# data[].attributes.headline
ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATES TAKE AIM AT PROPOSED REVISIONS TO INDONESIA'S CONSERVATION ACT

# data[].attributes.subject
ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATES TAKE AIM AT PROPOSED REVISIONS TO INDONESIA'S CONSERVATION ACT

# data[].attributes.body
Changes made to the conservation act in Indonesia could lead to wildlife traffickers to finding loopholes in addition to the trade they enjoy in one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. The bill they have presented does not mention online trafficking which is a growing problem as traders are moved to bigger social media platforms such as Facebook and Kaskus (Indonesia's largest Internet forum). There is also nochange int he sentencing guidelines for those who break the rules. Now, it is 5 years maximum sentence in prison, but offenders are rarely even prosecuted. if they are, their sentences are well below the maximum. It falls short of the expectations of conservationists and environmentalists. The bill is is no rush to be passed, and the the only feedback given was President Joko Widodo ordering the ministers to make sure the bill is aligned with their constitution, and that it benefits Indonesia in the long run.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(Photo: Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP/Getty Images)

Environmental advocates have warned that proposed revisions to Indonesia's conservation act could provide new loopholes for wildlife traffickers, who already enjoy a thriving trade in one of the world's most biodiverse countries.

The revision of the conservation act, formally the Natural Resources Conservation Law of 1990, was widely anticipated to help authorities crack down harder on the illegal wildlife trade. And the latest draft submitted by parliament to the government for review does make some moves toward that goal: it would ban the trade in species not mentioned on Indonesia's list of protected species but that are regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the main international treaty on endangered animals and plants. For instance, it could help close a loophole that allows traffickers to move items such as African elephant ivory through the Southeast Asian country with impunity.

But critics point to a longer list of problems with the bill. It makes no mention of online trafficking, a growing problem as traders move to platforms such as Facebook and Kaskus, Indonesia's largest Internet forum. It doesn't seem to address the issue of giving endangered animal parts as gifts- a practice still carried out in places like Papua province, where officials have been known to distribute souvenirs made from rare birds-of-paradise.

And it doesn't upgrade sentencing guidelines for wildlife crimes that conservationists say are in dire need of change. Under the current legislation, traffickers can receive a maximum sentence of five years in prison. But, in reality, offenders are rarely prosecuted; on the few occasions they are, they typically receive token sentences far below the maximum. Conservationists have called for the introduction of minimum sentences to combat the problem.

"This bill falls short of our expectations," Samedi, the program director at the Indonesia Biodiversity Foundation, said at a recent press conference in Jakarta, convened by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to air their concerns about the bill. "It weakens the current law, which is already pretty weak."

Conservationists have long pushed for new legislation on wildlife crimes. Not long after a smuggler was arrested in 2015 with a suitcase full of rare cockatoos stuffed in plastic water bottles, prompting dozens of people to turn over their illegal pet birds to the authorities, the government announced plans to revise the 1990 law.

Since then, myriad versions of the new conservation bill have been proposed by NGOs, the government, and lawmakers. On December 5th last year, the parliament officially submitted a bill to the government for review. Once the government signs off, the bill will go back to parliament for final passage at a plenary session.

However, Justice Minister Yasonna Laoly told reporters on April 4th that the government would "hold off for the moment" on advancing the bill, as quoted by Kompas. Speaking after a cabinet meeting chaired by the president, he suggested the current law was adequate for addressing Indonesia's conservation needs. It's unclear what will happen with the bill now, but sources in the government told Mongabay the administration was unhappy with the draft submitted by parliament.

Defining Wildlife Crime

One of the biggest differences between the existing legislation and the proposed bill is in the language around wildlife crime. The 1990 law clearly states that anyone who "trades, keeps, distributes or kills" a protected species has committed a crime, punishable with imprisonment of up to five years and a fine of up to 100 million rupiah ($7,000).

But the new bill omits that key point. Instead, it employs the umbrella term "utilization of natural and biological resources," and says this may be carried out with a permit. (Failure to secure a permit to "utilize natural and biological resources" carries the same maximum sentence as before and a much heftier fine of five billion rupiah, or about $363,000.)

Critics say the new language muddies the definition of what constitutes a wildlife crime, and would make it harder for authorities to crack down on the illegal trade in animals and plants.

For a law to work well, "every prohibition must be clearly stated," said Henri Subagiyo, executive director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law. He suggested the new bill could effectively "legalize" wildlife trafficking if it was passed in its current state.

Firman Subagyo, a lawmaker on the parliamentary committee that came up with the current draft, rebuffed those concerns, suggesting that penalties for wildlife trafficking were best addressed by the Criminal Code. "Laws should not include rigid provisions," he told Mongabay by phone. "It's impossible that the bill degrades the previous law," he added. "What we want is to strengthen the existing law."

Online Trafficking

In 2015, authorities in the port city of Surabaya arrested a man selling rare eagles on Facebook. The bust came amid a growing outcry over people showing off dead or abused animals on social media. Lawmaker Viva Yoga Mauladi said at the time that the revised bill would address online trafficking.

Last year, the Wildlife Conservation Society, an international NGO that helps the Indonesian police catch traffickers, said that at least 40 percent of illegal wildlife traders in the country used online platforms such as WhatsApp to carry out their transactions since 2011. It also estimated the value of this illicit animal trade at 13 trillion rupiah ($910 million) a year.

While existing legislation on electronic transactions does address the online wildlife trade, it is far from adequate to stem the actual practice, said Sofi Mardiah, wildlife police program manager at WCS-Indonesia. Any revised conservation law, she said, must lay the foundation for a monitoring scheme that filters out wildlife or products made using animal parts from online platforms, including social media and e-commerce sites, where the trade is prevalent.

"Wildlife traffickers are looking for stealthy ways and means to trade the animals," she said.

Self-Defense Clause

Other provisions in the revised conservation bill could create loopholes for traffickers, critics say.

ICEL's Henri pointed to Article 152, which states that no law enforcement action will be taken against perpetrators "who have good intentions and are compelled to commit [wildlife crimes] in order to make their daily living."

The same article could conceivably be used to waive charges against people who kill protected animals, such as orangutans, on the basis of self-defense, Henri said.

"This provision is very dangerous because the indicator is vague," he said. "How are you going to decide whether someone has good intentions or not, or whether they are forced to do it or not?"

A number of wildlife killings by locals who claimed they were attacked by the animals have been reported in recent months.

Two rubber farmers in Central Kalimantan province beheaded and shot an orangutan multiple times in late December for allegedly charging at one of them when they tried to scare the ape away from their plantation. In January, four farmers in East Kalimantan also cited self-defense for the killing of an orangutan they shot at least 130 times. In March, villagers in northern Sumatra stabbed a Sumatran tiger to death after it attacked and injured two men from a hunting party that had been trying to get the animal away from their village.

Geothermal Exploration

Another major change in the conservation bill is that it would open up conservation areas, except nature reserves and the core zone of national parks, to so-called strategic development projects.

The move is seen as a nod to the energy industry, which has long sought access to Indonesia's world-leading geothermal reserves but been thwarted by existing protections under the current conservation act. Much of Indonesia's geothermal potential is believed to be locked deep under existing conservation areas, for which exploration permits currently cannot be issued.

The proposed revision has drawn criticism from conservationists, who say it provides a loophole to allow operators in the extractive industries to exploit more protected areas.

Next Steps

The government convened a cabinet meeting on April 4th to discuss the draft bill submitted by parliament, but looks to be in no rush to send it back for passage.

The meeting, meant to generate feedback and concerns over the content of the bill, concluded with President Joko Widodo ordering his ministers to ensure the bill was aligned with the constitution and would benefit Indonesia in the long run.

Environment and Forestry Ministry Siti Nurbaya Bakar told Mongabay her office would discuss the cabinet's feedback with parliament to perfect the bill, but Justice Minister Yasonna suggested there was no need for the bill at all.

"We think that what we have now [the 1990 conservation act] is enough to protect our conservation [areas] and natural resources," he said, according to Kompas. "We just need to improve the synchronization between stakeholders."

He also noted that the bill as it stands would require at least 30 supporting regulations to clarify some of the new provisions.

ICEL's Henri called for the discussion to continue, citing a pressing need to revise the current law. He said he hoped the review would be transparent so that civil society groups could weigh in on the process.

"The longer we wait to discuss the bill, the more time we give companies to continue manipulating the current conservation law," he said.
This story originally appeared at the website of global conservation news service Mongabay.com. Get updates on their stories delivered to your inbox, or follow @Mongabay on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Environmental Advocates Take Aim at Proposed Revisions to Indonesia's Conservation Act

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Environmental advocates have warned that proposed revisions to Indonesia's conservation act could provide new loopholes for wildlife traffickers, who already enjoy a thriving trade in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. The revision of the conservation act, formally the Natural Resources Conservation Law of 1990, was widely anticipated to help authorities crack down harder on the illegal wildlife trade.

# data[].attributes.headline
New source of global nitrogen discovered

# data[].attributes.subject
New source of global nitrogen discovered

# data[].attributes.body
A recent study done has found that up to 26 percent of the nitrogen in natural ecosystems comes from rocks. The rest of the nitrogen can be fund in the atmosphere. This discovery can leave in impact on climate change predictions. nitrogen is used to absorb carbon dioxide pollution and limited is available from plants and soil. several categorize come into place when dealing with this topic. First, weathering. rock nitrogen can come from physical weathering (tectonic movement) or chemical weathering (minerals reacting with rainwater). Rock nitrogen weathering varies from different regions and landscapes. Geology and carbon Sequestration is also important because mapping nutrient profiles in rocks to their potential for carbon uptake helps push conservation. There is one spot where there is missing information on the topic. More nitrogen builds up in soil and plants than can be explained from the atmosphere alone, but the missing factor is unknown. There is further research needed to come to a conclusion.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For centuries, the prevailing science has indicated that all of the nitrogen on Earth available to plants comes from the atmosphere. But a study from the University of California, Davis, indicates that more than a quarter comes from Earth's bedrock.

The study, to be published April 6 in the journal Science, found that up to 26 percent of the nitrogen in natural ecosystems is sourced from rocks, with the remaining fraction from the atmosphere.

Before this study, the input of this nitrogen to the global land system was unknown. The discovery could greatly improve climate change projections, which rely on understanding the carbon cycle. This newly identified source of nitrogen could also feed the carbon cycle on land, allowing ecosystems to pull more emissions out of the atmosphere, the authors said.

"Our study shows that nitrogen weathering is a globally significant source of nutrition to soils and ecosystems worldwide," said co-lead author Ben Houlton, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and director of the UC Davis Muir Institute. "This runs counter the centuries-long paradigm that has laid the foundation for the environmental sciences. We think that this nitrogen may allow forests and grasslands to sequester more fossil fuel CO ₂ emissions than previously thought."
Weathering Is Key
Ecosystems need nitrogen and other nutrients to absorb carbon dioxide pollution, and there is a limited amount of it available from plants and soils. If a large amount of nitrogen comes from rocks, it helps explain how natural ecosystems like boreal forests are capable of taking up high levels of carbon dioxide.

But not just any rock can leach nitrogen. Rock nitrogen availability is determined by weathering, which can be physical, such as through tectonic movement, or chemical, such as when minerals react with rainwater.

That's primarily why rock nitrogen weathering varies across regions and landscapes. The study said that large areas of Africa are devoid of nitrogen-rich bedrock while northern latitudes have some of the highest levels of rock nitrogen weathering. Mountainous regions like the Himalayas and Andes are estimated to be significant sources of rock nitrogen weathering, similar to those regions' importance to global weathering rates and climate. Grasslands, tundra, deserts and woodlands also experience sizable rates of rock nitrogen weathering.
Geology and Carbon Sequestration
Mapping nutrient profiles in rocks to their potential for carbon uptake could help drive conservation considerations. Areas with higher levels of rock nitrogen weathering may be able to sequester more carbon.

"Geology might have a huge control over which systems can take up carbon dioxide and which ones don't," Houlton said. "When thinking about carbon sequestration, the geology of the planet can help guide our decisions about what we're conserving."
Mysterious Gap
The work also elucidates the "case of the missing nitrogen." For decades, scientists have recognized that more nitrogen accumulates in soils and plants than can be explained by the atmosphere alone, but they could not pinpoint what was missing.

"We show that the paradox of nitrogen is written in stone," said co-leading author Scott Morford, a UC Davis graduate student at the time of the study. "There's enough nitrogen in the rocks, and it breaks down fast enough to explain the cases where there has been this mysterious gap."

In previous work, the research team analyzed samples of ancient rock collected from the Klamath Mountains of Northern California to find that the rocks and surrounding trees there held large amounts of nitrogen. With the current study, the authors built on that work, analyzing the planet's nitrogen balance, geochemical proxies and building a spatial nitrogen weathering model to assess rock nitrogen availability on a global scale.

The researchers say the work does not hold immediate implications for farmers and gardeners, who greatly rely on nitrogen in natural and synthetic forms to grow food. Past work has indicated that some background nitrate in groundwater can be traced back to rock sources, but further research is needed to better understand how much.
Rewriting Textbooks
"These results are going to require rewriting the textbooks," said Kendra McLauchlan, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology, which co-funded the research. "While there were hints that plants could use rock-derived nitrogen, this discovery shatters the paradigm that the ultimate source of available nitrogen is the atmosphere. Nitrogen is both the most important limiting nutrient on Earth and a dangerous pollutant, so it is important to understand the natural controls on its supply and demand. Humanity currently depends on atmospheric nitrogen to produce enough fertilizer to maintain world food supply. A discovery of this magnitude will open up a new era of research on this essential nutrient."

UC Davis Professor Randy Dahlgren in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources co-authored the study.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences and its Division of Environmental Biology, as well as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
geochemistry; air pollution; acid rain; global warming; drought research; climate; environmental issues; air quality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
New source of global nitrogen discovered: Rocks could hold key to carbon storage and improved global climate projections

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For centuries, the prevailing science has indicated that all of the nitrogen on Earth available to plants comes from the atmosphere. But a study from the University of California, Davis, indicates that more than a quarter comes from Earth's bedrock.

# data[].attributes.headline
Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest point in more than 1,500 years

# data[].attributes.subject
Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest point in more than 1,500 years

# data[].attributes.body
There has been new research led by University College London and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that provides facts that an important factor in the global circulation system has not been running at its maximum strength and power since the mid 1800s. At this time, it is running at its weakest ability for the past 1,600 years. If it continues to run at this weak pace, weather patterns from the US an Europe to the African Sahel and more places around the world will be disrupted and could cause a quick increase in sea level on the US East Coast. Due to the warming after the Little Ice Age, the North Atlantic became warm and evidence of Arctic sea ice, ice sheets, and glaciers surrounding the Arctic began to melt and formed a natural tap pf fresh water into the North Atlantic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
New research led by University College London (UCL) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) provides evidence that a key cog in the global ocean circulation system hasn't been running at peak strength since the mid-1800s and is currently at its weakest point in the past 1,600 years. If the system continues to weaken, it could disrupt weather patterns from the United States and Europe to the African Sahel, and cause more rapid increase in sea level on the U.S. East Coast.

When it comes to regulating global climate, the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean plays a key role. The constantly moving system of deep-water circulation, sometimes referred to as the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt, sends warm, salty Gulf Stream water to the North Atlantic where it releases heat to the atmosphere and warms Western Europe. The cooler water then sinks to great depths and travels all the way to Antarctica and eventually circulates back up to the Gulf Stream.

"Our study provides the first comprehensive analysis of ocean-based sediment records, demonstrating that this weakening of the Atlantic's overturning began near the end of the Little Ice Age, a centuries-long cold period that lasted until about 1850," said Dr. Delia Oppo, a senior scientist with WHOI and co-author of the study which was published in the April 12th issue of Nature.

Lead author Dr. David Thornalley, a senior lecturer at University College London and WHOI adjunct, believes that as the North Atlantic began to warm near the end of the Little Ice Age, freshwater disrupted the system, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Arctic sea ice, and ice sheets and glaciers surrounding the Arctic began to melt, forming a huge natural tap of fresh water that gushed into the North Atlantic. This huge influx of freshwater diluted the surface seawater, making it lighter and less able to sink deep, slowing down the AMOC system.

To investigate the Atlantic circulation in the past, the scientists first examined the size of sediment grains deposited by the deep-sea currents; the larger the grains, the stronger the current. Then, they used a variety of methods to reconstruct near-surface ocean temperatures in regions where temperature is influenced by AMOC strength.

"Combined, these approaches suggest that the AMOC has weakened over the past 150 years by approximately 15 to 20 percent" says Thornalley.

According to study co-author Dr. Jon Robson, a senior research scientist from the University of Reading, the new findings hint at a gap in current global climate models. "North Atlantic circulation is much more variable than previously thought," he said, "and it's important to figure out why the models underestimate the AMOC decreases we've observed." It could be because the models don't have active ice sheets, or maybe there was more Arctic melting, and thus more freshwater entering the system, than currently estimated.

Another study in the same issue of Nature, led by Levke Ceasar and Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, looked at climate model data and past sea-surface temperatures to reveal that AMOC has been weakening more rapidly since 1950 in response to recent global warming. Together, the two new studies provide complementary evidence that the present-day AMOC is exceptionally weak, offering both a longer-term perspective as well as detailed insight into recent decadal changes.

"What is common to the two periods of AMOC weakening -- the end of the Little Ice Age and recent decades -- is that they were both times of warming and melting," said Thornalley. "Warming and melting are predicted to continue in the future due to continued carbon dioxide emissions."

Oppo agrees, both noting, however, that just as past changes in the AMOC have surprised them, there may be future unexpected surprises in store. For example, until recently it was thought that the AMOC was weaker during the Little Ice Age, but these new results show the opposite, highlighting the need to improve our understanding of this important system.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
global warming; climate; geography; ice ages; oceanography; environmental issues; weather; snow and avalanches

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest point in more than 1,500 years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
New research provides evidence that a key cog in the global ocean circulation system hasn't been running at peak strength since the mid-1800s and is currently at its weakest point in the past 1,600 years.

# data[].attributes.headline
‘Rewilding’ Missing Carnivores May Help Restore Some Landscapes

# data[].attributes.subject
‘Rewilding’ Missing Carnivores May Help Restore Some Landscapes

# data[].attributes.body
In the past, gray wolves would be difficult to find in Yellowstone National Park, but they were reintroduced to Yellowstone and Idaho in the 1990s by the process of rewilding. Since their return, they have helps with the high population of deer and elk which had eaten valleys barren. By doing so, vegetation such as trees and shrubs were able to grow back. With more trees helping to control erosion, the flows of some rivers were less chaotic and formed pools that became new habitats. Other wildlife such as birds and beavers returned as well. The wolves at coyotes which made their prey available to other organisms. this cause bears and raptors to come back for carrion. This was one example of a successful rewilding case. It is not always the same outcome as this, but scientists are attempting to do the same with other carnivorous animals as well.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
So, Dr. Ripple and Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab, analyzed hundreds of potential rewilding sites from a database of protected areas around the planet where large carnivores have disappeared. They focused on big places with small human footprints, available prey and buffer zones where animals may traverse safely. Their analysis revealed 130 potential sites suitable for rewilding and an additional 150 spots with little human activity to consider preserving. Their results, published Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science, suggest that with proper attention and care to ensure these carnivores' survival, rewilding programs could restore lost ecosystems worldwide.

But it won't be as simple as finding a dot on a map.

Their paper mentions just two specific reintroduction sites where rewilding would likely work out as planned. They suggest it could be possible to put gray wolves in Olympic National Park in Washington and sending endangered red wolves, which once roamed the southeast, into Everglades National Park. These places have space for reproduction and development, prey and humans who may tolerate them.

But for many other locations, especially in developing countries, people still hunt some animals for bushmeat or body parts used in traditional medicine. Fences limit range. Humans compete for prey or kill carnivores that threaten their lives, agriculture or livestock. Not all corridors are safe. These places may better serve as guideposts, directing researchers to spots for further investigations into what's really happening on the ground.

The biggest hurdle will be finding humans willing to live alongside and support efforts to keep big carnivores around, said Thomas Newsome, an ecologist studying human-predator interactions at the University of Sydney who was not involved in this study. That would mean supporting efforts to stop the activities that killed many large carnivores in the first place. And even for gray wolves, that hasn't been easy: Some people don't want them, and others still hunt wolves outside park boundaries in Yellowstone and in Alaska.

Perhaps the solution is rethinking what it means to be humans in a natural world, said Layla AbdelRahim, an anthropologist who has studied human understanding of wilderness. We must recognize our role as partners with the environment, rather than dominators, to maintain functioning ecosystems, she said.

Rewilding will be a significant trend in preserving ecosystems where all species matter, said Dr. Ripple. "Humans are just figuring out what the interconnectedness in nature is all about."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Rewilding' Missing Carnivores May Help Restore Some Landscapes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
So, Dr. Ripple and Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab, analyzed hundreds of potential rewilding sites from a database of protected areas around the planet where large carnivores have disappeared. They focused on big places with small human footprints, available prey and buffer zones where animals may traverse safely.

# data[].attributes.headline
Clown Fish Need More Energy to Live in a Bleached Home

# data[].attributes.subject
Clown Fish Need More Energy to Live in a Bleached Home

# data[].attributes.body
Clown fish live inside of sea anemones which have stinging tentacles on the outside to protect them and their eggs from predators. Inside of these homes, there is algae which is used to convert sunlight into energy to feed the anemone. That food gives it the ability to provide protection to the fish. Warming temperatures and other environmental disturbances cause the coral and anemones to bleach which kills the algae, the anemones to shrink, and the clown fish to no longer reproduce as they once did. The anemone itself is not killed, just the algae, so the anemone is alive and could possibly recover. The fish should not be suffering because there are no direct connections, but it still does. The fish in bleached anemones need more energy to stay alive which can impair important survival tasks such as swimming.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Researchers already knew that when corals and anemones bleach, clown fish and other animals living among them produce hormones that may help them cope with a changing environment. But scientists hadn't found a way to show that the fish's whole body could be stressed out.

To do this, the researchers collected 16 fish from a healthy coral reef near French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean and took them back to the lab. They put half in tanks with healthy anemones, and half in tanks with anemones that had been bleached with hot water. The anemones were still living and had not yet shrunk, but their algal companions were gone.

After two weeks, the researchers moved the clown fish into tanks pumping out oxygen every few minutes and measured how much oxygen the fish consumed during their most sedentary times.

This gave them an idea of the fish's basal metabolic rate - that is, how much energy the animals needed to sit around and do nothing. (That's akin to a human "lying motionless on the couch doing nothing but still being awake," Dr. Norin said.)

The researchers found that the clown fish living with the bleached anemones had a higher basal metabolic rate than the fish living around healthy anemones. That is, the fish needed more energy to just stay alive around bleached anemones.

You can think about basal metabolic rate as a kind of cost-of-living measure, like the minimum salary you need to get by in New York City. And just as you need to budget for emergencies, social or entertainment expenses, the fish need additional energy for behaviors like risk-taking and foraging that may lead to reproducing and surviving longer.

Researchers have found that in some places with warming water, fish with increased basal metabolic rates can't get enough energy to adapt and also to conduct important survival tasks, like swimming. And Dr. Norin warns that as oceans continue to warm, clown fish could face a double whammy from bleached anemones and rising temperatures that increase the energy needed to survive.

More research is needed to determine whether the metabolic stress is just temporary. With more time, the anemones might recover or the clown fish could acclimate to conditions.

The tale of the stressed out clown fish is a reminder of the myriad ways in which humans are damaging the ocean, Dr. Norin said: "At some point, we will open our eyes and see that we really need to do something."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
proceedings of the royal society b (journal)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Clown Fish Need More Energy to Live in a Bleached Home

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Researchers already knew that when corals and anemones bleach, clown fish and other animals living among them produce hormones that may help them cope with a changing environment. But scientists hadn't found a way to show that the fish's whole body could be stressed out.

# data[].attributes.headline
Climate Change Denialists Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Are Pushing Back. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Climate Change Denialists Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Are Pushing Back. 

# data[].attributes.body
There is scientific evidence that the homes of polar bears are warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet according to several federal agencies. Climate denialists are claiming that the bears are fine and there is nothing wrong with them and there are no dangers to them. Some bloggers believe that the declining numbers of ice in those ares belong to natural warming cycle that is unrelated to humans. Some of the denialists are using the bears to share misinformation about the causes and consequences of climate change, which is not right. The blogs of the denialists usually focus on one specific data point or emphasize gaps in the knowledge that is being presented. Often they focus on how they are still able to get food and live. The loss of habitat issue is the main concern in climate change which is not what is the focus.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Furry, button-nosed and dependent on sea ice for their survival, polar bears have long been poster animals for climate change.

But at a time when established climate science is being questioned at the highest levels of government, climate denialists are turning the charismatic bears to their own uses, capitalizing on their symbolic heft to spread doubts about the threat of global warming.

The scientific evidence that the polar bear's Arctic home is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet is overwhelming, supported by reports like the National Climate Assessment, which was compiled by 13 federal agencies. In some Arctic regions, scientists have documented declines in polar bear numbers and disturbing signs of physical deterioration linked to the loss of sea ice. And last year, the Obama administration called human-driven climate change the biggest threat to the bears' continued existence.

But to hear climate denialists tell it, polar bears are doing just fine. On Watts Up With That, Climate Depot and other websites that dispute climate science, bloggers insist that the Arctic's receding ice is part of a natural warming cycle unrelated to human activities. Predictions about devastating declines in polar bear populations, they say, have failed to materialize.

In effect, many scientists say, the bears have been co-opted by climate denialists, and in an article published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal BioScience, 14 prominent researchers argue that denialist blogs with wide followings are using the bears to spread misinformation about the causes and consequences of climate change.

The researchers also singled out Polar Bear Science, a blog run by Susan J. Crockford, a Canadian zoologist, as a primary source of dubious information about the status of polar bears. About 80 percent of the contrarian websites that the researchers studied referred to Dr. Crockford's blog as a primary source, they said.

The publication of the article is likely to intensify a furor in contrarian circles that began four months ago after an "early view" version of the paper appeared on the BioScience website.

The reaction was swift and fierce. A post on Climate Audit, a blog popular with climate skeptics, called the article "a hit piece" and dismissed it as "yet another piece of propaganda to push a Climate Change agenda." The Global Warming Policy Foundation, a pro-fossil fuel think tank in Britain that has published briefing papers by Dr. Crockford, chimed in with the headline, "14 Climate Bullies Attack Susan Crockford for Telling the Truth About Polar Bears."

Dr. Crockford tweeted that the article amounted to "academic rape" and demanded that it be retracted.

The authors of the paper also came under fire. Freedom of information requests were filed at universities for three of the authors' correspondence, with at least one request by Dr. Crockford. (Two of the requests have been turned down, while one, at the University of California, Davis, is still under review.) And Hans LaBohm, editor of the blog ClimateGate.nl, wrote to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences demanding that Jeffrey A. Harvey, an ecologist and the article's lead author, be reprimanded for conduct "unworthy of serious scientists."

Dr. Harvey said the paper grew out of the increasing frustration he and other scientists felt about the spread of false information, the disregard of established evidence and the harassment of researchers that has in some cases accompanied the public debate on climate change.

By contesting scientific findings about polar bears, denialists hope to instill doubt about climate science as a whole, Dr. Harvey said. "Every time these deniers make some outlandish claim in the media and we don't respond to it, it's like a soccer match and we've given them an open goal," he added.

Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geoscience and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton who was not involved with the article, said he was not surprised to see scientists banding together against climate change denial.

"Some climate scientists basically have had enough of being punching bags," Dr. Oppenheimer said.

He added that scientists have a right to publicly question someone's expertise, as the authors did with Dr. Crockford. "If people are going to make claims that are contrary to scientific understanding, then it's perfectly appropriate to call them out for it," he said, "because in this day and age, where there are so many information sources, it's often difficult to identify who's a real expert."

Although many contrarian websites pick up discussion about polar bears from Dr. Crockford's blog, the article noted that she has no demonstrated expertise in climate science or its effects on polar bears. The credentials of many of the BioScience paper's authors include long lists of published, peer-reviewed articles and studies on these subjects.

Dr. Crockford is an adjunct professor in anthropology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Her fields of study include evolution and paleoecology. She has published some peer-reviewed articles that touch on polar bears. She has also published reports and articles that have not been peer-reviewed, like those through the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Scott Collins, BioScience's editor in chief, said the journal took Dr. Crockford's demand for retraction seriously but "determined that there was no grounds to do so." The final version, Dr. Collins said, includes "corrections that slightly change two sentences," in one case narrowing a statement about Dr. Crockford's credentials to specify that her lack of expertise is in "the effects of sea ice on the population dynamics of polar bears."

Dr. Crockford declined to be interviewed by phone or answer questions in writing. But she said in an email: "This paper is a smack-talk response to my pointing out that polar bear numbers did not plummet as predicted when mid-century-like sea ice conditions arrived unexpectedly in 2007. The paper is not only devoid of science, it lacks the professional decorum that other science journals demand."

Steven C. Amstrup, an author of the paper and chief scientist for Polar Bears International, a conservation group, said Dr. Crockford frequently referenced a 2007 report he prepared when he was the federal government's polar bear project director in Alaska. The report projected that if the rise of global temperature continued unabated, two-thirds of the world's polar bears could be lost by the middle of this century.

By that time, climate models suggest, September sea ice in the Arctic could decline to an area of one million square kilometers or less. Scientists have estimated that in the 19th and 20th centuries, the average September sea ice extent was eight million square kilometers.

But Dr. Crockford often asserts on her blog that sea ice has already declined to the projected midcentury levels and that the polar bear population has not decreased by two-thirds.

Dr. Amstrup, however, said that according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the average September sea ice extent for the years 2007 to 2017 was 4.5 million square kilometers, "nowhere near the low levels projected it would be by the middle of the century."

"To say that we already should have seen those declines now when we're not nearly to the middle of the century yet is absurd," he said.

Of the 19 polar bear subpopulations in the Arctic Circle, three have shown substantial declines, including bears in the South Beaufort Sea off Alaska's coast and in West Hudson Bay in Canada. One subpopulation has increased in numbers, and scientists know little or nothing about nine of the others, which are either in Russian territory or in locations so remote that resources are not available for surveys.

The paper's authors wrote that contrarian blogs tend to focus on single data points or to emphasize gaps in scientific knowledge, "suggesting that those uncertainties cast doubt on the present and future demographic trends of polar bears."

Andrew Derocher, a biology professor at the University of Alberta who has studied polar bears for more than 30 years and was not involved in the paper, said in his view, the contrarians were completely missing the big picture. The issue, he said, boiled down to something simple: Polar bears need sea ice.

"It's just a habitat loss issue," Dr. Derocher said. "There's nothing more complicated than that."

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Climate Skeptics Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Beg to Differ.. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate Change Denialists Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Are Pushing Back.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Furry, button-nosed and dependent on sea ice for their survival, polar bears have long been poster animals for climate change. But at a time when established climate science is being questioned at the highest levels of government, climate denialists are turning the charismatic bears to their own uses, capitalizing on their symbolic heft to spread doubts about the threat of global warming.

# data[].attributes.body
Climate Change Denialists Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Are Pushing Back.
April 10, 2018
Clown Fish Need More Energy to Live in a Bleached Home
April 10, 2018

‘Rewilding’ Missing Carnivores May Help Restore Some Landscapes

March 6, 2018
Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest point in more than 1,500 years
April 11, 2018
New source of global nitrogen discovered

April 5, 2018

ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATES TAKE AIM AT PROPOSED REVISIONS TO INDONESIA'S CONSERVATION ACT

April 10, 2018

# data[].attributes.headline
California Sea Lion Population Rebounded to New Highs

# data[].attributes.subject
California Sea Lion Population Rebounded to New Highs

# data[].attributes.body
Due to the Marine Mammal Protection act, the populations of California sea lions has rebounded significantly. Factors such as market hunting, pollutants, and bounties made the number of sea lions decline in the middle of the last century. a major increase in sea lions found in a new stud shows their population in 1975 as less than 90,000. By 2008, it had risen to about 281,450 which was the estimated carrying capacity for the species. it stayed around that number, then increased again to 306,220 in 2012, then fell below carrying capacity in the recent years sue to the change in ocean conditions (warming, pollutants, etc.). Their populations depend heavily on changes in the environment, because things such as ocean temperature affect their prey. If the ocean temperature increases 1 degree C, then the population growth is zero. If the ocean temperature increases by 2, it will result in a population decline of 7 percent. In 2012, a marine heat wave known as "the blob" coming off of the West Coast in addition to an El Nino, pup production decreased and survival decreased as well due to malnourishment. By using the history of the population, they are able to apply it to today's populations and adjust from it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
California sea lions have fully rebounded under the protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), with their population on the West Coast reaching carrying capacity in 2008 before unusually warm ocean conditions reduced their numbers, according to the first comprehensive population assessment of the species.

The sea lion population is healthy and robust, the new research found, and its recovery over the past several decades reflects an important success for the MMPA. The landmark 1972 legislation recognized marine mammals as a central element of their ocean ecosystems, setting population goals based on levels that would contribute to the health and stability of those ecosystems.

The MMPA calls those levels the Optimum Sustainable Population (OSP), and provides options for states to take over management of species that have reached their OSP.

California sea lions have now reached those levels, according to the new assessment by scientists from NOAA Fisheries' Alaska Fisheries Science Center and Southwest Fisheries Science Center. They published the results of the long-term collaborative study today in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

"The population has basically come into balance with its environment," said coauthor Sharon Melin, a research biologist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center who has tracked sea lion numbers in Southern California's Channel Islands for years. "The marine environment is always changing, and their population is at a point where it responds very quickly to changes in the environment."

Scientists combined the results of sea lion pup counts in the Channel Islands, aerial surveys of sea lion rookeries, survival rates and other information to reconstruct the growth of the sea lion population from 1975 to 2014. They gained enough insight into the dynamics of the population to fill in gaps from a few years with little data.

Market hunting, bounties, pollutants such as DDT and other forces depressed sea lion numbers in the middle of the last century. The new study found that the species then rose from less than 90,000 animals in 1975 to an estimated 281,450 in 2008, which was roughly the carrying capacity for sea lions in the California Current Ecosystem at that time. It then fluctuated around that level, reaching a high of 306,220 in 2012 before declining below the carrying capacity in the years since as ocean conditions changed.

Such a long-term reconstruction of the sea lion population has never been done before, said Robert DeLong, leader of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center's California Current Ecosystems Program and a coauthor of the new research.

The researchers found sea lion numbers very sensitive to environmental changes, especially changes in ocean temperatures that affect their prey. Their models based on past population shifts predict that an increase of 1 degree C in sea surface temperature off the West Coast will reduce sea lion population growth to zero, while an increase of 2 degrees will lead to a 7 percent decline in the population.

"When the California Current is not productive, they respond pretty fast and dramatically," Melin said. "They're out there in the ocean sampling it all the time. That makes them a very powerful indicator of what's happening in the marine environment."

Marine conditions since 2012 have illustrated that. An unusual marine heat wave off the West Coast known as "the blob" combined with an El Niño climate pattern reduced pup production and survival, with thousands of malnourished pups stranding on Southern California beaches. NOAA Fisheries declared the elevated number of deaths an Unusual Mortality Event in 2013.

The sea lion population dropped to just over 250,000 in 2013 and 2014.

"This is not just a story about continued growth of the population," DeLong said. "These last several years have brought new environmental stresses to the California Current, and we've seen that reflected by the sea lions."

Understanding the relationship between sea lion numbers and the environment can help scientists detect signals of coming change. Wildlife managers can then use that information to anticipate and prepare for shifts in the ecosystem and its inhabitants.

"It helps us to understand the factors driving this population, because we can incorporate them into management decisions," said Chris Yates, Assistant Regional Administrator for Protected Resources in NOAA Fisheries' West Coast Region.

The general recovery of sea lion numbers has had other consequences on the West Coast, including conflicts with people over beach access where sea lions haul out and concern about sea lion predation on threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead in the Northwest. NOAA Fisheries has authorized Oregon, Washington and Idaho to remove individually identifiable sea lions near the Columbia River's Bonneville Dam that have been spotted repeatedly preying on fish protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The species maintained OSP levels even when small numbers of adult males were being removed to protect salmon runs in the Columbia River and climate events were depressing growth. That suggests that the removal of a limited number of sea lions in such programs is unlikely to affect the population as a whole, Melin said.

She stressed the value of long-term data in understanding the dynamics of the population. "If we had looked only at the last five years, we would have thought sea lions were in a tailspin," she said. "Because we know the history of the population, we can put the recent decline in perspective."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
fish; marine biology; endangered animals; oceanography; ecology; environmental awareness; ocean policy; social issues; travel and recreation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
California sea lion population rebounded to new highs: Sea lion numbers reflect conditions in California Current through the decades

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
California sea lions have fully rebounded under the protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, with their population on the West Coast reaching carrying capacity in 2008 before unusually warm ocean conditions reduced their numbers, according to the first comprehensive population assessment of the species.

# data[].attributes.body
A Mexican engineer named Andres Herrera was at a beach in Northeastern Mexico when he discovers 40,000 nesting Kemp's ridley sea turtles. This species is the smallest are rarest of all sea turtles. This was about 70 years ago. He shoot footage of the nests, but never showed anyone or acted on it. About a decade later, he told marine biologists about his discovery. Scientists saw the footage in the 60s which was too late because poaching of their eggs led to a major decline in their population. The eggs were prized as aphrodisiacs. Only about 200 turtles were nesting each year around the world from 1978 to 1991. Herrera's film sparked a movement in order to save and sustain the species. Over 14,000 of their nets (about 5,600 mothers) were found along the nesting range from the Gulf of Mexico last year. With help from the National Park Service's Padre Island national Seashore (the largest nesting site for the Kemp's ridleys in the US), the species were able to recover well and survive.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Seventy years ago, a Mexican engineer named Andrés Herrera came across a beach in Northeastern Mexico that was teeming with 40,000 nesting Kemp's ridley sea turtles. He shot some and put the film in a drawer, where it sat for more than a decade before he told marine biologists of its existence.

By the time scientists saw the footage in the early 1960s, the number of Kemp's ridleys - the smallest and rarest species of sea turtle - had plummeted, mostly as a result of poaching of their eggs, which are prized as aphrodisiacs. Between 1978 and 1991, only about 200 turtles were nesting worldwide each year.

Mr. Herrera's film ignited an international movement to save the Kemp's ridley. Last year, beach patrollers found more than 14,000 Kemp's ridley nests along the turtle's nesting range in the Gulf of Mexico, corresponding to about 5,600 mothers.

Part of the turtle's recovery can be attributed to conservation efforts at the National Park Service's Padre Island National Seashore, the largest nesting site for Kemp's ridleys in the United States. Through spring and summer, park workers collect and incubate eggs, then release newborn hatchlings into the ocean. Those near South Texas might be able to catch a public hatchling release in the next few days, or later in August, by checking the nesting program's Facebook page, or calling its Hatchling Hotline. Here's a look at some of what goes on behind the scenes before those turtles get released.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Grand Sea Turtle Experiment on Padre Island

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Seventy years ago, a Mexican engineer named Andrés Herrera came across a beach in Northeastern Mexico that was teeming with 40,000 nesting Kemp's ridley sea turtles. He shot some and put the film in a drawer, where it sat for more than a decade before he told marine biologists of its existence.

# data[].attributes.body
Why the Forest Doesn't Fear the Fire
January 22, 2018
Wildlife Trafficking Kingpin Arrested in Thailand
January 20, 2018
For an Endangered Animal, a Fire or Hurricane Can Means the End
October 25, 2017

The Grand Sea Turtle Experiment
July 28, 2016
California Sea Lion Population rebounded to New Highs
January 17, 2018

Billions of Plastic Pieces Litter Coral in Asia and Australia

January 25, 2017

# data[].attributes.body
Many of Florida's Sea Turtle Nests Were Destroyed by Hurricane Irma
October 6, 2017
Sea Turtles Appear to be Bouncing Back Around the World
September 20, 2017
Determining when humans started impacting the planet on a large scale
October 25, 2017
Trump Plans to Shrink Two National Monuments in Utah

October 27, 2017

A Plan to Give Whales and Other ocean Life Some Peace and Quiet
June 3, 2016
Alaska's Permafrost is Thawing
August 23,  2017

# data[].attributes.headline
For an Endangered Animal, a Fire or Hurricane Can Mean the End

# data[].attributes.subject
For an Endangered Animal, a Fire or Hurricane Can Mean the End

# data[].attributes.body
Due to recent hurricanes and wildfires in the US, many rare and threated species populations living in those habits have decreased. In Arizona,heatwaves which turned into wildfires led to the red squirrel population to have a massive decrease. 217 of the 252 left in the species died. In addition, trout needed to removed (rescued) from forest streams, because the water would soon become clogged with ash. This is because normal forest ground usually filters the runoff. The Mexican spotted owl was also at risk because wildfires are its primary threat. In California, the mountain yellow-legged frog faced habitat destruction from the wildfires. because the streams become dry post-fire, survival during the winter becomes difficult for them. This also impacts the California red-legged frog and the the endangered salmon and steelhead fish that live in the Russian River. The ash and sediment flown in the water can damage the fish. Hurricane Harvey in Texas was a big impact on wildlife as well. Only 5 of the 29 rare prairie chickens that were tracked in the Atwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife refuge near Huston survived. The bird was already endangered, so the Hurricane and its effects did not help.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When lighting struck the Pinaleño Mountains in southeast Arizona at around 2:45 p.m. on June 7, igniting a 48,000-acre fire that reduced an ancient forest to blackened poles and stumps, a scurry of rare squirrels - 217 of the 252 left in existence - disappeared.

Some were fitted with radio transmitters that burned to ash; conservationists deduced their fates. They hoped others had managed to escape.

But for those 35 survivors - biological remnants from the last ice age - Jeff Humphrey, a spokesman with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, was deeply concerned.

"Most of them have lost the cones they've stored for their winter nourishment," Mr. Humphrey said. "How do we get them through this winter?"

The Mount Graham red squirrel is among more than a dozen rare or threatened species that either perished or suffered habitat loss during recent hurricanes and wildfires across the United States.

Southwest Fires

The red squirrel was not the only creature affected during the Arizona wildfires, intensified by heat waves in the state's south. After the fire, biologists and wildlife officers rescued Gila and Apache trout from forest streams before the water became clogged with ash, which happens when normal forest ground cover isn't there to filter the runoff.

The Mexican spotted owl, which lives in wooded and canyon areas throughout New Mexico and southern Utah, was also vulnerable. "Its primary threat is wildfires, but it's far more abundant," Mr. Humphrey said.

California Wildfires

In Southern California, the mountain yellow-legged frog, of which there were about 400 living in remote, drying streams in the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains, could face a hard winter after fires destroyed their habitat. Dr. Bruce Stein, a conservation scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, said he also worried for the California red-legged frog in wine country, as well as for endangered salmon and steelhead living in the Russian River (as in Arizona, sediment flowing into the water could harm the fish).

One of North America's rarest species,the Amargosa vole,also lost part of its remaining habitat in a September fire in the Amargosa Basin near Tecopa, Calif. About 50 of the few hundred remaining mammals perished, said Janet Foley, a professor at the U.C. Davis Veterinary Medicine protection program. "It killed off all the vegetation," she said, "and they need to live in that."

Hurricane Harvey

Just five of the 29 rare prairie chickens being tracked at the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge near Houston survived Hurricane Harvey. The bird - known for its funky mating dance - was already critically endangered. During the last century, its prairie grassland habitat in Texas and Louisiana was plowed to create space for farmlands and cities.

"It was a devastating impact," said Mike Morrow,the refuge's lead biologist. "The good news is we have an established captive breeding program," he said. "Had it not been for that captive flock, it could have resulted in near-extinction."

Whooping cranes "dodged a bullet," Dr. Stein said, when Harvey made landfall at their winter spot in Aransas County. At that time, the bird was breeding in Canada, but had it been in Texas, the species could have been wiped out, said Dr. Stein. "The concern is what effect the hurricane may have had on the habitat," he added. Ocelots (a small Texan cat) and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, which conservationists feared would be affected, also managed to survive the storm.

Hurricane Irma

Irma hit a number of species hard, including the Barbuda warbler and the Everglade snail kite. In Florida's Keys - which Dr. Stein referred to as a "biological hot spot" - the storm was bad news for butterflies like the Miami blue, Schaus swallowtail and Bartram's hairstreak; as well as green and loggerhead sea turtles and Key deer.

The Key deer is "a really charismatic animal," said Brian Hires, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Fewer than 1,000 Key deer are left in existence. All but 33 survived the storm, but may face challenges with restricted access to fresh drinking water. The Miami blue butterfly (there are fewer than 100 left) are only "hanging on in a couple of Keys," Dr. Stein said.

Hurricane Irma also cut off power to a Florida grasshopper sparrow aviary where the species, teetering on the edge of extinction, was successfully bred in captivity for the first time last year. Hours away from their backup generator shutting down, a service truck delivered 100 gallons offuel to the facility. The grasshopper sparrow chicks survived. The fate of the Bahama oriole, found only in North Andros, South Andros and Mangrove Cay, is still unknown.

Hurricane Maria

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo killed almost half the wild population of Puerto Rico's native parrots - the only remaining bird of its type in the United States. The animal - with white-ringed eyes and a red stripe above its beak - had, by this year, recovered to about 500 wild and captive individuals. While most of those at the Iguaca Aviary in Puerto Rico's rain forest survived, the fate of those wild birds in the Rio Abajo and El Yunque forests is unknown.

Correction:

An earlier version of this article identified incorrectly the area where the Barbuda warbler is found. It is Barbuda, not the Florida Keys. An earlier version also referred incorrectly to the range and conservation status of another bird. The snail kite is not generally threatened over its entire range; the Everglade snail kite, which is not found in the Florida Keys, is endangered.

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misidentified the location of a fire that destroyed part of the habitat of the Amargosa vole. It was in the Amargosa Basin near Tecopa, Calif., not in the Mojave National Preserve.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
For an Endangered Animal, a Fire or Hurricane Can Mean the End

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When lighting struck the Pinaleño Mountains in southeast Arizona at around 2:45 p.m. on June 7, igniting a 48,000-acre fire that reduced an ancient forest to blackened poles and stumps, a scurry of rare squirrels - 217 of the 252 left in existence - disappeared.

# data[].attributes.headline
Trump Plans to Shrink Two National Monuments in Utah - October 27, 2017

# data[].attributes.subject
Trump Plans to Shrink Two National Monuments in Utah - October 27, 2017

# data[].attributes.body
Republican Utah Senator Orrin Hatch got word from President Donald Trump that the administration would be shrinking two of Utah's national monuments. These cover millions of acres in the state and are significant natural features of the area. The two monuments in discussion were the Bears Ears National Monument (covers 1.35 million acres) and the Grand Staircase-Escalate National Monument (1.9 million acres). Activists and environmental groups immediately spoke out against trump, saying that, "“It is a disgrace that the President wants to undo the nation’s first national monument created to honor Native American cultural heritage." National Monuments have caused a lot of controversy among groups of ranchers, miners, and environmentalists. The most common argument is that that they do no harm to anyone or the local economy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"I'm not going to get ahead of the president's announcement on the specifics of that, but I can tell you he will be going to Utah in the first part of early December and we will release more details at that point, if not before," Ms. Sanders said.

A spokeswoman from the Interior Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Environmental groups denounced the decision.

"It is a disgrace that the President wants to undo the nation's first national monument created to honor Native American cultural heritage. And a travesty that he's trying to unravel a century's worth of conservation history, all behind closed doors," Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council said, referring to Bears Ears.

National monuments have long been a source of controversy among ranchers, miners and environmentalists. Conservative groups argue that such designations, similar to national parks, create regulatory burdens that hurt local economies. Bears Ears, which Mr. Obama created at the end of his term, has been a particular source of friction, as is Grand Staircase-Escalanate.

Republicans in Western states have accused both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama of federal overreach in demanding strict protections for those sites.

"We believe in the importance of protecting these sacred antiquities, but Secretary Zinke and the Trump administration rolled up their sleeves to dig in, talk to locals, talk to local tribes, and find a better way to do it," Senator Hatch said.

The decision was expected to be challenged in court.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Trump Plans to Shrink Two National Monuments in Utah

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"I'm not going to get ahead of the president's announcement on the specifics of that, but I can tell you he will be going to Utah in the first part of early December and we will release more details at that point, if not before," Ms. Sanders said.

# data[].attributes.body
Plants are not aware of the fact that fires occur because they do not have a brain or nervous system. Although they are not aware, they do react to the situation. Some evolve with many mechanisms to help recover from fires. For example, the eucalyptus have lignotubers (woody storage vessels) that protect tissues that sprout after brush fire in Australia fire. Other plants release seeds when woody capsules become heated (Banksia) and some like orchids flower after being stimulated by the fire. In other cases, seeds may only germinate after exposure to smoke or fire. This is true with the acacia. Some species in California sprout again after fires. There are pine trees with pine cones that have seeds in them where are released because the fire melts the tar that holds them in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Q. Are plants aware of fire? Do they react to it?
A. It is generally agreed that plants do not have "awareness" in the conventional sense, since they lack a nervous system and a brain. But they do react to the damage a fire can inflict.

In Australia, for example, plants have evolved a variety of mechanisms that help them recover from brush fires. The eucalyptus has woody storage vessels called lignotubers that shelter tissues that can sprout after a fire.

Some plants, like banksia, release seeds out of woody capsules when heated, while others, including some orchids, flower after stimulation by a fire. Still other plants, like acacia, have seeds that germinate only after exposure to fire or smoke.

In California, too, a few species - including maple, aspen and pinegrass - sprout again after a fire from buds that grow at least partly protected under the soil line. Some pine trees have cones sealed by tar that open to release seeds only when a fire's heat melts the tar. And as in Australia, some native species that produce seeds must be exposed to fire to germinate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Q. Are plants aware of fire? Do they react to it? A. It is generally agreed that plants do not have "awareness" in the conventional sense, since they lack a nervous system and a brain. But they do react to the damage a fire can inflict.

# data[].attributes.headline
Billions of Plastic Pieces Litter Coral in Asia and Australia

# data[].attributes.subject
Billions of Plastic Pieces Litter Coral in Asia and Australia

# data[].attributes.body
Dr. Joleah Lamb is a coral biologist and she is currently a professor at Cornell. Her and her colleagues wrote a paper about plastic pollution in 159 reefs in Australia, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand. They believe that an estimate of more than 11 billion pieces of plastic bigger than 5 cm are littered across the reefs in the Asia-pacific region. That is enough trash to wrap around the Earth almost 14 times. Also, coral reefs with plastic on them makes them 20 times as diseased than those that are not polluted. The researchers also noted that countries with poor methods of treating plastic pollution had the most plastic on their reefs. They estimate tat about 11.1 billion pieces of plastic are in the ocean now, and will increase to 15.7 billion in the next 7 years. Coral on plastic led to clear signs on disease on 90 percent of what was studied. The plastic draws bacteria and many of them lead to the coral reefs to be in danger. Once they are on the coral, they can get wounded, which makes infection much easier. It is possible to control the impact that is made by the plastic on the reefs. Countries that make a stronger effort to keep plastic out ot=f the ocean have healthier reefs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Joleah Lamb began her career as a coral biologist on the Great Barrier Reef. Every now and then she'd note a scrap of plastic as she swam through. But when she started studying reefs in Asia, she came across a completely different level of detritus.

"I don't even know how to record this!" she remembers thinking. "It's a chair! Where do I put 'chair'? Or diaper? Or bottle?"

Over the years, Dr. Lamb, who is now a professor at Cornell, and her collaborators assembled a formidable database of plastic pollution on 159 reefs in Australia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. In a paper released in the journal Science on Thursday, they estimate that reefs across the Asia-Pacific region are littered with more than 11 billion pieces of plastic larger than 5 centimeters. If those pieces were lined up next to each other, they would reach around the Earth nearly 14 times, at the very least. To make matters worse, corals with plastic on them were 20 times more likely to be diseased than those that were not polluted.

[READ: Corals May Have a Taste for Dangerous Plastic]

In their survey of about 12,000 square meters of reef, the researchers noticed that countries that are known to have particularly poor methods of dealing with plastic pollution had the most plastic on corals. By combining the amount of plastic entering the ocean in each country, a known quantity from previous researchers' work, with their own observations, they were able to estimate how much plastic was likely on reefs in 15 different nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

That gave them the stunning figure of 11.1 billion pieces, which they project will increase to 15.7 billion in the next seven years, as worldwide plastics entering the ocean are projected to increase tenfold (the numbers do not include China and Singapore, for which they were not able to make estimates).

Furthermore, when the researchers found plastic on coral, about 90 percent of the time they saw clear signs of disease. There may be several different reasons. To start with, plastic in the ocean is a magnet for bacteria, including some implicated in coral diseases. Polypropylene, used in numerous products like bottle caps and toothpaste tubes, is beloved by the Vibrio group of bacteria, which are behind one set of illnesses. Even worse, bacteria adds weight to pieces of plastic, making them more likely to fall to the seafloor and land on a reef. Plastics can also block the light, making corals more susceptible to a darkness-loving disease called black band. And once they land, they can wound the coral, making it easier for infection to start.

In fact, the researchers saw that of the six groups of coral diseases generally found on reefs, four were overwhelmingly represented in plastic-contaminated corals, suggesting that those are encouraged by the pollution.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
far east  south and southeast asia and pacific areas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Billions of Plastic Pieces Litter Coral in Asia and Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Joleah Lamb began her career as a coral biologist on the Great Barrier Reef. Every now and then she'd note a scrap of plastic as she swam through. But when she started studying reefs in Asia, she came across a completely different level of detritus. "I don't even know how to record this!"

# data[].attributes.headline
Wildlife Trafficking Kingpin Arrested in Thailand

# data[].attributes.subject
Wildlife Trafficking Kingpin Arrested in Thailand

# data[].attributes.body
A main source for wildlife trafficking in Asia was arrested in Thailand this past week. His names Boonchai Bach, and he has been involved in illegal animal trade for over a decade. He has been linked with the smuggling of 14 rhino horns from Africa to Thailand, which are worth over $1 million, in the last month. In addition, he has also smuggled items such as ivory, rhino horns, pangolins, tigers, lions, and other endangered species for over a decade. Bach has been running a widespread trafficking network on the Thai-Los border and it has spread into Vietnam. According to the wildlife laws in his country, he could face up to 4 years and prison and a fine of $1,300, but authorities are considering a charge that would give him up to 10 years for money-laundering. Thailand has been a hot-spot for trafficked wildlife which is mostly going to China. It had the largest unregulated ivory market in the world, prior to the Elephant ivory Act of 2014 and 2015. Although these laws are in place, exotic wildlife are still smuggled through the country.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Thailand is a transit hub for trafficked wildlife, mostly destined for China, and was considered to have the largest unregulated ivory market in the world before it introduced the Elephant Ivory Act of 2014 and 2015. The laws regulate the domestic ivory market and criminalize the sale of African elephant ivory. But rhinoceros horns, pangolin scales, turtles, and other exotic wildlife are still repeatedly smuggled through Thailand.

In December, a Thai airport official, Nikorn Wongprajan, was arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport after he was caught - along with a Chinese smuggler and a Vietnamese courier - with 14 rhino horns and admitted to being hired to send the horns to one of Mr. Boonchai's relatives, Freeland's statement said. The group helped Thai police with information about Mr. Boonchai that led to his arrest.

Steve Galster, founder of Freeland, said Boonchai's arrest is Thailand's "largest wildlife crime case ever."

"This network is connected to a group of moneymen who may be living outside the country. We are working to get arrest warrants out on those people as well," said Gen. Chalermkiat Sriworakhan, the deputy national police commissioner.

Three years ago, Thailand froze $37 million in assets linked to a tiger trafficking ring in the country's northeast, after an investigation helped by Freeland. In 2016, a court order seized Thai bank accounts and other assets, including a house worth $142,000, belonging to Chumlong Lemtongthai, a Thai who was convicted in South Africa on rhino horn trafficking charges.

Mr. Chumlung was imprisoned in 2012 after being sent by the Southeast Asian trafficking syndicate called the Xaysavang network - which authorities say includes Mr. Boonchai - to take advantage of South Africa's permit system for professional trophy hunts. He hired prostitutes to pose as hunters, and organized sham expeditions in which 26 rhinos were killed, according to court documents. Customs papers were then doctored for shipping the rhino horns to Laos.

"We have been looking at this syndicate for over a decade now," said Onkuri Majumdar, a program officer from Freeland. "They have tentacles all over Africa and Southeast Asia. They are responsible for the slaughter of thousands of endangered animals, including rhinos and elephants. And let's not forget rangers in Africa who have died, killed by poachers financed by men like Boonchai."

Mr. Galster, the Freeland founder, believes that the arrest marks a significant moment for anti-trafficking initiatives, but that officials must continue to track down these networks.

"This arrest spells hope for wildlife," Mr. Galster said in a statement. "We hope Thailand, its neighboring countries, and counterparts in Africa will build on this arrest."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
far east  south and southeast asia and pacific areas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Wildlife Trafficking Kingpin Arrested in Thailand

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thailand is a transit hub for trafficked wildlife, mostly destined for China, and was considered to have the largest unregulated ivory market in the world before it introduced the Elephant Ivory Act of 2014 and 2015. The laws regulate the domestic ivory market and criminalize the sale of African elephant ivory.

# data[].attributes.headline
Many of Florida's Sea Turtle Nests Were Destroyed by Hurricane Irma - October 6, 2017

# data[].attributes.subject
Many of Florida's Sea Turtle Nests Were Destroyed by Hurricane Irma - October 6, 2017

# data[].attributes.body
Florida is a main point used for sea turtle nesting, but due to the previous hurricanes, a large number of sea turtle nests were swept away, along with homes and businesses. This year was a very important comeback year for the endangered leatherback turtles, loggerhead, and green turtles who are not endangered, but are a threatened species. The hurricane ruined the hopes of this comeback. Although we do not have an official count of the damage until end of November, it is evident that Irma has destroyed many of the nests in the state. The losses from the hurricanes made a big impact, but sea turtle populations will prosper as long as there are no major hurricanes in the coming months/years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Endangered leatherbacks lay their eggs earlier in the season, so none of their nests were lost in the refuge.

Sea turtles, which take 25 to 30 years to reach reproductive age, lay their eggs in the open beach, under vegetation or at the base of a dune. The hurricane eroded key nesting beaches, washing away nests or flooding them with rainwater or seawater, Dr. Mansfield said.

Along two stretches of beach south of Cape Canaveral, more than 90 percent of incubating loggerhead nests were destroyed by the storm, representing about 25 percent of the season's total.

Sea turtle eggs take 45 to 70 days to incubate in the sand and are more vulnerable early in development, she said.

Sea turtles may lay eggs several times a season. Loggerhead nesting tends to wrap up by August or September, while green turtle nesting may continue through part of the peak hurricane season, Dr. Mansfield said.

Loggerheads have laid only eight new nests at the refuge since the storm, while green turtles have laid 466.

Green turtles typically lay more nests in alternate years. Last year, Hurricane Matthew wiped out many nests, but it was a light laying season for the greens, so there were fewer nests to destroy, Dr. Mansfield said.

This year, with record numbers of green turtle nests on the northeastern coast of Florida - with 12,000 north of Cape Canaveral and more than 15,000 a bit farther south - huge numbers were lost, Dr. Ceriani said.

Hurricane Nate, which is bearing down on Florida's Gulf Coast, is unlikely to have a huge impact, because the loggerheads that are more common in that area have already laid their nests for the season.

There may be some impact on remaining green turtle nests on the Atlantic coast if the storm hits hard on those beaches, "but I don't expect it would be bad," Dr. Ceriani said in a follow-up email.

Although the losses this year are significant, sea turtle populations will survive as long as the hits don't keep coming, Dr. Mansfield said.

But with hurricanes expected to intensify and increase in frequency, Dr. Mansfield worries about the longer-term health of the populations.

"I'm just hoping with two hurricanes like this in a row that we don't have another few," she said, "because we need a break."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Many of Florida's Sea Turtle Nests Were Destroyed by Hurricane Irma

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Endangered leatherbacks lay their eggs earlier in the season, so none of their nests were lost in the refuge. Sea turtles, which take 25 to 30 years to reach reproductive age, lay their eggs in the open beach, under vegetation or at the base of a dune.

# data[].attributes.headline
Determining when humans started impacting the planet on a large scale - October 25, 2017

# data[].attributes.subject
Determining when humans started impacting the planet on a large scale - October 25, 2017

# data[].attributes.body
Humans first began impacting the climate and environment with the Industrial Revolution (1800's) and it quickly became more popular and impact into the second half of the 20th century. Human impact from agriculture, how we get rid of waste, have been recorded in sedimentary records. After studies and research, scientists have agreed that the beginning of large-scale human impact on our environment began during the 1950's, being led by the uproar of industrial work after WWII. On a positive note, a decrease in contamination was recorded around the same time due to wastewater treatment plants being installed in the 70's. This was a success in mitigation for our population.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Plan to Give Whales and Other ocean Life Some Peace and Quiet - June 3, 2016

# data[].attributes.subject
A Plan to Give Whales and Other ocean Life Some Peace and Quiet - June 3, 2016

# data[].attributes.body
The sounds from humans leave an impact on our ocean, even if we fail to hear it. Sounds such as oil and gas drilling, sonar, oil, ship propellers, and other industrial work make loud sounds that interferes with the behavior because the noises of the ocean often come into contact with how they communicate with other marine life, finding food, avoiding predators, and migration. A helpful solution to the increase in ocean noise is the Ocean Noise Strategy Roadmap draft is the first step in a 10-year plan to reduce the noise and harmful impacts on marine life. this is a pollution problem that can be solved easier than many others that we face.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
While the agency has been collecting information on ocean noise and its effects on certain species for several years, the full range on marine animals is not completely understood, though the symptoms are often striking.

Sea mammals, in particular, have evolved to take advantage of how well and far sound can travel under water, and to compensate for poor visibility in the dark deep. Whales and dolphins have extraordinary hearing and the ability to communicate in widely varying voices.

But sound produced by human activity can get in the way. In the waters off Massachusetts, oceanic scientists have observed that many whales no longer seem to register the sounds of ships, said Richard Merrick, the chief scientist for the oceanic administration's fisheries service. They do not necessarily associate the sounds of ships with danger, he said, so they do not always move out of the way.

Elsewhere, other species of whales, he said, "just shut up" when ships pass by, in part because many species communicate using sounds in the same range of frequency as the noise produced by ship engines.

And some studies have demonstrated that cod and haddock populations in the Atlantic, both of which are considered or are becoming overfished, can hear and also avoid low-frequency sounds, though it is not clear what the effects might be on their behavior, said Jason Gedamke, an acoustics expert with the oceanic administration and a lead author of the road map. Cod, in particular, also make lots of noise when they spawn, but the implications of human sound on that behavior is not fully known, either, Dr. Gedamke said.

Michael Jasny, the director of the marine mammal protection project for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the plan marked a big change in how the oceanic administration sees ocean noise: as a problem that needs to be addressed more broadly instead of case by case.

Mr. Jasny added that he was disappointed that the announcement lacked a concrete plan or a schedule for being carried out.

But unlike other ocean pollutants, this problem can be solved, he said: "Once you stop making noise, it goes away."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
national oceanic and atmospheric administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Plan to Give Whales and Other Ocean Life Some Peace and Quiet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While the agency has been collecting information on ocean noise and its effects on certain species for several years, the full range on marine animals is not completely understood, though the symptoms are often striking. Sea mammals, in particular, have evolved to take advantage of how well and far sound can travel under water, and to compensate for poor visibility in the dark deep.

# data[].attributes.headline
Alaska's Permafrost is Thawing - August 23, 2017

# data[].attributes.subject
Alaska's Permafrost is Thawing - August 23, 2017

# data[].attributes.body
As the title says, the permafrost in Alaska is beginning to thaw. The frozen ground used as storage for ancient carbon, could be gone by the time 2050 arrives which means that a large percentage of the land will be lost. Many plants and organic matter are stored/found in these permafrost layers, ranging from ten to hundreds of feet below the surface. This permafrost layer is thought to hold two times the amount of carbon that is found in the atmosphere. When these layers containing organic matter thaw, a conversion occurs where the organic matter changes into carbon dioxide and methane, and it will impact the global warming crisis because it flows into the atmosphere. If factors continue to build up, the state will go from a carbon sink to a net source.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
YUKON DELTA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska - The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as other parts of the planet, and even here in sub-Arctic Alaska the rate of warming is high. Sea ice and wildlife habitat are disappearing; higher sea levels threaten coastal native villages.

But to the scientists from Woods Hole Research Center who have come here to study the effects of climate change, the most urgent is the fate of permafrost, the always-frozen ground that underlies much of the state.

Starting just a few feet below the surface and extending tens or even hundreds of feet down, it contains vast amounts of carbon in organic matter - plants that took carbon dioxide from the atmosphere centuries ago, died and froze before they could decompose. Worldwide, permafrost is thought to contain about twice as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere.

Once this ancient organic material thaws, microbes convert some of it to carbon dioxide and methane, which can flow into the atmosphere and cause even more warming. Scientists have estimated that the process of permafrost thawing could contribute as much as 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit to global warming over the next several centuries, independent of what society does to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels and other activities.

In Alaska, nowhere is permafrost more vulnerable than here, 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle, in a vast, largely treeless landscape formed from sediment brought down by two of the state's biggest rivers, the Yukon and the Kuskokwim. Temperatures three feet down into the frozen ground are less than half a degree below freezing. This area could lose much of its permafrost by midcentury.

That, said Max Holmes, senior scientist and deputy director of the research center, "has all kinds of consequences both locally for this region, for the animals and the people who live here, as well as globally."

"It's sobering to think of this magnificent landscape and how fundamentally it can change over a relatively short time period," he added.

But on this wide, flat tundra, it takes a practiced eye to see how Alaska is thawing from below.

At one of the countless small lakes that pepper the region, chunks of shoreline that include what had been permafrost have calved off toward the water.

Nearby, across a spongy bed of mosses and lichens, a small boggy depression most likely formed when the ice in the top layers of the permafrost below it melted to water.

In July, the Woods Hole scientists, along with 13 undergraduate and graduate students working on projects of their own, set up a temporary field station on a nameless lake 60 miles northwest of Bethel, which with a population of 6,000 is the largest town in the region. They drilled permafrost cores with a power auger, took other sediment and water samples and embedded temperature probes in the frozen ground. Later, back in the lab at Woods Hole, they began the process of analyzing the samples for carbon content and nutrients.

The goal is to better understand how thawing permafrost affects the landscape and, ultimately, how much and what mix of greenhouse gases is released.

"In order to know how much is lost, you have to know how much is there," said Sue Natali, a Woods Hole scientist and permafrost expert.

Even in colder northern Alaska, where permafrost in some parts of the North Slope extends more than 2,100 feet below the surface, scientists are seeing stark changes. Vladimir E. Romanovsky, a permafrost researcher at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, said that temperatures at a depth of 65 feet have risen by 3 degrees Celsius (about 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit) over decades.

Near-surface changes have been even greater. At one northern site, he said, permafrost temperatures at shallow depths have climbed from minus 8 degrees Celsius to minus 3.

"Minus 3 is not that far from zero," Dr. Romanovsky said. If emissions and warming continue at the same rate, he said, near-surface temperatures will rise above freezing around the middle of the century.

There is plenty of debate among scientists about when and how much of Alaska's permafrost will thaw. And there is no doubt that thawing of the full depth of permafrost would take millenniums.

But Dr. Romanovsky said that his and others' work shows that permafrost "is not as stable as people thought."

In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, thawing wreaks havoc on infrastructure, causing slumping of land when ice loses volume as it turns to water.

The main road in Bethel, where average temperatures have risen about 4 degrees Fahrenheit since the mid-20th century, is more of a washboard than a thoroughfare because of shifting ground. Building foundations in Bethel move and crack as well. Some roads, airport runways and parking areas have to be reinforced with liquid-filled pipes that transfer heat out of the permafrost to keep the ground from slumping.

The thawing of permafrost is a gradual process. Ground is fully frozen in winter, and begins to thaw from the top down as air temperatures rise in spring. As average temperatures increase over years, this thawed, or active, layer can increase in depth.

At the field station, the researchers are especially interested in how wildfires affect the permafrost. Because burning removes some of the vegetation that acts as insulation, the theory is that burning should cause permafrost to thaw more.

Parts of the tundra here burned in the 1970s and in the summer of 2015, so the researchers took cores from both burned and unburned areas. Scientists wrestled with the bulky power auger as its stainless steel tube worked its way into the hard permafrost. Cores - often containing thin layers of solid ice - were labeled, packed in a cooler and sent by helicopter to a freezer in Bethel.

Thawing permafrost underneath or at the edge of a lake can cause it to drain like a leaky bathtub. Thawing elsewhere can bring about small elevation changes that can in turn lead to changes in water flow through the landscape, drying out some parts of the tundra and turning others into bogs.

Beyond the local effects on plant and animal life, the landscape changes can have an important climate change impact, by altering the mix of carbon dioxide and methane that is emitted. Although methane does not persist in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, it has a far greater heat-trapping ability and can contribute to more rapid warming.

So the researchers devote much of their time to studying the flow of water and the carbon and nutrients it contains.

"It's one of the big questions to tackle - what's wet and dry now, and what will be wet and dry in the future," Dr. Natali said. If the decomposing permafrost is wet, there will be less oxygen available to the microbes, so they will produce more methane. If the permafrost is dry, the decomposition will lead to more carbon dioxide.

Estimates vary on how much carbon is currently released from thawing permafrost worldwide, but by one calculation emissions over the rest of the century could average about 1.5 billion tons a year, or about the same as current annual emissions from fossil-fuel burning in the United States.

Already, thawing permafrost and warmer temperatures are being blamed for rising carbon emissions in the Alaskan tundra, both here and farther north. In a study earlier this year, researchers found that bacterial decomposition of thawed permafrost, as well as carbon dioxide produced by living vegetation, continues later into the fall because freezing of the surface is delayed.

The rise in emissions has been so significant, the researchers found, that Alaska may be shifting from a sink, or storehouse, of carbon, to a net source.

Dr. Holmes said that shift was not surprising given the climate trend, and he would expect that sub-Arctic parts of Siberia, Canada and other areas with permafrost may be undergoing similar changes.

"There's a massive amount of carbon that's in the ground, that's built up slowly over thousands and thousands of years," he said.

"It's been in a freezer, and that freezer is now turning into a refrigerator."

Correction August 23, 2017

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to an estimate of the amount of carbon released from thawing permafrost worldwide. It is 1.5 billion tons a year averaged over the remainder of the century, not 1.5 billions tons a year currently.

Correction August 25, 2017

An earlier version of this article misspelled, in one instance, the surname of a permafrost researcher at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He is Vladimir E. Romanovsky, not Ramonovsky.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
YUKON DELTA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska - The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as other parts of the planet, and even here in sub-Arctic Alaska the rate of warming is high. Sea ice and wildlife habitat are disappearing; higher sea levels threaten coastal native villages.

# data[].attributes.headline
Sea Turtles Appear to Be Bouncing Back Around the World - September 20, 2017

# data[].attributes.subject
Sea Turtles Appear to Be Bouncing Back Around the World - September 20, 2017

# data[].attributes.body
So  many plants an animals are going extinct due to habitat loss, climate change, and many more factors that scientists fear that a 6th mass extinction may be in the works. After historical declines in sea turtle populations, research from ecologists at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece have researched different nesting sites over the past six-47 years and have found that populations are capable of being restored and sustained. Because their threats are things such as being trapped by fishing nets or harvested by others as meals, they are easier to manage than many other animals. In order for their lives to be sustained and for their population to continue to grow, humans need to support long-term efforts to save them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In contrast with some other at-risk species, perhaps sea turtles have been easier to manage because their threats are more tangible: They are accidentally trapped by fishermen or harvested by others as delicacies, aphrodisiacs or decoration. In the most extreme cases, like in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, nearly all female green turtles at one point had been exported for turtle soup.

But conservation efforts there dating back to the 1950s made an impact, and protecting beaches, regulating fishing and establishing marine protected areas have helped save turtles in many locations. This isn't often the case in conservation stories of animals, like endangered caribou, which face threats that are more difficult to manage.

But to truly know how well conservation is working, the researchers found, it's best to look at long-term trends (although short-term data has its uses). That's because most sea turtle species only nest when foraging is good, and from year to year, the number of nests found on a beach can vary dramatically. Detecting whether a juvenile sea turtle survives long enough to make babies can take 10 to 30 years while it matures.

They were surprised to find that with adequate protection, even small populations of turtles have a chance of survival. In an area called French Frigate Shoals in Hawaii, for example, green sea turtles increased nest numbers from around 200 in 1973, when the Endangered Species Act was signed, to around 2,000 in 2012. This species is now considered of "least concern," by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Yet research is still lacking. For all sea turtles, most male to female ratios are unknown, which is an important aspect of reproduction and appears to be altered with increasing sand temperatures, skewing births toward more females. And a huge initiative to collect more data on flatback turtles in and around Australia may be complicated by a recent announcement that the country will shrink its marine protected areas.

Dr. Mazaris said his paper is a tale of "cautionary optimism." He commends conservationists working to save turtles over the past 70 years, but "long term efforts need to be supported."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sea Turtles Appear to Be Bouncing Back Around the World

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In contrast with some other at-risk species, perhaps sea turtles have been easier to manage because their threats are more tangible: They are accidentally trapped by fishermen or harvested by others as delicacies, aphrodisiacs or decoration. In the most extreme cases, like in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, nearly all female green turtles at one point had been exported for turtle soup.