News

Researchers Discover Alarming Plastic Rocks on Remote Brazilian Island

Brazil’s volcanic [Trindade Island](https://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2023/03/brazilian-researchers-discover-terrifying-rocks-made-up-of-plastic-debris-reports.html) has long captured the curiosity of scientists. However, the recent discovery of rocks composed of plastic debris on this isolated turtle haven is sounding the alarm. Melted plastic has merged with rocks on the island, which is located 708 miles from the southeastern state of Espirito Santo. Researchers believe this is a sign of humanity’s increasing impact on Earth’s geological cycles. Fernanda Avelar Santos, a geologist at the Federal University of Parana, described the [findings](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/15/americas/brazil-terrifying-plastic-rocks-intl-latam/index.html) as “new and terrifying,” emphasizing that pollution has now entered the realm of geology. Santos and her team conducted chemical tests on the “plastiglomerates” – rocks consisting of a mixture of sedimentary granules and other materials bound together by plastic – to identify the type of plastics present. [According to Santos](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/15/americas/brazil-terrifying-plastic-rocks-intl-latam/index.html), the pollution primarily comes from fishing nets, which are a prevalent form of debris on Trindade Island’s beaches. “The (nets) are dragged by the marine currents and accumulate on the beach. When the temperature rises, this plastic melts and becomes embedded with the beach’s natural material,” she explained. Trindade Island is one of the world’s most critical conservation areas for green turtles, or Chelonia mydas, with thousands arriving each year to lay their eggs. The island’s only human residents are members of the Brazilian navy, who maintain a base there and protect the nesting turtles. Santos revealed that the plastic samples were found in a permanently preserved area in Brazil, close to where the green turtles lay their eggs.

A Bali isle was plagued by trash. Residents made cleaning up pay

Five years ago, the beaches on Nusa Lembongan, a paradisal island half an hour’s speedboat ride from Bali, were pockmarked with the kind of rubbish that blights large stretches of Indonesia’s most famous tourist destination. These days, Nusa Lembongan’s shorelines are squeaky clean and its once heavily-polluted river, home to an extensive system of mangroves, is pristine. The turnaround has been credited in large part to the Lembongan Recycling Centre (LRC), a community-run facility that collects rubbish twice daily from businesses, homes and waste collection points on the island, and then sorts and compacts paper, plastic, metal and glass for sale. Not only has the initiative increased environmental awareness among islanders, but it has also put a literal value on waste, giving residents a financial incentive to clean up their home. “The mangroves were cleaned of metal, including old boat engines and motorbikes, when locals discovered the metal had value,” Margaret Barry, the Australian founder of the Bali Children’s Foundation, a non-profit that helps finance the LRC, told Al Jazeera.

Fijian beekeepers keen to export high-quality honey, but face pollen shortage

A boom in beekeeping in the Pacific has helped improve yield and quality for more than 30 per cent of the country’s pollination-dependent crops, but it comes at an inopportune time as Fiji grapples with a varroa mite invasion and adverse weather events. It has presented beekeepers in the Pacific nation with a dilemma. There is an untapped potential to export high-value, niche-marketed honey products, and Australian researchers are working to create new market opportunities for Fijian honey abroad. But the Pacific’s bees are hungry and struggling with pests, and researchers and beekeepers are all finding solutions. Fijian Beekeeping Association president Nilesh Ravindra Kumar said intense rainfall had washed pollen away, which had resulted in bees left without a food source. “We need to do supplement feed, but at the moment all we are doing in Fiji is raw sugar,” he said. Dr Schouten hoped the Pacific would be able to leverage its unique tropical climate to offer new honey products to the market. “People are producing value-added products like beeswax, lip balms, candles, soap, surf wax,” he said. “You can create vanilla honey, comb honey. It can be very specific floral resources.

Advancing Forest Conservation in São Tomé and Príncipe

On the island of São Tomé, one third of the territory is covered by mostly primary forests, an exceptional natural habitat for various species of fauna and flora that present a very high level of endemism. More than 33% of the country’s population depend directly on these areas for livelihoods, further underlining their importance. To safeguard this natural heritage, Law Nr. 06/2006 was created to protect these habitats, which include the forest ecosystems of the centre of the island, the mangrove of Malanza (the largest mangrove in the country) and the savannah area of Praia das Conchas and Lagoa Azul. With this background, BirdLife International is collaborating with government institutions, civil society, and the private sector in several conservation actions, based on objectives defined in the Strategic Plan for STP for 2021-2030. “We believe that changing mindsets is a long-term process and is only possible when all parties are united to achieve a common goal. To this end, we have implemented various actions, involving and empowering stakeholders, to maintain or improve the conservation of STP’s natural heritage”, notes Abigail Varela, BirdLife International’s Conservation Officer for the Island of São Tomé.

From cleaner oceans to thriving communities: the economic impacts of plastic pollution

With support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the Plastic Waste Free Islands project focused on six islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean regions: Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, and Saint Lucia. Three new economic briefs for the Caribbean demonstrate the impacts that plastic pollution has on the marine environment, livelihoods, and economic and social aspects of island life. Plastics impact fisheries through dumped catch, fouling incidents, net repairs and time lost cleaning nets; while ghost fishing can generate additional revenue losses. Tourism can be impacted when tourists are no longer willing to visit, due to plastic litter on beaches. In order to avoid this impact, beach clean-up costs need to be incurred. These, and other factors, are costs associated with marine plastic pollution. These three studies provide in-depth analysis of the economic impacts of plastic pollution on tourism and fisheries in Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, and Saint Lucia, and estimate direct costs for the economy of each island. There is also a [summary document highlighting the economic impacts of plastic pollution](https://www.iucn.org/resources/grey-literature/summary-economic-impact-marine-plastic-pollution-antigua-and-barbuda) in the Caribbean Sea.

Landscape architecture students design sustainable master plan for storm-battered island in The Bahamas

The island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas has many attractive features—pink sand beaches, coral reefs, a rich culture—and one huge challenge: self-sustainability. Recently, Clemson University landscape architecture students partnered with the non-profit [One Eleuthera Foundation](https://oneeleuthera.org/) (OEF) to design a vision for a sustainable future. The undergraduate landscape architecture studio led by Professor Hala Nassar in Fall 2022 created a master plan for One Eleuthera Foundation’s proposed Centre for Training and Innovation (CTI). Nassar noted that while Eleuthera’s economy thrived in the first half of the 20th century, between 1965 and 1995, tourism and agriculture began to decline. In 2019, Hurricane Dorian dealt a blow with devastating damage and flooding. “As these changes continue to threaten the local economy and environment, the island is exploring methods to adapt and enhance climate resiliency,” Nassar said.

This is the world’s first zero-waste island. Could Australia be next?

Lessons for the World from the “Islands of the Moon” – Comoros: Opportunity, Ambition and Scale Up

One of the most striking features upon descent into Comoros’ Moroni Airport is the breathtaking view of the magnificent ocean. The beauty of the grey beaches is intense, juxtaposed with the effects of cooled lava, carcasses of used cars and uncollected waste — a reminder of the underlying development challenges that lay ahead. From the airport, we set off to visit a government-led initiative on livelihoods and economic empowerment in the agriculture sector supported by UNDP. En route, we see groups of women waiting to fetch water with their jerrycans. Plastic waste strewn by the roadside, a feature of the road that hugs the shoreline. However, when we arrived at the Centre Rural de Development Economique (Rural Centre for Economic Development – CRDE) in Diboini, we saw firsthand how some of the challenges just observed can be turned into opportunities, bringing transformative change for the people. An automatic weather station system (also covering other parts of the island) deployed through financing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for the Reinforcement of Comoros’ Resilience to Climate-Related Hazards and Climate Change (Renforcement de la résilience des Comores aux risques de catastrophes liées au changement et à la variabilité climatique) has strengthened data collection and improved weather and climate forecasting. This data, key to inform decision-making in the face of climate-induced risks, is relayed to the Technical Department of Meteorology (Direction Technique de la Météorologie), where technicians, trained with resources from the GEF and other partners, issue regular forecasts to smallholder farmers. In short, with this critical investment, communities –mostly women– are better positioned to plan agriculture activities, and can therefore expect better yields, in spite of a range of climate- and weather-induced risks. To increase agricultural productivity, promote food security and generate more lucrative earnings for farmers, the Government of Comoros and UNDP, with partners’ support, are developing improved varieties of bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes and ginger; training para-veterinarians; increasing the availability of veterinary medicines and improving animal husbandry practices. These efforts have already borne fruit, such as the production of improved breeds of milch cattle, dramatically changing stakes for the benefit of the people.

India’s Tribal Land: Can Both Development & Conservation Be Andaman’s Priority?

Recently, 100 former civil servants and well-meaning citizenry wrote to the President of India, protesting the proposed mega infrastructure at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that entails a transshipment port, an airport, a power plant, and a greenfield township. At stake is the displacement of the indigenous and vulnerable Shompen tribe numbering approximately 400 and the clearance of approximately 15% of forest land of the Great Nicobar Island of the southern tip of 572 odd Islands. A classic case of genuine community-environment concern conflated with the ‘costs’ of development. However, development ought not to be a binary ‘either-or’ case, but an ‘and’ decision that accounts for both sides of the argument. The daunting reality in governance is often about having to choose a path of least ‘cons’ (not least resistance), driven by the principle of ‘larger good’, with the full know and acknowledgment of the inevitable flipside. Decision neuroscience is a complex web of topical urgencies, local sensitivities, and the ‘larger picture’ with the implied ‘larger good’ needing to triumph the alternative options of status quo or even rash implementations. History is instructive that procrastination or bluntness is never a good plan and at the cost of sounding inconsistent, one must put forth the holistic ‘and’ plans with full facts, assumptions and rationalities that underlie any clearance.