures that suddenly call for a second layer, and a general quiet from much of the bird population. Yes, folks, September has finally reared...

This article In danger of statelessness, Bhutanese refugees build power against deportation was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

When Robin Gurung was 3 years old, his family was forced out of Bhutan. Today, as a 37-year-old organizer and co-founder of Asian Refugees United, or ARU, the reality of that exile remains carved into the landscape. On a recent trip to India’s border with Bhutan, just 20 miles from his family’s former home, Gurung encountered a sign reading, “Please do not cross the borderline.” In a photograph he took, the blue-tinted mountains of Bhutan rise in the distance behind the sign. Yet Gurung still could not cross that border line. 

The photograph captured the strange closeness of a place that had shaped his life from a distance: the country that forced his family out. He spent nearly two decades in a U.N. refugee camp in Nepal before coming to the United States in January 2012 to rebuild his life.  Now, he helps lead a community-wide effort to defend former Bhutanese refugees who are suddenly facing detention and deportation in the country they have come to call home.

Gurung kept his exact location private. “I am not scared, but I am very cautious,” he said when I asked whether he feared retaliation for his advocacy work. During our interview, he joined me from a dimly lit room during a power outage. We first connected on Facebook Messenger, but a weak connection forced us to switch to WhatsApp. From there, he spoke about the advocacy and organizing work he and his colleagues at ARU have led to protect the rights and future of the resettled Bhutanese community.

The border was close, but so was the history it represented. Gurung knew what it meant to lose a home because his family had lived through it. He also knew what it meant to rebuild after displacement. That history now informs his response as members of the same refugee community face a new threat of displacement in the U.S.

As of the filing of this report, upward of 75 former Bhutanese refugees have been deported to Bhutan, only to be taken to the Indo-Nepal border and left stateless once again.

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A primary motivation for Gurung’s advocacy work stems from his own history and his acute awareness of how his grandfather, alongside thousands of others, had endured severe injustice at the hands of the Bhutanese regime. “It is actually a privilege to advocate on behalf of the community.”

Gurung’s family was among 100,000 Lhotshampa, a Nepali-speaking ethnic minority in southern Bhutan, who were driven from their homes during a campaign of discriminatory citizenship policies, arrests, torture and forced evictions.

In the early 1990s, Gurung’s grandfather endured 18 months of imprisonment and severe torture that broke his jaw and left him so badly injured that others assumed he had died. After his release, he spent time in a hospital, where his injuries had changed him so much that his own son barely recognized him. The family fled Bhutan in early 1992. Gurung remembers fragments of their escape: leaving behind their dog, Bittu, and riding on a truck as they crossed out of the country. His grandfather never fully recovered from the torture and later died at a regional hospital in Morang, Nepal.

After years in refugee camps in Nepal, Gurung and thousands of others eventually found a new home through a third-country resettlement program. Beginning in 2008, countries, including the U.S., resettled more than 90,000 Bhutanese refugees. For many, resettlement offered the possibility of finally leaving displacement behind.

That sense of security shattered in March 2025, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, began detaining former Bhutanese refugees in the U.S. For people who had already lost citizenship and spent years in refugee camps, deportation carries a deeper threat. It raises the possibility of returning to the statelessness that began with their expulsion from Bhutan.

But fear has not defined the community’s response. Across the diaspora, ARU has worked to turn individual emergencies into collective action.

When ICE came knocking

ARU formed to build community power and intergenerational leadership among Asian refugee communities. Before the deportation campaign began, the organization worked on political engagement through a partnership with civil rights group Asian Law Caucus, and as a coalition member of the Asian American Leaders Table, a grassroots network uniting local groups to build collective political power. 

That organizing infrastructure became critical when the detention began.

In the second week of March 2025, while launching a youth program and media studio, Gurung learned that ICE had detained community members. Days later, as he drove to the United Nations to renew his annual pass, Bhutanese community activist Bishwa Chhetri sat in the passenger seat calling community leaders and members across Pennsylvania and Ohio, where many of those detained lived, to find out more about the detentions.

The calls revealed the scale of the crisis, but they also exposed a problem: The community had no national system for coordinating information, legal support or immediate assistance to families.

Chhetri said that there was a severe lack of organized mechanisms to track factual information on ICE detentions. In addition, “finding legal representation was a bit of trouble,” he noted, emphasizing that a vast majority of the detainees had no legal representation at all. Recognizing the overwhelming scale of the situation, he and his peers quickly concluded that a single organization could not manage the emergency on its own. Although some community groups in Pennsylvania and Ohio got involved during the early phase, ARU eventually became the sole organization within the community dedicated to carrying out this specialized advocacy work.

What began as an emergency response soon became an organizing project. After returning home from New York, Gurung reached out to the Asian Law Caucus and launched a rapid response partnership. Regarding this collaboration, Aisa Villarosa, manager of the Asian American Leaders Table at Asian Law Caucus, said, “Without community organizers like ARU, the law and lawyers alone cannot provide the holistic support, empowerment, education and creativity to explore every possible avenue for justice.” Rather than simply referring cases to lawyers, ARU built a community-based system around the legal response. Organizers reached families quickly, explained developments in familiar languages and helped people navigate an unfamiliar system.

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The approach reflected a central principle of ARU’s work: People most affected by state violence should have a leading role in fighting it.

“I was exercising these freedoms because of the movement leaders from the generation before me, so I feel a sense of responsibility and gratitude to continue doing the same,” Gurung said. “If we don’t fight back, those in power will continue to suppress others — power has to be checked and balanced because we need to create a system of accountability.”

Young community members in their 20s stepped into organizing roles. They translated for elders, tracked detentions, communicated with relatives, arranged transportation and accompanied people to court. What started as an improvised response gradually became a network capable of mobilizing when another person was detained.

Building a community defense network

ARU granted me access to an August 14 virtual staff meeting, offering a direct look at the day-to-day logistics of this rapidly expanding defense network. On screen, seven young organizers, including Gurung, sat before webcams, coordinating cases across regional hubs in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Their conversation moved fluidly between Nepali and English, blending the language of home with the cold shorthand of the legal system: “FOIA,” “public defender.” At one point, a team member used the word “habeas,” prompting another organizer to ask what it meant. The first organizer paused to explain it in plain language, even though he had no legal training himself.

The exchange captured something essential about the group: They were learning the language of a system they had not been formally trained to navigate, teaching one another as they went. Between key clicks and routine case updates, the stakes came into sharp focus: A juvenile in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was being tried as an adult and facing up to five years; families were reaching out in panic; green card holders were confronting the possibility of an eventual deportation. 

As this rapid response effort grew, ARU faced another lingering challenge. Fear and confusion were spreading just as fast through the community as the detentions themselves.

To counter this, the organization held virtual mass meetings, organized Know Your Rights sessions and conducted outreach in ways that reflected the linguistic and cultural realities of former Bhutanese refugees. Volunteers also became a bridge between families and legal organizations.

“We had to be alert 24/7 to be available for the families of deportees,” Gurung recalled. “In the meantime, media visibility was imperative.”

The intensity came with a personal cost. “It was mentally too much pressure, but we had no choice,” Gurung said. Having struggled with his own mental health issues since 2024, Gurung experienced a severe mental health crisis during the height of the organizing campaign in 2025, even as new cases continued to emerge. 

His experience points to a broader reality of grassroots defense work. The people creating safety for their communities often do so without the institutional resources available to larger organizations.

The partnership with the Asian Law Caucus helped address some of that gap. Attorneys provided legal expertise while community organizers reached families, built trust and helped connect legal strategies to the realities people faced.

For ARU, the distinction between legal defense and community organizing remained fluid. A family facing deportation might need an attorney, but it might also need someone to translate, arrange transportation or accompany a relative through court.

Mohan Karki’s case illustrates that reality. ICE detained Karki in mid-2025 and separated him from his pregnant wife. She decided to fight the removal order. ARU organizers, including Gurung, traveled to Ohio to pick her up and drove her to federal court proceedings in Michigan. While Karki remained in custody, she gave birth to their baby in June 2025 and continued attending court hearings through December.

“When I first met her, I was very much inspired,” Gurung said. “She had to give birth while her husband was in custody.”

For organizers, cases like Karki’s show why community defense cannot stop at the courtroom door. Families need sustained support as they navigate a system that can reshape their lives overnight.

From individual cases to a broader movement

Those experiences have also pushed ARU beyond individual deportation cases. The organization has built relationships with groups working on statelessness, including United Stateless, connecting the experiences of former Bhutanese refugees to a broader movement of people who lack recognized citizenship or face the threat of statelessness. 

For Gurung, that connection is personal.

“This was very personal in terms of knowing what it means to become stateless, what it means to become a refugee,” Gurung said. “We came to this country after being well-vetted. The idea of deportation to Bhutan was not safe for community members — that idea was very wrong.”

Robin Gurung pictured at the India-Bhutan border with Bhutanese mountains in the background. (Robin Gurung)

The campaign, Gurung said, is about more than protecting individual families. It is also about preventing one generation’s displacement from becoming another generation’s future. Highlighting the systemic barriers that worsen this crisis, Villarosa points out that the U.S. immigration laws and courts lack a uniform, comprehensive definition of statelessness.

“If we don’t fight back, we are giving license to those in power to decide our fate,” he said.

That belief has pushed ARU toward broader coalition building while keeping the Bhutanese community at the center of its work. The organization is strengthening relationships with groups confronting related forms of state violence and working to ensure that the experiences of former Bhutanese refugees inform wider organizing around statelessness and immigrant rights.

That work now shapes ARU’s next phase.

What comes next?

More than a year after the first detentions, ARU continues its rapid response work while building longer-term community power. Gurung said ARU continues to respond to developments affecting former Bhutanese refugees while coordinating a coalition effort to bring Bhutanese organizations together around a joint response.

Community education has also become a central priority. ARU is working to educate and organize community members so they have the knowledge and collective capacity to respond when new challenges arise.

The organization is also pursuing legal and international advocacy. A Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, lawsuit by the Asian Law Caucus remains underway, seeking government records, policies and communications from ICE and the Department of State regarding the sudden detention and deportation of Bhutanese-American refugees. Alongside this domestic legal pressure, representatives from ARU recently met with U.N. Refugee Agency officials from Geneva, Washington, D.C., and the Asia branch to address the ongoing crisis and statelessness risks facing former Bhutanese refugees. 

Locally, ARU is participating in a collective effort to pass a Welcoming County resolution in central Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County that would prevent cooperation with ICE.

These efforts show how a rapid response campaign can grow into a broader organizing strategy. ARU is combining community education, coalition building, legal action, international advocacy and local policy work to challenge the conditions that leave families vulnerable.

Still, the community has built something that did not exist when the first detention calls arrived. Organizers have established rapid response channels, trained community members, accompanied families through court and connected the Bhutanese struggle to broader movements addressing statelessness.

For Gurung, that work remains rooted in the freedoms he gained after nearly two decades in a refugee camp.

“It is a rollercoaster ride,” Gurung said, describing the challenges and complexities of ARU’s ongoing advocacy work.

Reflecting on why he continues organizing, he returns to the experience of people whose freedoms were denied for years, much like his own.

“Having spent close to two decades in refugee camps in Nepal without rights, I finally gained my freedom,” he said. “When a fellow community member faces deportation, it motivates me to keep fighting for their rights as well.”

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Those freedoms came after decades of displacement. Now, community members who understand the cost of losing them are fighting to protect them. ARU’s response continues to evolve, but its central strategy remains clear: build collective power so families facing state violence do not have to face it alone.

Standing just 20 miles from the home he lost, Gurung was reminded of how easily a line on a map can divide a life. Today, as ICE attempts to redraw those same boundaries of exile in the U.S., ARU is drawing a line of its own. By transforming personal trauma into collective defense, they are making one thing absolute: their community will not be forced backward, and no one will ever face statelessness alone.

This article In danger of statelessness, Bhutanese refugees build power against deportation was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Rachael Marsh, chief legal officer at the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, said in an emailed statement to Utility Dive that the group supported the repeal of the carbon capture and storage-based standards.

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