Green News

COCA outside Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment 

Prioritizing Communities in Rulemaking

Earthworks centers our advocacy work with frontline communities in Colorado around a simple but powerful principle: community voices and experiences should be prioritized over the polluting industry. Unfortunately, this principle is rarely reflected in decision-making spaces. In the state legislature or at regulatory hearings, polluters continue to gain the balance of power even when community members successfully win seats at the table.

Therefore, it is a victory worth celebrating when the weight of community data and experience is rightfully uplifted and has a real impact on a ruling. Change can be made to happen through community organizing, data-gathering, and storytelling prowess.

In January, Cultivando and The Green House Connection Center (The GHCC) appeared before the Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) during a rulemaking. The Commission was tasked with identifying a set of toxic air pollutants to prioritize for additional oversight and regulation. Cultivando, The GHCC, and impacted community members formed a coalition – Communities Organized for Clean Air (COCA) – which obtained party status in the rulemaking in order to make a formal presentation to the commission and bring community testimony directly to the decision-making table.

The coalition presented evidence gathered from Cutlivando’s air quality monitoring project near Suncor’s Commerce City refinery. It added firsthand community testimony of health, educational, and economic impacts due to poor air quality and the continued degradation of the environment. The coalition argued that AQCC should prioritize toxics of particular concern to community members, namely benzene, hydrogen sulfide, and formaldehyde. These pollutants are associated with major polluters in Commerce City and North Denver, such as the Suncor refinery.

No one contested the fact that these pollutants are harmful to human health. But some industry parties predictably downplayed the validity of community testimony. Companies pushed back against the inclusion of hydrogen sulfide in particular by questioning Cultivando’s air quality monitoring data. However, in the end, the AQCC prioritized the air toxics that community members were concerned about and cited the need to take the community’s experiences seriously as the reason. This decision would not have happened without the efforts of COCA.

Moving forward, in upcoming rulemakings, the state will need to develop additional regulations targeting these toxics and the polluters that emit them. In turn, communities burdened with risk of harm will hopefully gain newfound leverage in fighting for clean air.

In other words, there is still much work yet to be done, but for now, it is important to reflect on how COCA achieved this significant win.

COCA community tour with AQCC Commissioners  (Photos by Song Tindall with The GHCC)

In Our Own Words: How COCA Worked To Build Power Through Human Connection and Relationships

Our coalition believes it’s imperative to lead with humanity and connection in policy and regulatory work. A key to the success of this rulemaking was building authentic relationships and bridges between community members and decision makers. Behind the scenes, community organizations, government staff, and passionate community leaders worked together for close to a year to cultivate a connection and relationship between impacted community and Commissioners.

Our hard work began to sprout in October 2024 with a collaborative in-person tour that brought AQCC staff, Commissioners, and the State Board of Health directly into one of the most polluted neighborhoods in the state. We were able to share with them firsthand experiences from impacted community members, highlight the air quality data collected by Cultivando, and take participants on the ground at Suncor to view pollution unseen with the naked eye with the help of Earthworks’ OGI camera. We were joined by many stakeholders including Denver’s Love My Air program, health experts, and medical students. Our efforts elevated the work of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and street-level organizations alike.

The coalition recognizes the power of these in-person experiences where people can see the pollution, taste it on their tongues, smell it, and sometimes even feel the impacts in their bodies.

We were also encouraged and grateful that the AQCC provided simultaneous interpretation, food, transportation, and stipends for people to participate in this day, as there are many barriers that keep those most impacted from decision-making spaces.

After spending the afternoon with Commissioners on the tour, we noticed an immediate difference in how we were received in public comment, throughout this rulemaking, and at our party’s presentation to the AQCC. Our work proves the importance of human connection, and shows the trust that can be built when government entities invest in the communities they are charged to advocate for and protect.

One of our proudest moments of this process was having one of Cultivando’s Promotoras and an impacted North Denver resident presenting directly to the AQCC Commissioners. Many Commissioners thanked us for the opportunity to come and connect in person and honored the lived experience of those most impacted.

COCA community tour with AQCC Commissioners (Photos by Morgan Brown with The GHCC)

Next Steps

Now that the state has identified a set of air toxics to prioritize, the hardest work is still ahead. Upcoming rulemakings through 2026 will see the AQCC consider new health guidelines for these toxics as well as new reporting requirements, control measures, and permitting requirements for polluters that emit them. 

The AQCC did the right thing and prioritized the voices of community members in kicking off this years-long process, and they need to continue to demonstrate this same leadership in the upcoming rulings on these toxics.

We need your help to ensure they do! Consider signing up for updates from both Cultivando and The GHCC to stay informed and learn all the ways you can support these important organizations and the communities they represent.

Now more than ever, Colorado has an opportunity to define itself on a national level as a state that advances environmental justice and puts people over polluters. More importantly, Colorado has an unfulfilled obligation to frontline communities that have suffered an undue burden from environmental pollution for far too long. 

The state has demonstrated it is willing to listen, but is it willing to act?

The post VICTORY: Advocating with Compassion: A Win for Clean Air in Commerce City and North Denver appeared first on Earthworks.

Coalición COCA a las afueras del Depto. de Salud Pública y Medio Ambiente de Colorado

Priorizar a la comunidad en las regulaciones

En Earthworks, centramos nuestro trabajo en las comunidades que viven en la primera línea de extracción en Colorado con un principio simple pero poderoso: las voces y experiencias de la comunidad deben tomar prioridad por encima de la industria de petróleo y gas. Desafortunadamente, este principio se refleja rara vez en los espacios donde se toman las decisiones. En la legislatura estatal o en las audiencias públicas regulatorias, las compañías contaminadoras continúan ganando el equilibrio de poder, incluso cuando los miembros de la comunidad logran ganar escaños en la mesa.

Por lo tanto, es una victoria que vale la pena celebrar cuando el peso de los datos y la experiencia de la comunidad se elevan legítimamente y tienen un impacto real en una decisión. Se pueden lograr cambios mediante la organización comunitaria, la recopilación de datos y la destreza para contar historias.

En enero, Cultivando y The Green House Connection Center (GHCC) comparecieron ante la Comisión de Control de Calidad del Aire en Colorado (AQCC) durante una sesión de reglamentación. La Comisión tuvo la tarea de identificar un conjunto de contaminantes tóxicos del aire a los que debe de priorizar  para supervisión y regulaciones adicionales. Cultivando, la GHCC y los miembros de la comunidad impactada formaron una coalición llamada Comunidades Organizadas para un Aire Limpio (COCA), que obtuvo el estatus de partido en la audiencia de reglamentación para poder hacer una presentación formal ante la comisión y entregar el testimonio de la comunidad directamente.

La coalición presentó evidencia recopilada del proyecto de Cultivando que monitoreó la calidad del aire cerca de la refinería de Suncor en Commerce City. La presentación  también incluyó testimonios comunitarios de primera mano sobre los impactos sanitarios, educativos y económicos debido a la mala calidad del aire y la continua degradación del medio ambiente. La coalición argumentó que AQCC debería priorizar los tóxicos que más preocupan a los miembros de la comunidad, como el benceno, el sulfuro de hidrógeno y el formaldehído. Estos contaminantes están asociados con las principales compañías contaminadoras en Commerce City y el norte de Denver, como la refinería Suncor.

Nadie cuestiona el hecho de que estos contaminantes son perjudiciales para la salud humana. Pero, como era de esperar, algunos partidos de la industria restaron importancia a la validez del testimonio de la comunidad. Las empresas rechazaron la inclusión del sulfuro de hidrógeno. En particular, estuvieron cuestionando los datos de monitoreo de la calidad del aire que presentó Cultivando. Sin embargo, al final, la AQCC dio prioridad a los tóxicos del aire que preocupaban a los miembros de la comunidad y citó como motivo la necesidad de tomar en serio las experiencias de la comunidad. Este resultado no hubiese sido posible sin los esfuerzos de COCA.

En el futuro, en las próximas acciones para crear regulaciones el estado necesitará desarrollar regulaciones adicionales dirigidas a estos tóxicos y a las empresas que los emiten. A su vez, es de esperar que las comunidades que experimentan el riesgo de sufrir daños obtengan una nueva influencia en la lucha por el aire limpio.

En otras palabras, aún queda mucho trabajo por hacer, es importante reflexionar sobre cómo COCA logró esta importante victoria.

Recorrido comunitario de COCA y Comisionados del AQCC  (Fotos por Song Tindall del GHCC)

En nuestras propias palabras: Como COCA aumentó poder con la conexión y las relaciones humanas

Nuestra coalición cree que es imperativo liderar con humanidad y conexión en el trabajo político y regulatorio. Clave para el éxito de esta reglamentación fue el construir relaciones y puentes auténticos entre los miembros de la comunidad y los que toman las decisiones. Detrás de la escena, organizaciones comunitarias, personal gubernamental y apasionados líderes comunitarios trabajaron juntos durante casi un año para cultivar una conexión y una relación entre la comunidad afectada y los comisionados.

Nuestro arduo trabajo comenzó a surgir en octubre de 2024 con un recorrido colaborativo en persona que llevó al personal de AQCC, a los comisionados y a la Junta Estatal de Salud directamente a uno de los vecindarios más contaminados del estado. Pudimos compartir con ellos experiencias de primera mano de miembros de la comunidad afectados, resaltar los datos de calidad del aire recopilados por Cultivando y llevar a los participantes al terreno de Suncor para observar la contaminación, lo cual requiere la ayuda de la cámara OGI de Earthworks. Nos acompañaron muchas partes interesadas, incluyendo el programa Love My Air de Denver, expertos en salud y estudiantes de medicina. Nuestros esfuerzos elevaron el trabajo del Departamento de Salud Pública y Medio Ambiente de Colorado y de las organizaciones de base por igual.

La coalición reconoce el poder de estas experiencias en persona donde las personas pueden ver la contaminación, probarla en la lengua, olerla y, a veces, incluso sentir los impactos en sus cuerpos.

También nos alentó y estamos muy agradecidos que la AQCC proporcionó interpretación simultánea, comida, transporte y estipendios para que las personas participaran en este día, ya que existen muchas barreras que mantienen a los más afectados fuera de los espacios de toma de decisiones.

Después de pasar la tarde con los Comisionados en un recorrido, inmediatamente notamos una diferencia en cómo fuimos recibidos en los comentarios públicos, a lo largo de esta reglamentación y en la presentación de nuestro partido ante la AQCC. Nuestro trabajo demuestra la importancia de la conexión humana y muestra la confianza que se puede generar cuando las entidades gubernamentales invierten en las comunidades que deben defender y proteger.

Uno de nuestros momentos de mayor orgullo en este proceso fue que una de las Promotoras de Cultivando y un residente impactado del Norte de Denver se presentaron directamente ante los Comisionados de AQCC. Muchos comisionados nos agradecieron la oportunidad de venir y conectarnos en persona y honraron la experiencia vivida por los más afectados.

Recorrido comunitario de COCA y Comisionados del AQCC  (Fotos por Morgan Brown del GHCC)

Los Próximos Pasos 

Ahora que el estado ha identificado un conjunto de sustancias tóxicas del aire a las que dar prioridad, el trabajo más duro queda por delante. Hasta 2026, las próximas reglamentaciones serán consideradas por la AQCC nuevas pautas de salud para estos tóxicos, así como nuevos requisitos de informes, medidas de control y requisitos de permisos para los contaminadores que los emiten. 

La AQCC hizo lo correcto y dio prioridad a las voces de los miembros de la comunidad al iniciar este proceso de años, y deben continuar demostrando este mismo liderazgo en las próximas decisiones sobre estos tóxicos.

¡Necesitamos su ayuda para asegurarnos de que lo hagan! Suscríbase para recibir actualizaciones de Cultivando y The GHCC que le permitan mantenerse informado y conocer todas las formas en que puede apoyar a estas importantes organizaciones y las comunidades que representan.

Ahora más que nunca, Colorado tiene la oportunidad de definirse a nivel nacional como un estado que promueve la justicia ambiental y antepone a las personas a los contaminadores. Más importante aún, Colorado tiene una obligación incumplida con las comunidades de primera línea de extracción que han sufrido una carga indebida por la contaminación ambiental durante un tiempo excesivo. 

El Estado ha demostrado que está dispuesto a escuchar, pero ¿está dispuesto a actuar?

The post ¡VICTORIA! Un triunfo para el aire limpio en Commerce City y el norte de Denver, con defensa y compasión appeared first on Earthworks.

Wildfires, floods, intense heat, droughts, and other extreme events fueled by climate change are threatening water systems in the U.S. and around the globe. Experts warn of the increasing threat of contamination and the need to improve infrastructure to keep drinking water safe.

Read more on E360 →

Zimbabwe is planning to ramp up its use of coal and gas to meet its energy needs after the worst drought in decades dried out the water supply to the hydropower plant, which powers the country.

As a result, the Southern African nation is failing to meet its power demand, the government wrote in a new climate plan to cut emissions by 2035 submitted to the UN earlier this month.

The 1,050 MW Kariba South hydropower plant, which accounts for around 40% of Zimbabwe’s installed electricity generation capacity, is operating at 185 MW because of water shortages, it said in its submission.

To reduce the power deficit, the government said it “intends to refurbish the old generating units at the coal-powered Hwange Power Station in 2025… raise its efficiency to around 40% and increase the capacity by 400 MW”. It also plans to build a new 720 MW coal plant.

Zimbabwe’s energy emissions are expected to increase sharply to a peak in 2026 before starting to decrease as gas power ramps up to replace coal and wind and solar energy projects are deployed, according to the plan. Overall, the government says it aims to reduce emissions by at least 40% per capita by 2035 compared to a business-as-usual scenario.

‘Victim of circumstance’

Zimbabwe is “a victim of circumstance”, Kuda Manjonjo, just transition associate at advocacy group Power Shift Africa, told Climate Home News. Like other African countries, Zimbabwe is squeezed “in a very tight spot between providing energy but at the same time…not getting the financing that they need to actually transition” to clean energy sources, Manjonjo said.

With little resilience against climate-related shocks, Zimbabwe has been experiencing severe drought conditions – attributed to the El Niño weather pattern – in recent years, causing higher temperatures, a notable reduction in rainfall and effectively drying out lakes used for electricity generation in the country.

At its worst two years ago, “we were going through 23 hours a day of no electricity,” explained Manjonjo, who lives in the Hwange area in northwestern Zimbabwe. “It would be very hard for any government in the world to justify not producing coal, which is there with the [power] plants, when people do not have electricity.”

Residents of Pumula East township walk home after fetching water from a well, (March 7, 2024. REUTERS/KB Mpofu) Residents of Pumula East township walk home after fetching water from a well, (March 7, 2024. REUTERS/KB Mpofu)

Neighbouring Zambia, which is also affected by drought and reduced hydropower capacity, is similarly “doubling-down on coal” to provide electricity to its people.

Manjonjo said this return to coal reflects a global failure to deliver just energy transitions in developing countries at a time when the US – the world’s largest historic emitter – is pulling back from its climate finance commitments and is making a dash to extract more fossil fuels.

 UK aid budget cuts threaten climate finance pledge to vulnerable nations, experts warn

This week, Bloomberg reported that almost all projects under a major US initiative to increase electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa, known as Power Africa, are being terminated.

At the COP28 climate talks in 2023, countries committed to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 and transition away from fossil fuels, with the world’s biggest emitters expected to do so faster than poorer nations like Zimbabwe.

Perpetuating a vicious cycle

Zimbabwe was the only African country to submit its 2035 climate plan, also known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), on time to meet a UN deadline of February 10.

But African climate analysts say it could give a flavour of what is to come.

Zimbabwe’s plan is both “disheartening” and “disappointing”, said Manjonjo. But it is “a symptom” of a bigger trend in which African countries are likely to be more “blatant” about relying on fossil fuels to meet their power needs than in previous rounds of UN climate plans, he added.

Can a different approach to risk accelerate the energy transition in the Global South?

At the Mission 300 energy summit in Tanzania in January, African leaders adopted a joint statement, citing gas as one of the energy sources needed to unlock “Africa’s full energy potential”.

Green groups on the continent part of the Don’t Gas Africa campaign described the statement as “ironical”, adding that despite renewable energy’s exponential growth globally, “the Mission 300 pledge seems to entrap Africans in a fossil gas-based system”.

This “vicious cycle” of climate shocks leading to more fossil fuel use, which in turn worsens climate impacts is inevitable without more climate finance reaching developing countries, said Daniel Sithole, director of the Zimbabwe-based Green Shango Environment Trust.

Without necessary support, “short-term economic advantages of fossil fuels will outweigh the long-term benefits of renewable energy” for most African countries, Sithole told Climate Home.

Unless there is a concerted global effort to provide transition financing tailored to the unique contexts of African nations, the pursuit of fossil fuels will continue to provide a “short-term solution to immediate economic challenges”, he added.

The post Zimbabwe plans to expand coal use to address drought-induced blackouts appeared first on Climate Home News.

Solar panels and batteries will account for more than 80 percent of new power capacity installed in the U.S. this year, officials say. Both technologies are set for record growth, helping to hasten the decline of coal power.

Read more on E360 →

The UK said it will cut its overseas aid budget in a new blow to vulnerable nations. The move will make it more difficult for the government to deliver on a promise to increase climate finance to developing countries, analysts have warned.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to slash the UK aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of national income in order to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.

The UK’s climate finance commitment comes from its aid budget, which was already reduced from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income a year before the country hosted the COP26 climate talks in 2021.

Starmer is due to travel to Washington on Thursday to meet with US President Donald Trump, who has been piling pressure on Europe’s cash-strapped governments to take more responsibility for their own defence.

The decision came as a shock to the international development community, which is still reeling from Trump’s decision to freeze USAID spending and from a string of cuts to overseas development aid by European governments. Germany, Sweden, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have all announced significant cuts to their aid budgets recently.

“Catastrophic blow”

International charities and aid organisations have responded in dismay, slamming the move as “a betrayal”, “short-sighted” and “a truly catastrophic blow” that will cause more people to die and lose their livelihoods in the world’s most vulnerable nations.

Worsening climate impacts, soaring humanitarian needs and growing instability across the world requires stronger global solidarity rather than retreat, experts warned.

“When we’ve just had the hottest January on record and humanitarian crises are at an all-time high, the UK government’s decision to slash its [overseas development assistance] budget is deeply shameful,” said Teresa Anderson, of ActionAid International.

In Trump’s shadow, IPCC set to make key decision on timing of climate science review

Tom Mitchell, executive director of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), told Climate Home News that Starmer should consider cutting harmful fossil fuel subsidies “before raiding an already depleted support system that is relied on by some of the world’s most vulnerable people”.

Climate finance watchers told Climate Home the move also threatens the UK’s ability to deliver the increased climate finance promised to developing countries at last year’s COP29 climate talks.

Saiful Islam cries after meeting his daughter Sadia Akter after four days as a severe flood hits the Lalpol area in Feni, Bangladesh, August 25, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain Climate funds on the chopping board?

The UK has pledged to spend £11.6 billion ($14.7 billion) on climate finance for developing countries between 2021 and 2026, and Starmer’s Labour government recently said it remains committed to meeting this pledge.

However, analysis carried out by the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact last year found that the goal would be challenging to meet as more than half of the money is expected to be spent in the last two years of the pledge amid growing pressures on the aid budget. This is despite the UK making accounting changes, which increased what it counted as climate finance without recipient countries receiving more money.

After US retreat, countries clash over who should make up Green Climate Fund shortfall

Laetitia Pettinotti, of the ODI Global think-tank, said the UK’s announcement lacks clarity on how the cuts, which are due to take effect from 2027, will impact climate finance.

“It seems likely that climate finance could be on the chopping board,” she said. “Sweeping cuts with no transparency is what we’ve come to expect from Trump and Musk; Starmer can’t follow suit, he needs to provide clarity.”

Rich nations like the UK will be expected to dig deeper into their pockets to help scale the finance that flows to countries most vulnerable to climate impacts and who contributed the least to causing them.

Worse timing

At the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, developed countries agreed to triple finance to help poorer nations cut emissions and cope with climate impacts to $300 billion annually by 2035.

“Let’s be clear this can be life and death for struggling communities and this reduction could make meeting the UK’s climate finance commitments even more challenging,” said Gareth Redmond-King, of the UK’s Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).

As wealthy nations are expected to bolster their existing climate finance commitments, “the UK government has just reduced the budget that climate finance comes out of,” he told Climate Home.

“The UK has been a leader on climate finance but to pull its weight in delivering the new $300bn per year by 2035 goal agreed by governments at COP29 last year, they will need to find ways to continue to scale up climate finance,” said Joe Thwaites, who tracks international climate finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

“If traditional budgetary sources are stretched, the government should look at more innovative mechanisms for raising funding” such as taxing private jets, he said.

Global tax on shipping emissions faces choppy waters despite growing support

Ahead of critical climate talks in Brazil in November, when countries are due to assess whether collective climate pledges can halt warming in line with global goals, “we were expecting to hear new climate finance commitments by the rich countries to build confidence in the poorest and emerging economies that they can afford to be ambitious in their climate targets,” said long-term climate finance watcher Clare Shakya, of The Nature Conservancy.

“If we do not peak emissions as close to 1.5C as feasible and halt biodiversity’s decline, we will be facing many more security challenges in the coming years. The timing of this news from the UK could not be worse,” Shakya told Climate Home.

Prime Minister Starmer told UK members of parliament the decision had required some “extremely difficult and painful choices” and that this was not one “that I wanted to take or that I am happy to take”.

“We will do everything we can to return to a world where that is not the case and to rebuild a capability on development,” he said, insisting the UK will “continue to play a key humanitarian role” in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, as well as tackling climate change.

The UK government was contacted for comment but didn’t respond at the time of publication.

The story was updated on 26/02/2025 to add reactions.

The post UK aid budget cuts threaten climate finance pledge to vulnerable nations, experts warn appeared first on Climate Home News.

On any given day, in shops around the world and online, customers can pay as little as a few dozen dollars to buy living corals for their aquariums. While some of these coveted, brightly colored pieces of coral are sourced from farms, others come directly from ecosystems that are dying, such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Reefs have endured intolerable conditions for decades now due to global warming. Since February 2023 over three-quarters of the world’s coral reefs have endured heat stress in an ongoing global mass bleaching event, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told Reuters last October. Scientists from NOAA and the International Coral Reef Initiative declare these events when significant bleaching happens in all ocean basins where warm-water corals can be found. The current global mass bleaching event is the largest one on record.

“Every place I know is dying at different paces,” says Tom Goreau, president of the nonprofit Global Coral Reef Alliance. “We’re looking at the last survivors almost everywhere.”

Yet the commercial trade in live corals from the Great Barrier Reef continues — as it does from other reefs around the world — and in fact has increased dramatically over the past 20 years.

Remarkably, trade endures even during catastrophic bleaching events. The Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst bleaching event on record in 2024 as temperatures in the Coral Sea hit a 400-year high. Despite this historic event Fisheries Queensland — the agency that manages fishing activities there — neither temporarily closed its commercial coral fishery nor imposed emergency restrictions on extraction.

For Goreau the continued trade in corals at this juncture begs a question: “Should we be exploiting an ecosystem that’s going extinct in front of our eyes?”

Trade is not Goreau’s area of focus, but identifying and tackling threats to reefs certainly is. In the 1980s he developed the method for using satellite sea surface temperature data to predict coral bleaching. Goreau is also the co-creator of BioRock, a technology that facilitates the recovery of marine ecosystems like reefs.

Goreau acknowledges that global warming overwhelmingly poses the biggest threat to reefs. While he describes trade as a “small part of the problem,” he opposes commercial exploitation of corals at this critical time because these ecosystems are already so dangerously at risk.

Countries “shouldn’t be exporting corals in this day and age,” he insists.

A Presumption of Innocence, a Wide-Ranging Trade

Queensland, on the other hand, has long considered the coral trade to pose little threat to the Great Barrier Reef. The state’s coral fishery — the area where it permits corals and similar organisms like sea anemones to be fished — has operated under the principle that “impacts of harvesting are likely to be low,” as explained in a 2021 assessment of the fishery by Australia’s federal government.

Authorities have considered the exploitation to be low risk because fishers selectively target corals guaranteed to sell in the aquarium trade and extract them by hand, rather than using broader or more destructive methods that risk harming other marine species, among other reasons.

Marine conservation ecologist Morgan Pratchett has conducted extensive research into Queensland’s fishery. As he put it to me last year, the state government has “assumed” coral extraction on the Great Barrier Reef to be sustainable. However, with reefs at risk from escalating threats like climate-induced bleaching, he said the trade in corals from Australia and elsewhere is being subject to increased scrutiny and restrictions.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by WWF-Australia (@wwf_australia)

Some global bodies have recognized the trade as a threat to reefs for decades. Notably, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has restricted commerce in stony corals, meaning corals with a skeleton, since 1990.

This treaty body regulates global trade in wild species where commerce itself is among the risks to their conservation. It lists species depending on their risk of extinction and the trade rules vary accordingly.

In the case of stony corals, CITES regulation does not forbid commercial trade but makes it subject to conditions such as permit requirements.

But even with that modicum of control, the global trade in corals has grown substantially in the past few decades, with Indonesia and Australia currently topping the list of exporters. “Harvesting” of corals in the Queensland Coral Fishery has increased by around 700% since 2006, reaching over 620,000 pieces in 2021. Meanwhile Indonesia permitted the harvesting of more than 411,000 live corals in 2021. Fisheries commonly target stony corals to supply the aquarium trade. But other reef materials like coral rock with soft corals or other live organisms attached are also traded.

In some countries corals are also targeted for the curio and jewelry trades. Some but not all of this trade is regulated by CITES. NOAA warns that the exploitation of Corallium corals — typically for jewelry — is often unsustainable and media reports show there is extensive illegality associated with it.

Some harvested corals don’t go to the end-consumer: They end up in coral aquaculture, which grows and breeds coral that will then end up on the market. Experts generally view this as a more sustainable form of exploitation. Around half of Indonesia’s exports originate from coral farms, according to its 2023 sustainability assessment of the trade, whereas Australia largely exports wild-sourced corals.

Altogether, this high level of exploitation makes corals the most traded marine animals covered by CITES.

A Flaw in the System

Countries that are party to the international treaty meet every two to three years to consider at-risk species for new or additional protection, with interim meetings of its specialist committees happening in between. The process for listing and uplisting species in CITES’ Appendices is notoriously slow. This means the treaty often fails to adequately restrict trade in species prior to them becoming threatened.

There are exceptions to this. For instance, CITES has listed entire groups of species in the treaty at their taxonomic level — i.e., genus, family or above. These listings typically occur to safeguard groups that are particularly vulnerable to overexploitation or to protect at-risk species within “lookalike” groups, meaning species that are hard to distinguish from each other. This is how all stony corals came to be regulated by CITES, including species not yet officially recognized as threatened.

However, species like stony corals — which face sudden, sharp catastrophic events that ultimately contribute to their longer term declines — highlight a particular flaw in the CITES system: It does not have an “emergency brake” mechanism that could quickly prohibit trade entirely when a species faces an abrupt crisis, as has happened with corals in the past two years.

Conservation biologist Alice Hughes points out that individual countries can list species in CITES’ Appendix III — which requires permits for all trade — on an intersessional basis, meaning that this appendix offers a quicker route to trade prohibitions than typically happens within CITES. However, Appendix III is country-specific, so parties are able only to list and prohibit trade in their national populations of a species; populations from outside those countries remain unprotected unless they have their own listing.

But Hughes says this appendix is rarely applied as an emergency brake to safeguard species facing climate disasters, disease, or other crisis situations. Rather, countries tend to use Appendix III for listing endemic species where trade itself poses the risk.

That means CITES still lacks adequate mechanisms to prohibit trade in species that are hit by sudden crises. Instead, countries decide — slowly — whether to make changes in these circumstances. In some cases, that can take years.

Many experts worry that coral reefs don’t have that kind of time.

Managing the Coral Trade: Each Country Is on Its Own

On the national level, neither Indonesia nor Queensland mandates closure of its coral fisheries during bleaching events, according to email responses provided by Queensland’s Department of Primary Industries and Indonesia’s Director General of Marine Spatial Management Victor Gustaaf Manoppo.

Fisheries Queensland and Manoppo’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries respond to bleaching in other ways, such as working with varied stakeholders to monitor, evaluate, and disseminate information on bleaching. Both departments say these findings inform long-term plans for reef management.

Additionally, the jurisdictions have management frameworks in place that protect certain corals from exploitation during bleaching events.

Manoppo tells me by email that fishing is prohibited in the core zones of Indonesia’s Marine Protected Areas. These areas are safeguarded for their “ecological value including resilience to climate change,” he explains, which means reefs here are “expected to have a higher chance of survival” in the event of bleaching. In other zones, Manoppo says, utilization is permitted but controlled, such as through restrictions on the scale of activities and fishing gear types.

The Indonesian government also sets a quota for the harvest of different genera or species in each province where extraction is permitted, according to its sustainability assessment.

Meanwhile coral extraction is prohibited in around 38% of Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. In emailed statements, DPI points out that harvesting is permitted only under license, with species-based catch limits in place that “ensure biomass levels are maintained at 60% for key stocks.” DPI insists that its management approach is “highly precautionary” and ensures targeted corals are resilient to pressures like fishing and bleaching.

Queensland has also worked with industry over the years to develop response plans for events like bleaching, which include a provision for emergency closures of fisheries. I asked DPI whether this provision has ever been utilized. I received no response.

The plans also contain voluntary recommendations for fishers, such as instructions to avoid targeting stressed corals, although this guidance is not subscribed to by all industry members, according to Australia’s federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Nonetheless, in its emailed statements DPI says coral fishing “does not occur in areas impacted by climate events” because “impacted and unhealthy corals are not commercially desirable or viable to harvest.”

Troubling Findings

Despite the coral trade being subject to management and CITES oversight, Hughes argues that “with bleaching and acidification posing major risks to corals, stacking more risk from harvest seems unnecessary and irresponsible.”

She adds, “Even if the fisheries are purported to be precautionary, that does not mean they properly account for all risks.”

Accounting for all risks is impossible because there are many unknowns in the trade, according to Pratchett. He told me we lack robust information about the populations of targeted species, the level of exploitation they face, and how vulnerable they are to other stressors.

To address some of these information gaps, Australia’s climate and environment department commissioned Pratchett to carry out surveys of nine heavily targeted coral species — “key stocks” in the Queensland fishery — in 2023-24. This authority decides whether Queensland is permitted to export corals.

The department disclosed some of Pratchett’s findings in an assessment of the QCF in October. He found a “significant difference” in the abundance and biomass of several species in fished areas compared to unfished areas. In some fished areas, certain species had biomasses less than 60% of those in unexploited areas, while other species had similarly lower abundances than their counterparts in unfished areas.

Pratchett also found reductions in average sizes and color varieties in fished areas, presumably because fishers extract the bigger, more colorful corals.

Although the environment department acknowledged that the surveys pointed to “significant localized depletion” for some species, it approved coral exports for another three years in its assessment. The approval came with conditions, including a requirement that Queensland review information on coral species at risk from the fishery and change catch limits where necessary by August 2025.

The department also instructed the state to develop and implement a “Severe Event Response Plan” to formally guide fishery management in the event of emergencies like bleaching by October 2026. A spokesperson confirmed by email that Queensland is required to “adaptively manage” the fishery in the interim, too.

Asked about its plans for adaptive management, DPI sent this unattributed statement: “Fisheries Queensland will continue working in collaboration with key stakeholders during all future events in support of responsive, adaptive management, with a significant amount of work already underway and planned for responding to severe weather and disturbance events.”

Cascading Impacts

Countries like Belize and Thailand err on the side of caution by prohibiting commercial exports of live corals. However, the legal trade provides cover for illegal exploitation of reefs. This criminality blights several countries, including those that have banned trade in their corals.

Considering Pratchett’s findings, prohibiting exports seems a wise choice because the impacts he uncovered, such as lower abundances and reduced sizes of heavily targeted species, have implications for reef ecosystems.

For one thing, Goreau explains, corals’ reproductive capacity is “determined by size and not by age.” This means reduced coral sizes risks impacting spawning because “if corals are too small, they’re not reproducing,” he says.

Studies show that bleaching itself is reducing some corals’ reproductive output, including Acropora species that are popular in aquariums. Most traded corals belong to this genus, which Goreau points out is a group that is “super sensitive” to bleaching.

Simply put, trade reduces the abundance of some species at the very moment they need as many survivors around as possible for reproduction and recovery.

In turn, diminished populations of Acropora species risks inhibiting recovery of wider reef communities after bleaching because they are ecological engineers. Goreau describes Acropora as “the best corals of all.” As fast-growing, branching, reef-building corals, he says they provide high surface cover and dissipate waves that risk breaking other corals, while also providing the optimal habitat for fish.

Considering factors like this, trade seems to be an important block in the teetering Jenga tower of corals’ future survival.

Business As Usual

While the coral trade offers a stark example of how wild organisms continue to be exploited while on the brink of disaster, there are many others.

Over 40% of amphibian species are globally threatened due to issues like habitat destruction, disease, and climate change. Yet a huge trade in these animals endures because, for example, some species’ legs are considered a delicacy or people want to keep them as pets. Regulation of this trade is limited, and few amphibians are listed in CITES. The treaty body is presently determining whether to regulate trade in other amphibian species in a process that takes years.

Hughes points to Asian songbirds as another example. They’re in crisis, threatened by both a loss of their homes and the wildlife trade. Even with trade as a known primary threat for this group, conservationists face a lengthy battle convincing CITES to regulate their trade, Hughes says. She explains that each species will have to assessed and listed separately, which is extremely challenging as countries do not collect robust data on the populations and exploitation levels of most wild species.

Hughes says CITES could take practical steps to protect species in crisis, such as working to better enable swift decisions on regulating trade in those species. But on a more fundamental level, Hughes believes a paradigm shift is necessary.

“We need to reconsider how we view wild species,” she argues, highlighting that they are often seen as commodities above all else.

For Goreau, the commodification of coral reefs and their inhabitants right up to the ecosystems’ bitter end is regrettable but not surprising.

“There are many factors killing reefs,” he says, and the determination of countries — particularly rich ones — to maintain business as usual for trade in nature’s “goods” is at the core of every reason he mentions, be it dredging, agricultural pollution, or fossil fuel production.

“We have pushed reefs past their capability for surviving,” he warns. “They really can’t take very much more.”

Scroll down to find our “Republish” button Previously in The Revelator:

Saving Living Jewels: One Woman’s Mission to Shine a Light on the Ornamental Fish Trade

The post Cash for Corals: Exploiting Ecosystems on Their Way to Extinction appeared first on The Revelator.

Neshwin Rodrigues and Duttatreya Das are energy analysts at Ember

High cost of capital is a major barrier to the rollout of renewable energy across the Global South. The Alliance of Small Island States has highlighted this repeatedly, and last year the International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded that across a range of developing and emerging economies, raising capital to build utility-scale solar projects costs twice as much as in the Global North.  

Capital costs more when investors perceive risks to be higher: the riskier the investment, the bigger return they demand. So the key to making renewable energy investment cheaper is to reduce the perceived risks.  

But to reduce them, we must first understand them. 

A league table for decision-makers 

At Ember, we have developed what we believe to be the first model-based approach that quantitatively assesses the importance of various factors affecting a solar energy project’s overall risk.  

As an example, in many countries the time it will take to get your solar farm connected to the grid is uncertain. This means missing out on revenue and presenting a clear risk to investors. We calculate the importance of this uncertainty relative to other risk factors. In this way we can build a ‘league table’ of factors that raise the cost of capital, giving policymakers the information they need to tackle the biggest first and bring costs down effectively.  

A strong carbon tax on shipping can give hope to climate-vulnerable communities

We can also show investors where they are being too risk-averse for their own good, encouraging them to worry less and loosen the purse-strings a little. 

In the report that we publish today, we focus on India. But, in principle, our approach could be used in any country in the Global South where enough data is available to calibrate the model.

The Indian case is especially interesting at the moment because in 2023 the government introduced tenders for Firm and Dispatchable Renewable Energy (FDRE) generating capacity which require generators to supply electricity in non-solar hours. This can be approached by adding technologies like wind generation and battery storage.  

Range of uncertainties 

Among the risks that Indian utility-scale solar investments face, we show that the biggest is exposure to market price volatility for FDRE projects.

Electricity prices have become a lot more volatile since 2020, with events such as the Covid-19 pandemic contributing alongside more variable weather and changes to the electricity system and markets. This, we estimate, can reduce a facility’s overall revenue by 7-13%, sending a clear risk signal to investors. 

A group of tourists walk past a government built solar panel farm in the village of Rangdum, Zanscar, Ladakh. (Photo: Michael Grant Travel / Alamy / Reuters)

Second in our league table come the penalty payments that FDRE projects face if they fail to provide power when they are contracted to.

Next come delays in commissioning solar farms (due to issues such as grid connection queues), and then the perception that solar panels may perform less well than they’re claimed to. Uncertainties in the future cost of batteries, and the risk of other penalty payments, sit at the bottom end of the table. 

Cost escalation, delayed benefits 

In principle, we calculate that a solar farm in India would see investors needing up to a 4% higher return on investment to offset the risks associated with FDRE and project delays. 

Leaving these risks unaddressed would have major consequences. Renewables and batteries would be deployed more slowly, delaying the benefits of clean energy for citizens. It would keep energy bills higher than necessary, given that the cost of capital accounts for about half of the price of renewable energy in India (and many other developing countries).

And it would exacerbate climate change. India’s target is to build 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. We find that adding four percentage points to the cost of capital would likely mean falling short by 100 GW, entailing more use of coal.   

Taking action 

The good news is that understanding these numbers makes life much easier for policymakers.  

For example, Contracts for Difference (CfDs) are used in other countries, offering a long-term agreement that guarantees a price for renewable electricity, which lowers the exposure of renewable developments to market volatility, and could be used in India too.  

In Trump’s shadow, IPCC set to make key decision on timing of climate science review

Commissioning delays can be addressed by, for example, increasing the number of solar parks where grid connections are pre-built, offering generators a ‘plug and play’ facility.  

Concern over solar panel performance shortfalls can be addressed by enhancing product testing and by encouraging Indian manufacturers to adopt advanced designs.  

During our analysis, we discovered that investors are over-estimating some risks, notably that solar farms produce less electricity than forecast. A full 75% are generating above prediction – a fact which should help make investors a little less risk-averse without any policy intervention needed. 

Concepts into costs 

The approach that we developed has been around in conceptual form for at least a decade. But now we have turned concepts into cost elevations.  

This approach does not address macroscopic factors affecting the cost of capital, such as a country’s credit rating. But it can contribute to a meaningful reduction in other factors, making renewables development faster and cheaper.  

We look forward to exploring the application of our methodology in other countries of the Global South, and helping their citizens realise the full benefits of the clean energy transition as soon as possible. 

The post Can a different approach to risk accelerate the energy transition in the Global South? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Facing trade barriers in the U.S. and other wealthy nations, Chinese solar firms are exporting cheap panels to poorer countries, fueling a surge in solar installations in parts of the developing world.

Read more on E360 →

Government support for clean energy has spurred new projects across the U.S., with more than 80 percent of the spending flowing to Republican districts. But since President Trump took office, new project announcements have seen a precipitous drop.

Read more on E360 →

Chris Patrick is optimistic about seagrass restoration.

“There are lots of kinds of restoration happening in the world — mangroves, oyster reefs, forests, coral reefs,” says the director of the aquatic vegetation restoration program at Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “But seagrass is one of the only systems I can think of where it happens very fast if conditions are right. You get a 15 to 1 return. For every acre planted, 15 acres grow. Some restored areas look like they did 100 years ago.”

What a difference a century can make.

Since the early 1900s, vast coastal seagrass meadows — think of underwater fields of long, swaying plants that host hundreds of nearby marine species — have dwindled and even disappeared around the world. They’ve succumbed to a growing list of insults that includes thermal stress from climate change, dredging, coastal development, intentional removal, disease, and increasing pollution runoff from agriculture and other human activities.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Project Seagrass (@projectseagrass)

Because seagrasses live below the water, out of sight, the magnitude of the loss has only recently begun to sink in. A 2020 study reported a global net loss of 29% or more than 19,000 square miles (about the size of Costa Rica). The western Gulf of Mexico alone saw a 23% decline and parts of the United Kingdom 44%.

On the other hand, scientists restoring these coastal ecosystems see more success than with other marine environments. Collecting seeds and placing them in suitable habitat is generating the most positive results along the U.S. East Coast and elsewhere.

Why Seagrass Matters

Seagrasses — which evolved from terrestrial plants — have roots, stems, and leaves and produce flowers and seeds. They form vast underwater meadows that provide multiple ecosystem services such as habitat for a variety of marine animals. They provide foraging and spawning grounds for dugong and sea turtles and shelter for fish and invertebrates.

Seagrasses also are nursery habitat — key areas for young animals to grow — for over 20% of the world’s largest fisheries, according to information provided via email by the UK-based conservation group Project Seagrass. One study estimated that the UK’s historical seagrass meadows could have supported about 400 million fish. Today its remaining meadows support approximately 50 million.

Project Seagrass also notes that the plants improve water quality by filtering out pathogens, bacteria, and pollution.

The plants also benefit the planet as a whole: They sequester up to 18% of carbon stored in the ocean, capturing it 35 times faster than tropical rainforests.

The roots of seagrasses strengthen the seafloor and, along with their leaves, weaken wave energy and storm surges to help protect coastal communities. This slowing of waves also causes sediment to drop out of the water, feeding bacterial communities that metabolize nitrogen compounds and reducing excess nutrients in the water that can lead to algal blooms and low oxygen levels.

Spreading Seeds

Damaged meadows can regenerate on their own from pockets of surviving plants — but only if what caused the damage passes or is removed and only in areas close enough to be reseeded by those survivors.

That happened along much of the U.S. East Coast after a disease in the 1930s wiped out about 99% of the most common species, Zostera marina, or eelgrass, Patrick says.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jarvis Lab/ UNCW Coastal Plant Ecology Lab (@jarvislabsav)

But regeneration never happened on Virginia’s coast, where bays are too isolated from each other to be reseeded by survivors outside of them.

Today these bays have the right conditions for seagrass growth, though, which made them natural targets for restoration efforts. In 1999 scientists from the University of Virginia’s Coastal Research Center, The Nature Conservancy, and VIMS distributed more than 70 million seeds in these bays. To date the effort has created new meadows covering more than 10,500 acres.

With funding from NOAA, the participants seeded another 80 acres in Burton’s Bay in fall 2023 and another 45 acres in fall 2024. Teams also have set up stations to collect water quality data and to monitor marine life. The project is set up to be funded through 2027 and has not yet been affected by the general threat to all federal funding under the Trump administration.

A Garden Experiment

Another effort kicked off in 2022. A series of workshops hosted by The Nature Conservancy brought together experts on seagrasses, corals, agriculture, forestry, and plant genetics to explore restoration strategies used for other ecosystems.

“We went to forestry groups, coral groups, all these different silos to find out their thinking,” says Boze Hancock, senior marine restoration scientist with The Nature Conservancy’s global oceans team. “Forestry and grassland groups are dealing with the same thing on land: changes happening too fast for natural adaptation to keep up. But different strains of plants on different hills and mountains at different latitudes have a lot of adaptations to test. The quickest way to look at all the variables and tease out which ones work in your area is a common garden experiment.”

This strategy grows populations from the same species collected from different regions and microclimates under common conditions to see how they respond. Scientists can use that information to identify strains more likely to thrive in specific conditions and then strategically relocate them, a process called assisted migration. This technique also is being used in coral restoration.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Project Seagrass (@projectseagrass)

Growing seagrasses from different latitudes along the East Coast in a common garden could help match genetic tolerance to conditions such as water temperature and pollution in specific locations, explains Hancock. A population thriving in a Virginia estuary today, for example, might be suited for the warming waters of Long Island in the future.

Scientists from national parks and National Estuarine Research Reserves on the East Coast, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Stony Brook University, and other involved groups plan to use those “most likely to succeed” strains in restoration.

Using seeds allows scaling up of restoration efforts. That, says Hancock, is key to keeping up with the rapid rate of change.

“Back in the 1980s, [seagrass] restoration tended to be slow and steady, transplanting root stock one plot at a time.”

Across the Pond

Over on the other side of the Atlantic, the same list of insults killed off as much as 92% of seagrass meadows in the UK during the past century, according to Project Seagrass.

In 2019 the organization, along with Swansea University and the nonprofit Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum, piloted the UK’s first major seagrass restoration project, “Seagrass Ocean Rescue: Dale,” off the southwest coast of Wales. According to information provided by Corrinne Cox, communications officer at Project Seagrass, the effort collected and planted over 1 million Z. marina seeds on 2 hectares (almost 5 acres).

The team chose the site based on habitat suitability modelling and historic and anecdotal records indicating the Welsh coast had much more extensive seagrass historically than now. Seeds were hand-collected primarily in North Wales by scuba divers, snorkelers, and people wading at low tide.

According to Cox the project collected and processed an estimated 750,000 seeds in summer 2019 and another 450,000 in summer 2020. They used the Hessian Bag method, which places a mixture of seagrass seeds and sterile sand into containers made of vegetable fibers (also known as burlap) ready for planting.

Project Seagrass worked with volunteer groups throughout the UK to prepare the bags. Community support and commitment has been key to the effort, according to Cox, and representatives from the local community continue to guide management of the seagrass, along with users of coastal waters and regulators.

Monitoring and More

Monitoring whether efforts are successful and what adjustments may be needed for subsequent projects is key to restoration. Monitors typically measure total area covered and number of shoots per square meter.

“Basically, if it is growing in area and thickness, it’s working,” Hancock says. “It’s not rocket science. It is complicated somewhat by the fact that eelgrass grows during spring and summer and tends to die back in the fall. So the timing of monitoring is important, as is repeating it over years.”

Ongoing monitoring in Dale, for example, showed a threefold increase in shoot density throughout the restoration area by fall 2024, Cox reports. Scientists also saw increased shoots per clump and clumps more than eight times larger on average from two years before, showing that the grass is spreading.

Some projects engage citizen scientists. Anglers, divers, beach goers, and other visitors to coastal waters can report sightings of seagrass on the Project Seagrass app, SeagrassSpotter. The app is a way to expand the number of people contributing to mapping distribution and status of the plants from a few hundred scientists to hundreds of community members.

People also can help by taking action on climate change and encouraging others to do so — important today more than ever. Individuals can support community efforts to switch to clean energy or ramp up public transportation, buy products from companies with sustainable practices (and buy less overall), or donate to and volunteer with projects restoring habitats like seagrass that sequester carbon.

Boze adds that another way to help is by reducing excess nutrients in coastal bays by avoiding use of fertilizers on lawns or commercial properties.

The recreational boating community can help reduce physical damage to seagrass from anchoring and mooring. The Dale project installed three moorings as an alternative to anchoring for visiting boats and encourages users to donate to support the upkeep of the buoys.

In a world where many species and habitats continue to decline, these attempts to bring back seagrass offer a ray of hope. Restoring seagrass habitat takes a lot of effort, the experts admit. But with the right conditions, tiny sesame-sized seagrass seeds can lead to massive results — not just for seagrass itself, but for everything and everyone that depends on it.

Scroll down to find our “Republish” button Previously in The Revelator:

Coastal Restoration: Saving Sand

The post Seagrass Gardening appeared first on The Revelator.

In 2009 teams of volunteers fanned out across 35 countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia looking for something that, in all likelihood, no longer existed.

The object of their quest: a 14-inch-long shorebird with long legs, a curved beak, and a mix of white and gray feathers.

Last officially seen in 1995, the slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris) had once been plentiful enough to hunt — perhaps most notably for museum specimens. That pressure, combined with habitat destruction, reportedly pushed the birds into decline.

In November 2024, after years of searches, scientists declared that the species was gone for good — the first documented extinction of a bird species from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia.

“It is a tragedy on a par with the dodo and the great auk, and we should hang our heads in shame,” wrote Mary Colwell of the conservation group Curlew Action. “Our disregard for wildlife speaks volumes for who and what we are. The slender-billed [curlew] may not have had an economic value, it contributed nothing to the bottom line of anyone’s financial spreadsheet, no one relied on these birds for their jobs or wellbeing, there was no conceivable reason to drive them to extinction. But it seems that is exactly what we have done.”

The biggest tragedy about this bird’s loss: We didn’t act soon enough to save it.

“Conservation attention came too late for the slender-billed curlew,” researchers wrote in the paper announcing its probable extinction. “The potential decline of the species was highlighted [in 1912] and stated more explicitly [in 1943]. These warnings were not acted on however, and the species was not recognized as being of conservation concern until 1988. After this, a [1991] review of the species and an action plan [in 1996] followed. Our analysis indicates the species was on the verge of extinction or extinct when the action plan was published.”

They continued, warning that this extinction is a call to action to prevent future species losses:

“Such extinctions are an indicator of the failure of international cooperation on biodiversity conservation as surely as climbing carbon levels currently measure our failure adequately to address climate change. With more advanced technologies than were available even 20 years ago — including optical and photographic equipment, bird-tracking and remote-sensing methods, and an evidence base on methods for protection, management and restoration — there is even less excuse for further failures.”

But the slender-billed curlew won’t be the last species we lose, and it wasn’t the only species scientists declared extinct (or regionally extinct) in 2024. Here are some of their stories.

Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) — This coastal plant still grows on a few scattered islands, but not on the island that gave it its name. Encroaching seas have wiped it out in the past couple of years, making it “the first local extinction of a species caused by sea-level rise” in the United States. That’s shocking for a population that was considered “thriving” as recently as 2021.

“Unfortunately, the Key Largo tree cactus may be a bellwether for how other low-lying coastal plants will respond to climate change,” Jennifer Possley, director of regional conservation at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, said in a statement announcing the extinction.

Expect more in future. But we can also use this as an opportunity: Scientists saw it coming and collected enough cactus flowers and fruits to keep the species growing in a greenhouse. Maybe one day they’ll be able to return to Key Largo. Until then the island has a hole in its ecosystem.

Key Largo cactus, photo courtesy Florida Museum of Natural History

Obliterated whitefish (Coregonus obliterus), Ören whitefish (Coregonus trybomi) and Zug whitefish (Coregonus zugensis) — These Swiss fish were among seven species redescribed and taxonomically reassigned by scientists in 2023. The IUCN assessed them as extinct in 2024, reflecting a greater scientific consensus.

The obliterated whitefish (a name that just kills me) was last seen in Lake Zug in 1939 and, according to a press release, “would have been completely forgotten if specimens had not been found by Eawag scientists Oliver Selz and Ole Seehausen in the historical Steinmann-Eawag Collection.” It and other species died out from eutrophication — lack of oxygen in lake water caused by algal blooms, themselves caused by phosphates from domestic wastewater and fertilizer runoff from agriculture. (The Ören declined due to introduced predators like Eurasian pikeperch and acid rain.)

Lest we get completely depressed, the press release presents a lovely counterpoint, noting that “the only whitefish species still found in Lake Zug today, spawning near the shore, is the ‘Balchen.’ Testifying to its survival is its new scientific name — Coregonus supersum (‘I have survived’).”

The seven Coregonus species. Courtesy: Eawag

Java stingaree (Urolophus javanicus): This small Indonesian stingray was only observed once, at a fish market in 1862. The IUCN declared it extinct in December 2023 — calling it the first marine fish extinction caused by human activity — although the media didn’t notice until after January (which is why it’s on this year’s list).

“Intensive, generally unregulated fishing was likely the major threat resulting in the depletion of the Java stingaree population, with coastal fisheries catches already declining in the 1870s,” the extinction assessment reads. “Catches on the northern coast of Java in 1940 were down to almost half the annual catch landed in the 1860s. Additionally, the northern coast of Java, particularly Jakarta Bay, is heavily industrialized, and extensive habitat loss and degradation may also have impacted this species.”

Round Island hurricane palm (Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum) — As reported by Mongabay, the last wild tree of its kind “snapped during a windstorm.” The tree had stood on Mauritius “for decades as the only survivor of its kind.”

Bogardilla (Squalius palaciosi) — Last seen in 1999, this Spanish fish disappeared after dams and weirs limited its habitat and a half-dozen introduced species either ate it, outcompeted it for resources, or brought new pathogens to the area. It serves as a reminder that extinction is often the result of multiple factors chipping away at a species’ survival — a death of a thousand indignities.

Seven plants in Bangladesh: The Asian nation released its updated Plant Red List in November and announced that seven native plant species were no longer found within its borders. Most appear to be regional extinctions and still grow in other countries or in private collections, with the sad exception of the last plant on this list.

• • Fita champa (Magnolia griffithii)
  • Ironweed tree (Memecylon ovatum)
  • Jiringa (Archidendron jiringa)
  • Kathphal (Myrica nagi)
  • Syzygium venustum
  • Drypetes venusta
  • Thurma jam (Syzygium thumri)

Four Egyptian plants: A paper published last January assessed many native plants of Egypt and declared four species and one subspecies extinct:

• • Bellevalia salah-eidii — a perennial bulb that grew in sandy areas but hasn’t been since 1966.
  • Muscari salah-eidii — a perennial bulb last seen in the field in 1967.
  • Vicia sinaica — an annual or perennial herb once restricted to North Sinai and last collected in 1955.
  • Limonium sinuatum romanum — a perennial herb last collected in the field in 1949. The main species is known as wavyleaf sea lavender.

The paper doesn’t speculate on what causes these species to disappear but notes a long list of threats to Egyptian plants, including climate change, extreme weather, droughts, pollution, habitat alteration, roads and railways, agriculture, and biological resource use.

Ethiopian wolves (Canis simensis) — A paper published this July reports several regional extinctions for this embattled predator, now down to a population of about 450 animals. “We describe three population extinctions and three local extinctions within fragmented populations, and present evidence of factors accelerating the extinction process, such as disease (rabies and canine distemper virus), persecution, road kills and poisoning.” The situation isn’t likely to improve: “Hard borders imposed by expanding subsistence agriculture lock Ethiopian wolves into further isolation, with few opportunities for dispersal and recolonization,” they write. Shockingly, this species is still assessed as “endangered,” when its plight has obviously reached critical levels.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ethiopian Wolf Conservation (@kykebero)

Sangihe dwarf kingfisher (Ceyx sangirensis) — A bird we didn’t know to keep looking for before it disappeared. A paper published this past March details decades of taxonomic confusion — enhanced by poor documentation of the first scientific specimen in the 1870s — that kept the animal from being recognized as its own species. Once native to Sangihe Island in the Philippines, it apparently no longer exists there.

Malagodon honahona — A paper published this past April described this newly recognized fish species from Madagascar … and also announced its possible extinction. The researchers — Emily M. Carr, Rene P. Martin, and John S. Sparks from the American Museum of Natural History — recount how they first encountered this species in a small, isolated swamp in 1994, where introduced mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) were competing with the native fish for resources.

But that wasn’t the only pressure, as they wrote: “The region upstream of their only known habitat lies outside the Réserve Spéciale de Manombo protected area and is afforded no protection. As a result, the watershed has experienced rapid deforestation in recent decades such that the fragile type locality has suffered severe degradation. It is likely M. honahona became extinct in the late 1990s, not long after it was first discovered.” In that fate it joins a similar species, M. madagascariensis, which Sparks and other researchers declared extinct in 2018 as part of an IUCN assessment of Madagascar’s freshwater fish.

Smooth hornwort (Phaeoceros laevis) — This wide-ranging plant isn’t extinct, but a 2024 assessment of liverwort and hornwort species in Serbia calls it “possibly extinct” within that country, making it a noteworthy regional extinction.

Digitaria laeviglumis — This species of smooth crabgrass once grew in New Hampshire but was last seen in 1931 and had since almost been forgotten. A paper published this July declared it extinct. Some of the last samples of the crabgrass have sat in the University of New Hampshire’s Albion R. Hodgdon Herbarium for generations; recent DNA analysis helped to identify it as a unique species, revealing it as the first documented plant extinct in the Granite State.

“Documenting the extinction of Digitaria laeviglumis has significant implications for biodiversity conservation,” herbarium collections manager Erin Sigel said in a press release. “It highlights the vulnerability of endemic species, particularly those with very limited geographic ranges, and understanding the factors that led to the extinction of this grass can help inform conservation strategies for other at-risk species. This case underscores the vital role herbaria play in preserving specimens and providing essential data for scientific research.”

Hieracium tolstoii — This Italian plant presented scientists with some challenges. The Hieracium genus (better known as hawkweed) has more than 10,000 documented species, many of which remain under debate due to variations in their appearance and frequent hybridization, as well as a mutation process called polyploidization that can cause dramatic shifts in chromosomes. But a paper published this past September examined the records and confirms H. tolstoii (which once grew on “ancient brick walls” but hasn’t been seen since 1938) as a unique species — one that went extinct at some point in the 20th century. (Previous research had also declared it extinct but maintained some doubt it was a unique species.)

Fucus virsoides — This “glacial relict” algae species isn’t extinct, but it’s rapidly disappearing and deserves a shoutout. A paper published this past August warned that we could be heading toward “the first documented extinction of a marine macroalga in the Mediterranean Sea.” The researchers wrote that “F. virsoides could be considered functionally extinct in Istria (Croatia), critically threatened with extinction in Italy and Montenegro and locally extinct in Slovenia.” They hypothesize its decline has been caused by “a variety of anthropogenic stressors (e.g. habitat destruction, pollution, overgrazing) exacerbated by climate change,” all of which increased the Adriatic Sea’s surface temperature and salinity.

Taiwanese swallowtail butterfly (Papilio machaon sylvina) — Rumors of this butterfly’s extinction have fluttered around for years. It was last seen in 1999, before the Jiji earthquake struck Taiwan, killing more than 2,400 people, destroying the homes of 100,000 more, and causing $300 billion in damage. According to a paper published this past November, the earthquake also caused “multiple landslides” that “permanently altered” the butterfly’s habitat. Research published in 2018 and 2023 suggested the earthquake caused the butterfly’s extinction. This new research examines its morphological characteristics and DNA to confirm that it was a unique subspecies and notes that it “was well on its evolutionary track to become its own distinct lineage as a separate species.”

The paper also notes the butterfly’s importance to Taiwanese culture — “its image is imprinted on the personal ID cards of Taiwanese citizens,” the researchers write. They also suggest we keep looking for it: “Even though the butterfly has not been seen or collected since 1999, one can always hope that it still persists in the remote mountain regions in the Taiwan highlands.”

White-chested white-eye (Zosterops albogularis) — The Australian government has listed this 5-inch bird as extinct since 2000, but scientists kept looking for it for several years. The IUCN finally reassessed it as probably extinct in 2024. Native to Norfolk Island, the bird suffered most of their declines due to introduced black rats, which predated on their eggs. They were last officially observed in 1979, although possible sightings persisted into this century.

Multiple Polynesian tree snails — The IUCN listed several snail species as extinct this past year (although the scientific assessments were all done several years earlier). They include:

• • Partula langfordi — Last seen in 1992, wiped out by deforestation and the predatory invasive rosy wolfsnail.
  • Partula magistri — A “large, conspicuous” species observed alive just one time. The sole specimen was found in 1992 amid empty “freshly killed” shells left behind by wolfsnail predation.
  • Partula dentifera — Last seen in 1972, although it persisted until at least 1991, when only empty shells were found. The rosy wolfsnail again gets the blame.
  • Partula diminuta — Last seen on Tahiti in 1980, three years after the rosy wolfsnail arrived on the island. You can guess what happened next.
  • Clarke’s tree snail (Partula clarkei) — Last seen in the wild in 1991, although they persisted in captivity for five more years. Wolfsnail again.
  • Partula lugubris — Last officially observed in 1927, but no one looked for it again until 1991, by which time the wolfsnail had eaten them all up.
  • Partula auriculata — Last seen in 1992, following the same pattern.
  • Pearce-Kelly’s tree snail (Partula pearcekellyi) — Known from a single valley on Raiatea and last seen in 1991 or 1992. Guess what arrived there in 1990?
  • Pohnpei ground partula snail (Partula guamensis) — Another “large, conspicuous species” last recorded in 1936. This one has deforestation and a host of introduced species to blame: the New Guinea flatworm, three rat species, and possibly the rosy wolfsnail.

邛海白魚 or Qionghai white fish (Anabarilius qionghaiensis) — A freshwater fish frequently caught and eaten by the people living around China’s Qionghai Lake for decades (if not centuries), this species was last observed around 1970. Development, pollution from pesticides and fertilizers, overfishing, introduced species, and destruction of aquatic vegetation all conspired to do this fish in.

Limnophila limnophiloides — Scientists only documented this aquatic plant once, in 1918, in India’s Bhushi lake. Extensive surveys have failed to find it, so the IUCN this year declared it extinct. We don’t know exactly why or how it disappeared, but the assessment notes that the “area is converted into high intensity tourism area and the habitat is completely altered to a small reservoir which is used for bathing, swimming and other recreational purposes by more than a lakh (100,000) of people every year.”

Vachellia polypyrigenes and V. zapatensis — These Cuban plants were last seen in 1951 and 1940, respectively. The IUCN declared them extinct in 2024, blaming urbanization and petrochemical activity for the first species, and “the expansion of human activity” for the second.

Starnberg whitefish (Coregonus renke) and Chiem whitefish (Coregonus hoferi) — Native to the lakes in southern Germany for which they were named, these fish were last seen in the late 1800s and 1940s-1980s, respectively. They were assessed as extinct by the IUCN in 2024.

Orkney charr (Salvelinus inframundus) — This Scottish cold-water fish hasn’t been seen since the 1950s. Scientists suspect dams and other engineering projects build during the 19th century “disturbed tributary streams into which this species migrated to spawn.” The IUCN listed this species as “data deficient” for years but moved them into the “extinct” category in 2024. Nonetheless, some sources say the fish or another species that looks like it has recently been observed in Loch Meallt, so…fins crossed?

This list isn’t comprehensive, in several notable ways — because it can’t be.

First, these extinctions are not reported in real time. The last days of the last members of a species are rarely observed by human eyes. They occur in the cracks beyond our perception, out of sight, the disappearance of a shadow or a sunbeam, here and then gone.

Second, even when scientists suspect a species has died out, they don’t give up hope. They keep looking — often for decades. And on a not-uncommon basis, they find them.

There’s an incentive to keep searching: Giving up too early ensures that a species won’t get the protection it deserves. Species have gone extinct simply because they were declared extinct too soon, protections were removed, and threats worsened as a result.

These endless quests aren’t easy: Tiny frogs who hide in deep jungles or plants that only flower a few nights a year don’t make themselves easily known.

It’s also hard to prove a negative: If you lay eyes on something, you know if exists. If you don’t see it, that’s not proof that it’s gone.

It’s also been a hard few years for science. Fewer researchers got into the field during the pandemic, and people still have a lot of catching up to do. Budgets have also gotten tighter or more unpredictable. We’ll see (or not see) the effects of the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn of federal research funding in the months and years ahead.

Finally, we must remember that most of the species we lose are “invisible extinctions” — species that have never been observed, documented, named, or studied by modern science. One study last year estimated that humans have caused 1,500 bird extinctions, half of which were of species we’d never documented. Another study estimated that Australia loses 1-3 invertebrate species every week. If a species doesn’t have a name and goes extinct, did it ever really exist?

Of course, it did — which is why stories of these extinct species remain so important. They’re a reminder to celebrate the diversity of life around us — and to protect it while we still can.

Scroll down to find our “Republish” button Previously in The Revelator:

Book of the Dead: The Species Declared Extinct in 2022

The post The Curlew, the Cactus, and the Obliterated Whitefish: The Species We Lost in 2024 appeared first on The Revelator.

The water flowing from taps in Wilmington, North Carolina, looked clean, tasted normal, and gave no indication that it carried an invisible threat. For decades the Cape Fear River had provided drinking water to hundreds of thousands of residents in the region. But in 2017 tests revealed what many had feared: high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals linked to cancer, immune dysfunction, and reproductive issues, coursing through their water supply.

The contamination had been traced to Chemours, a spinoff of DuPont, which had been releasing PFAS chemicals from its Fayetteville Works plant for years.

The discovery sent shockwaves through the community, triggering lawsuits, emergency water-treatment plans, and a reckoning over how corporations and government regulators had failed to protect public health. But even as residents fought to hold polluters accountable, the company responsible for much of the contamination was tightening its grip on the agencies meant to regulate it.

A former DuPont and American Chemistry Council lobbyist, Nancy Beck, now holds a key position at the Environmental Protection Agency, shaping chemical safety policies that will determine how — or if — PFAS pollution is addressed. In the first days of the second Trump administration, the agency withdrew a proposed rule that would have imposed limits on PFAS discharges, a move that watchdog groups say amounts to giving polluters free rein to continue contaminating water supplies.

Across the Atlantic a similar threat looms. In Bentham, England, residents had unknowingly consumed water laced with a staggering 1.2 million nanograms per liter of PFAS — nearly 12,000 times the legal limit. The contamination originated from a nearby firefighting foam testing facility, a mirror to the industrial discharge in North Carolina.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Landfill Action & Remediation (@landfillactiongroup)

The crisis in Cape Fear and Bentham reveals the creeping, silent danger of PFAS, which has infiltrated groundwater, rivers, and drinking-water supplies across the world.

And yet, as the Trump administration accelerates its environmental rollbacks, the ability to regulate and mitigate this growing threat in the United States is being systematically dismantled.

“North Carolina is one area that I’m most familiar with where there’s an entire river system that serves hundreds of thousands of people [and] is very badly contaminated with PFAS,” Erik D. Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Revelator. “A lot of people are drinking that water every day.”

From Miracle to Menace

When first introduced in the 1940s, PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, chemical company Dupont hailed them as “miracles of science.” Their unique properties — resistance to heat, water, and oil — made them indispensable in a variety of industries. From nonstick pans to waterproof clothing, PFAS became embedded in daily life.

But the very quality that made them so useful — resilience — also makes them a nightmare for the environment. They do not break down naturally, persisting in soil, water, and even the human body for decades.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by LA County Public Health Dept (@lapublichealth)

According to Andrea Tokranov, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey specializing in PFAS contamination, 71 to 95 million Americans rely on groundwater with detectable PFAS levels before any treatment. She was the lead author of a 2024 study, published in the journal Science, that found that 50 to 66% of people in the United States who rely on groundwater as their primary water source could be exposed to PFAS contamination.

The predictive modeling used in her research highlights a grim reality: millions of Americans may be drinking contaminated water without knowing it.

“This is a fairly large number,” Tokranov told The Revelator. “And the implications are striking.”

Meanwhile recent research from the Keck School of Medicine at USC, led by postdoctoral fellow in population and public health sciences Hailey Hampson, uncovered disturbing insights into PFAS’ effects on human health.

The study, which focused on young adults in Southern California, found that higher PFAS exposure was linked to worsened kidney function over time. The research also established that changes in gut bacteria and related metabolites mediated up to 50% of the kidney function decline.

“We saw that exposure to PFAS was potentially altering the composition of the microbiome, associated with lower levels of beneficial bacteria and lower anti-inflammatory metabolites,” Hampson told The Revelator. This disruption, the researchers suggest, may contribute to long-term kidney damage and other chronic health issues.

The study also highlights a troubling disparity: Hispanic young adults, already at a higher risk for chronic kidney disease, were disproportionately affected by PFAS exposure. The inequities in exposure, driven by geographic and economic factors, mean that the most vulnerable populations are bearing the brunt of the contamination crisis.

But what makes this crisis especially insidious is its uneven burden. Rural and low-income communities, already struggling with limited infrastructure and regulatory oversight, are disproportionately affected. The places with the least political clout are the ones most exposed to this creeping poison.

The situation is compounded by deregulation at the federal level.

Trump, PFAS, and the EPA

During Trump’s first term, the Environmental Protection Agency delayed action on PFAS, weakened oversight, and stalled cleanup efforts. Now, with a second Trump presidency, the rollbacks have already escalated.

A statement from the Environmental Working Group describes the latest policy changes as “a gift to polluters and a disaster for public health.” The group sounded the alarm when Trump’s EPA withdrew a proposed rule that would have limited PFAS discharges from chemical manufacturers into the water supply.

An EPA Instagram post from before the Trump administration took office:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by U.S. EPA (@epagov)

Trump’s executive orders have triggered sweeping environmental rollbacks, dismantling protections for clean air, water, and climate policy. Advocacy groups warn that his actions prioritize polluters over public health, leading to increased pollution, higher energy costs, and worsening climate-related disasters such as wildfires and extreme weather. Without intervention, communities will face greater exposure to harmful pollutants like PFAS.

As the administration continues its rollback of environmental protections, environmental advocates, scientists, and public health experts warn that PFAS contamination will only intensify, disproportionately affecting low-income and rural communities who have fewer resources for mitigation

Olson, who has spent decades advocating for clean water regulations, warned that “the more we continue to make this stuff and spew it out into the environment, the more those cleanup costs just exponentially continue to increase.” He estimates that the public will ultimately bear hundreds of billions of dollars in liability and cleanup costs due to the unchecked spread of PFAS.

Addressing PFAS Beyond Borders

PFAS contamination is not a crisis confined to the United States. It’s a global problem, requiring international collaboration and stricter regulations. While Europe has been at the forefront of addressing the threat, efforts to control PFAS are gaining momentum worldwide.

Megan Kirton, senior project officer at Fidra, a Scotland-based environmental nonprofit, pointed out that while the United Kingdom lags, other European nations are leading the charge in restricting PFAS use.

“The UK government should be doing more to safeguard our water sources from PFAS pollution,” Kirton told The Revelator. “We are seeing stricter PFAS standards across the EU, and some nations like Denmark and Germany are already taking major steps to ban certain PFAS compounds altogether.”

The European Union has proposed a comprehensive PFAS restriction under the REACH regulatory framework, which could lead to a near-total ban on PFAS use in consumer products. Countries such as Germany and Sweden are pushing for aggressive enforcement, with new PFAS limits in drinking water set at 100 nanograms per liter for a sum of 20 PFAS compounds — a much stricter limit than what exists in the United States.

But beyond Europe there’s a growing recognition that PFAS is a transboundary issue, affecting low- and middle-income countries disproportionately. According to Olson, the dumping of PFAS-contaminated waste in developing countries is a major concern.

“We’ve seen this pattern before — where wealthier countries tighten regulations, but companies shift their PFAS waste and contaminated products to lower-income countries that lack strong regulatory frameworks,” Olson told The Revelator. “It’s not just the dumping of waste; it’s also the continued sale of products laden with PFAS in these regions.”

Efforts to create a global coalition against PFAS contamination remain fragmented. While some organizations work under the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty aimed at eliminating persistent organic pollutants, Olson believes international coordination remains weak.

“There are groups that work on implementing the Stockholm Convention, but it’s not as effective as it should be,” he said. “I’d love to see more cooperation between the Global North and activists in developing countries because right now, I don’t think there’s very effective coordination.”

Meanwhile, some countries have begun exploring alternatives to PFAS-based products. The Toxic Use Reduction Institute in the U.S. is actively researching safer replacements, and some governments are investing in “green chemistry” solutions to eliminate reliance on PFAS altogether.

Despite these efforts enforcement remains a major challenge. Loopholes in international trade allow PFAS-laden products to continue circulating in markets with weaker regulations. And as the U.S. continues rolling back environmental protections, other nations are left to grapple with the consequences.

Olson believes that the only viable path forward is a global agreement on PFAS.

“We need a coordinated effort,” he said. “Countries must phase out nonessential uses of PFAS and push for a binding international agreement that holds companies accountable. Otherwise, the problem will just keep shifting from one part of the world to another.”

Fighting Back

For advocates and scientists, the fight against PFAS is far from over.

“We will be in court if we have to be,” Olson told The Revelator. “We don’t like to be in court, but if that’s the only way to do it, we will go to court and try to protect the public against these chemicals.”

Olson and his colleagues at NRDC are working with community activists to intervene in lawsuits challenging EPA’s PFAS regulations, ensuring that industry groups don’t weaken existing protections. He believes that public pressure remains critical.

“I don’t think anybody voted for more toxic chemicals in their drinking water… As the public learns about the extent of the problem, I think they are unhappy with efforts to roll back protections.”

But legal battles alone won’t solve the crisis. Scientists argue that the only way to truly curb PFAS contamination is to shut off the tap.

“We need to stop spewing these things into the environment and making this stuff,” Olson said. “But we still have to figure out a way to destroy these chemicals because right now, we don’t even have a good method for doing that.”

The scientific community is exploring alternative chemistry and biodegradability, with groups like the TURI researching safer replacements. But Olson warns that funding for green chemistry remains woefully inadequate.

“We would love to see the world move towards cleaner chemistry, green chemistry,” he said. “But the research is underfunded. The companies profiting from these chemicals should be the ones paying for their cleanup.”

Efforts are also underway to phase out nonessential uses of PFAS. Some U.S. states have banned PFAS in consumer products like cookware, dental floss, and ski wax. But Olson argues that industry lobbying continues to stall meaningful federal regulation.

“There are all these uses that are absolutely not necessary and that are still contaminating our bodies and our environment,” he said. “We need to move away from PFAS chemistry and towards safer alternatives.”

Despite the challenges, Olson remains optimistic.

“This isn’t going to be easy. But when people stand up and demand action, change happens. We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again.”

Scroll down to find our “Republish” button Previously in The Revelator:

PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere: Here’s What That Means for Wildlife

The post The Silent Threat Beneath Our Feet: How Deregulation Fuels the Spread of Forever Chemicals appeared first on The Revelator.