The Revelator

You’ve participated in some protests and have a cause which you feel is under-represented and needs support in your community. It might be time to organize your own protest.

Organizing protests is a lot of work: They require forethought, planning, and preparation. But you can do it!

As we’ve discussed in this series, sociologists have proven that the most effective protests build public support through non-violence and peaceful disruption. The peaceful disruption creates a sense of pressure to do something, while embracing the tenets of non-violence communicates that the protest has constructive intentions.

Let’s take a brief look at organizing a convincing, persuasive protest that has a greater chance of being successful.

Create a Team of Organizers for the Protest

Begin by reaching out to like-minded community members, asking if they want to help organize a protest, intentionally building relationships with those who are interested. Actively listen and consider their experience and guidance.

Then seek out local, regional, and national organizations that support your cause and invite them to collaborate with you. Contact them well in advance (weeks, months) to help set the date of the protest event and get their “buy-in” to endorse (and attend) the demonstration. They may have resources (to avoid duplication of efforts), information, and networks you can tap into.

After you meet with these other like-minded organizations, make a detailed plan for the division of labor before and during the event. This is critical for a successful outcome. For example, will you have a first aid crew? Will you have lanyards, badges, T-shirts or hats so participants can easily identify key contacts during the protest?

Meanwhile, start building the event itself. The time, place, and program should be geared to the desired audience, which leads us to the bigger questions.

Define the Strategy

Protest leaders and participants must collectively be able to answer these questions during planning:

• • What exact goals do you want to achieve in this demonstration?
  • Are you advocating for, supporting, or protesting a specific issue/cause?
  • Set the tone of the demonstration. What you want to accomplish depends on how your cause is viewed by the public and media (optics). If your demonstration is too festive it may not seem serious to the public.
  • What type of protest will best achieve your goal? The most common modes of protest are marches and rallies, sit-ins, walk-outs, vigils, and more complex efforts like encampments and choreographed or theatrical expressions.

Practical Planning for the Event

• • When and where should you organize this action to make the most effective impact?
  • Do you need a town/city/local/state permit for this event? (Hint: the answer is probably “yes.” Plan ahead so you have enough time to get this in place.)
  • Contact the local and/or national media with information and an invitation to cover the event.
  • Ask: Who has the power to help make your plan happen? This includes donations and funding to pay for signs, travel, accommodations for disabled participants and shirts, hats, lanyards, and other identifying items for participants and organizers.
  • Seriously consider the location, route and timing of the demonstration: Will a certain holiday or day of the week have the most impact? For example, many groups have “Moral Mondays” or popular “Souls to the Polls” on Sundays during elections. Consider what day and time is best for your cause. Morning? All day? An evening candle vigil?
  • Do you aim to build a larger coalition to continue working on your issue after this event? Make sure your communication channels are clearly established.
  • Are you trying to be seen and heard by an elected official or influential figure? If you plan ahead, you can invite interested celebrities, government figures, and other well-known activists to your event. That means having a staging area at the appointed meeting place and time, with microphones, speakers, and lectern.
  • Educate protest participants in their civil rights: Have you made clear to participants their local, state and federal rights, such as the First Amendment and local/state rules for having a march or protest?
  • Provide your participants with solid information about legal limitations that exist in the protest area such as digital safety and the right to film in case authorities confiscate your phone.

Define Clear Goals for the Event

Setting your goal clearly is tantamount to success, because it’s the prime determinant of the form and function it will take for optimal outcomes. Common goals for demonstrations include:

• • Advocacy: To urge legislators or the public to look favorably on a bill, adopt a particular idea or policy or service, or pay attention to the needs of a particular group of people.
  • Support: To express agreement or solidarity with a person or group, with an idea or policy, or with a particular issue.
  • Counter-demonstration: To respond to a demonstration or other public event already scheduled by another public figure or organization.
  • Public Relations: To advertise or put in a good light an event, issue, organization, segment of the population, etc.
  • Action: To achieve a specific substantive purpose, effect the prevention of, or change, a particular public project, entity, or policy. An event, for example, could include meeting with city, state and federal elected representatives.

What Extra Training Do You Need?

For example, many organizers take classes in de-escalation, which can help during tense or mob situations.

It All Starts With You

Stay cool, calm, and protest peacefully during the summer, and throughout the year.

And we want to hear from you. What questions do you have about protesting? What advice would you share? Send your comments, suggestions, questions, or even brief essays to comments@therevelator.org.

Sources and Resources for this Article

Summer of Change: New Books to Inspire Environmental Action

The Activist Handbook and other sources below provide practical guides and resources so you can plan your demonstration successfully.

Indivisible  and No Kings offer training and education on protesting safely and effectively, as well as new and upcoming protest events.

The Human Rights Campaign: Tips for Preparedness, Peaceful Protesting, and Safety

ACLU Guide: How to Protest Safely and Responsibly

Amnesty International Protest Guide

Wired: How to Protest Safely: What to Bring, What to Do, and What to Avoid

Infosec 101 for Activists

“The New Science of Social Change: A Modern Handbook for Activists”  by Lisa Mueller

“Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting”  by Omar Wasow

“Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha)”  by M. K. Gandhi

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here.

 

The post Freedom of Voice: The Newcomer’s Guide to Organizing A Peaceful and Effective Protest appeared first on The Revelator.

Emily Donovan has a mission: “Make the polluters pay.”

The mother of twins took on the role of activist when she started fighting for her North Carolina community in 2017. Her main target: PFAS “forever chemicals,” which do not degrade and at even low levels have been linked to a wide range of human health risks, including fertility issues, immune interactions, cancer, liver damage, thyroid disease, asthma, and more.

A recent report from the nonprofit Waterkeeper Alliance found that 98% of waterways in the United States contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS. One of the country’s most polluted rivers, according to the report, sits at the heart of Donovan’s own Cape Fear community in North Carolina.

After the first news of this contamination broke in 2017, Donovan and other local activists came together around a kitchen table and founded Clean Cape Fear, a community action group focused on fighting the polluters of the Cape Fear River and holding elected officials accountable to restore and protect the region.

Since those early days, Donovan has made numerous strides against PFAS, most notably in leading the dialogue that led the EPA, under the Biden administration, to issue the first nationwide regulations for PFAS in drinking water in April 2024. For this work, the United Nations named Donovan a defender of human rights, recognizing her unwavering commitment to fighting PFAS contamination on a national level.

Now, under President Trump, the EPA has rescinded those regulations that took so much work to set in place.

“I am sad, and I am frustrated,” says Donovan. “But after the announcement came out, I’m settled and resolved. That sadness has settled into anger, which is a very good fuel for motivation. Stupidest thing they could have done is to make people angry.”

Trump Aids Polluters

On April 10, 2024, the EPA set out legally enforceable limits — called “maximum contaminant levels” — for six PFAS chemicals in drinking water: PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, GenX (HFPO-DA), and PFBS. Under these rules, PFOA and PFOS were limited to 4 parts per trillion (ppt); PFNA, PFHxS, and GenX were limited to 10 ppt, and PFBS was regulated under the federal “hazard index,” meaning it does not have a fixed parts-per-trillion number but is considered to add risk to human health if it’s in drinking water. Public water systems had until 2029 to fully meet these federal requirements, as PFAS regulations often differ from state to state.

What was considered a historic move is now being dismantled with breathtaking speed. The regulations instituted by the Biden administration were withdrawn by the Trump administration on its second day in power.

The EPA’s most recent change rescinded regulations covering four of the six common PFAS contaminants while keeping regulatory compliance for PFOA and PFOS, both of which have been retired from commercial use.

Regulations on GenX — the chemical that polluted Cape Fear — were quietly canceled under this change.

Several nonprofits, including the NRDC and Earthjustice, have filed lawsuits challenging the new federal PFAS drinking water standards and the hazardous substance designations, arguing they violate the Safe Drinking Water Act, a safety standard set in 1974. Earthjustice represents Cape Fear residents in both cases.

“I believe this is an illegal move,” says Donovan.

 

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Earthjustice and NRDC recently issued a press release pointing out the “anti-backsliding” provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act, which should have prevented the EPA from weakening existing standards. Despite this provision, NRDC claims that the recent rollback in PFAS regulations is doing just that: weakening federal standards that were already set in place.

Donovan says the recent deregulation has created confusion on the local level about who should pay for decontamination costs. She argues that the companies that polluted the waterways should be the ones paying for the cleanup, not the local municipalities.

“If the EPA is going to acknowledge the law,” Donovan says, “then what they’re doing right now is really stalling and confusing communities and making it more difficult for utilities to make a good decision, because they’re creating this unnecessary uncertainty.”

She also notes that this distraction takes attention off of new PFAS chemicals, such as PFPrA, that are showing up at extremely high levels in the area’s water source — threatening residents’ health and already costing them money.

“The water bills keep going up for a problem that we didn’t create,” says Donovan. “This is expensive, and it should not be the burden of the utilities. It should be the burden of the polluters, and should be stopped at the source. But we’re not seeing this administration address those concerns.”

Instead of a unifying fight alongside utility companies, Donovan finds clean water activists at odds with them.

“We’re not seeing the water utility associations address those concerns either. We see them standing opposite us with the chemical industry on lobbying day,” she says.

Origins of an Activist

In 2017, the Wilmington Star-News broke the news that the Fayetteville Chemours factory was manufacturing GenX and had been polluting the Cape Fear River for decades. Donovan says that residents later discovered that the company was also inadvertently producing it as an industrial byproduct, discharging GenX into their wastewater stream, which ran into the river.

“No one in America was saying anything about GenX,” says Donovan, “so everyone was upset and terrified, and then Chemours came to town, and it was a closed-door meeting. It was very obvious that they were controlling — controlling the narrative, controlling the information.”

According to Donovan, tests showed high amounts of GenX found in the finished water, which is the final product in the water treatment process, from the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. So she submitted a water sample from her children’s elementary school in Brunswick, North Carolina, which sits right between the Chemours plant and the Cape Fear region, an hour each way. Results showed that the elementary school in Brunswick had the highest PFAS levels out of all the areas tested.

Studies have since shown GenX to be one of the most toxic of the PFAS chemicals, even more so than the retired legacy chemicals they replaced.

A Sacred Charge

At times when she could feel alone or overwhelmed by the scope of the situation, Donovan draws on advice she received from clean water advocates Erin Brockovich and Mark Ruffalo: “No one is coming to save you. You have to save yourself.”

She remains determined, though, and uses her background in communications and political science to effectively reach people regarding their rights as citizens.

Her friend Jessica Cannon, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, calls her “the activist of activists.”

Cannon praises Donovan’s strong moral compass as the driving force in all she does for her family and community. She notes that Donovan draws from her work as a youth group coordinator and communications manager for a progressive church as part of her mandate “to protect God’s green Earth.” Donovan’s strong faith is apparent to all who meet her, even in email, with her signature featuring a scripture urging people to love one another.

Still, Donovan remains tenacious when coming up against giant chemical corporations. “When people tell her no,” says Cannon, “it’s like waving a red flag in front of her.”

Even though their work has resulted in new research studies and regulations, Donovan says it hasn’t been easy. “Everything that we have achieved, we feel like we’ve had to fight for it every step of the way,” she says. “We’re not looking for credit, but we want it to be documented that we had to fight for it because we want other communities to know no one’s coming to give you this. We had to fight every step of the way to get access to this stuff.”

While this fight against chemical companies is long and arduous, Donovan notes that it’s important to consider that states and local communities still have time to course-correct.

“I want to make that distinction very clear,” she says. “States still have the power to issue permits that control PFAS releases. If they choose not to do it, they’re benefiting and aiding the polluters by forcing communities to clean up PFAS pollution in the tap water that shouldn’t be there from the start.”

Local Contamination, Worldwide Impact

Water has always played an essential role at Cape Fear, which served as a significant port during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II.

Today, it serves as a living nursery for young sea life and a foundation for the area’s tourism, which includes beaches, seafood restaurants, an aquarium, and water-based activities. The 191-mile-long Cape Fear River carries significant water from North Carolina rivers into the Atlantic Ocean. Its waters, now brown due to heavy pollution over the years from nearby industries, flow into the largest river basin in the state, which supplies drinking water to residents in the neighboring town of Wilmington.

We don’t know where those chemicals that started in North Carolina travel once released into the Atlantic Ocean, but studies have found PFAS even in the blood of polar bears in the Arctic.

Donovan asks what industry is near polar bears.

She also expresses concern about a 2022 study that found PFAS “have now exceeded the planetary boundary, which means there’s no space left on Earth where there’s no PFAS contamination.”

As a result, Donovan adds, we’re “dealing with almost an existential crisis for humanity related to this contamination because these are chemicals that do not degrade naturally; they live forever.”

The Weight of Forever

Donovan has noticed in pictures she took with her family at the beach, unsuspecting children playing in the background in the seafoam, which looks like mounds of white shaving cream. A recent study, though, has shown that high concentrations of PFAS are found in the seafoam on these beaches.

“There’s always this under the surface, a level of parental anxiety that we’re somehow more vulnerable now,” Donovan says. “So, it’s making peace and living with the tension of always wondering if that sneeze is innocent or if that sneeze is a signal to something more dire.”

 

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Eight years after the discovery of PFAS contamination in Cape Fear, Donovan says concerns about clean water add an extra layer of uncertainty as a mother. Even everyday activities, like showering, feel troubling.

“I worry about eating local seafood because I know the waters that it’s caught in,” she says. “I will drive out of my way to go to the area that has the cleanest tap water when I get takeout, or if we eat out. And I know that’s a privilege.”

Donovan also takes contamination into account when planning time together as a family. “There are certain beaches we just don’t visit locally. We’ve learned which beaches are probably less polluted than others, and those are the ones that we’ll go have fun at. I wanted to plant a backyard garden, and we’ve chosen not to, because I don’t want to grow contaminated produce.” Earlier this year a study found that produce grown in home gardens near the North Carolina Chemours plant contained dangerous levels of PFAS.

Decisions that she might not have thought of before now carry extra weight as she considers her family’s health. “There’s just certain things that I would like to do that I can’t do right now or that I’m choosing not to do because we were overexposed for so long. I want to give our bodies a chance to rest and heal.”

Donovan has always been hyper-focused on her local efforts for clean water. She worked with schools in Brunswick and the neighboring New Hanover counties to install reverse osmosis filling stations to bring clean drinking water to 49 local public schools, providing students with the option to drink clean, unpolluted water.

For some, a project of this size could be overwhelming, but not for Donovan. Cannon calls her “a force of nature.”

A Long Fight

Donovan has testified before Congress twice. The first time, she was given 48 hours’ notice to testify before the Energy and Commerce Committee.

“It was terrifying,” she says.

The second time was in 2019, before Congress’s Subcommittee on the Environment of the Committee on Oversight and Reform. Donovan pressed legislators about the 25 PFAS toxicants in the Cape Fear River and the need for corporate accountability and action. She brought a community letter signed by 1,000 Wilmington/Fayetteville residents asking Congress to take action.

Donovan testified that more than 50 different PFAS chemicals had been documented in the area’s air, soil, and water and that the Food and Drug Administration had found GenX and other PFAS chemicals on produce at a local farmer’s market.

Donovan also told Congress that residents in her area have three times the national average of C8, also known as PFOA, found in their blood, despite the fact that the compound was phased out many years ago.

Donovan testified that Cape Fear residents also have a very specific “cocktail” of PFAS chemicals found in their blood that has not been seen anywhere else in the country but was found in 99% of the blood samples taken from residents. She also related stories about friends, family, and neighbors in her community facing various cancers and then asked for PFAS to be listed as hazardous substances so the community could enact the EPA’s Superfund law, which would allow the research, containment, and cleanup of the toxicants without a cost burden on residents.

“We shouldn’t have to be forced to sue Chemours to get them to pay for the damages they have done,” Donovan said in her testimony.

During her second testimony, community members from Fayetteville, Wilmington, and Parkersburg, West Virginia, where PFAS was originally discovered, stood by her side. Residents whose health had been severely and forever affected by PFAS were physical proof of what these invisible chemicals could do.

After her first testimony, Donovan recalled a big bipartisan effort to understand PFAS and the situation at hand. The second time around, though, she remembers a partisan shift in how things should be resolved, and it became obvious “who was protecting industry and who was protecting communities.”

In 2023, Donovan took her advocacy global and sought support from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Working with the University of Berkeley Environmental Law Clinic, she contacted the UN to “leverage their soft power” in calling out Chemours for human rights violations. Working with the UN opened doors in the U.S. government to start a dialogue about actions and regulations that needed to take place. As a result, nine “special rapporteurs” — independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council — joined together for a public statement in response to show that human rights violations happen in the Global North, as well as how the Global North responds to these violations. As a result of the dialogue, the first-ever nationwide regulations for PFAS in drinking water issued in April 2024 were a historic win for activists.

 

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The Fight Continues

In what could feel like an uphill climb at times, Donovan admires the community of people like her who are fighting for clean drinking water. She often quotes fellow clean water activist Andrea Amico, who says, “We are as persistent as PFAS.”

The EPA has seen many changes with the new administration, with the Office of Research and Development suffering perhaps the deepest cuts. Donovan calls this department the “lifeblood” of PFAS work, noting that it discovered lead contamination in Flint, Michigan, and is currently helping with water contamination efforts from the Los Angeles wildfires. She explains that the office performs targeted analysis, searching for things still unknown in water, which takes a lot of skill and money to perform. The findings are reported in a federal database and are available to the public and state officials.

The Biden administration passed a number of laws to provide funding for addressing PFAS in the drinking water of low-income and rural communities. Recent reports indicate that the Trump administration is actively trying to weaken or dismantle the EPA.

Donovan fears that this will result in the entire structure’s access to funding being eliminated, with restricted access to funding nationwide for upgrading treatment centers to meet new drinking water requirements. As of April 2025, Fayetteville, North Carolina, no longer receives federal grant money for clean drinking water. Now, it’s left to the community to figure out how to pay for the costly treatments to filter their polluted drinking water.

Despite such obstacles, Donovan says she remains determined to keep fighting. She talks about the need to channel her rage at what’s going on in the world into fuel for change.

“That’s what I chose,” said Donovan. “To focus on making a better world by turning that anger into something productive and positive.”

The author is a named plaintiff in the federal PFAS multidistrict litigation against 3M.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator:

The Silent Threat Beneath Our Feet: How Deregulation Fuels the Spread of Forever Chemicals

The post Meet the Activist Fighting PFAS Pollution — and Winning appeared first on The Revelator.

This February news sites around the world shared footage of a rarely seen black seadevil anglerfish who took the internet by storm. The bizarre deep-sea animals, who have a bioluminescent “fishing lure” used to draw prey toward their fang-like teeth, normally live in complete darkness at depths of up to 4,900 feet below sea level. When this one was spotted near the Canary Islands, people quickly started speculating about why and how the creature had made such an extreme vertical ascent. Some got sentimental and poetic about the fish’s experience, making remarks about how the fish finally got to see other lights — the sun — besides its own before its demise.

 

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And yes, the fish died not long after.

Beyond the bizarre phenomenon, the way people reacted to and interpreted the fish’s unusual behavior is worth unpacking, because what seemed like an effort to empathize with the fish turned instead into something more troubling: anthropomorphism, a fancy term for attributing human characteristics to nonhuman entities.

The case of the black seadevil anglerfish illustrates the problem. The species’ name is a poetic allusion to notions of demons and fishermen — two very human concepts we impose on a fish that knows neither. Their natural habitat is the twilight zone of the deep ocean, where sunlight doesn’t reach. Creatures inhabiting this zone have developed fascinating ways to adapt to extreme conditions: high pressures, frigid temperatures, and never-ending darkness.

The wayward seadevil had no reason to swim so close to the surface as long as it was doing fine in its habitat, except that it probably wasn’t. Some experts speculated that it might have eaten a smaller fish with a gas-filled swim bladder (which could force the seadevil to go upward uncontrollably), while others thought it was either sick, stressed, injured, or escaping a predator.

Those expert theories are plausible, so why did so many of us instead romanticize the fish’s unusual behavior? People got so emotional over the fish’s fate that they made poems, comics, and even artworks that proposed the fish wished to see the sun, wanted to be understood, or was on a sort of philosophical journey to find something bigger than its own life.

While that speaks volume about our capacity to try to sympathize with other beings, it raises important questions: Is it true? Is it accurate? And more importantly, is it necessary? This was my genuine concern when scrolling through all the comments and contents regarding the black seadevil.

Don’t get me wrong: I was an animal lover before I became a science journalist, so I always have a soft spot for animals. Still, I know that anthropomorphizing a fish found far from its home range is not a good idea. “That fish was probably dying” was my first thought when I saw the footage.

Instead of anthropomorphizing, we should instead try to understand animals based on how they experience the world with their own senses. Empathy should be the goal. Instead of making assumptions like, “If it were me, I would have felt uncomfortable too,” we should try asking a different question: “I wonder how it feels for them?”

This fundamental framework is the central theme of Ed Yong’s book An Immense World. Through its pages Yong tries to explain the philosophical concept of Umwelt, which posits that animals experience the world differently from us because they rely on different and often enhanced senses to navigate their surroundings.

In other words, sensory stimuli that might feel normal to us — like bright lights or loud sounds — might be overwhelming to other animals.

That is why it’s so problematic when we try to understand animals’ experience by generalizing our own sensory experiences; it risks overlooking or mischaracterizing the distressing signs the animals may be displaying.

There are other reasons, too. Research has suggested that the popularity of Pixar Animation’s Finding Nemo movie may have spurred overfishing of reefs. Other researchers have cited how North American raccoons were imported to Japan as pets due to the popularity of the 1977 cartoon series Rascal Raccoon, which anthropomorphized the animals as harmless, cute and humorous — none of which is true, at least from the raccoons’ point of view. As a result of this pet craze, raccoons became an invasive species in Japan and damaged crops and fruits, as well as preying on native species. Researchers believe that it was partly due to the cartoon’s misrepresentation of raccoons’ nature as wild animals that caused the human-raccoon conflict in the first place.

Anthropomorphizing certain species creates another problem: It establishes a narrative suggesting that other species we care less about aren’t worth protecting — or in some cases, even need to be exterminated. This was the case with the imperial parrot, the flagship species of the Caribbean Island of Dominica. It got so much attention that Dominicans started to disregard the conservation efforts of its sister species, the red-necked parrot. What’s more, the red-necked parrot was portrayed as an antithesis to the imperial parrot — and researchers were concerned that such narrative could even lead to the culling of the parrot’s population.

Yet another drawback of anthropomorphizing one species over another is that we can forego conservation efforts for species that don’t necessarily win our heart for their cute demeanor.

In many cases we don’t even realize it when we anthropomorphize animals. For example, we interpret the upturned mouths of snakes, dolphins, and chimpanzees as smiling expressions, with dangerous consequences.

While some of this is harmless, it can also lead to subtle consequences that endanger both animals and humans. For example, tourists in destinations like Ubud, Bali, feed monkeys because they appear cute and remind them of human babies. As a result, the monkeys no longer fear humans. Problems arise when these monkeys turn aggressive and start, as one magazine recently wrote, “stealing” tourists’ personal belongings. (Even the way the news is written screams anthropomorphism because it assumes that a monkey understands the concept of “stealing.”)

Our motives are usually good, and understandable. Anthropomorphism helps us make sense of nonhuman behavior that might otherwise seem scary or confusing. In some cases it may even make us care about living beings we would otherwise ignore or even harm. But we should resist the temptation, because it creates more risks than benefits.

Promoting empathy toward animals, on the other hand, retains all the potential benefits of anthropomorphism without the dangers.

One way to cultivate empathy is to consider how animals would normally behave if they were in their natural state. For instance, if a wild dolphin or orca swims dozens of miles each day, imagine how it must feel for them to be confined in a pool — no matter how big the pool looks to us.

It’s of course very hard to understand animals’ experience when we don’t even know what the world looks like to them and how they perceive it. While biologists work to find this out, the least we can do is to resist the temptation to impose our own senses and feelings on life forms that are profoundly different from us. By avoiding the trap of anthropomorphism, we can make room for empathy built on the recognition that we really do not know what they’re going through.

As for the black seadevil, the anglerfish lived and eventually perished on its own terms, not ours — and that should be enough.

Previously in The Revelator:

What Can Psychology Offer Biodiversity Protection?

The post We Don’t Have to Anthropomorphize Animals to Care About Them appeared first on The Revelator.

Everywhere we look, AI is treated like an inevitability.

AI companies like ChatGPT and Open AI are expanding rapidly, and many Americans rely on AI assistants such as Alexa and Siri in their day-to-day lives. For some college students, not relying on AI can feel like a disadvantage.

Critics might be soothed by the idea that AI can be put to good use — such as in data modeling to better predict our changing climate, an idea that’s generated a lot of enthusiasm. But using AI to tackle climate change is like bombing a country in the name of peace.

AI is a driver of climate change, not a solution. According to the United Nations Environment Program, rapidly proliferating AI data centers “use massive amounts of electricity, spurring the emission of planet-warming greenhouse gases,” as well as consuming enormous quantities of water and minerals.

ChatGPT, the popular AI software, is hardly worth the climate impact. One analyst, Sophie McLean, writing for Earth.org, explains, “For a simple conversation of 20-50 questions [to Chat GPT], the water consumed is equivalent to a 500ml bottle.” Spread across “billions of users,” that’s a “substantial” footprint.

AI is spreading so fast, we’ve hardly had an opportunity to consider its impact. Even the world’s most popular search engine, Google, started using AI by default. Each time you do a simple search, Google uses generative AI to offer an “AI overview” before listing its results.

Moreover, AI services like ChatGPT gobble up and regurgitate the work of humans. If plagiarism weren’t bad enough, they’re notorious for generating misinformation in fields such as medicine and computer programming.

Even for simple queries like searching for citations, AI programs often make up references that don’t exist. Experts are worried the technology’s propensity to “hallucinate” is so severe, it will never achieve high levels of accuracy.

Setting aside the prospect of massive job losses from AI and the troubling realization that AI models lie and proliferate misinformation, do we really want to push our climate to the brink because of a technology that offers convenience? AI is a technology foisted upon a society that doesn’t need it, and that faces very real harm because of it.

What’s needed at minimum is strict regulation, not only to protect information and jobs, but also people and the planet.

But as soon as he took office, President Donald Trump began dismantling the few, very modest government checks on AI. And the GOP’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” included, alongside massive tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, a ban on states being able to regulate AI. (That provision was scrapped, but it may well return in another form.)

We need to demand better. Technology analysts Paul Scharre and Vivek Chilukuri argue for “a principles-based approach to regulation, instead of fixed technical standards that could be outdated before the ink dries.” They also suggest an independent regulatory agency dedicated to this powerful technology.

In the meantime, we as individuals should avoid using programs like ChatGPT. Not only does it diminish our own capabilities — researchers at MIT recently found that an over-reliance on programs such as ChatGPT significantly lowers brain activity — but because it actively fuels climate change.

Think of AI avoidance as mental exercise in the same way you might choose to walk instead of drive for physical well being.

Consider turning off Google’s AI Overviews. The tech company doesn’t make it easy for most people to figure out how to do it — and of course, it offers an AI overview that may or may not be accurate when you search for how to turn it off. After some digging, I found a human-generated answer that actually works.

If we want a safer world, protected from the dumbing down and waste associated with AI, we have to begin programming ourselves and our world to make choices that center human wellbeing.

This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

Previously in The Revelator:

Why The Revelator Banned AI Articles and Art

The post Regulate AI — to Protect Jobs, Our Brains, and the Planet appeared first on The Revelator.

Five years ago, my partner and I bought a house surrounded by open fields. Since then, as a kind of small-scale reforestation project designed to bring the forest closer, we’ve planted several dozen new trees, all native species, with a bias toward the slightly more southern and drought-tolerant varieties likely to do well in the face of rising temperatures.

It’s an enduring pleasure to watch these new beings develop their root systems, gain strength, and begin to take on height and girth. Like characters in a slowly unfolding narrative, each is beginning to take on a distinct personality. Some are robust, growing fast and proud; others are slower, patiently marshalling their resources and biding their time. A few have even begun to take on a certain stateliness, precursor to the mantle of grace and dignity they will inherit as they age.

To plant a tree is to affirm one’s faith in the future, while at the same time reckoning with the sadness inherent in the comparative brevity of a human lifespan. It is to humbly acknowledge one’s place in the cycles of natural life across the unimaginable vastness of geologic time.

As a novelist and avid reader, I’ve long been interested in literary portrayals of trees. Somewhere around my eighth birthday my parents started reading The Hobbit and all three books of The Lord of the Rings to my siblings and me, a journey that took us the better part of a year.

Tolkien’s epic quest narratives echo the dire circumstances in Europe in the interwar period, though the miasma of evil has its origin not in Nazi Germany or fascist Italy but in the realm of Mordor, from whence it rises like an inexorable black tide to overwhelm all the goodness in the world. Light is always there in the background, however, occasionally bleeding through that oppressive darkness to infuse the narrative with glimmers of hope.

Tolkien’s forests, similarly — where many of his most dramatic and evocative chapters take place — are gripping embodiments of this urgent wrestling match between darkness and light. The Old Forest, just beyond the borders of the bucolic Shire, is host not only to terrifying ring-wraiths but to uncanny and sometimes ravenously hostile ancient trees — and things get even worse in Mirkwood. But amid these forests of terror and danger there are also glades of joyous poetry and light, such as the alluring waystation of Rivendell and magical Lothlórien, where the cathedral-like spaces between the trees are filled with dappled golden light and the celestial music of elves.

Tolkien struck a resonant metaphorical chord when he introduced his readers to the Ents, sentient tree-beings of Fangorn forest, who are far older and wiser than any other creature in Middle Earth. As children my siblings and I couldn’t get enough of Treebeard, whose wise and funny aphorisms communicated not only the great wisdom of trees, but also an exhilaratingly defamiliarized perspective on time:

“Sheep get like shepherds, and shepherds like sheep, it is said; but slowly, and neither have long in the world.”

Our enchantment with Tolkien’s wise old trees was undoubtedly rooted in the author’s portrayal of them, which edged into the realm of the sublime:

“Treebeard lifted two great vessels and stood them on the table. They seemed to be filled with water; but he held his hands over them, and immediately they began to glow, one with a golden and the other with a rich, green light; and the blending of the two lights lit the bay, as if the sun of summer was shining through a roof of young leaves. Looking back, the hobbits saw that the trees in the court had also begun to glow, faintly at first, but steadily quickening, until every leaf was edged with light: some green, some gold, some red as copper; while the tree-trunks looked like pillars moulded out of luminous stone.”

Tolkien demonstrated once and for all that that along with other remarkable aspects of human life — love, heroism, death, the mysteries of the soul — our ancient association with trees is a worthy subject for literature.

Trees figure prominently in more recent novels, of course, perhaps most famously in Richard Powers’ 2018 masterpiece, The Overstory, whose presiding consciousness is actually a tree, or trees writ large.

Powers’ uniquely positioned high-omniscient narrator gives him the freedom to range backwards and forwards across great expanses of time. Three decades can go by in a single paragraph; a long-ago moment can be experienced with vivid intimacy, and we often know the fate of a character well before it comes to pass:

“At that click, a teenage Mimi lifted from her own nine-year-old shoulders to gaze up at the arhats from high up and years away. Out of the gazing teen rose another, even older woman. Time was not a line unrolling in front of her. It was a column of concentric circles with herself at the core and the present floating outward along the outermost line.”

One of the characters in The Overstory recalls reading a science fiction story about the arrival on Earth of a species of tiny, super-fast aliens. The aliens live on an accelerated timescale compared to that of humans, their movements so quick that they’re only perceptible as a faint buzzing in a person’s ears. Meanwhile, human movement is so slow that the aliens assume they’re inanimate meat statues, which they decide to harvest as food for their long homeward journey.

This dark little tale, of course, can be seen as analogous to our relationship with trees. We live on an entirely different timescale than the ancient, slow-growing beings with whom we share this planet, and we may therefore be missing something essential about them.

Trees play a key role in my new novel, The Afterlife Project, set partly in an old-growth forest of the deep future, in which trees provide nourishment, solace, and even life-giving companionship for a marooned scientist. One of the great pleasures of writing the book came from the hundreds of hours I spent in my local forest, giving my imagination free rein to dream up a fictional forest of the future.

Trees and forests are worthy subjects for human literature because they are an essential aspect of human lives. They provided the setting for our evolution as a species, and continue to be critical to the sustenance of both our bodies and spirits.

Most people know that healthy forests are key allies in taking on the grave environmental crisis we currently face. Recently, we’ve also learned that they’re helpful in improving our individual health. Being in a forest just feels good. Japan, recognizing this, has created an extensive nationwide network of forest-therapy trails, introducing the rest of the world to the concept of “forest bathing.” Clinical studies have provided insight into this phenomenon, finding that time spent walking or sitting among living trees may reduce stress, lower blood pressure, strengthen immunities, and improve our overall mental and physiological well-being.

A forest is a welcoming haven in any season. It has its own air conditioning system for one thing. On hot and muggy days near my home in Vermont the forest stays much cooler than out under the sun, and in winter, trees offer protection from the frigid winds that lash fallen snow across the open fields and roads, while the leafless canopy allows the sun to slant in, casting long shadows across the snow-blanketed understory and stage-lighting an evocative topography of snow-draped conifers and lichen-covered hardwood trunks.

And of course forests provide direct physical benefits for humans as well, as we know from lived experience here in Vermont: burned in our fireplaces and woodstoves, it heats us through the long winters; sustainably logged, it makes beautiful furniture and the very beams over our heads; tapped and boiled from our sugar maples, it brings forth one of the most deliciously sweet flavors known to humankind.

Trees are a living combination of the four elements revered in most ancient human systems of belief: earth and water by way of the mycorrhizal network that allows the tree to draw moisture and mineral nutrients from the soil, fire in the form of photosynthesis to harness the burning energy of the sun, and air in the way the wind bends but doesn’t break a tree’s trunk and branches, reinforcing its remarkably strong and flexible cellular structure.

It’s not surprising that groves and glades have long been considered sacred. As John Fowles wrote in his book-length essay, The Tree:

“We know that the very first holy places in Neolithic times … were artificial groves made of felled, transported and re-erected tree trunks; and that their roofs must have seemed to their makers less roofs than artificial leaf-canopies.”

A true forest is a sacred space built not by humans but by nature itself. Walking through one, any receptive person can experience the intrinsic holiness of the physical world. Toward the end of his life, the novelist Herman Hesse wrote:

“A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.”

Trees, it seems, may be messengers of a sort: stately, long-lived healers whose presence in our surroundings reminds us of our connection to the ineffable, while at the same time offering a way out of the environmental and spiritual degradation we’ve subjected ourselves to in our long, self-imposed exile from the heart of nature.

A young hophornbeam tree, planted (and photo by) Tim Weed. Used with permission.

And it seems that humanity may finally be getting the message. My social media feeds are filled with the accounts of tree-worshippers and rewilding organizations like “@bigtreehunter” and “@americanforests” and “@trees_boston.” Granted, this could just be the algorithms at work — I love trees and forests and am attuned to others who feel the same — but I’m also seeing tree-related stories in the news media with more and more frequency.

For me, this resurgence of interest in these ancient beings is cause for celebration and for hope: celebration that despite the damage we’ve done to our planetary ecology trees remain among us, and we among them; hope that the beauty, mystery, and wisdom they embody will continue to exist for many new generations of humanity to care for and enjoy.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator:

A Helping Hand for Mangroves

 

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In conservation reporting and advocacy, including mine, you’ll often see articles or experts cite statistics and figures that discuss the global state of groups of species like sharks, primates, orchids, or corals over years or decades.

Have you ever wondered, “how do scientists know that?”

A recent report from the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Shark Specialist Group offers some insight — not just on the global status of sharks (TL:DR — it’s bad) but on how researchers and conservationists come to understand how well other large groups of related but widely distributed species are faring in the modern world.

The report, “The global status of sharks, rays, and chimaeras,” is a staggering work of conservation science. It synthesizes everything we know about the current conservation status of over 1,000 species of these amazing animals, organized at both the global scale and by country and region. It took 353 shark science and conservation experts from 158 countries — all volunteers — nearly two years to write. It’s also a case where the “behind the scenes” story of how it was made tells us much about the current state of the field.

So What Did They Find?

The latest shark conservation statistics are striking.

“We knew that worldwide, 37% of all species are threatened with extinction, but one of the things that came up writing this report was the number of species threatened at the country level,” says Rima Jabado, the chair of the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group and the lead author of the report. For some countries it was up to 70% of all local species.

 

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The report also revealed how much we don’t know: We just don’t have the kind of reliable data needed to track population trends for far too many species of concern in far too many countries, so the real figures may be even worse.

Additionally, those numbers are for the aggregate group of sharks and their relatives. Jabado stressed that rays are more threatened than sharks, and chimeras lack a lot of data.

The report also found that the biggest threat to sharks and their relatives — by far — comes from unsustainable fishing practices. But the team cautions that this does not just refer to shark finning, despite that being the most common threat that many shark enthusiasts have heard of.

“An emerging thing we’re seeing is that the shark meat trade is growing,” says Alexandra Morata, the program officer for the SSG. “It’s not just fins, and we should care about sharks and their conservation, not just because of fins.”

On top of the threats, the report also found that as of the end of 2023 science has identified 1,266 species of sharks, rays, and chimeras, with more than one-quarter of those species described since the start of the 21st century. This taxonomy research is vital to underpin conservation efforts — after all, we can’t understand how threatened a species is or how to protect it if we don’t know that it even exists.

These might seem like some pretty clear assessments. But getting to these conclusions presented some challenges — and required a clear vision and a lot of hard work and sacrifice.

How Did Leaders Get So Many People in So Many Different Places to Work Together for So Long?

Part of the answer was a clear vision for a useful product.

“People felt there was a lot of value in having a report with information at the country level when you want policymakers to read something about their own country and take action,” says Jabado. “We wanted a one-stop shop where you can find any information that you want about sharks, rays, and chimaeras at the country level, written in a way that anyone could understand it.”

The IUCN has a known track record of producing useful, actionable products like this — while some other conservation organizations have a reputation for shouting into the void without getting much done. It can be easier to get people to contribute when they know the end product has a clear chance of making a real difference.

 

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Another part of the answer is a sense of shared mission of the organization and a shared love of sharks and their conservation.

“People believe in the mission of the Shark Specialist Group, they love to contribute to [its] work, and they love to get together to do that,” says Nick Dulvy, a marine ecologist at Simon Fraser University and the former co-chair of the specialist group. “Funders don’t want to work with a fractious, divided, territorial scientific community. The growth of the shark conservation science community has been, in part, by its collegiality and willingness to cooperate and put considerable amounts of volunteer time into attending Red List workshops.”

How Do You Co-Write a Report With So Many People?

The SSG is one of the largest of the Species Survival Commission’s specialist groups, and it’s organized into global regions, each with their own regional vice chair or chairs.

“We communicated with our regional vice chairs a lot, and they helped to herd scientists in their respective regions,” says Morata. “We also hosted a series of regional in-person workshops that allowed local experts to meet and contribute, and then a small additional workshop just for overall report editors. By the time the report got to about 2,000 pages, I was basically living on chocolate and coffee.”

In cases where an in-person workshop wasn’t an option, the answer was long Zoom calls, often at inconvenient times for someone.

“We needed to get the Caribbean people together for six hours,” says Jabado, who is based in Dubai. “But day for them meant night for me here. It was the middle of the night in some cases, but I accepted it. Everybody sacrificed eventually along the way.”

Getting so many people from all over the world to contribute to a cohesive product that is still useful at the country level also required some flexibility with formatting — essentially letting each regional team write their sections in a way most useful to them.

“We gave them headings, and we wanted things structured overall, but we allowed it to flow however they thought would work best,” says Jabado. “They know their countries best.”

Another challenge was language. Although the report is in English, that’s not the first language for many of the contributors. Morata and Jabado spent a great deal of time carefully rephrasing text and going back and forth with contributors, taking care to make sure that what was written reflected what the authors were really trying to say.

Some Advice

For conservation science colleagues trying to engage in a similar large project, Jabado has some hard-won advice to share.

“Engage with as many people as you can, be open to suggestions, and be patient,” she says. “This will take longer than you plan, and in some cases you’ll have people finishing their chapters…and waiting [two years] for it to be published because 100 other countries haven’t finished their chapters yet.”

 

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Overall, despite logistical complications in writing such a large report, the team says they are thrilled with the output.

“We wanted to translate all the science into something a bit more tangible and accessible,” says Jabado. “And in a lot of countries, a lot of people are already using it to engage with their government.”

That means the report is already helping sharks and their relatives “on the ground.” Scientists, meanwhile, have clear marching orders: Fill in those data gaps the report revealed.

And of course, all this work sets the stage for the next big update — although the team may take a couple of years off before they do this again.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator:

The Curlew, the Cactus, and the Obliterated Whitefish: The Species We Lost in 2024

 

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You may have heard about biomimicry, a technological and social movement predicated on the idea of designing systems inspired by biological processes. The theory is that natural systems, over millions of years of evolution and adaptation, must have optimized certain processes — and that humans can adapt these processes into our own systems. Innovations discovered through the study of biology and ecology have already contributed to important advancements for our species, from artificial spider silk to biological systems for data storage.

While much of the conversation around biomimicry focuses on technological applications, several environmental thinkers in recent years have called for social and economic systems to take inspiration from nature. For example, reciprocal, gift, and ecological economics are based on the principle of symbiosis, where unrelated species perform mutually beneficial services for one another. By developing economic structures modeled after mutual collaboration between two or more species, proponents argue, we can establish kinder and more equitable social relations, where goods and services are shared between individuals based on convivial exchange — an economy of flowers and pollinators over an economy of lions and gazelles.

Social biomimicry has transformative potential, just as technological biomimicry has helped to inject new ideas into the realms of engineering, robotics, and materials.

The field, however, lacks some of the critical assessment and rigor necessary to optimize these novel ideas. To achieve truly transformative potential, social biomimicry must evolve.

Personally, I have developed an understanding of the practice of biomimicry through my graduate research with perennial wheat, a newly domesticated species. This research is part of an effort to design crops that emulate the biology of prairie plants, particularly their deep roots that improve soil and water quality. As I reviewed the history of this work, it became apparent that a big reason for the success of this research was the extensive trial and error necessary to integrate ecological inspiration into human systems. Recent breakthroughs were only possible due to a deep commitment to experimentalism and caution when scaling these new technologies.

As I have become more involved with biomimicry within the context of social systems, I believe the field could benefit from some of those qualities as it evolves.

Scholarship Through Analogy

The foundational idea driving thinking within social biomimicry comes from the Gaia hypothesis, which posits that natural systems have evolved in concert with the planet to be self-regulating and self-perpetuating, continually pursuing the optimal arrangement of organisms for mutual prosperity. The Gaia hypothesis is symbiosis on steroids, the totality of all biological kingdoms singing in a magnificent chorus of life.

While we are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about how collaboration underlies many ecosystem functions, some proponents, philosophers, and commentators overemphasize or even deify such processes, which can cloud our understanding of the forces that power ecosystems. This leads us to center a subset of culturally idolized processes as opposed to soberly assessing constituent parts and processes governing ecosystems.

Many calls for social biomimicry start at the position that nature is inherently worthy of emulation, and that anything deemed natural must be a valuable model for designing social systems. This view places nature on a reverential pedestal where ecology becomes a “sacred scripture” of sorts — a screen onto which we project existing values and desires. Those who value community and sharing can point to more cooperative relationships in the natural world, like the bee and the flower, as a justification for their preferences. Conversely, those who prefer a society of cutthroat competition can point to the elk clashing horns over a mate. Nature nurtures just as much as it brutalizes. Both worldviews can draw justifications for their preferences from biology and ecology.

By relying on these analyses in promoting biomimicry, we are using nature, a system with no consciousness, as a source of ethical guidance. Morality is not what we glean from studying ecology.

The processes that ecosystems have spent eons refining are where the real utility lies.

In seeking these material benefits, social biomimicry must pursue a program of empirical experimentation. As it stands, a lot of the rhetoric around social biomimicry operates in the realm of analogy. A natural system is described and related to a human social dynamic, with the author gesturing as to how humans could emulate the ecological phenomenon being observed.

Take alternate bearing in trees as an example. Oaks or pecans will coordinate a surge of nuts to overwhelm herbivore populations, like squirrels or raccoons, resulting in more saplings becoming established. It’s a great lesson in the power of collaboration to defeat an adversary.

Most biomimicry literature would wax poetic on how we can apply similar strategies in our societies. But all this amounts to is a parable, with limited information on the actual design of novel systems. To evolve the field, empirical analysis of and experimentation with the material parallels between natural and human systems is necessary.

A good example can be found in the book Honeybee Democracy, where biologist Thomas Seeley shows how beehives operate a deeply democratic system of decision-making when choosing where to locate a hive. Scout bees rigorously collect information and present proposed sites to the group, which are then debated through the famous waggle dance until a consensus is established. Once a new site is chosen, the bees dedicate themselves to this decision, even if they argued strenuously against it. As opposed to the system of adversarial democracy employed in many governments today, this method of consensus and unity seems like a refreshing alternative.

However, Seeley writes, the applicability of the lessons we learn from the honeybee depends on biological context, which subsequently affects how they are applied to human systems. Bees have an intense cognitive disposition towards unity. Within the hive, human traits like tribalism are absent, not due to ideological dedication but genetic codification. For organizing units of thousands to millions of individual humans, such a unified front with a complete lack of dissent is incredibly difficult to achieve. Bees have a neurology that predisposes them to prioritize unwavering cooperation, a trait that is absent in human psychology.

As Seeley illustrates, this model of consensus decision-making has been shown to work for small groups of people that have a sense of unity among them, such as a faculty meeting or activist group. These situations partially replicate the conditions that allow this form of governance to function in the hive.

But he also cautions that upon changing the scale in which we attempt to import the Honeybee Democracy framework into human decision-making, the model breaks down and the lessons are less workable. This meticulous analysis of how a process plays out in nature, in this case by comparing bee and human psychology, can inform its translatability to human contexts.

Empiricism in Social Biomimicry

When mimicking nature, I have found that factors such as scale, sector, geography, and culture influence how a natural process is operationalized into human systems.

For example, gift economies rooted in symbiosis work well for food or clothing, as these are goods where sharing and reciprocity are culturally familiar and logistically feasible to execute within local communities. If I have excess produce from my garden, I can distribute cucumbers or strawberries to neighbors and friends. Then, come spring, my foraging friends will return the favor with fresh morels. Reciprocity functions well in tight-knit social networks and within certain domains of consumption.

On the other hand, this model would fail in areas like healthcare, where there are a small number of highly skilled individuals with decades of education providing specialized services using expensive equipment. It’s intensive on both an individual and system-wide level, and it’s unlikely that I would have anything I could give to my doctor that would come close to covering the resources they expended on me. Modern healthcare simply cannot function through a symbiosis-like exchange of resources, as there is no organismal relationship that has achieved mutual benefit with such a heavy resource imbalance between participants. The difference in resource and energy investment between producer and consumer will change whether symbiosis is possible across different sectors of the economy.

This analytical approach to adapting social innovations from the natural world, I would argue, would greatly improve proposals originating within social biomimicry. In my own work, I found some of the following questions to be powerful tools for exploration: What are the behaviors participant organisms exhibit, and could these be reasonably replicated by humans given what we know about our psychology and social dynamics? What levels of investment in energy, nutrients, or labor do each organism put into and get out of their relationships? Do similar proportions in investment exist within a segment of our economy where such a relationship could be recreated? What aspects of the natural system could be quantified in a manner that parallels human systems?

Instead of simply pointing to various ecological interactions and saying, “We should emulate that,” we should be analyzing these systems and their potential human analogues systematically. For example, we could design political or organizational models that adapt over time based on mechanisms learned from studying evolution. Or we could build new economic systems that have a diversity of forms and functions fashioned after the types of heterogeneity present in wild populations.

A great example of this more empirical form of biomimicry in action is the Kalundborg Ecopark in Denmark, an industrial park modeled off of the cycling of resources that underlies ecosystems. A core aspect of ecosystem functioning is every scrap of sunlight, water, and nutrients left after the death and decay of one organism is consumed by another. Resources flow circularly through a web of creatures. This is antithetical to modern methods of industrial production, which produce prodigious volumes of waste as the result of linear production chains. The Ecopark was designed to emulate this cycling of resources by basing the production lines of unrelated companies on one another’s waste streams. The designers studied natural processes, identified spaces in human systems where reorganizing processes along ecological lines proved advantageous and experimented to ensure that it worked well as an alternative.

It’s not perfect, but broadly the Ecopark has been able to drastically cut down on material and energy waste for participant firms, serving as a powerful example of what is possible when we study nature with a critical eye.

Social biomimicry should conduct experiments exploring how these ideas may work in human contexts. Concepts should be introduced on a small scale and slowly grown out, with ample measurement to determine whether our needs are being fulfilled by the model. As new systems grow, we can adapt them to the needs of the situation.

Fundamentally, our attention should remain on studying and translating processes from the natural world into the human world. Values, doctrines, and ideology are inexorably human and are areas that should remain the domain of people.

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Who Heals the Earth’s Healers? Ways to Avert Burnout for Environmental Advocates

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“I cannot keep you safe.”

This recurring line in Primeval, Mai Der Vang’s powerful new poetry collection, doesn’t just echo through her book. Similar themes appear through many of this year’s new environmental poetry books. They reflect the fear and frustration we all share about what’s happening to the natural world we love so much.

But love itself is another constant in these books: Love of the Earth, appreciation for wild things and places, and a call to defend it all.

Of course, some of these wild species and places have already been lost, leaving holes in our world and our hearts. That grief also comes out in these poets’ voices.

That’s the collective promise of environmental poetry: It’s a chance to celebrate nature, embrace its magic, mourn what we’ve lost, and remind us to do better.

Here are my reviews of eight powerful new environmental poetry collections published this year. I’ve also included one magazine issue and a new compendium of work by Mary Oliver, the late champion of verse about nature.

This barely scratches the surface of the wide range of environmental poetry books published so far this year, so expect more reviews in the months ahead.

As always, the title of each book links to the publishers’ sites, but you should also be able to find most of these volumes through your local library or bookseller.

Seed Beetle

By Mahaila Smith

From the publisher: In a climate changed future, Canada is thought to be a promised land. But in southern Ontario, the promise and the land are exhausted: industrialization has led to widespread destruction, desertification and food insecurity. So when Utopic Robotics promises growth and presents a community with a swarm of automated beetles that will revitalize the land and rebuild utopia, community members rally behind the corporation and its message of hope. But technological solutions often come with secret risks.

Our review: An intense, thought-provoking poetry collection from the future, depicting a 22nd-century world ravaged by climate change, industrialization, Cronenberg-style implants, AI robots, pollution, and other threats. Smith has the byline on the cover, but the book’s unique conceit is that it’s a posthumous collection of poems by a writer who lived through this chaos while seeking love, peace, and family amidst the machinations of a dangerous corporation called Utopic Robotics. It’s high-concept science fiction, but it all feels painfully relevant to today. Easily one of my favorite books of the year. (I enjoyed the electronic review copy so much I bought it in hard copy.)

Bad Is Bent Good

By Dave Mehler

From the publisher: …a deeply immersive, poetic exploration of life working at a landfill in Portland, Oregon.

Our review: One of the poems in this collection is titled “We are daily witness to the world’s wastes.” That sums it up: This is a powerful, revelatory, occasionally infuriating, often disturbing book about what we discard: things, nature, and people. It’s not an easy book. It shines a light on systems most of us would prefer to ignore. We look away at our own peril. Not to be missed.

When We Only Have the Earth

By Abdourahman A. Waberi

Translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson

From the publisher: In this ode to the earth and all its living creatures, French Djiboutian poet, novelist, and essayist Abdourahman A. Waberi sounds the alarm about our imperiled planet… Waberi, a nomad at heart, takes us on a whirlwind tour across North America, Africa, and Europe, daring us to love the earth “beyond all rational thought” and to “turn into earth, both literally and figuratively,” as we “turn from vanity, fears, and other pointless rustling.”

Our review: A short but moving book, full of perspectives we don’t often see, like the casual reference to people rushing out to pour buckets of water on beached whales suffering under the heat of the African sun.

Primordial

By Mai Der Vang

From the publisher: With profound and attentive care, Vang addresses the plight of the saola, an extremely rare and critically endangered animal native to the Annamite Mountains in Laos and Vietnam… Primordial examines the saola’s relationship to Hmong refugee identity and cosmology and a shared sense of exile, precarity, privacy, and survival. Can a war-torn landscape and memory provide sanctuary, and what are the consequences for our climate, our origins, our ability to belong to a homeland?

Our review: An ode to the rarely seen, critically endangered saola — but so much more. Vang uses the pain and grief from this disappearing species to discuss colonialism, the refugee-immigrant experience (especially as it relates to the Hmong people and her own identity), the Vietnam war, racism, trauma, motherhood, and so much more. The result is a brilliant, haunting poetry collection steeped in conservation issues that also delivers insight into the human experience.

Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority

Edited by Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf

From the publisher: There has been a welcome surge of nature writing in recent years. Yet this has raised questions as to whose voices are privileged and heard in a space predominantly occupied by Western European traditions and authors…. [Nature Matters] presents brand-new commissions alongside formative works from the past fifty years that invite us to reconsider nature poetry from global-majority perspectives. Image-rich and formally diverse, the poems explore fundamental and ecological themes including climate crisis and the Anthropocene; urban nature, solitude and alienation; protest and radical empathy; Indigenous wisdom and alternative histories.

Our review: An explosion of voices and rich perspectives. This book is going to send me down the rabbit hole to track down more works by dozens of the collected authors.

Climate

By Whitney Hanson

From the publisher: Honest, poignant, and relatable, Climate is a journey in embracing change both internally and externally. It guides us through all the weather we may face, from the stormy heartbreak to the foggy mental space to the sunny other side…

Our review: This intense, emotional poetry collection isn’t (no matter what the title suggests) about climate change, but it does take its cues from the broader climate: the weather, the seasons, the cultural connections that pull us together and push us apart. It’s about love, loss, the way the rain makes us feel, and the sun (or lack thereof) in our hearts. I wouldn’t call this an environmental book, except the natural world is intrinsically part of the human experience, and Hanson dives into that without restraint.

The Best American Poetry 2025

Series Editor: David Lehman; Guest Editor: Terence Winch

Our review: No need to include a publisher’s description this time — the title says it all. As you might guess, this is a wide-ranging anthology, covering a variety of tones, formats, and styles. It’s not strictly an environmental collection, but some elements of nature appear in many if not most of the poems. Sometimes it’s just a brief, poetic mention of magic or grief. Others reflect these crisis-filled times more directly, like “Climate Anxiety” by Patricia Davis-Muffett. The collection feels a bit more Western than Nature Matters (it does focus on American poetry, after all), but every poem lives up to its “best of” designation. (Available Sept. 2, 2025)

Little Alleluias: Collected Poetry and Prose

By Mary Oliver

Our review: A new compendium of three previously published Mary Oliver books (two volumes of poetry and a third of mostly prose). As you might expect, that makes this triple-worthy of your attention. I’ve read a lot of Oliver over the years, but not these three volumes. I’m grateful for the opportunity to enjoy them back-to-back-to-back. (Available Sept. 9, 2025)

You Are a Sacred Place: Visual Poems for Living in Climate Crisis

By Madeleine Jubilee Saito

From the publisher: Framed as a letter in response to a loved one’s pain, this series of ethereal vignettes takes readers on a journey from seemingly inescapable isolation and despair, through grief and rage, toward the hope of community and connection. Drawing on her faith as well as the tradition of climate justice, Saito reminds readers that if we’re going to challenge fossil fuel capitalism, we must first imagine what lies beyond it: The beauty and joy of a healed world.

Our review: Intense, lovely, and dreamlike, this collection of poems in comics form embraces the pain of fire, flood, and capitalism-driven climate change. More importantly, it crystalizes our collective strife into a call for justice. The book’s 17 poems are presented in a series of painted images, mostly four panels to a page. In addition to the emotional text, the poems use the visuals to set or continue the mood and narrative. Some sequences go on for several pages without a single word — poetry by way of image and imagination. It’s a powerful experience that deserves our attention while it attempts to heal our souls.

Eye to the Telescope issue 57, July 2025

Edited by Maria Schrater

From the publisher: In this issue, birds are enemies and omens, friends and gods, devoured and devouring. The endless diversity of birds is one of the great marvels of our world. Migration patterns, flight mechanics, song, life cycle, and more — it’s a diverse pool to draw from, with deeper potential with the addition of speculative layers.

Our review: Something different to end these reviews: The bird-themed issue of this online magazine published by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. Seventeen authors (and one translator) bring an amazing diversity of tone and structure to these poems, with haunting results. Also check out the April 2025 issue, themed around plants.

That’s it for this month, but you can find hundreds of additional environmental book recommendations, including a few more poetry collections, in the “Revelator Reads” archives.

And let us know what you’re reading: drop us a line at comments@therevelator.org

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator:

Summer of Change: New Books to Inspire Environmental Action

The post Earth Versed: 10 New Poetry Books About Our Relationship With Nature appeared first on The Revelator.

War’s impact often ripples far beyond the battlefield — setting off a chain of consequences that shape landscapes, cultures, and economies in ways no one could predict. As we mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, we must recognize that its aftershocks are still playing out in some of the most unexpected ways.

In Southeast Asia, the Vietnam War unleashed just such an effect, influencing the illegal tiger trade that today spans Vietnam, Malaysia, and beyond. What began as wartime survival and cultural resilience has, over time, fed a cross-border black market in tiger parts — one that these countries are now working to dismantle.

Against that vast backdrop of lost lives, shattered communities, and devastated landscapes, focusing on something like the illegal tiger trade might seem oddly narrow, even trivial. And yet, that narrow focus reveals a surprising truth: what many might assume is a free-standing wildlife trafficking problem is intricately woven into the broader social, economic, and cultural histories of Vietnam and Malaysia.

I’ve been working on issues related to trafficking of big cats for the past decade. To address it effectively requires engaging with this deep complexity — the legacy of war, the persistence of tradition, and the realities of economic survival — rather than viewing it as a straightforward market problem.

With this shared history as a foundation, Vietnam and Malaysia are uniquely positioned to lead a regional conservation resurgence.

A War That Disrupted More Than Just Borders

The Vietnam War — or, as it’s known in Vietnam, the Resistance War Against America — left behind a staggering ecological toll. Aerial bombing, napalm, and chemical defoliants like Agent Orange destroyed up to 30% of Vietnam’s forests, wiping out critical habitat for species like the Indochinese tiger.

That ecological crisis, of course, came alongside a human one. With medicines in short supply, many Vietnamese communities returned to traditional remedies made from herbs and animal products — an enthusiastic and proud revival of a Vietnamese national medicine, blending ancient remedies with some modern medicines.

But by the 1990s, things had shifted. As Vietnam’s economy took off, so did spending power. Expensive wildlife remedies, long associated with vitality and strength, were suddenly affordable to more people. A cultural practice born of need became a consumer trend.

Vietnam’s Tigers Vanish — and Attention Turns South

Vietnam’s wild tiger population had all but vanished by the early 2000s.

That scarcity didn’t curb demand though — it just redirected it across the South Asian Sea. Malaysia, with more intact forest and a surviving population of Malayan tigers, became an attractive source for traders.

The route between Vietnam and Malaysia wasn’t new. After the war, Malaysia took in hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees. Over time, that humanitarian corridor turned into something else: labor migration. By the 2000s, Vietnamese workers were filling jobs in Malaysia’s fast-growing palm oil, timber, and manufacturing sectors — many of them in or near tiger habitats.

This migration wasn’t about wildlife. But as is often the case, when workers stumbled upon animals, some saw a way to pad their income — a shift that, over time and with the help of certain Malaysian traders, poachers, and facilitators, evolved into specialized roles within the illegal trade. What began as a small-scale activity evolved into something more organized — not just in tiger products, but also in other high-value forest goods, such as agarwood.

Vietnamese harvesting teams, already operating abroad for agarwood in Thailand and Laos, often became the backbone of these expanding networks. The infrastructure was already there: shared language, established routes, and an expanding black market.

Quang Binh became one of the main provinces for teams of poachers travelling overseas. Hammered by wartime bombing and recurring natural disasters, many residents developed bushcraft survival skills during the war and passed these on to the next generation. Some later used those same skills to participate in forest harvesting and poaching activities abroad, including in Malaysia. Their story is one of economic need intersecting with global demand.

The consequences for Malaysia’s wildlife were devastating. As demand surged, so did pressure on the Malayan tiger. Poaching, compounded by habitat loss, drove the population into freefall. By 2021 fewer than 200 Malayan tigers remained — placing the species on the brink of extinction.

Turning History Into Leadership

Neither Malaysia nor Vietnam created the demand for tiger parts alone — and neither country can end the trade on its own. But both have taken real steps toward conservation.

Malaysia strengthened its wildlife laws in 2010, mobilized over 1,000 community rangers, and formed the National Malayan Tiger Task Force (MyTTF) in 2021, chaired by the prime minister. This raised the urgency for actions to save the critically endangered species. Vietnam also introduced tougher penalties in 2019 and remains a committed party to international wildlife agreements like CITES (The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).

And just this year, the two nations signed a comprehensive strategic partnership — a sweeping agreement that, among other priorities, names security and defense cooperation as shared goals. It’s a sign that the era of isolated efforts may be coming to an end.

Lessons From the Past

This shared history offers three key takeaways.

First: War changes ecosystems — and societies. The destruction of Vietnam’s forests and healthcare systems didn’t just hurt tigers in the short term; it also shifted how people related to nature, medicine, and survival.

Second: cultural practices aren’t static. What began as traditional healing became a luxury trend. Conservation efforts must address both cultural roots and economic shifts.

And finally: solutions must cross borders. The tiger trade is transnational, and so are the forces driving it — from poverty to prestige to migration. Conservation must be transnational too.

A New Chapter for Tigers

Vietnam and Malaysia’s intertwined past and emerging interdependence can now become a foundation for something new. But seizing this moment means going beyond policy statements.

Neither country can do this alone; they need each other. The comprehensive strategic partnership offers a new foundation for dismantling the Malaysia-Vietnam tiger trafficking problem.

Accomplishing this requires cross-border information sharing and joint counter-trafficking strategies that target key points along the supply chain — both of which the strategic partnership should now enable. Vietnam and Malaysia can now prioritize closing opportunities for the illegal movement of people, wildlife products, and finances that sustain the problem, and coordinating investigations against key roles in the trade.

The private financial and transportation sectors have levers to pull here. For example, investigating and freezing assets of individuals financing and profiting from tiger trafficking, enhancing screening, and checking procedures in the transport sector.

Governments and NGOs can also harness rural development schemes and vocational training programs, combined with engagement to shift community acceptance away from the illegal wildlife trade. Successful community-based programs in Vietnam, India, and Indonesia have shown how combining clear communication of risks with targeted assistance can steer would-be poachers toward safer, legal livelihoods, but need funding and scale from national governments.

Conservation isn’t just about saving tigers. It’s about supporting people — especially those in the shadow of poverty and conflict. As we mark both 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War and International Tiger Day, the chance to turn a difficult legacy into a powerful model for ecological recovery is a real one.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator:

Wildlife Trafficking: 10 Things Everyone Needs to Know

The post 50 Years Later: The Vietnam War’s Enduring Effect on the Tiger Trade appeared first on The Revelator.

In 1982 cartoonist Bob Thaves wrote that dancer Fred Astaire “was great, but don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did… backwards and in high heels.”

When it comes to environmental and LGBTQIA+ activism, nothing could be truer of drag queen extraordinaire, Pattie Gonia, who first went viral in 2018 after posting a video of herself hiking in six-inch-heeled boots. Overnight she became the “backpacking queen.”

With her fiery auburn hair and mustache and fantastical costumes made of upcycled and recycled clothing and other materials, Pattie has become the fierce voice of a generation determined to combat climate change. She has capitalized on her ever-growing platform of more than 700,000 social media followers to spread her message through gloriously entertaining videos and stage performances at festivals across the world.

Ever since she discovered drag to express herself authentically, Pattie has merged powerful, often comedic performance art with her unwavering, inspiring dedication to raise awareness about threats to nature, both manmade and otherwise.

Pattie Gonia on stage in Denver. Photo: Monica Lloyd Photography, used with permission

A leading advocate for inclusivity and diversity in the outdoors, Pattie co-founded the Outdoorist Club, a nonprofit that encourages LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and femmes to venture into the outdoors through community and education. She is also a board member of Brave Trails, which provides a summer camp and backpacking trips for queer youth, as well as the founder of the Queer Outdoor and Environmental Job Board, a free career sourcing tool.

To date she has fundraised over $2.7 million for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and environmental causes. Her passionate pursuit has garnered several prestigious awards including the “Next Gen Leader 2024” from Time, “Nat Geo 33 Changemaker” by National Geographic, and “Person of the Year 2022” from Outside.

 

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We spoke with Pattie Gonia during a break from her ambitious international touring schedule, which is currently bringing a team of environmentally focused drag queens to venues around the United States.

Aside from “going outside,” where do you find your source of personal strength and joy to continue your work as an environmental activist?

My chosen family. Other drag performers like Sasha Velour, Shea Couleé and VERA!

And knowing that every time I take action for people and the planet, a little bit of fascism dies a sweet death.

Now that we are witnessing the rapid-fire dismantling of protections for federal wildlife lands and nature preserves, has your approach to environmental activism changed? Do you see it changing with the rollback of laws that have preserved our environment?

Now is an important time to remember what our queer elders who founded the queer rights movement knew well –– we mourn in the morning, we fight in the afternoon, and we dance in the evening –– and it’s the dancing that keeps us going. We need to fight hard but we also need to celebrate the wins, build the community and make the joy that will sustain the movement.

Do you see your approach to your drag art form evolving to meet these new threats, or will it remain the same?

Yes, [a lot of] drag represents a fight for nature, just as much as the fight for equality of the people on it.

Is it harder to find the “joy” at the center of your message? Or have you found a renewed strength in the new challenges ahead?

Joy is and always will be the goal. They take joy away from us and what do we got? Make no mistake, people in power want us to believe we don’t deserve joy. That’s when they win. I won’t let them have that.

In a time when millions of people are feeling disheartened, demoralized and even terrified for the future, what would you say to rally them to continue their efforts to fight for the protection of our environment and find their joy?

Inaction is an active choice. Doing nothing is doing something. People in power want us to believe that we can’t affect change. Yet, if we look at history, we can see that time and time again, the people united will never be defeated.

 

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What are three things that members of the LGBTQIA+ community can do today to show the world that they still believe in the protection of nature and our world? How can they use self-expression to promote the cause of saving our natural environment?

One: We must remember that nature is gay as fuck. I’m not talking gay whales that have sex with each other, which is true. But I’m talking about a broad definition of queerness in nature –– the way nature problem solves, resists, gets creative and survives against adversity. That’s queer nature to me.

Two: Go outside with people you love in a way you love. Doesn’t have to be a 20-mile hike. How about a picnic or a blunt or a walk outside at a local park?

Three: When we go outside, we build a relationship to nature. Through that relationship we realize how needed it is to fight and protect nature, because we fight for what we love.

Pattie Gonia’s current projects include a touring drag show entitled SAVE HER!, a TV series with Bonnie Wright of “Harry Potter” fame, and collaborations with artists and musicians across a variety of environmental spaces. To learn more about Pattie and her organizations and nonprofits, visit her website or find her on Instagram and TikTok @pattiegonia.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator:

Environmental Muralist Faunagraphic Brings an Urban Oasis to the Concrete Jungle

The post Pattie Gonia: Nature’s Warrior Queen appeared first on The Revelator.

What would you do if an energy company declared that it planned to build a natural-gas pipeline through your property, your community, and the surrounding countryside?

For many residents of Virginia and West Virginia, that question became a reality in 2014 when a consortium of energy companies announced plans to build the Mountain Valley Pipeline, using eminent domain to claim a wide swath of public and private lands.

Residents and activists spent the next 10 years fighting the project. In the process, they connected with each other, built community resources and mutual-aid networks, and inspired other activists around the country.

They lost the fight — the pipeline started transmitting gas in 2024, two years after West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin struck a deal with President Joe Biden to help push the climate legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act over the finish line.

But their experiences offer valuable lessons for other communities, says activist and artist Denali Sai Nalamalapu, who spent several years involved in the battle against the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Nalamalapu has now collected six residents’ stories — including a single mother, a photographer, a teacher, and an Indigenous seed keeper — in the new book, Holler: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance (Timber Press).

The Revelator recently sat down with Nalamalapu to discuss the graphic novel, the ongoing climate fight, the problem of “false hope” narratives, and how to find balance in a worsening crisis. (This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.)

Could you put this book in the context of your greater activism?

I’ve been a climate organizer since I graduated college in 2017. I was living on Borneo in Malaysian territory through a Fulbright grant and was surrounded by the impacts of palm oil plantations and rainforest destruction. I was thinking a lot about how complicated environmental destruction and climate change are, even though our impulse is often to simplify things. That made me want to go into climate organizing and climate communications, where I became very interested in who was being left out from the narrative and who we weren’t speaking to, because climate communications can be very scientific and can be specific to Western audiences.

Ultimately I landed in the Mountain Valley Pipeline site in Appalachia in 2021.

One of my big questions there was, where could we be more accessible and who are we leaving out of our audience, because the audience could be so big with a fossil fuel pipeline during this point in the climate crisis.

And you carried that over to the book, where you interviewed a range of people who seem like the people who would often get ignored in these narratives. Are you hoping that readers have six opportunities to see a little something of themselves in that book?

Yeah, that’s a big part of why I wrote the book and how I wrote it. In talking to people like Karolyn Givens, whose story is featured in the second chapter, I was struck by how many of us have grandmothers who are nurses or other people in our family who worked in the medical field. I hope that people pick up the book and see someone like Karolyn or Becky Crabtree, who is a science teacher. So many of us have teachers in our lives.

And they can see how these ordinary people use the skills that they already had to be part of resistance to a powerful, giant, fossil fuel project, even though they weren’t career activists.

 

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I’m so taken by the artwork in this book. It’s pared down, a little cartoony. But the linework is very evocative and reveals the destruction and the pain on these people’s faces. Did you learn anything through drawing it in this approach?

I always felt like my path as an artist was too winding, like I didn’t have necessarily a specific medium that was my thing. I was just always obsessed with making art, whether that was painting portraits most recently, or in my very early days of childhood that was cartooning and comics. And the thing that surprised me is that all those different journeys —through ceramics and printmaking and cartooning and portraiture — did come together in this large project.

For example, I spent so much time during the pandemic in oil and acrylic portraiture, so I learned a lot about the shadows on people’s faces. There’s not a lot I could do to really make those emotions on people’s faces be super realistic, because by design they weren’t supposed to be. But shadows are one way to connect them to the way I see people.

 

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Now, this is a fight that did not pan out. A lot of people and land faced a lot of destruction. The pipeline still pretty much went through as planned. But there’s still an important message you’re trying to convey here about hope and about continuing to fight these pipelines. Can you speak about that?

I feel that at this point in the climate crisis and in the climate movement, we can’t just be looking for 100% crystal-clear wins, because the reality is that our future will be imperfect — especially when we think about how reluctant and combative leaders and the United States have been to retiring fossil fuels. And when we look at the way capitalism has such a tight grip on our world, I think that it’s important to tell stories that have more complexity than just “we won.”

And the Mountain Valley pipeline is one of those stories. Being part of the movement, I saw every day that it mattered that we fought against the pipeline for 10 years.

There were some anecdotes that suggested that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline getting canceled was connected to the fierce direct-action movement against the Mountain Valley pipeline. The Atlantic Coast developers didn’t want to put up with that degree of resistance.

And there are many other ways to look at the community that was built, the mutual aid networks that were built around monitoring water quality across the route, the ordinary people who learned about our regulatory agencies and how we can advocate for planetary well-being and community well-being in those agencies.

All these things felt very important in the day-to-day and I think, looking back, are important to remember. Because I think we lose out if we just have complete 100% happy hope or complete despair. There’s so much in between, and I hope that this book can contribute to all of the stories and possibilities in between.

There are now hundreds of smaller pipelines in the works or in the planning phases around the country. People in those communities could learn from this book.

We’re definitely seeing that with the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate site, where many people living on the main line still support the resistors on the extension that MVP is trying to build into North Carolina.

 

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Generally, the fossil-fuel industry has changed its playbook from the massive pipelines we saw 10 years ago to much smaller pipelines.

I think one thing that feels important and makes me feel hopeful as an activist is that many people see the connections between all these pipelines, all these small projects and the banks and insurers behind them. And people are seeing more clearly how capitalism is behind this, and corporate greed is behind this.

There’s certainly a lot of work left to do, and a lot more people to share the message with. But the reality of this massive pipeline going through — and then MVP pursuing a tiny extension along with a bunch of other smaller projects in the southeast — is that these movements are quite connected and the pipeline fighters are learning from each other.

I hope that this book can be part of people’s journey, whether they’re shifting from the mentality of fighting big projects to fighting many smaller projects, or they’re newer to the climate movement and they’re trying to learn about the history of the fight and all the possibilities that are before them in terms of how they resist.

You’re on tour now. You’re doing some signings and some events. What kind of reaction are you getting?

I started writing this book before the MVP was greenlit and completed. I didn’t know how it would change the reception that it was a completed project. But I’m really pleased that people are still willing to learn from the people in the book and the overall story, even though the project was completed.

I have also really enjoyed meeting expat Appalachians who feel so connected to the region and to the history of fossil fuel resistance.

Every place I go, I meet people who are very connected to these mountains, where the Appalachian Trail runs and where people have either childhood memories or hiking memories. That’s a beautiful thing, because I live in Southwest Virginia because of my love for the mountains.

And then, more broadly, I’m hearing from people about this moment.

One thing that I’m hearing is that people are very disinterested in false hope and people talking down to them about how “everything’s going to be okay.” Because we’re all seeing so clearly that things are not okay and that they are getting much worse, and that what’s happening on the federal level is very violent and is hurting people.

So, what comes next? Are you still in the fight? Are you looking at other stories to tell? Or are you just working on trying to help people in their communities right now?

I really enjoy a life of balanced organizing and creative work. I think after the November election and after the Mountain Valley pipeline was greenlit and then constructed — and the gas is flowing now — it became clear to me that two of the most important levers of power we have are our local elections and our mutual aid networks.

In terms of organizing, that’s what I’m really interested in: how we can elect climate champions on the local levels, given the clown show that is the federal government right now. And then I think it’s important that we know our neighbors and develop mutual aid networks and are prepared for storms like Hurricane Helene or other disastrous floods and wildfires.

One thing I learned working on a pipeline site that we lost is that it can be a precarious thing to anchor your hope in one action. Something that’s important to me is that I’m working on local elections near me and around the country, involved in my mutual aid networks, doing creative work — just having a diversity of things I’m doing that address climate change in different ways that are rooted in community. Right now I’m thinking about that notion of hope and what it means to actually believe in a possibility of a climate future — or of a better future in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s diluting oneself or diluting the reader in terms of false hope.

I find that having creative projects ongoing as I organize is a helpful way to keep up my energy. Otherwise, I get too pigeon-holed in one part of the work, and it’s easy to feel more despair.

Specifically, I’m interested in creating more stories for younger audiences, because I think we can never have enough support and stories for young people who are figuring out the world they’re going to enter.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator:

Building a Flock: How an Unlikely Birder Found Activism — and Community — in Nature

The post A Memoir of Resistance Shows Readers the Dangers of Fossil-Fuel Pipelines — and How to Fight Them appeared first on The Revelator.

Every summer brings the familiar joys of sunny weather, family barbecues, and beach vacations. But for Americans on the Gulf or Atlantic coasts, the daily weather forecast always comes with a constant thrum of worry — any small disturbance in the Atlantic has the potential to evolve into a major storm.

And as hurricane season gets underway, the palace intrigue, staffing cuts, and general upheaval of the Trump administration could have dire effects for people on these coasts.

We know hurricanes all too well. I was still in elementary school when we had to evacuate for Ivan and fret over Dennis in my small northwest Florida hometown. And I was in middle school in 2006, when refugees from Katrina were still pouring into my school district to enroll in my class — since their schools no longer existed.

I was in college at Louisiana State University when torrential rains flooded Baton Rouge in 2016. And just one year later, Hurricane Harvey stalled over southwest Louisiana, causing catastrophic flooding in that corner of the state.

I’m no stranger to natural disasters, and that’s exactly why I felt called to spend my career at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — one of many federal agencies that work together to both predict hurricanes and repair the damage when one strikes.

Each hurricane can feel like an act of God. Why this storm? Why now? Why my town, and why me? The longer I worked at NOAA, the more I came to appreciate how many experts work together to predict these storms and respond to them.

I wasn’t a storm chaser or a hurricane expert. I managed the budget for a major coastal wetland restoration program called the Coastal Wetland Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act.

CWPPRA is a piece of legislation spearheaded back in 1990 by Senator John Breaux of Louisiana. Five federal agencies work together to implement CWPPRA projects that build back land along Louisiana’s coastline, and NOAA alone has already restored 14,000 acres of coastal land since the law was passed 35 years ago.

Some of NOAA’s restoration projects protect the shrimp fisheries that are vital to Louisiana’s economy. Others restore habitats for migratory birds as they pass through Louisiana on their long journeys north or south. Some reinforce levees to protect crucial hurricane evacuation routes. And others still restore land that was lost in Hurricane Katrina.

It’s hard to overstate what a great investment coastal restoration is. Dozens of other government employees and I worked hard every day to design effective projects and get money out the door so that local Louisiana businesses could build land on what used to be open water.

At first glance, it might seem like my program has nothing to do with hurricane preparedness. But as any Southerner knows about hurricanes, the further inland you are, the safer you are.

That land protects every Louisianan, especially the poorest residents who are least likely to evacuate when a storm makes landfall, and most likely to suffer the consequences. And when Louisiana is protected from storm damage, that’s money FEMA doesn’t have to spend to rebuild destroyed schools, homes, and highways.

But unfortunately, NOAA — and the CWPPRA program specifically — is among the victims of this administration’s slash-and-burn tactics. And I’m one of thousands of NOAA employees who’ve lost their jobs since the president took office in January.

 

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Without my financial expertise, money isn’t getting out the door to rebuild South Louisiana. Cuts to FEMA loom on the horizon. And soon, hurricane season will ramp up ferociously. I worry about my hometown in Florida, the people of South Louisiana, and everyone in states affected by hurricanes.

It’s not too late to protect the federal workers who remain in their roles working on hurricane preparedness. Much of the damage from hurricanes this summer can be restored, but you can’t bring back the dead.

This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

Previously in The Revelator:

In Ohio, Facing a Future Without Clean Water

The post Trump’s NOAA Cuts Put Coastal Communities at Risk appeared first on The Revelator.

Today’s most effective environmental activists — including Bill McKibben, Jane Fonda, and others — draw large crowds and inspire us. To accomplish this, they draw upon history’s most transformative leaders as a model for how to make our voices heard even in difficult situations.

Whether those activists chain themselves to trees or bulldozers, stand strong en masse at government buildings, block transport of fossil fuels or deadly chemicals, or peacefully interrupt privatization of protected lands, these leaders all employ strategies established by historical figures who challenged authority.

Protesting has a long, rich history that you should familiarize yourself with. After all, the United States itself was born out of protest. And protest may determine how we move forward.

Gandhi’s Passive Protests

Mahatma Gandhi’s passive protesting, also known as satyagraha, was a philosophy and practice of nonviolent resistance to injustice, love for one’s opponent, and a commitment to truth as the means to achieve social and political change.

Key aspects of satyagraha include:

• • Nonviolent Resistance: Gandhi believed violence is weakness and that true strength exists in nonviolent action, such as boycotts, strikes, and civil disobedience.
  • Self-Suffering: This is the willingness to suffer for one’s beliefs, to awaken the conscience of the oppressors and inspire them to change through hunger strikes and peaceful noncompliance/nonparticipation.
  • Conversion, Not Coercion: Do not just defeat opponents but convert them to a cause through persuasion and by demonstrating the moral superiority; winning hearts and minds.
  • Boycott Power: Organize widespread boycotts – vote with your wallet and reject unethical products, political actions, discriminatory laws and unscrupulous business models.

Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance has been highly influential worldwide, inspiring civil rights movements and other social justice campaigns by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

Do you fear protesting because it may disrupt your social, professional or political standing? Nelson Mandela tells us: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

King’s Lessons on Nonviolence

Martin Luther King Jr. was a central figure in the American Civil Rights movement, renowned for his leadership in peaceful protests. He advocated for nonviolent resistance to inspire social and political change. His approach emphasized challenging injustice without using violence. King’s nonviolent resistance, a strategic and morally sound approach, included sit-ins and boycotts, marches and demonstrations, civil disobedience, and an emphasis on love and reconciliation.

The King Center’s Six Principles of Nonviolence:

• • Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
  • Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.
  • Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice or evil, not people.
  • Nonviolence means that unearned suffering for a just cause can educate and transform.
  • Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.
  • Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

In his 1964 Nobel lecture, King said: “Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love…violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”

John Lewis reinforced this message for all who resist injustice, saying: “Before we went on any protest, whether it was sit-ins or the freedom rides or any march, we prepared ourselves, and we were disciplined. We were committed to the way of peace — the way of non-violence — the way of love — the way of life as the way of living.” Sociological and political scientific research confirms that non-violent protests are more effective than violent ones. Peaceful protests are much more effective.

When authorities repress protests, it can strengthen peaceful movements. When protesters are violent, it often creates news coverage that is more sympathetic to the opposition, whose chosen media outlets will edit the most inflammatory clips of non-peaceful participants in your protest and create video loops and memes that will play repeatedly in the social media landscape and worse, go viral. This drowns out your protest message and its importance, meaning, and intent.

Protesting in Private

If you feel shy about joining a protest, or maybe you have physical limitations that may hinder your participation, you can often make everyday resistance by “voting with your wallet,” i.e. researching your grocery and goods purchases, your credit card corporations, the companies and stores you frequent as a consumer.

You can also spend time contacting your city, state, local and federal representatives if you find them lacking in leadership for the environment and human rights.

Next Time: This series will continue with a look at how, after you’ve gotten some effective protesting experience under your belt, YOU can organize a protest.

Are you active in protests this summer? Tell us about it! Share your ideas, inspirations, aspirations, and advice to newcomers in active movements and protests. Send your comments, suggestions, questions, or even brief essays to comments@therevelator.org.

Sources and Resources:

“The New Science of Social Change: A Modern Handbook for Activists”  by Lisa Mueller

“Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting”  by Omar Wasow

“Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha)”  by M. K. Gandhi

Summer of Change: New Books to Inspire Environmental Action

The Activist Handbook and other sources below provide practical guides and resources so you can plan your demonstration successfully.

Indivisible and No Kings offer training and education on protesting safely and effectively, as well as new and upcoming protest events.

The Human Rights Campaign: Tips for Preparedness, Peaceful Protesting, and Safety

ACLU Guide: How to Protest Safely and Responsibly

Amnesty International Protest Guide

Wired: How to Protest Safely: What to Bring, What to Do, and What to Avoid

Infosec 101 for Activists

 

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here.

 

The post Freedom of Voice: Learn From History’s Most Effective Protesters appeared first on The Revelator.

San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic — It’s eight in the morning and the landfill wakes up under a veil of smoke. There are no fences, no trees, no shade. Just heaps of smoldering waste blending into the tropical heat. Dozens of people walk across the trash, sacks slung over their shoulders, worn-out rubber boots on their feet. They search for cans, copper, cardboard, plastic, fabrics — even scraps of food.

They search for what no one else wants.

Among them is Kiko, who has worked here since he was a child. Now 30, he knows this place like the back of his hand.

“My mother always went to the landfill,” he says. “I used to beg her to take me with her. I must have been eight the first time I came. For me, it felt like a game, like an amusement park…and time just went by.”

That, Kiko says, is how he became a buzo, the local name for those who scavenge through waste to recover and sell recyclables. He didn’t mean for it to happen. “But I am one, because I live their life.”

Now, like many others, Kiko fears that this world might vanish, a mostly invisible world that’s vital to over 12,000 people across the Dominican Republic.

Many are undocumented Haitians, or children of Haitians born in the bateyes — former sugar cane settlements that now survive as impoverished communities, remnants of a declining economy now replaced by the service sector, with tourism as its core.

A Necessary Law, an Unexpected Threat

Tourism is booming in the Dominican Republic: over 11 million visitors in 2024 — nearly matching the country’s population of 11.4 million. That’s a 35% increase from 2023, almost double the pre-pandemic figure of 6.4 million in 2019, and more than twice the 5 million recorded in 2014 — a dramatic surge that fuels consumption and, in turn, waste.

But where does all that garbage end up?

Each year, the country produces more than 7 million tons of solid waste. Only 7% of it is recycled, according to a 2023 report by the Economic and Commercial Office of the Spanish Embassy in Santo Domingo. The rest mostly ends up in open-air landfills — 358 across the country — many of which lack even basic environmental or sanitary controls. It’s no coincidence that the country ranks 165th for waste management in Yale’s 2024 Environmental Performance Index.

To address this crisis, the Congress of the Dominican Republic passed the General Law on Comprehensive Waste Management and Co-processing (Law 225-20) in 2020 with a goal of completely overhauling the national waste system. One of its most ambitious measures: the progressive closure of at least 30 open-air landfills, as part of a shift toward a cleaner, more formalized economy.

At first glance, this seems like a positive step for the Dominican Republic’s environment — and it is. But there’s a darker side: the law fails to include effective mechanisms for integrating informal recyclers — the buzos — who live and work in these areas. Nor does it acknowledge the social and economic role that these informal networks play for thousands of families.

Without clear inclusion policies, closing landfills could leave thousands of people outside the system — without income, without support, and with no real alternatives.

“It’s a necessary reform and undoubtedly a significant achievement,” says Felipe Rosario Nolasco, coordinator of the National Movement of Recyclers of the Dominican Republic, an organization founded to advocate for the rights of buzos. “However, there’s one aspect that deeply concerns us. The law does not clearly define what role recyclers will play in this process. There’s no regulation that mandates our inclusion, nor have any working groups been set up to discuss the matter. We risk being excluded from the very system we have helped sustain for years. Instead of recognizing and strengthening our work, it is being pushed aside.”

According to Nolasco, private companies are already taking advantage of the situation, “as in Santiago de los Caballeros, where a single company has taken control of the entire recycling sector.” Corporate jobs go exclusively to citizens, which excludes most buzos, who overwhelmingly lack official immigration status or papers.

Nolasco says he worries about the social cost of this legislation. “Without addressing the human dimension, this won’t be a just transition — it will be the systematic exclusion of the most vulnerable.”

Life on the Margins, Lived with Dignity

Life in the landfill is harsh. Kiko knows it well.

“Working here is dangerous,” he says. “You reach into a sack and you might get pricked by a syringe or cut by glass. You feel nauseous, you vomit. Sometimes you can’t take the flies. I’ve seen terrible things… We’ve found newborn babies, dead, thrown into the trash. Even murdered people — burned, abandoned.”

Kiko. Photo: Raúl Zecca Castel

And still, Kiko would rather be here. Because despite everything, in this place that others avoid, he has found a way to live — and to exist — that he wouldn’t trade for anything.

“I like working in the landfill. I won’t lie — I grew up here, and I feel like I belong. Some might find it disgusting, but I was born and raised here. Nothing bothers me,” Kiko says, his eyes bright with a kind of quiet pride. Then he adds: “I’d much rather work here than cut sugar cane. In a day here, you make what would take a week over there. And you’re alone. No one bosses you around. No one tells you what to do or how long to work. You’re your own boss.”

More than just a dump, the landfill is, for many, a space of freedom. Precarious, yes, but real. Because this place, full of danger and debris, also offers something the outside world never gave them: freedom, respect, a sense of belonging.

Altagracia, a 48-year-old woman who used to work in the cane fields and now sells second-hand clothes in the bateyes, says it plainly: “There’s respect here. In the landfill, we’re all equal. If you respect yourself, others respect you too. I like that. I feel like I’m with family here.”

Nairobi. Photo: Raúl Zecca Castel

Nairobi, 24, found something unexpected in the landfill: love. She arrived after leaving a job selling food on the plantations — work that didn’t pay enough to survive.

“People would buy on credit and then couldn’t pay me back,” she explains. Now she’s been recycling plastic and cardboard for three years.

Her partner, Francisco, unable to work after surviving an assault, stays home with their child while she earns their daily income under the sun. He shares their story with a quiet smile, as if he still can’t quite believe it: “We argued a lot at first, but you know, talking and talking… in the end we fell in love. It happens. And now look at us — we’ve lived together for a year and have a child.”

In the landfill, homes, families, and futures are built — even among waste and neglect. Here, thousands of people — invisible to the system — find new ways to live, to resist, to reinvent themselves.

But this fragile web of autonomy and dignity rests on shaky foundations: lack of documents, structural discrimination, and the constant threat of being expelled.

The Price of Informality

“There are so many people like me without papers,” Kiko says. “I couldn’t go to school because of it. And without documents, you can’t do anything.”

His story is far from unique.

According to the Dominican Republic’s National Movement of Recyclers, between 60% and 70% of landfill workers lack legal migration status. As a result, they cannot be formally recognized as “service providers” under the new waste management system set out by Law 225-20. Under this law, service providers would be authorized actors responsible for tasks such as waste collection, transport, transfer, and sale — key operations in what is meant to become a formalized recycling chain. The law envisions a gradual integration of informal recyclers into this system, but without legal status, most remain excluded. They’re informal workers who are invisible to the system and are denied access to rights and services.

The situation is compounded by a disturbing trend: in the past six months, more than 180,000 Haitians have been deported by Dominican authorities, amid rising xenophobia and political tension between the two countries. By comparison, the Trump administration deported fewer than 66,000 people during its first 100 days.

“Law 225-20 aims to modernize the nation and build a cleaner recycling economy. But unless structural barriers — undocumented status, systemic discrimination, migration policy — are addressed, the closure of landfills won’t be a step forward, but a social catastrophe for thousands,” warns Nolasco, offering a stark reminder of the human cost behind policy decisions.

Nairobi earns the equivalent of $4.50 a day — but it’s not a fixed wage. Like everyone else, she works by the piece: if she gets sick or doesn’t collect enough recyclables, she earns nothing. And what she does manage to make supports not just herself and her young son, but also Francisco, who stays home to care for the child. “I don’t want my son to work here,” she says. “I want him to go to school and decide for himself what to do with his life. But now… without papers, there’s no other option.”

Kiko poses. Photo: Raúl Zecca Castel

Kiko writes songs, sings, and dreams of performing on stage. “Maybe one day I’ll become famous. Who knows if I’ll still be here. Today I am. Tomorrow… maybe not. But anything could happen.”

No one should need to rely on a landfill or put their health at risk to process a nation’s waste, but Kiko and the thousands of other buzos have adapted to society’s failures. Shutting down the landfills without creating real alternatives isn’t progress. It’s throwing away the lives of those who live among the waste — yet fight, every day, for their dignity.

Watch a trailer for “Chibol: Lives of Waste,” the author’s documentary about the buzos of the Dominican Republic:

Republish this article for free! Previously in The Revelator:

In Austria the Government Pays to Repair Your Stuff

The post Closing Landfills, Throwing Away People appeared first on The Revelator.

Editor’s note: In 2021 conservation scientist Federico Kacoliris profiled the imperiled El Rincon stream frog in The Revelator’s “Species Spotlight” feature.

“The El Rincon stream frog only lives in hot springs at the headwaters of a small Patagonian stream,” he wrote. “With just a handful of decimated populations remaining, the critically endangered frog is struggling to survive.”

But a foundation founded by Kacoloris was already making strides toward protecting this critically endangered frog. “I was part of the first reintroduction attempt of this endangered species in the wild — in a restored habitat where a local population had become extinct,” he wrote. “Releasing captive-born individuals into a wild habitat, where they will be protected and free of threats, makes me happy and confident about being able to do something for the sake of the wild.”

Now we have an exciting update, courtesy of Mongabay writer Mark Hillsdon. The story below was originally published by Mongabay and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

On a Patagonian Plateau, a Microendemic Frog Makes a Hopeful Comeback

A first look at Argentina’s Somuncurá Plateau reveals features somewhat predictable for a Patagonian steppe: shrubs, grass, plains, and rocky outcrops. Only the occasional volcanic peak breaks the monotony of the

landscape spanning an area larger than Switzerland across the provinces of Rio Negro and Chubut. But in this apparent monotony, life abounds as the plateau’s conditions make it one of Patagonia’s key biodiversity areas and home to several endemic species.

Among those, one critically endangered species has caught the attention of researchers and, more recently, of the wider conservation world. Measuring less than 5 centimeters (2 inches) in length, the El Rincon stream frog (Pleurodema somuncurense) relies on the warm headwaters of the Valcheta stream, fed by the Somuncurá’s hot springs. Here, the microendemic amphibian, whose habitat measures no more than 10 square kilometers (3.7 square miles), finds refuge from the plateau’s large temperature variations.

The species was described by scientists in the late 1960s, but went on to be largely ignored by science until the early 2000s, when it became increasingly exposed to habitat loss, invasive species and cattle ranching. That earned it the status of critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, making it one of the world’s most threatened amphibians.

Argentina’s Somuncurá Plateau provides an unexpected haven for microendemic species. Image courtesy of Federico Kacoliris.

Federico Kacoliris has long studied the El Rincon stream frog. Aside from adding knowledge about the species and its habitats, Kacoliris, who leads the Somuncurá Foundation, has mobilized a conservation movement around this tiny amphibian. So far, the effort coordinated by several NGOs with ranchers and local communities has boosted the frog population by about 15% to date from an initial count of just over 4,500 adult individuals in 2018. These restoration efforts have also benefited the critically endangered naked characin fish (Gymnocharacinus bergii), Patagonia’s only endemic fish species, found only in the Valcheta stream.

For his work, Kacoliris was recently named a winner of the Whitley Award, a prestigious prize known as the “Green Oscars” that supports grassroots conservation across the Global South.

“As a conservation symbol, the El Rincon frogs are very important because … they are the most threatened amphibian species in the country,” Kacoliris tells Mongabay.

Federico Kacoliris, who heads the Somuncurá Foundation, has mobilized a conservation movement around the species inhabiting the plateau, bringing benefits to the wider ecosystem. Image courtesy of Federico Kacoliris.

A key action to conserve the frogs has been tackling the predatory species that have invaded their habitat. Predatory rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were introduced in the Valcheta stream, and across Argentina, during the 1920s; a highly aggressive species, it quickly became the top predator, pushing the El Rincon frogs into the headwaters and a few isolated tributaries. But even in these small patches away from the trout, the frogs saw their habitats threatened by cattle, which trampled on vital vegetation and polluted the waters, causing eutrophication, or low-oxygen dead spots, Kacoliris says.

Removing the trout was “the only way to guarantee the long-term survival of the frogs,” he adds.

Using a system of natural features such as waterfalls, alongside artificial barriers, the team from the Somuncurá Foundation has cleared the stream one section at a time, increasing the frog’s natural habitat by more than 15%, Kacoliris says. They then released thousands of tadpoles into the trout-free, restored areas.

To address cattle invasions, the Somuncurá Foundation works with local ranchers. Traditionally, they raised sheep here, but about 10 years ago, as increasing numbers of sheep fell prey to pumas and Andean foxes, they switched to cattle, Kacoliris tells Mongabay. This despite the land and climate being too hostile for ranching.

Creating dams to manage restrict trout from entering the areas inhabited by the El Rincon stream frog. Image courtesy of Federico Kacoliris.

In many places the Valcheta stream runs through private properties, and Kacoliris has worked with individual ranchers, striking deals to fence off key areas of the stream, where the thermal waters bubble to the surface, and where both the frogs and fish go to breed. Water troughs are provided so the cattle still have easy access to water. Kacoliris also encourages ranchers to return to sheep farming, showing them it can be much more lucrative, and providing them with guardian dogs to protect the livestock from predator attacks. At the same time, the program is working to discourage the shooting of pumas and Andean foxes.

“The frogs are like [a] flagship species,” Kacoliris says. “[The ranchers] are really proud about being neighbors of these incredible animals, it’s a kind of local symbol.”

Marta and Benedicto Ortiz are siblings who have been farming sheep and goats across about 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) on the plateau for more than 50 years. Speaking through Kacoliris, they say that when they were children, the stream was full of frogs, but that over the years these disappeared.

They’ve allowed the foundation to fence off some of the stream that runs across their family’s land, and say they’re proud to help protect the frogs and naked characins living there.

The naked characin fish (Gymnocharacinus bergii) is Patagonia’s only endemic fish species, found only in the Valcheta stream. Image by Hernan Povedano courtesy of Federico Kacoliris.

The siblings also have three guard dogs that they say have reduced the loss of sheep to predators.

Over the last four years, the Somuncurá Foundation, in partnership with the U.K. charity World Land Trust and partner NGO the Habitat and Development Foundation (Fundación Hábitat y Desarrollo), have acquired 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) across the plateau, which now forms the region’s first nature reserve. The ultimate aim, Kacoliris says, is to donate the land to Argentina’s National Parks Service, which will give it a higher level of protection.

This marks a rare success for conservationists working to save the world’s amphibians. According to research published in February, amphibians worldwide receive just 2.8% of all conservation funding, despite the fact that 41% of the entire class are threatened with extinction.

“Amphibians are the most threatened animals on the planet,” says Jeanne Tarrant, director at Anura Africa, an NGO supporting amphibian conservation across Africa.

Yet conservation efforts are “massively underfunded compared to other groups [such as] charismatic mega-fauna,” she says.

Amphibians, along with reptiles and insects, have an image problem, she adds; they lack the perceived charisma of iconic species such as pandas and tigers. It’s an issue that goes back to the earliest days of zoological study, Tarrant says, when Carl Linneaus, the 18th-century father of modern taxonomy, described reptiles and amphibians as “foul and loathsome.” The label has stuck in the mind of the public and potential donors.

Since 2018, the Somuncurá Foundation has increased the El Rincon stream frog population by about 15%. Image courtesy of Federico Kacoliris.

But Tarrant says perceptions are starting to change and there’s now greater recognition of the important role that frogs, lizards and beetles play in maintaining healthy ecosystems. “There really does seem to be a genuine increase in interest in the smaller, less charismatic things,” she says.

Typically, she says, biologists have shunned the limelight, preferring to work alone out in the field. But that has had to change and they now play a crucial role as storytellers, as well as working with other academics, such as social scientists, to understand the fears and concerns of local communities.

“[People] want to know why something is useful,” Tarrant says, and it’s important to explain the significance of a species and the role it performs.

The big sell with frogs, she says, is that they’re great natural pest controllers, eating insects that could otherwise destroy crops. They even play a role in human health; one study linked an increase in malaria cases in Central America to the decline of amphibian populations, which allowed disease-carrying mosquitoes to flourish.

To help breed El Rincon stream frogs, in 2016 the researchers set up an initial facility at La Plata Museum in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, the country’s first facility for threatened amphibians. After two successful reintroductions of 200 juvenile frogs born at the facility, in 2022 the ex-situ program moved to Buenos Aires Eco-Park, a conservation center based at the former city zoo.

Borja Baguette Pereiro is a conservation coordinator at the eco-park and worked with Kacoliris to nurture the eggs into tadpoles and eventually juvenile El Rincon stream frogs for release back into the wild. He agrees that biologists need to be good storytellers, too. “The priority is that people become familiar with the species: for them to know where it lives, what it looks like, what it eats and what threats it faces.”

Somuncurá Foundation aims to restore all the headwaters of the Valcheta stream by 2030 in order to protect the El Rincon stream frog in the long term. Maps courtesy of Federico Kacoliris.

While the eco-park also runs conservation programs for more iconic species such as the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) and the South American tapir (Tapirus terrestris), Pereiro’s team is also focused on saving less captivating species such as the minute Apipé water snail (Aylacostoma chloroticum), the scorpion mud turtle (Kinosternon scorpiodes), and endemic species living in remote environments, such as the Pehuenche spiny-chest frog (Alsodes pehuenche), which only inhabits the meltwater streams high in the central Andes.

“Species such as frogs or small reptiles are frequently endemic, highlighting the importance of the local community recognizing them as their own,” Pereiro says. “Without their involvement in conservation, no one else will step in.”

Kacoliris agrees that creating a narrative is an important part of conservation, especially when dealing with amphibians. “The way we share our enthusiasm about conserving these small animals is by telling the story,” he says. Schoolchildren from the village of Chipauquil, on the Somuncurá Plateau, for instance, have taken part in the project, adopting the frogs and monitoring them after their release.

“It is key to engage the local people in the conservation actions,” Kacoliris says, “because they are the final guardians of the whole biodiversity of the region.”

The post In Patagonia, a Frog Makes a Comeback appeared first on The Revelator.

Originally published at Making Routes. Republished with permission; CC BY 4.0 © David Overend 2025.

Hedgehogs are nocturnal so there was little possibility of seeing one when
my new colleague, Elizabeth Vander Meer, led a small group from the University of Edinburgh’s Sustainability in Education Research Group to the student accommodation at Pollock Halls, where there is a healthy population.

In fact, a sighting would have been concerning, perhaps indicating injury or dehydration, so none of us would have liked to encounter one that day. An unusual adventure then: to move close but never reach each other; to search but never find.

This is how hedgehogs coexist with us in the urban environment. Their time is when most of us are sleeping; their place is in the gaps and disregarded spaces of our busy city lives. Every now and then, paths cross and these prickly night wanderers reveal something of their hidden worlds.

As part of the Hedgehog Friendly Campus initiative, Elizabeth and her colleagues have been mapping, recording and documenting the journeys and behaviors of the University’s hedgehog community. Their work has led to rewilded corners of the campus, new shelters made of logs and targeted planting, training programs, surveys, community engagement, signage, and student research projects. In 2022 the University was awarded Gold status for “embedding and sustainability of continued actions as well as wider engagement with local and regionally based communities.”

Elizabeth Vander Meer (left) and the Sustainability in Education Research Group at Pollock Halls student residence, University of Edinburgh. Photo: David Overend

And why all this hard work? Well, habitats are reducing, fatalities due to traffic are on the rise, water can be hard to find, the climate is becoming less predictable, and populations are significantly declining. Hedgehogs are now classed as vulnerable to extinction in the United Kingdom. If we can prevent this from happening, then maybe there is hope for us too?

We walked together from Moray House, where many of us work in Education and Sport. The route took us along the edge of Holyrood Park with Salisbury Crags above us and a deep blue sky above them. As we stopped for a moment at the bottom of a grassy bank off the main path, a man with an expensive looking camera asked us if we were the butterfly group. On learning that we were in fact in pursuit of hedgehogs, he made his apologies and was quickly on his way.

Funny how humans do that, I remarked: separating the natural world into specific species and areas of interest, when of course everything is entangled.

Elizabeth asked us if we had seen any hedgehogs recently and the group’s responses were bleak. Some — myself included — had not seen a living, healthy hog since our childhood. Most had seen dead animals on the road in recent months. Only one or two had regular visitors to their gardens in the evenings. We walked on, keen to reach the hedgehog-rich environs of the student halls.

Hedgehog sightings at Pollock Halls, mapped using ArcGIS © Crown copyright and database rights 2023 OS 100030835. Used with permission.

As we arrived on site, Elizabeth shared the evidence of prickly presences. This included the most wonderful image I have seen in some time. Using a tunnel rigged with ink and paper, the team had captured a moment of passage — tiny hedgehog footprints left on a crisp white canvas.

The reaction of the group to this image was like a gaggle of grandmothers meeting a newborn. Hedgehogs seem to move even the most cynical academic into gushing adoration and this group was far from cynical.

Hedgehog footprints captured in the tunnel, Pollock Halls. Photo: Elizabeth Vander Meer (used with permission)

We also saw footage from a camera trap. A brief glimpse of a hedgehog as it approached the tunnel, then a badger trying unsuccessfully to squeeze its bulky frame into the small opening, then a fox taking a more aggressive approach. All these residents of Pollock Halls, living here without the exorbitant fees paid by their student co-habitants.

In the lead up to the walk, Elizabeth had shared an article with us. Exploring the idea of Storied-Places, Thom van Dooren and Deborah Bird Rose consider a colony of penguins and a flying fox camp in Sydney, Australia. They explore the ways in which “these animals understand and render meaningful the places they inhabit,” pointing out that “much of what they respond to in the city was not meant for them.” The authors propose an “ethics of conviviality,” which would put the burden back on humans, prompting us “to find multiple, life enhancing ways of sharing and co-producing meaningful and enduring multispecies cities.”

Walking with this idea of a city storied by hedgehogs led us to think differently about the places that we passed through and stopped within. We were becoming attuned to borders and barriers, noting places of safety and vulnerability and imagining ourselves into the lifeworld of the hedgehogs. This enabled a different quality of observation and conversation, and opened up the possibility of creative, experiential modes of enquiry.

For the next part of the session, we gathered in a hidden area of woodland bordering Prestonfield golf course for a workshop activity. I invited the group to work in pairs. One person was tasked with exploring the features of the site that Elizabeth had pointed out and the other would document this investigation with photographs, notes, drawings or diagrams.

At this level, the invitation was simple and straightforward, but I also hoped that the group would be up for a slightly more leftfield approach, so I also gave them the option of doing this task slightly differently. The explorer would look around this place as a hedgehog, or at least with hedgehog-like ways of sensing and moving through the site.

The point was not to pretend to be a hedgehog (although that would not be discouraged if anyone wished to take it in that direction). Rather, the idea was to get close to a hedgehog’s way of being here — to crawl through hedges, to feel the leaf litter, to smell the ground. My suggestion was that the designated explorers should try to get a feel for the point at which they were starting to feel uncomfortable and to stay there for a while or try to move beyond it.

While these participants attempted to inhabit the site as hedgehogs, the documenting partner had a slightly different role: to observe a non-human presence — passage and dwelling. This might change the nature of the task and raise questions about why we would need to do this, what would it tell us, and what does it mean for the hedgehog who is recorded in this way?

To my delight, the group embraced this task with openness and enthusiasm. Off they went into the undergrowth, testing routes, feeling their way across the site, plunging hands into leaf litter and taking seriously the possibility of being more hedgehog (or less human) for a moment.

For 20 minutes, the group’s engagement with the site seemed to transform into something more playful and experimental, but also more tentative and careful. I watched one hedgehog-participant move down the edge of the site, searching for a passing place perhaps, but not finding an accessible section of the wire fence marking the border.

Elizabeth had told us that the ideal habitat range for a hedgehog is 0.9 km², whereas the Pollock Halls site is around a tenth of that. This means that the neighboring sites make a big difference, and beyond this particular fence the golf course was exposed, over managed, and beyond our reach.

https://therevelator.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/DSCF0351.mp4

As we came back together to bring the session to a close, participants shared their experiences. One of the explorers said that the task had made him feel very big, and everyone agreed that the shift of scale had been important. We reflected on patterns of movement and the need for shelter, wondered about what could be eaten. The wilder areas of the site felt safe and habitable, but the paved areas between them were dangerous and exposed. The group had enjoyed this task, and said they felt that it had provided a space and time to foster a more-than-human relationship with the site.

While the discussion continued, I had to leave promptly to catch a train. As I power-walked down South Bridge, dodging tourists and traffic, it struck me how quickly we can return to our frenetic lifestyles. The built-up city center seemed inhospitable to hedgehogs, and it was easy not to spare them a thought in this part of town.

Nevertheless, my afternoon’s encounter at the fringes of the built environment had offered an alternative way of being and thinking that felt hugely important. We might not often see the non-human others who share our cities, but we need to remember that they are here too. The walk and workshop had allowed us to explore an ethics of conviviality that requires a different way of designing, building, managing and inhabiting urban space. The image of the footprints is a powerful emblem for this project, a reminder that others pass where we walk.

Previously in The Revelator:

Mice, Hedgehogs and Voles Need Conservation Champions

The post Footprints and Fences: In Search of Hedgehogs appeared first on The Revelator.

On July 1 more than 70 species of sharks and rays, including beloved species like whale sharks and manta rays, were proposed for strict protections under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES (pronounced “sight-ease”). Oceanic whitetip sharks — once considered one of the most-abundant large animals in the ocean but whose populations have declined by 90% or more — are also up for protections.

These proposals have the potential to help transform international shark conservation.

CITES logo, CITES, Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved – Used by Permission,

This year is an important conservation milestone: the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP) of CITES. Described as “the world’s largest and most influential meetings on international wildlife trade,” the nations meeting at the conference will debate and vote on a variety of proposals that help regulate global trade of plants and animals.

International trade poses a major threat to many species, since the highest demand for wildlife products like meat, fins, feathers, or wood often comes from countries outside of these species’ native ranges. The decisions made at CITES, therefore, have the power to save species of conservation concern from extinction.

Here’s how CITES works, including a look at some of the shark conservation proposals being debated this year.

How CITES Works

CITES — an international treaty among 185 signatory nations known as Parties — places each species it regulates on one of three Appendices, and the goal of most CITES proposals is to get species of conservation concern listed on one of them.

Before that, one or more Parties submit a proposal to protect a species or group of species, often with cosponsors from other Parties to suggest broad support. These proposals go to a vote at COP meetings and must receive a two-thirds majority from the Parties to pass.

In addition to the Parties, a variety of entities with observer status can attend COPs and speak without formally voting. This includes the IUCN and environmental nonprofits. One such nonprofit is the Wildlife Conservation Society, for which I currently serve as a conservation communications consultant. WCS is a longtime leader on global shark and ray conservation and has participated in CITES for many years.

Most discussions focus on Appendix I and Appendix II. An Appendix I listing results in a strict ban on international trade in a species. For example, all species of sawfish (critically endangered shark-like rays) are listed under Appendix I. This means that even though their rostrum, or “saw,” is a popular tourist curio, it is illegal to transport one for sale across national borders. As this is the highest level of protection, it requires the highest standard of evidence, and it is the most difficult listing to achieve. Fortunately, relatively few species need an Appendix I listing.

Rostra of different species of sawfish, image courtesy Florida Museum of Natural History

An Appendix II listing does not ban international trade in products from a listed species. Instead, it heavily regulates that trade, requiring the exporting country to demonstrate that the product was harvested sustainably. (To prove that a product comes from a sustainably managed population, it must carry a document called a “non-detriment finding,” without which trade is banned.) This is the Appendix that most shark products — including jaws, meat, and fins — are regulated under.

CITES also has a powerful rule called the “Look-Alike Rule.” This comes into play where an endangered species looks so similar to a non-endangered species that we can’t expect a customs agent to be able to tell the difference. In this case, the non-endangered species receive the same level of protection as endangered species, because that’s the best way to protect the endangered species. At the most recent Conference of the Parties in 2022, the Look-Alike Rule was used to get the vast majority of shark species whose fins are traded in the global fin trade listed under Appendix II. Now, if customs agents can’t tell whether a detached fin comes from a critically endangered shark species or a similar-looking species with a healthy population, both are restricted and require a non-detriment finding for legal trade. As of 2022, all 56 species of sharks in family Carcharhinidae and all the hammerhead sharks in family Sphyrnidae are listed under Appendix II, many under the look-alike rule.

It’s important to also note what CITES cannot do. As it only regulates international trade, a CITES listing by itself has absolutely no legal authority to stop a species from being killed and used in its home country.

It also doesn’t make it illegal to kill endangered species in general. It just regulates or bans international trade in products made from those species, or in the species themselves (live specimens).

But since so much of the threat to so many species comes from market demand through international trade, this can still be enormously powerful.

Additionally, CITES listings can (and do) result in improving complementary domestic regulations, because countries want to be able to meet the standards needed for a non-detriment finding — for example, so they can legally export shark products.

For sharks, this has often taken the form of improved fisheries quotas and catch limits, including in many countries which previously had essentially no shark fisheries management in place. A new analysis found that for 44 species of sharks and rays listed on CITES, 48% of countries have improved their regulations, including improved data collection and improved compliance and enforcement of rules.

Sharks and CITES

Historically, CITES has been very much focused on terrestrial species conservation — it’s no accident that the logo is shaped like an elephant, as much of the early discussions concerned the international trade of elephant ivory.

However, in recent years, marine species in general, and sharks and rays specifically, have increasingly become part of the agenda. This process first started with species with no significant commercial fishery — gentle giants like whale and basking sharks. It later expanded to listing commercially fished species such as threshers, makos, and porbeagles under Appendix II.

Progress has been slow but steady, resulting in lots of saved sharks along the way.

Proposals at the Upcoming COP

This year’s CITES proposals include seven covering sharks and rays that would affect 70 species.

Several species already listed under Appendix II are proposed for a transfer to Appendix I, strengthening their protections by fully banning international trade in products from the species. This includes mobula rays (also known as devil rays, which include manta rays) whose filter-feeding gill plates are used to make a traditional Chinese medicine tea.

Oceanic whitetip sharks, one of the species of sharks most affected by industrial scale fishing, are also proposed for a transfer from Appendix II to Appendix I.

There’s also a proposal for a “zero quota” for Appendix II listed guitarfish — functionally similar to an Appendix I listing but procedurally slightly different and generally considered to be more appropriate for species who are threatened now but can bounce back relatively quickly if pressure is reduced. The Wildlife Conservation Society’s statement on this notes that “these proposals reflect what scientists and governments have known for years: for some shark and ray species, sustainable trade is not feasible, and the strongest protections are the only path forward.”

There are also some proposals for listing new species under Appendix II. The Wildlife Conservation Society’s statement notes that “with 90% of the shark fin trade now regulated, focus must shift to other drivers of shark overfishing.” One proposal aims to list deepwater gulper sharks, whose oily livers are used as squalene in cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. Deep sea species like gulper sharks were out of touch and out of danger because fisheries couldn’t reach them, but newer technology, driven by demand for squalene, have changed the equation.

Another proposal calls for listing smoothhound sharks, whose meat is eaten all over the world.  The shark meat trade notably involves different species and different end-user markets than the better-known shark fin trade, and smoothhound meat is eaten in things like South American ceviche and European fish and chips.

Learn More and Get Involved

The actual COP will take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan from November 24-December 5,  although many countries will decide whether or not they’re supporting or co-sponsoring proposals long before then.

Though the meeting is not open to the public and only governments, not individuals, get to vote, many environmental nonprofits attend as observers. Some, like the Wildlife Conservation Society, will be sharing updates and information in real time on social media, including opportunities for the public to get involved at key moments and encourage their governments to support these key proposals.

The fate of these amazing and beloved animals comes down to these upcoming votes. Let’s not miss this important opportunity.

Shiffman, who often writes for the news section of The Revelator as a journalist, wrote this editorial in his capacity as a conservation communications consultant working with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Scan the QR code, or sign up here. Previously in The Revelator:

Something for Everyone: Wildlife Trade in Paradise

 

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