tag:theconversation.com,2011:/institutions/university-of-rhode-island-921/articlesThe University of Rhode Island2024-03-05T15:02:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2248692024-03-05T15:02:19Z2024-03-05T15:02:19ZArctic rivers face big changes with a warming climate, permafrost thaw and an accelerating water cycle − the effects will have global consequences<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579392/original/file-20240303-24-mmw6cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1333%2C9000%2C6157&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Water from the Mackenzie River, seen from a satellite, carries silt and nutrients from land to the Arctic Ocean.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/90703/mackenzie-meets-beaufort">Jesse Allen/NASA Earth Observatory</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the Arctic warms, its mighty rivers are changing in ways that could have vast consequences – not only for the Arctic region but for the world.</p>
<p>Rivers represent the land branch of the earth’s hydrological cycle. As rain and snow fall, rivers transport freshwater runoff along with dissolved organic and particulate materials, including carbon, to coastal areas. With the Arctic now warming nearly <a href="https://theconversation.com/arctic-is-warming-nearly-four-times-faster-than-the-rest-of-the-world-new-research-188474">four times faster</a> than the rest of the world, the region <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/2010JCLI3421.1">is seeing more precipitation</a> and the permafrost is thawing, leading to stronger river flows.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579353/original/file-20240303-28-rq37ng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map shows major rivers and their water sheds, primarily in Russia, Alaska and Canada." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579353/original/file-20240303-28-rq37ng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579353/original/file-20240303-28-rq37ng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579353/original/file-20240303-28-rq37ng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579353/original/file-20240303-28-rq37ng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579353/original/file-20240303-28-rq37ng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579353/original/file-20240303-28-rq37ng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579353/original/file-20240303-28-rq37ng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Major river basins of the Arctic region.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/arctic-zone/detect/land-river.shtml">NOAA Arctic Report Card</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>We’re climate scientists who study how warming is influencing the water cycle and ecosystems. <a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1033-2024">In a new study</a> using historical data and sophisticated computer models of Earth’s climate and hydrology, we explored how climate change is altering Arctic rivers. </p>
<p>We found that thawing permafrost and intensifying storms will change how water moves into and through Arctic rivers. These changes will affect coastal regions, the Arctic Ocean and, potentially, the North Atlantic, as well as the climate.</p>
<h2>Thawing permafrost: Big changes in Arctic soils</h2>
<p>Permafrost thaw is one of the most consequential changes that the Arctic is experiencing as temperatures rise. </p>
<p>Permafrost is soil that has been <a href="https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/permafrost">frozen for at least two years</a> and often for millennia. It covers approximately 8.8 million square miles (about 22.8 million square kilometers) in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere, but that area is shrinking as the permafrost thaws.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579355/original/file-20240303-22-s4w5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people stand on a cliff with permafrost evident." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579355/original/file-20240303-22-s4w5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579355/original/file-20240303-22-s4w5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579355/original/file-20240303-22-s4w5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579355/original/file-20240303-22-s4w5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579355/original/file-20240303-22-s4w5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579355/original/file-20240303-22-s4w5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579355/original/file-20240303-22-s4w5f9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Erosion reveals ice-rich permafrost near Teshekpuk Lake, Alaska.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgeologicalsurvey/12116729705">Brandt Meixell/USGS</a></span>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564666/original/file-20231210-25-jz5ezj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map shows where permafrost is found, both in ground and below the ocean." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564666/original/file-20231210-25-jz5ezj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564666/original/file-20231210-25-jz5ezj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564666/original/file-20231210-25-jz5ezj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564666/original/file-20231210-25-jz5ezj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564666/original/file-20231210-25-jz5ezj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564666/original/file-20231210-25-jz5ezj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564666/original/file-20231210-25-jz5ezj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Known permafrost zones in the Northern Hemisphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.grida.no/resources/13519">GRID-Arendal/Nunataryuk</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Historically, most water going into Arctic rivers flows atop frozen permafrost soils in spring. Scientists call this “overland runoff.” </p>
<p>However, our results suggest that as warming continues, an increasing fraction of annual river flow will come from under the surface, through thawed soils in the degrading permafrost. As the overall flow increases with more precipitation, as much as 30% more of it could be moving underground by the end of this century as subsurface pathways expand.</p>
<p>When water flows through soil, it picks up different chemicals and metals. As a result, water coming into rivers will likely have a different chemical character. For example, it may carry more nutrients and dissolved carbon that can affect coastal zones and the global climate. The fate of that mobilized carbon is an active area of study.</p>
<p>More carbon in river water could end up “outgassed” upon reaching placid coastal waters, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, which further drives <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14338">climate warming</a>. The thaw is also revealing other nasty surprises, such as the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/11/18/arctic-permafrost-thawing-deadly-pathogens/71581668007/">emergence of long-frozen viruses</a>. </p>
<h2>More rain and snow, more runoff</h2>
<p>The Arctic’s water cycle is also ramping up as temperatures rise, meaning more precipitation, evaporation, plant transpiration and river discharge. This is primarily due to a warmer atmosphere’s inherent ability to hold more moisture. It’s the same reason that <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-warming-climate-can-bring-bigger-snowstorms-176201">bigger snowstorms are occurring</a> as the climate warms. </p>
<p>Our study found that the bulk of the additional precipitation will occur across far northern parts of the Arctic basin. As sea ice disappears in a warming climate, computer models agree that a more open Arctic Ocean will feed more water to the atmosphere, where it will be transported to adjacent land areas to fall as precipitation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579640/original/file-20240304-28-gtrh1a.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two maps show increasing snow and rainfall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579640/original/file-20240304-28-gtrh1a.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579640/original/file-20240304-28-gtrh1a.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579640/original/file-20240304-28-gtrh1a.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579640/original/file-20240304-28-gtrh1a.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579640/original/file-20240304-28-gtrh1a.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579640/original/file-20240304-28-gtrh1a.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579640/original/file-20240304-28-gtrh1a.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Changes projected this century in annual rainfall and snowfall simulated by the computer model used in the study. Red areas represent increases.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1033-2024">Rawlins and Karmalkar, 2024</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More snow in northern Alaska, Siberia and Canada will lead to more water flowing in rivers, potentially up to 25% more under a high-warming scenario based on our research. There is more carbon in the soil in northern parts of the Arctic compared with the south. With permafrost thaw, those regions will also see more water coming into rivers from below the surface, where additional soil carbon can leach into the water and become dissolved organic carbon.</p>
<p>More <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa1fe">old carbon is already showing up</a> in samples gathered from Arctic rivers, attributed to permafrost thaw. Carbon dating shows that some of this carbon has been frozen for thousands of years. </p>
<h2>Impacts will cascade through Arctic ecosystems</h2>
<p>So, what does the future hold? </p>
<p>One of the most notable changes expected involves the transport of fresh water and associated materials, such as dissolved organic carbon and heat energy, to Arctic coastal zones. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A scientist in a rain jacket and cap holds up a water sample in a jar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579395/original/file-20240303-28-uto6m1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579395/original/file-20240303-28-uto6m1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579395/original/file-20240303-28-uto6m1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579395/original/file-20240303-28-uto6m1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579395/original/file-20240303-28-uto6m1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579395/original/file-20240303-28-uto6m1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579395/original/file-20240303-28-uto6m1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James McClelland of the Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research program examines a water sample from a stream near Utqiagvik on Alaska’s North Slope. The brown tint is dissolved organic matter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael A. Rawlins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://ble.lternet.edu/">Coastal lagoons</a> may become fresher. This change would affect organisms up and down the food chain, though <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.738363">our current understanding</a> of the potential affects of changes in fresh water and dissolved organic carbon is still murky.</p>
<p>River water will also be warmer as the climate heats up and has the potential to melt coastal sea ice earlier in the season. Scientists <a href="https://theconversation.com/arctic-report-card-2023-from-wildfires-to-melting-sea-ice-the-warmest-summer-on-record-had-cascading-impacts-across-the-arctic-218872">observed this in spring 2023</a>, when unusually warm water in Canada’s Mackenzie River carried heat to the Beaufort Sea, contributing to early coastal sea ice melting.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A satellite view of the Arctic coast showing a river and sea ice breaking up." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579397/original/file-20240303-20-8tx0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579397/original/file-20240303-20-8tx0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579397/original/file-20240303-20-8tx0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579397/original/file-20240303-20-8tx0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579397/original/file-20240303-20-8tx0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579397/original/file-20240303-20-8tx0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579397/original/file-20240303-20-8tx0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fresh water flowing from rivers such as Canada’s Mackenzie River, at the bottom center of the satellite image, into the Beaufort Sea can break up sea ice early.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/83271/river-discharge-alters-arctic-sea-ice">NASA Earth Observatory</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, more river water reaching the coast has the potential to freshen the Arctic Ocean, particularly along northern Eurasia, where big Russian rivers export massive amounts of fresh water each year. </p>
<p>There are concerns that <a href="https://arctic.noaa.gov/report-card/report-card-2021/river-discharge/">rising river flows in that region</a> are influencing the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the currents that circulate heat from the tropics, up along the U.S. East Coast and toward Europe. Evidence is mounting that these currents <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-atlantic-oceans-major-current-system-is-slowing-down-but-a-21st-century-collapse-is-unlikely-214647">have been slowing in recent years</a> as more fresh water enters the North Atlantic. If the circulation shuts down, it would <a href="https://theconversation.com/atlantic-ocean-is-headed-for-a-tipping-point-once-melting-glaciers-shut-down-the-gulf-stream-we-would-see-extreme-climate-change-within-decades-study-shows-222834">significantly affect temperatures</a> across North America and Europe.</p>
<p>At the coast, changing river flows will also affect the plants, animals and Indigenous populations that call the region home. For them and for the global climate, our study’s findings highlight the need to closely watch how the Arctic is being transformed and take steps to mitigate the effects.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224869/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael A. Rawlins receives funding from The Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ambarish Karmalkar receives funding from the Department of Energy and the United States Geological Survey. </span></em></p>A new study shows how thawing permafrost and intensifying storms will change how water moves into and through Arctic rivers.Michael A. Rawlins, Associate Director, Climate System Research Center and Associate Professor of Climatology, UMass AmherstAmbarish Karmalkar, Assistant Professor of Geosciences, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226902024-02-27T15:05:30Z2024-02-27T15:05:30ZGifts that live on, from best bodices to money for bridge repairs: Women’s wills in medieval France give a glimpse into their surprising independence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577678/original/file-20240223-20-h7u1l8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C1%2C949%2C949&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women's wills and last testaments provide a more nuanced picture of life in the Middle Ages than medieval stereotypes allow, such as that depicted in "Death and the Prostitute" by Master of Philippe of Guelders.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/DetailsPage.aspx?Feminae_ID=37729">Gallica/Bibliothèque nationale de France/Feminae</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In medieval Europe, views of women could often be summed up in two words: sinner or saint.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://web.uri.edu/history/meet/joelle-rollo-koster/">a historian of the Middle Ages</a>, I teach a course entitled Between Eve and Mary: the two biblical figures who sum up this binary view of half of humanity. In the Bible’s telling, Eve <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203&version=KJV">got humans expelled from the Garden of Eden</a>, unable to resist biting into the forbidden fruit. Mary, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%201&version=KJV">conceived the Son of God</a> without human intercourse. </p>
<p>Either way, they’re daunting models – and either way, patriarchy considered women in need of protection and control. But how can we know what medieval women thought? Did they really accept this vision of themselves? </p>
<p>I do not believe that we can totally understand someone who lived and died hundreds of years ago. However, we can try to somewhat reconstruct their frame of mind with the resources we have available. </p>
<p>Few documents that survive from medieval Europe were written by women or even dictated by women. Those that do are often formulaic, full of legal and religious language. Yet the wills <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/363743">and censuses</a> that survive, and which I study, open a window into their lives and minds, even if not produced by women’s hands. These documents suggest that medieval women had at least some form of empowerment to define their lives – and deaths.</p>
<h2>A centuries-old census</h2>
<p>In 1371, the city of Avignon, in present-day France, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2010.0480">organized a census</a>. The resulting document is ripe with the names of more than 3,820 heads of household. Of these, 563 were female – women who were in charge of their own household and did not shy away from declaring it publicly.</p>
<p>These were not women of high social status but individuals scarcely remembered by history, who left only traces in these administrative documents. One-fifth of them declared an occupation, including both single and married women: from unskilled laborer or handmaid to innkeeper, bookseller or stonecutter. </p>
<p>Nearly 50% of the women declared a place of origin. The majority came from around Avignon and other parts of southern France, but some 30% came from what is now northern France, southwest Germany and Italy. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577715/original/file-20240224-24-qcjvza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration of a blond woman in a pink dress carrying a wooden vessel on top of her head outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577715/original/file-20240224-24-qcjvza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577715/original/file-20240224-24-qcjvza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577715/original/file-20240224-24-qcjvza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577715/original/file-20240224-24-qcjvza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577715/original/file-20240224-24-qcjvza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577715/original/file-20240224-24-qcjvza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577715/original/file-20240224-24-qcjvza.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration from 11th-century physician Ibn Butlan’s text Tacuinum sanitatis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b105072169/f186.image.r=%22Latin%209333%22?lang=EN#">Bibliothèque nationale de France</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The majority of ladies who arrived from faraway regions arrived alone, suggesting medieval women were not always necessarily “stuck” at home under the domination of a father, brother, cousin, uncle or husband. Even if they wound up that way, they seemed to show some guts by leaving in the first place. </p>
<h2>New cities, new lives</h2>
<p>In cities like Avignon, with a large proportion of immigrants, long-lasting lineages disappeared. As <a href="https://ehess.academia.edu/JacquesChiffoleau">historian Jacques Chiffoleau</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/9196772">has suggested</a>, most late medieval Avignonese were “orphans” who lacked extended family networks in their new surroundings – <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203866085">and this was reflected in the culture</a>.</p>
<p>Since the 12th century, women in the south of France had been considered “sui iuris” – capable of managing their own legal affairs – if they were not under a father or husband’s control. They could dispose of their own possessions and distribute them at will, both <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Death-in-Medieval-Europe-Death-Scripted-and-Death-Choreographed/Rollo-Koster/p/book/9781138802131">before and after death</a>. Married daughters’ dowries often prevented them from inheriting parents’ property, but they could when no male descendants could be found.</p>
<p>In the late Middle Ages, women’s legal rights expanded as urbanization and immigration changed social relationships. They could become legal guardians of their children. What’s more, judging by women’s testaments, widows and older daughters did make legal decisions of their own without the “required” male guardianship.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577717/original/file-20240224-20-gv83x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old manuscript page with lines of font and a brightly colored illustration of men and women standing in a field while others climb trees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577717/original/file-20240224-20-gv83x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577717/original/file-20240224-20-gv83x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577717/original/file-20240224-20-gv83x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577717/original/file-20240224-20-gv83x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577717/original/file-20240224-20-gv83x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577717/original/file-20240224-20-gv83x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577717/original/file-20240224-20-gv83x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A page from the Book of Hours by Master d'Alelaide of Savoia, a 15th-century artist, shows the harvesting of pears and apples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/book-of-hours-by-master-dalelaide-of-savoia-detail-news-photo/1011961044?adppopup=true">PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition, married women could <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Across-the-Religious-Divide-Women-Property-and-Law-in-the-Wider-Mediterranean/Sperling-Wray/p/book/9780415807173">make legally binding decisions</a> as long as their husbands were present with them in front of a notary. Although husbands were technically considered their wives’ “guardians,” they could declare them legally free of guardianship. Wives would then be allowed to name their witnesses, appoint their universal heir and list donations and bequests to individuals and the church, which they hoped would save their soul.</p>
<h2>Speaking beyond the grave</h2>
<p>European archives literally overflow with legal documents that are awaiting discovery in musty boxes. What is lacking is a new generation of historians who can analyze them and paleographers who can read the handwriting.</p>
<p>Everyone high and low used notaries’ services for contractual forms, from an engagement and marriage to the sale of property, business transactions and donations. In this mass of documentation, <a href="https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/3052">wills provide a refreshing perspective</a> into medieval women’s agency and emotions as they contemplated the end of their lives.</p>
<p>In the 60 or so <a href="https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/3052">women’s testaments kept in Avignon</a>, women named where and with whom they wanted to be buried, often choosing their children or parents over their husbands. They named which charities, religious orders, hospitals for the poor, parishes and nunneries would benefit from their generosity, including bequests for repairs on Avignon’s famous bridge. </p>
<p>These women may have dictated their last wishes lying in bed, waiting for death, with the notary guiding their decisions. Still, given the things they dictated – donations for the dowries of poor girls, for their relatives and friends, to have their names remembered in Catholic Masses for the dead – I would argue that we are hearing their own voices. </p>
<h2>Rosaries, repairs and furs</h2>
<p>In 1354, Gassende Raynaud of Aix asked to be buried with her sister, Almuseta. She left a house to her friend Aysseline, while Douce Raynaud – who may have been another sister – received six dishes, six pitchers, two platters, a pewter jug, a cauldron, her best cooking pot, a cloak of fur with muslin, a big blanket, two large sheets, her best bodice, a little coffer, and all the mending thread and hemp that she possessed. She left a coffer, a copper warmer, the best trivet of the house and four new sheets to her friend Alasacia Boete.</p>
<p>Gassende’s generosity didn’t stop there. Jacobeta, Alasacia’s daughter, received a rosary of amber; Georgiana, Alasacia’s daughter-in-law, a bodice; and Marita, Alasacia’s granddaughter, a tunic. To her friend Alasacia Guillaume, Gassende left the unusual gift of a portable altar for prayers and an embroidered blanket. To Dulcie Marine, she bequeathed a choir book called an antiphonary and the best of her cloaks or furs.</p>
<p>In another Avignon will, written in 1317, Barthélemie Tortose made bequests to several Dominican friars, including her brother. She left funds to the prior of the order, her brother’s supervisor: perhaps rewarding the “boss” in order to keep her brother in his favor. She provided for charities and repairs for two bridges over the violent Rhône River, but also substantial support to provide food and clothing to all nuns’ convents of the city. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577716/original/file-20240224-22-2jvol2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration in shades of green and red showing two towns connected by a bridge over a river with a few small islands in it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577716/original/file-20240224-22-2jvol2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577716/original/file-20240224-22-2jvol2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577716/original/file-20240224-22-2jvol2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577716/original/file-20240224-22-2jvol2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577716/original/file-20240224-22-2jvol2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577716/original/file-20240224-22-2jvol2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577716/original/file-20240224-22-2jvol2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 16th-century illustration of the Rhone River, with Avignon on the right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More especially, she supported her female kin, such as leaving rental income to her niece, a Benedictine nun. She then requested that her clothes be cut into habits for nuns and liturgical garments. </p>
<p>We can get a glimpse at <a href="https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/3052/WomenandWillsFrance2012Rollo-KosterandReyerson.pdf?sequence=7&isAllowed=y">just how personal these bequests were</a>: These women assumed that what they had touched, or what had touched their skin, would also touch another’s. Most of all, they expected that their possessions would transmit their memory, their existence, their identity. </p>
<p>What’s more, medieval women could be pretty radical.</p>
<p>At least 10 women whose wills I’ve read asked to be buried in monks’ cassocks, including Guimona Rubastenqui. Widow of an Avignon fishmonger – usually a profitable occupation – she requested that Carmelite brother Johannes Aymerici give her one of his old habits, for which she paid him six florins.</p>
<h2>Asserting their will</h2>
<p>So, what do we make of all this?</p>
<p>It is impossible to completely reconstruct how people lived, loved and died centuries ago. I have spent my adult life thinking “medieval,” yet know I will never get there. But we certainly have clues – and what I call an educated intuition.</p>
<p>By modern standards, these women faced real limits on their power and independence. However, I have argued that they “freed” themselves at death – their wills presenting a rare opportunity to make personal legal decisions and to live on in written records.</p>
<p>Medieval women could have agency. Not all of them, not all the time. But this small sample shows that they could choose whom they wanted to reward and whom they could help. </p>
<p>As for the burial in men’s garb, I have no way of knowing whether their wishes were followed. But from my perspective, there is something extremely satisfying in knowing that at least they tried.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222690/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joelle Rollo-Koster does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>European women’s rights expanded in early medieval cities, though they were still limited. Last wills and testaments were some of the few documents women could dictate themselves.Joelle Rollo-Koster, Professor of Medieval History, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2201202024-01-25T13:16:51Z2024-01-25T13:16:51ZFrom New York to Jakarta, land in many coastal cities is sinking faster than sea levels are rising<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567456/original/file-20231228-21-99pvh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5991%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Infrastructure can increase vulnerabilities to coastal cities like New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/new-york-city-skyline-royalty-free-image/523392100?phrase=new+york+sea+level+rise&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">GlennisEhi/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level">Sea level rise</a> has already put coastal cities on notice thanks to increasing storm surges and even <a href="https://coast.noaa.gov/states/fast-facts/recurrent-tidal-flooding.html">sunny day</a> flooding at high tide. These challenges will continue to grow because global projections point to a mean sea level rise of at least one foot above year-2000 levels by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/26/its-absolutely-guaranteed-the-best-and-worst-case-scenarios-for-sea-level-rise">end of this century</a>.</p>
<p>However, many cities are facing another factor making them even more vulnerable to rising waters: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/30/land-sinking-us-subsidence-sea-level/">land subsidence</a>. </p>
<p>The three of us – <a href="https://web.uri.edu/gso/meet/pei-chin-wu/">Pei-Chin Wu</a>, <a href="https://web.uri.edu/gso/meet/matt-wei/">Meng (Matt) Wei</a> and <a href="https://web.uri.edu/gso/meet/steven-dhondt/">Steven D'Hondt</a> – are scientists at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography working with the U.S. Geological Survey to research challenges facing waterfront cities. Our findings indicate that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098477">land is sinking</a> faster than sea levels are rising in many coastal cities throughout the world. </p>
<p>By using radar images of the Earth’s surface collected from orbiting satellites, we measured subsidence rates in 99 coastal cities worldwide. These rates are highly variable within cities and from city to city, but if they continue, many metropolises will experience flooding much sooner than projected by sea level rise models.</p>
<p>Cities in South, Southeast and East Asia are seeing the most rapid rates of subsidence. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6IW3CV3-Sio?wmode=transparent&start=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Taipei is sinking: University of Rhode Island | Taiwan News | RTI.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/16/headway/indonesia-nusantara-jakarta.html">Indonesia</a>, for example, is moving its capital 800 miles from Jakarta to Nusantara in large part because Jakarta is sinking at an alarming rate due to groundwater extraction. </p>
<p>Other regions are not immune. Our research with Tom Parsons of the U.S. Geological Survey found that most of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003465">New York City</a>is sinking between 1 to 4 millimeters per year due to a combination of <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/glacial-adjustment.html">glacial rebound</a> and the weight of its more than 1 million buildings. In a city where sea level is projected to rise between 8 and 30 inches by 2050, subsidence <a href="https://www.uri.edu/news/2023/06/new-york-city-is-sinking-and-its-not-alone/">further increases its vulnerability</a> to coastal storms. </p>
<p>In the U.S., most of the cities on the Atlantic coast are subsiding due to glacial rebound. Even if the rate is low at minus-1 millimeter per year, it should be accounted. Other cities in the U.S., especially in the Gulf of Mexico, including Houston and New Orleans, also face subsidence. </p>
<p>Governments around the world are facing the challenge of coastal areas that are subsiding, and there is a shared global challenge of mitigation against a growing flooding hazard.</p>
<p>While our research continues to evolve – for example, by using machine learning to improve our monitoring capability – we urge city planners, emergency managers and other decision-makers to account for subsidence in the plans they are making today to prepare for the impacts of rising sea levels in the future.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the rate at which New York City is sinking.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pei-Chin Wu is working towards her PhD degree at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island and receives funding from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven D’Hondt receives funding from Rhode Island Sea Grant.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meng (Matt) Wei does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Land subsidence is a factor as preparations are made for rising sea levels and strengthening storms. Human infrastructure, including buildings and groundwater extraction, increases vulnerabilities.Pei-Chin Wu, Ph.D. Candidate in Oceangraphy, University of Rhode IslandMeng (Matt) Wei, Associate Professor of Oceanography, University of Rhode IslandSteven D’Hondt, Professor of Oceanography, Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1975032023-01-26T13:25:17Z2023-01-26T13:25:17ZUkraine has a mixed record of treating its citizens fairly – that could make it harder for it to maintain peace, once the war ends<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506191/original/file-20230124-13-qmopx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ukraine has a mixed human rights record over the past several decades, new data shows.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1240050560/photo/topshot-ukraine-russia-conflict.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=HmYiHMmU5wIyNzfo1m2PQ-_53IyaA_eZQGDZLuahxTw=">Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the dominant Western media narrative has been clear – Russia is the “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cold-war-echoes-russia-us-ukraine-0050dd806e5f8748bf59b5e84d15b959">global villain</a>,” and Ukraine a model country victimized by an unjust war. But while the war may be unjust, Ukraine had its share of problems before the conflict with Russia intensified in 2022. </p>
<p>Expert analysis shows that Russia launched <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-crime-and-punishment-illegal-war-in-ukraine">an illegal war</a> and has committed the vast majority of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-russia-committing-genocide-in-ukraine-a-human-rights-expert-looks-at-the-warning-signs-180017">human rights violations </a> in the conflict – <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3190982/russia-trying-terror-attacks-on-ukrainian-civilians/">such as targeting</a> Ukraine’s civilians.</p>
<p>Ukraine has also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/world/europe/russian-soldiers-shot-ukraine.html">allegedly committed </a> war crimes against Russian soldiers during the conflict. Much like Russia, the country has had a mixed record over the past two decades regarding treatment of its citizens. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oyR7hesAAAAJ&hl=en">We are</a> human rights <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1WM6bk8AAAAJ&hl=en">scholars who</a> helped launch the world’s largest quantitative data set – <a href="https://cirights.com">known as CIRIGHTS</a> – to track global human rights in December 2022.</p>
<p>Our analysis shows that while Ukraine’s prewar human rights record is better than Russia’s, it is far below the global average. Along with an ongoing problem of <a href="https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/ukraine">government corruption</a>, Ukraine has been cited by Western <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/ukraine#d91ede">human rights groups</a> for not prosecuting hate crimes and failing to properly address and respond to gender-based violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506163/original/file-20230124-27-zyzszh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A blond middle-aged woman holds a child in a blue snowsuit up against her, next to two other older children, as seen through a window of a train and a large fence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506163/original/file-20230124-27-zyzszh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506163/original/file-20230124-27-zyzszh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506163/original/file-20230124-27-zyzszh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506163/original/file-20230124-27-zyzszh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506163/original/file-20230124-27-zyzszh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506163/original/file-20230124-27-zyzszh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506163/original/file-20230124-27-zyzszh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainian women and children pass through the Przemysl train station in Poland after fleeing the war in April 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1390462714/photo/poland-welcomes-more-than-2-million-ukrainian-refugees.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=6kSRqGXuFUCuf-s62QUfx1xyMMzq0Wi1kdsp-zam678=">Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ukraine’s human rights record</h2>
<p>Ukraine scores in the bottom third of all countries in terms of its human rights record, according to our data. Its score of 42 out of 100 is the same as that of the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/07/central-african-republic-un-reports-detail-serious-violations-some-possibly">Central African Republic</a> – a country rife with violence against civilians and <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-central-african-republic">political instability</a>. </p>
<p>Several factors contributed to this ranking. Ukraine’s military, for example, is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/world/ukraine-used-cluster-bombs-report-charges.html">known to have</a> indiscriminately used <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions">cluster munitions</a> in highly populated areas of Donetsk – in the eastern part of Ukraine that is occupied by a rebel government – in 2014, killing civilians. Ukraine’s police also <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26280710">killed numerous protesters in Kyiv during the 2014 protests</a>, which led to EU sanctions. </p>
<p>Other human rights and freedom monitors like the U.S. nonprofit Freedom House have reported more recently that Ukraine was “<a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/ukraine/freedom-net/2022">partly free</a>” when it came to issues like expression, access to information and the press. The country ranked just below the global average, with a score of 59 out of 100. </p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.refworld.org/publisher,OHCHR,,UKR,,,0.html">human rights analyses</a> show that the extent to which people in Ukraine are free from government torture and forced labor and enjoy such privileges as freedom of religion and expression has improved since 1991, when the Soviet Union broke up – and Ukraine gained its independence – <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/human-rights">the country’s ranking</a> still stands below that of Ukraine’s Western European neighbors, like Poland and Hungary.</p>
<p>Unless Ukraine addresses its human rights shortfalls, it could risk not achieving or maintaining lasting peace, no matter when or how the war eventually ends. <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/2/41">Research shows</a> that human rights violations <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00442.x">create social and political problems</a> that can lead to conflict both within a country and internationally. </p>
<p><iframe id="Tfv8U" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Tfv8U/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>How it works</h2>
<p>While many human rights measurement projects tend to focus on if and how a government <a href="https://rightstracker.org/en/metrics">uses physical violence</a> against its people, <a href="https://cirights.com/">our project</a> aims to measure <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/">all 30</a> internationally <a href="https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/human-rights">recognized human rights</a>, including women’s rights and workers’ rights.</p>
<p>We believe that this kind of comprehensive data helps all people have an easy, transparent and reliable way to understand a country’s human rights record.</p>
<p>Hundreds of undergraduate and graduate research assistants, as well as 10 faculty members across different schools, scored each human right for all countries of the world for each year since 1981, based on publicly available research and human rights reports. Each country’s scores in the 2022 report card are based on the most recent year for which scores were available for all human rights scored by the CIRIGHTS data project. </p>
<p>The scorers work independently with a rigorous set of scoring guidelines to consider 25 human rights measures and then work together to resolve differences to agree upon a numerical score. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://cirights.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/crights-2022-report.pdf?force_download=true">December 2022 annual report</a> placed Canada and Sweden at the head of the class, with a 96 each, followed by New Zealand, Norway and Portugal at 94. At the bottom were Iraq, with a score of 12, China at 10, and North Korea and Syria with 6, and Iran at 2. The U.S. was not measured in this report card, since the U.S. government does not report on its own human rights. Subsequent reports will include analysis of the U.S. drawn from other sources. </p>
<h2>Ukraine’s recent history of protests</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/403000">Research has shown</a> that violations of human rights increase the likelihood of violent protests, terrorism and rebellion. </p>
<p>Ukraine, like Russia, has a history of citizens’ fighting corruption through public grievances, which turn into mass protests. Its <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Orange-Revolution">Orange Revolution</a> in 2004 and 2005, for example, resulted <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/orange-revolution-ukraine-votes-for-change">in widespread marches</a> in protest of the alleged fraudulent election of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, a candidate backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. </p>
<p>Following a run-off election, Yanukovych’s anti-corruption opponent Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko was elected in January 2005. </p>
<p>But five years later, Ukranians voted Yanukovych right back into office.</p>
<p>In 2014, mass protests once again emerged in Ukraine after the government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/21/ukraine-suspends-preparations-eu-trade-pact">abruptly canceled</a> an economic trade and political agreement with the European Union, following Russian pressure. People protested the decision, and Yanukovych’s government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/17/ukrainian-president-anti-protest-laws">passed new laws</a> to limit protests. Emboldened, police violently repressed the demonstrators – leading to more <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/understanding-ukraines-euromaidan-protests">violent and deadly riots</a>. </p>
<p>The 2014 and 2015 clashes culminated in the ouster of Yanukovych and the overthrow of the pro-Russian Ukrainian government. The protests also coincided with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-crisis-in-Crimea-and-eastern-Ukraine">Russia’s invasion and annexation</a> of Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula. </p>
<p>Conflict between Russia and Ukraine has since dramatically intensified, spreading across much of Ukraine in 2022. This conflict has only made domestic human rights conditions more important. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506170/original/file-20230124-13-t04tuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person raises a blue and yellow striped flag above a large crowd of people, who are mostly covered in smoke." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506170/original/file-20230124-13-t04tuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506170/original/file-20230124-13-t04tuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506170/original/file-20230124-13-t04tuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506170/original/file-20230124-13-t04tuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506170/original/file-20230124-13-t04tuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506170/original/file-20230124-13-t04tuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506170/original/file-20230124-13-t04tuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ukrainians take to the streets during the 2004 Orange Revolution to protest an alleged fraudulent election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/488564807/photo/ukraine-opposition-rally.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=3IGKn3tYZ2PwP4gOGGrY01e8oyn9Q48V30DE5CZc1Y4=">Sergey Supinski/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Our data shows that Russia ranked as the 12th-worst human rights violator in the world over the past two decades, placing it far below Ukraine. Russia is known to be responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in the eastern <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/conflict-ukraines-donbas-visual-explainer">Donbas region</a> of Ukraine, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/23/ukraine-war-un-report-details-abuse-and-torture-in-russian-prisons.html">as well as the torture</a> and imprisonment of Ukrainian citizens living in Russia.</p>
<p>And our analysis showed that Ukraine’s record for protecting civil and political rights, as well as other kinds of rights, were substantially better than Russia’s in recent years. Our scores are consistent with scores provided by other groups that track <a href="https://www.politicalterrorscale.org">human rights</a>. </p>
<p>The statistical evidence from all sources shows that both Russia and Ukraine have poor human rights records and are a long way from achieving a passing grade. This means for both countries it will be hard to achieve internal peace after the war ends.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New data from 2000 through 2019 shows that Ukraine’s human rights record is better than Russia’s – but worse than that of its Western European neighbors.David Cingranelli, Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Human Rights Institute, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkBrendan Skip Mark, Professor of political science, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1936852022-11-22T13:26:09Z2022-11-22T13:26:09ZRailroad unions and their employers at an impasse: Freight-halting strikes are rare, and this would be the first in 3 decades<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496539/original/file-20221121-22-gy90w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=127%2C84%2C3410%2C2376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The federal government sent troops to crush an 1877 rail strike.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/riot-by-railroad-workers-at-martinsburg-on-the-baltimore-news-photo/815623238?adppopup=true">Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The prospect of a potentially devastating rail workers strike <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/21/largest-freight-rail-unions-split-on-contract-vote-00069458">is looming again</a>, prompting the Biden administration on Nov. 28, 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-congress-government-and-politics-44c88740ed57ba96a20c4fc6fffb230b">to call on Congress to intervene</a> by passing legislation that would force them to agree to a new contract.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/railroads-and-unions-reach-deal-to-avert-devastating-strike-keeping-americas-trains-and-the-economy-on-track-for-now-190600">Fears of a strike in September 2022</a> saw the White House pull out all the stops to broker a deal between railroads and the largest unions representing their employees.</p>
<p>That deal hinged on ratification by a majority of members at all 12 of those unions. So far, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/21/rail-union-strike-white-house/">eight have voted in favor</a>, but four have rejected the terms. If even one continues to reject the deal after further negotiations, it could mean a full-scale freight strike could start as soon as the deadline passes on <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-congress-government-and-politics-44c88740ed57ba96a20c4fc6fffb230b">Dec. 9, 2022</a>. </p>
<p>“Let me be clear: a rail shutdown would devastate our economy,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Nov. 18. “Without freight rail, many U.S. industries would shut down.” </p>
<p>Any work stoppage by conductors and engineers would surely interfere with the delivery of gifts and other items Americans will want to receive in time for the holiday season, along with coal, lumber and other key commodities. </p>
<p>Strikes that obstruct transportation rarely occur in the United States, and the last one involving rail workers <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/04/18/031991.html?pageNumber=34">happened three decades ago</a>. But when these <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-strike-has-commuters-angry-and-frustrated-4908379.php">workers do walk off the job</a>, it can thrash the economy, inconveniencing millions of people and creating a large-scale crisis. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FfRboNQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">labor historian who has studied</a> the history of American strikes. I believe that with the U.S. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/08/us-likely-headed-for-mild-recession-in-2023-eric-rosengren.html">teetering toward at least a mild recession</a> and some of the <a href="https://www.scmr.com/article/supply_chain_issues_not_over_yet">supply chain disruptions</a> that arose at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic still wreaking havoc, I don’t think the administration would accept a rail strike for long.</p>
<h2>19th century rail strikes</h2>
<p>Few, if any, workers have more power over the economy than transportation workers. Their ability to shut down the entire economy has often led to heavy retaliation from the government when they have tried to exercise that power.</p>
<p>In 1877, a small strike against a West Virginia railroad that had cut wages spread. It grew into what became known as the <a href="https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877">Great Railroad Strike</a>, a general rebellion against railroads that brought thousands of unemployed workers into the streets. </p>
<p>Seventeen years later, in 1894, the American Railway Union went on strike in solidarity with the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/pull/learn/historyculture/the-strike-of-1894.htm">Pullman Sleeping Car company workers</a> who had gone on strike due to their boss lowering wages while maintaining rents on their company housing. </p>
<p>In both cases, the threat of a railroad strike led the federal government to call out the military to crush the labor actions. <a href="https://www.history.com/news/labor-day-pullman-railway-strike-origins">Dozens of workers died</a>.</p>
<p>Once those dramatic clashes ended, for more than a century rail unions have played a <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/history_of_labor_unions.html">generally quiet role</a>, preferring to focus on the needs of their members and avoiding most broader social and political questions. Fearful of more rail strikes, the government passed the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/21/rail-union-strike-white-house/">Railway Labor Act of 1926</a>, which gives Congress the power to intervene before a rail strike starts.</p>
<h2>Breaking the air traffic controllers union</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/freight.cfm">travel by road and air</a> growing in importance in the 20th century, other transportation workers also engaged in actions that could shut down the economy.</p>
<p>The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association walked off the job in 1981 after a decade of increased militancy over the stress and conditions of their job. The union had engaged in a series of <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1970/03/26/76723294.html?pageNumber=53">slowdowns through the 1970s</a>, delaying airplanes and frustrating passengers.</p>
<p>When it went on strike in 1981, the union broke the law, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/20/20873867/worker-strike-walkout-stoppage-firing-job">federal workers do not have the right</a> to strike. That’s when President Ronald Reagan became the <a href="https://lawyersgunsmon.wpengine.com/2012/08/this-day-in-labor-history-august-3-1981">first modern U.S. leader to retaliate</a> against striking transportation workers. Two days after warning the striking workers that they would lose their jobs unless they returned to work, <a href="https://millercenter.org/reagan-vs-air-traffic-controllers">Reagan fired more than 11,000 of them</a>. He also <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/2011/02/22/in-showdown-with-air-traffic-controllers-the-public-sided-with-reagan/">banned them from ever being rehired</a>.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of Reagan’s actions, the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/web/wkstp/annual-listing.htm">number of strikes by U.S. workers plummeted</a>. Rail unions engaged in brief strikes in both 1991 and 1992, but Congress used the Railway Labor Act to halt them, ordering workers back on the job and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/biggest-railroad-unions-count-votes-as-threat-of-strike-looms-11668918310">imposing a contract upon the workers</a>.</p>
<p>In 1992, Congress passed another measure that <a href="https://www.bmwe.org/journal/2001/05may/C2.htm">forced a system of arbitration upon railroad workers</a> before a strike – that took power away from workers to strike.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A freight train rolls past an oil refinery." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496544/original/file-20221121-18-j58xwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A major U.S. rail strike could further snarl supply chains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/freight-train-rolls-past-an-oil-refinery-in-the-port-of-los-news-photo/1243241832?phrase=rail%20freight%20workers&adppopup=true">Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>New era of labor militancy</h2>
<p>Following <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-us-labor-unions-and-why-they-still-matter-38263">decades of decline in the late 20th century</a>, U.S labor organizing has surged in recent years.</p>
<p>Most notably, unionization attempts at <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-labor-mobilization-moment-with-self-organizers-at-starbucks-amazon-trader-joes-and-chipotle-behind-the-union-drive-189826">Starbucks and Amazon</a> have led to surprising successes against some of the biggest corporations in the country. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/23/politics/teacher-strikes-politics/index.html">Teachers unions around the nation</a> have also held a series of successful strikes everywhere from Los Angeles to West Virginia. </p>
<p><a href="https://magazine.promomarketing.com/article/the-possibility-of-a-ups-strike-looms-over-2023/">United Parcel Service workers</a>, who held the nation’s last major transportation strike, in 1997, may head back to the picket lines after their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/05/ups-workers-teamsters-union-contract">contract expires in June 2023</a>. UPS workers, <a href="https://teamster.org/divisions/package-division/">members of the Teamsters union</a>, are angry over a two-tiered system that pays newer workers lower wages, and they are also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/05/ups-workers-teamsters-union-contract">demanding greater overtime protections</a>. </p>
<p>But rail workers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/business/railroad-workers-strike-threat.html">angered by their employers’ refusal to offer sick leave</a> and other concerns, may go on strike first.</p>
<p>Rail companies have <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/employment-in-rail-transportation-heads-downhill-between-november-2018-and-december-2020.htm">greatly reduced the number of people they employ</a> on freight trains as part of their efforts to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/business/freight-rail.html">maximize profits</a> and take advantage of technological progress. They generally keep the size of crews limited to only <a href="https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-regulations">two per train</a>.</p>
<p>Many companies want to pare back their workforce further, saying that it can be safe to have <a href="https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-regulations/">crews consisting of a single crew member on freight trains</a>. The <a href="https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/norfolk-southern-executive-says-one-person-crew-is-a-misnomer/">unions reject this arrangement</a>, saying that lacking a second set of eyes would be a recipe for mistakes, accidents and disasters. </p>
<p>The deal the Biden administration brokered in September 2022 would <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/21/1137640529/railroads-freight-rail-unions-vote-contract-strike">raise annual pay by 24%</a> over several years, raising the average pay for rail workers to $110,000 by 2024. But strikes are often about much more than wages. The companies have also long refused to provide paid sick leave or to <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/rail-worker-railroad-strike-freight-joe-biden/">stop demanding</a> that their workers have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/14/1122918098/railroads-freight-rail-union-strike-train-workers">inflexible and unpredictable schedules</a>.</p>
<p>The Biden administration had to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/business/railroad-workers-strike-threat.html">cajole the rail companies</a> into offering a single personal day, while workers demanded 15 days of sick leave. Companies had offered zero. The agreement did remove penalties from workers who took unpaid sick or family leave, but this would still leave a group of well-paid workers whose daily lives are <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-business-economy-congress-government-and-politics-6b60d53fefc7b85f301b0a3e7011715b">filled with stress and fear</a>.</p>
<h2>What lies ahead</h2>
<p>Seeing highly paid workers threaten to take action that would surely compound strains on supply chains at a time when <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/10/heres-the-inflation-breakdown-for-october-2022-in-one-chart.html">inflation is at a four-decade high</a> may not win rail unions much public support. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-business-economy-congress-government-and-politics-6b60d53fefc7b85f301b0a3e7011715b">coalition representing hundreds of business groups</a> has called for government intervention to make sure freight trains keep moving, and it’s highly likely that Congress will again impose a decision on workers under the Railway Labor Act – as the president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/28/rail-strike-biden-congress/">is requesting</a>. Lawmakers are expected to take up legislation to do so soon. The Biden administration, which has shown significant sympathy to unions, had previously <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/18/biden-steps-into-rail-labor-dispute-00046285">resisted supporting such a step</a>.</p>
<p>No one should expect the military to intervene like it did in the 19th century. But labor law remains tilted toward companies, and I believe that if the government were to compel striking rail workers back on the job, the move might find a receptive audience.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to include Biden’s calls on Congress to intervene.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik Loomis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Joe Biden called on Congress to intervene to avoid a strike that he said would ‘devastate our economy.’Erik Loomis, Professor of History, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1852672022-07-04T13:53:49Z2022-07-04T13:53:49ZU.S. anti-trans laws won’t ‘save women’s sports’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471697/original/file-20220629-18-u6qqw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2727%2C1818&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Over two dozen states have banned transgender youth from playing sports corresponding to their identity since 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/u-s--anti-trans-laws-won-t--save-women-s-sports-" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>A tsunami of intolerance <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/health/running/culture-running/transgender-athletes-burden-of-proof/">has engulfed the sporting world</a>. Wave after wave of prejudice continues to make equitable sports participation difficult, and the most recent news heaves trans athletes of all ages overboard into <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-backs-swimming-bodys-ban-on-transgender-athletes-women-cant-be-born-with-penis-1707333">a swirling current of exclusion and stigmatization</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jun/19/transgender-swimmers-barred-from-female-competitions-after-fina-vote">International Swimming Federation</a> recently implemented measures so absurd — an athlete must fully transition by age 12 — that trans athletes are now functionally banned as few jurisdictions offer such therapies until after puberty. </p>
<p>But it isn’t just swimming, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/international-rugby-league-bans-transgender-players-womens-competition-2022-06-21/">International Rugby League</a> recently barred trans players while it reviews its own policies. </p>
<p>Some of the most shocking and exclusionary measures, however, have been concocted more locally in the United States, where children are being denied the opportunity to participate in sport on the basis of their gender identities and <a href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/bans-trans-youth-health-care/">some state legislatures</a> are even contemplating prohibiting access to trans-specific medical care.</p>
<h2>Excluding children for political gain</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/06/14/only-3-in-10-americans-support-trans-athletes-participation-in-female-sports-poll-finds/?sh=6ecbe6f526cf">recent poll from the <em>Washington Post</em> and the University of Maryland</a>, a majority of Americans opposed the inclusion of trans athletes in girls’ and women’s sports at the high school (55 per cent), college (58 per cent) and professional (58 per cent) levels. </p>
<p>When it came to youth sport, the results shifted somewhat. Forty-nine per cent of those polled opposed the inclusion of trans athletes in youth sport, with 33 per cent in favour of inclusion and 17 per cent expressing no opinion. </p>
<p>Republican lawmakers, however, are excluding trans youth from sport at a <a href="https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/sports_participation_bans">shocking rate</a>, with state after state passing legislation to limit their access to sport.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a blue suit stands in front of a mantle with his hands up" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471245/original/file-20220627-22-karkc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471245/original/file-20220627-22-karkc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471245/original/file-20220627-22-karkc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471245/original/file-20220627-22-karkc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471245/original/file-20220627-22-karkc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471245/original/file-20220627-22-karkc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471245/original/file-20220627-22-karkc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt speaks at a news conference in Oklahoma City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over two dozen states have banned transgender youth from playing sports because of their gender identity since 2021. On March 30, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed the “<a href="http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/SB/SB2%20ENR.PDF">Save Women’s Sport Act</a>” into law, prompting a wave of sports-related transphobic legislation across America. </p>
<p>The language of Oklahoma’s new act unveils the moral panic that drove the development of such legislation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It being immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health or safety, an emergency is hereby declared to exist, by reason whereof this act shall take effect and be in full force from and after its passage and approval.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Imagine hearing that excluding you or your child from sport is an “emergency” for the state. That recognizing a trans person’s right to inclusion amounts to a “safety” or “health” threat.</p>
<p><a href="https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/06/03/gop-passes-bill-aiming-to-root-out-suspected-transgender-female-athletes-with-genital-inspection/">Ohio’s version</a> of the ban was even more aggressive. Any high school athlete even suspected of being transgender could be subjected to a genital examination. </p>
<p>Commenting on the law to the <a href="https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/06/03/gop-passes-bill-aiming-to-root-out-suspected-transgender-female-athletes-with-genital-inspection/"><em>Ohio Capital Journal</em></a>, Democratic representative and physician Beth Liston highlighted the misplaced panic stoked by Republicans saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There are not scores of girls’ dreams being crushed, there is one child trying to play on their high school sports team.… This is a made-up controversy and this amendment is state-sanctioned bullying.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Another way</h2>
<p>State lawmakers — like those in Oklahoma and Ohio — who advocate for laws similar to the “Save Women’s Sport Act” are to some degree supported by the sport’s outdated, sex-based binary fields of competition. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479837861.001.0001">sex is not binary</a>. It exists on a continuum.</p>
<p>The sort of binary employed by American lawmakers, while claiming to protect women, is reinforcing <a href="https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479837861.001.0001">outdated, socially constructed sex categories</a> that champion some athletes to the detriment of others. And the situation for trans women is particularly daunting. </p>
<p>As sport scholars C.B. Lucas-Carr and Vikki Crane explain in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.25.4.532"><em>The Sport Psychologist</em></a>, “Strict adherence to this binary has resulted in the erasure and stigmatization of transgender individuals.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People march holding signs like 'your laws kill' and 'god loves trans people'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471246/original/file-20220627-12-v3sfss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471246/original/file-20220627-12-v3sfss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471246/original/file-20220627-12-v3sfss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471246/original/file-20220627-12-v3sfss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471246/original/file-20220627-12-v3sfss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471246/original/file-20220627-12-v3sfss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471246/original/file-20220627-12-v3sfss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some of the most shocking and exclusionary measures are concocted in the United States.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Aiden Craver/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recognizing the downfall of the binary model for sport, Canadian sports leaders have gone a different direction. In 2012, the <a href="https://www.cces.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/pdf/cces-paper-sportintransition-e1.pdf">Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport</a> (CCES) brought together a panel of experts including representation from the True Sport Secretariat, Canadian Women and Sport, AthletesCAN to discuss the inclusion of transgender athletes in sport. </p>
<p>Following the event, the CCES published a report, <a href="https://www.cces.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/pdf/cces-paper-sportintransition-e1.pdf"><em>Sport in Transition: Making Sport in Canada More Responsible</em></a>, embracing gender self-identification, allowing an athlete to compete in the category that best reflects their identity, protecting their “fundamental rights of choice, self determination and privacy for all participants.” </p>
<p>While some Canadians were certainly skeptical that such inclusion could work, sports scholar <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17511321.2020.1775691">Sarah Teetzel</a> observed, the Canadian sport system has not been dominated by a wave of so-called “imposters” entering women’s sport. </p>
<p>The critics were wrong. And the lawmakers behind the “Save Women’s Sports Acts” are wrong.</p>
<p>With mass <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/sports/olympics/swimming-abuse-coaches-lawsuit.html">instances of sexual</a> and <a href="https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1097569/usa-taekwondo-coach-lawsuit-sexual-abuse">physical</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/12/13/1063798289/nassar-abuse-survivors-settlement-gymnastics-olympics">assault</a>, <a href="https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/battle_final_5.26.11.pdf">lack of access to resources</a>, <a href="https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/education/fight-equal-pay-womens-sports/">pay inequities</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceceliatownes/2019/12/13/the-lack-of-women-in-leadership-in-sports-inspires-the-breakthrough-summit/?sh=1508e14b1156">under-representation of women in leadership positions</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0891243217726056">inequitable media coverage</a> and so on, we can’t pretend that girls’ and women’s sports are perfect. But none of these laws that “protect women’s sport” actually address the widespread issues in women’s sport. </p>
<p>Lawmakers and governing bodies aren’t actively ensuring or promoting equitable access to facilities and other resources; equal pay for workers in girls and women’s sport; or even strengthening protections against sexual and physical abuse from coaches, teachers and administrators. Instead, they’ve chosen to target trans women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lawmakers and governing bodies aren’t actively ensuring or promoting equitable access for women and girls. Instead, they’ve chosen to target trans women.MacIntosh Ross, Assistant Professor, Kinesiology, Western UniversityMatthew R. Hodler, Assistant Professor of Sports Media & Communication, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1842142022-06-16T12:24:54Z2022-06-16T12:24:54ZCoastal gentrification in Puerto Rico is displacing people and damaging mangroves and wetlands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469067/original/file-20220615-11-lv96u2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C1152%2C763&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tourism-driven development is threatening one of Puerto Rico's greatest draws: its rural coastlines.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/aJeMia">R9 Studios FL/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As world travel rebounds after two years of COVID-19 shutdowns and restrictions, marketers and the media are promoting Puerto Rico as an accessible <a href="https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/puerto-rico-travel-2022/index.html">hot spot destination</a> for continental U.S. travelers. The commonwealth <a href="https://newsismybusiness.com/puerto-rico-had-record-year-for-tourism-in-21-discover-puerto-rico-says/">set a visitor record in 2021</a>, and it is <a href="https://www.travelagewest.com/Travel/Caribbean/puerto-rico-travel-2022">expanding tourism-related development</a> to continue wooing travelers away from more exotic destinations. </p>
<p>Tourism income is central to Puerto Rico’s economy, especially in the wake of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/puerto-rico-tourism-recovery-after-hurricane-maria-2020-6">heavy damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017</a>. But it comes at a cost: destruction of mangroves, wetlands and other coastal areas. Puerto Rico is no stranger to resort construction, but now widespread small-scale projects to meet demand for <a href="https://caribbeanbusiness.com/there-are-over-10000-airbnb-listed-properties-in-puerto-rico/">rentals on platforms like Airbnb</a> are adding to concerns about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2019.102845">coastal gentrification</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2018.1548819">touristification</a>. </p>
<p>As scholars who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=THbsmg4AAAAJ&hl=en">anthropology</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1nA5J-QAAAAJ&hl=en">coastal communities</a>, we believe it is important to understand what Puerto Rico is losing in the quest for ever-increasing tourist business. For the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-rural-coastal-puerto-ricans-can-teach-us-about-thriving-in-times-of-crisis-76119">rural coastal communities</a> where we do our research, habitat is tied to residents’ cultural identity and economic well-being.</p>
<p>For the last two decades, we have documented how many rural Puerto Ricans’ lives are inextricably linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3998/jar.0521004.0071.201">coastal forests and wetland habitats</a>. These communities often are poor, neglected by the state and disproportionately affected by <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-puerto-rico-environmental-injustice-and-racism-inflame-protests-over-coal-ash-69763">pollution and noxious industries</a>. Decisions about the future of the coast too often are made without accounting for human impacts.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vxk64GEZ7g0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">By law, all beaches on Puerto Rico are public, but many people say construction threatens the island’s natural resources.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Once-scorned areas are now in demand</h2>
<p>Estuaries and coastal forests are some of Earth’s most <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00376">biodiverse and productive ecosystems</a>. Millions of people rely on <a href="https://www.sarasota.wateratlas.usf.edu/upload/documents/ImportanceOfMangrovesToPeople-UNEP-2014.pdf">mangroves and coastal wetlands</a> to make a living. </p>
<p>Around the world, these areas are <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.00144">under stress</a> from climate change, <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2021/05/11/destruction-of-coastal-forest-for-a-major-tourism-project-raises-questions-about-jamaicas-climate-change-posture/">tourism</a> and luxury residential development. But these zones weren’t always prized so highly.</p>
<p>In Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the Americas, <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Wetlands%2C+5th+Edition-p-9781118676820">wetlands</a> historically were seen as undesirable and even dangerous places to live and work. They often were settled by the poor and dispossessed, most notably <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/from-extractive-agriculture-to-industrial-waste-periphery-life-in-a-black-puerto-rican-ecology/">Afro-descendant people</a> and Indigenous communities, who made livings <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24706389">fishing, foraging, harvesting coconuts, cutting wood and making charcoal</a>.</p>
<p>In the early 20th century, however, tropical coasts started attracting attention from the global leisure class. In 1919, the Vanderbilt Hotel opened in San Juan, followed in 1949 by the massive Caribe Hilton resort – the <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739189184/Imaging-The-Great-Puerto-Rican-Family-Framing-Nation-Race-and-Gender-during-the-American-Century">first Hilton hotel outside the continental U.S.</a>, built in partnership with the Puerto Rican government. Many more hotels followed, along with casinos and golf courses. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1458165063324352516"}"></div></p>
<p>Today, Puerto Rico’s rural coastal communities have to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.36019/9780813537528-005">compete for space and resources</a> against tourism development, gentrification, urbanization, industry and conservation. Often these uses are not compatible with local lifestyles. </p>
<p>For example, people from communities near mangrove forests, like Las Mareas in southern Puerto Rico, are no longer permitted to <a href="https://drna.pr.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/SAP-2016-FINAL-9-15-2016-rev-ETI.compressed.pdf">harvest small amounts of mangrove wood</a> to build traditional fishing boats. At the same time, they see wealthy residents and developers <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-caribbean-puerto-rico-mangroves-36e4e66f520e241f315fa4a1d8558ac1">destroying entire tracts of mangrove forest</a> with impunity. Some coastal communities are starting to push back.</p>
<h2>Beaches are for the people</h2>
<p>In March 2022, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/eliezermolinapr/?hl=en">Eliezer Molina</a>, an environmental activist, engineer and 2020 gubernatorial candidate, posted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se4HdAJ0K20">an exposé on YouTube</a> of the illegal cutting and filling of a mangrove shoreline in the <a href="https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2022/03/local-and-federal-negligence-enables-environmental-crime-in-the-bahia-jobos-reserve-in-salinas/">Las Mareas neighborhood</a> in Salinas’ Jobos Bay. As Puerto Rico’s second-largest estuary and only <a href="https://coast.noaa.gov/nerrs/reserves/jobos-bay.html">Federal Estuarine Reserve</a>, the bay is an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquabot.2007.12.007">important and sensitive habitat</a> for birds, turtles and manatees, and a nursery for many types of fish.</p>
<p>Wealthy Puerto Ricans <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-05-06/illegal-building-making-puerto-rico-more-vulnerable-to-climate-change-critics-warn">clandestinely developed this waterfront site</a> for weekend homes. Residents of Las Mareas had been alerting local authorities for well over a decade about destruction of the mangroves, to no avail. Federal authorities and Puerto Rico’s Justice Department are now <a href="https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/locales/notas/federales-buscan-informacion-en-bahia-de-jobos-en-salinas/">conducting a criminal investigation</a> of the illegal construction.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469069/original/file-20220615-11810-84txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Beach homes under construction in a forested area." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469069/original/file-20220615-11810-84txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469069/original/file-20220615-11810-84txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469069/original/file-20220615-11810-84txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469069/original/file-20220615-11810-84txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469069/original/file-20220615-11810-84txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469069/original/file-20220615-11810-84txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469069/original/file-20220615-11810-84txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Construction at the Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, in Salinas, Puerto Rico, May 3, 2022. Puerto Rico’s Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into destruction in the ecological reserve.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ClimateChangePuertoRicoIllegalConstruction/0a093eb19f004740a690fcacbc54834b/photo">AP Photo/Carlos Giusti</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This case led to widespread public outrage about <a href="https://www.liberationnews.org/the-fight-against-privatization-of-beaches-in-puerto-rico/">similar instances</a> around the archipelago. Puerto Ricans are condemning local government agencies <a href="https://www.instagram.com/biancagraulau/?hl=en">online</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/puerto-ricans-protest-privatization-of-public-beaches-140998725522">in person</a> for what they describe as incompetence, corruption and a lack of monitoring and oversight. </p>
<p>One hot-button issue is <a href="https://gizmodo.com/puerto-rico-rincon-beach-protests-1848747800">privatization and destruction</a> of the <a href="https://ayudalegalpr.org/resource/zona-maritimo-terrestre">Zona Marítimo Terrestre</a>, or Terrestrial Maritime Zone. This area is legally defined as “Puerto Rico’s coastal space that is bordered by the sea’s ebb and flow” – that is, between the low and high tide or up to the highest point of the surf zone. It includes beaches, mangroves and other coastal wetlands, and is publicly owned.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469099/original/file-20220615-10494-phcn3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protest poster in Spanish on a wall in a small local market" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469099/original/file-20220615-10494-phcn3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469099/original/file-20220615-10494-phcn3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469099/original/file-20220615-10494-phcn3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469099/original/file-20220615-10494-phcn3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469099/original/file-20220615-10494-phcn3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469099/original/file-20220615-10494-phcn3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469099/original/file-20220615-10494-phcn3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster in a seafood market in the village of Pozuelo, Guayama, reads ‘Stop the destruction and privatization of the coasts.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hilda Llorens</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Activists are urging Gov. Pedro Pierluisi to declare a comprehensive moratorium on all coastal construction, a demand the governor calls “<a href="https://weather.com/photos/news/2022-05-10-illegal-construction-puerto-rico-mangrove">excessive</a>.” A popular protest slogan, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJB_m66pn14">Las playas son del pueblo!</a>” (“Beaches belong to the people”), aptly summarizes popular feeling. </p>
<h2>Overlooked value</h2>
<p>Coastal development generates a lot of money in Puerto Rico, but what is gained by conserving these areas for use by local communities? In research that we carried out in <a href="https://app.box.com/s/wdlgd9tg1p0e7v4i99jp0sre40dej59i">2010-2013</a> and <a href="https://app.box.com/s/qt3c2cf4f7hlo2kpi7qhq6l88ntbtms8">2016-2021</a>, we found that coastal resources provide <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-019-00144-3">many benefits</a> for local residents that are not easily replaced. </p>
<p>Our results show that about one-third of households in these communities rely on coastal goods for at least part of their income, while more than two-thirds rely on them as food sources. Local harvesters supply family-owned seafood restaurants with foods such as land crabs, helping to attract economic activity to the coast. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469098/original/file-20220615-11810-nettdf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469098/original/file-20220615-11810-nettdf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469098/original/file-20220615-11810-nettdf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469098/original/file-20220615-11810-nettdf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469098/original/file-20220615-11810-nettdf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469098/original/file-20220615-11810-nettdf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469098/original/file-20220615-11810-nettdf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469098/original/file-20220615-11810-nettdf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Religious-themed murals commonly illustrate the importance of productive coasts for seaside Puerto Rican communities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hilda Llorens</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also found that residents <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/crb.2021.0010">rely more heavily</a> on local coastal foods during times of severe economic stress, such as recessions and natural disasters. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and María, for example, many residents in the southern towns of Salinas and Santa Isabel harvested unusually abundant land crabs when it was hard to find other foods. Some even saw this abundance as <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/800801">divine restitution for the suffering the storm inflicted on them</a>. </p>
<p>Local economies in these communities consist mainly of small-scale, community-based transactions that include gifting, bartering and selling. Their social and economic impacts often go unnoticed and are underestimated in official economic accounts, so they aren’t reflected in decisions about coastal development. But as our work shows, coastal ecosystems are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-019-00144-3">ecologically, economically and socially productive places</a>.</p>
<p>In 2010, we asked people living along Puerto Rico’s southern coast: “What would your community look like without access to the mangrove and its bounties?” The owner of a family restaurant, replied: “The answer is easy. Without access to coastal resources, this community would be dead and sad.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos G. García-Quijano has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Sea Grant.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hilda Lloréns has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Sea Grant, and the University of Rhode Island's Arts & Sciences Dean's Opportunity Fund.</span></em></p>Puerto Rico’s tourism industry is booming as nations lift COVID-19 travel restrictions, but development is displacing people who have lived along its coastlines for years.Carlos G. García-Quijano, Professor of Anthropology and Marine Affairs, University of Rhode IslandHilda Lloréns, Associate Professor, Anthropology & Marine Affairs, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1817582022-04-29T12:25:06Z2022-04-29T12:25:06ZNew Englanders support more offshore wind power – just don’t send it to New York<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460405/original/file-20220428-4047-ybokgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3335%2C2380&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Several offshore wind farms are planned for the U.S. Northeast.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-ge-alstom-block-island-wind-farm-stands-3-miles-off-of-news-photo/609896054?adppopup=true">Scott Eisen/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Rhode Island, home to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/science/wind-power-block-island.html">first offshore wind farm in the U.S.</a>, most people support expanding offshore wind power – with one important caveat.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629622001037?casa_token=d3_SujZuP5QAAAAA:ihDKdXI6KqM37HkGw3d0MneKJbu7F9S3RKjedb2YWBaiH1_1ixSrre_9NLv4v3MKvh4wItaeVnE">research</a> shows they’re less likely to support a wind power project if its energy flows to another state, and especially if it goes to a rival state. We found the same sentiment holds true on the New Hampshire coast.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=uYGKlfIAAAAJ&hl=en">Social</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=831LSZ8AAAAJ&hl=en">scientists</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N3QuuSIAAAAJ&hl=en">like us</a> call this “regionalism,” and our research suggests it could have serious repercussions for the renewable energy transition.</p>
<p>Think about the rivalries and sometimes outright animosity among baseball fans. Few regional rivalries are as intense as the one between Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees fans. More than mere bluster, these place-based identities can strongly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610397667">influence people’s thoughts</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217712834">attitudes</a> about rival cities in ways that extend far beyond the game. An allegiance to the Yankees <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212442228">can even influence perception</a> of the distance between New York City and Boston.</p>
<p>But do regional identities affect attitudes toward energy development? Our studies of public attitudes toward offshore wind energy development indicate they might.</p>
<h2>Which state gets the power matters</h2>
<p>We conducted two surveys – one in Rhode Island and the other on the New Hampshire coast – to see how people felt about offshore wind power, including energy exports.</p>
<p>Overall, both groups supported wind power off their shores.</p>
<p>People were happiest if the power was produced for their home states. That wasn’t a surprise. Studies have showed that the public generally <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111872">objects to energy exports</a>, perhaps fueled by concerns over <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2016.1267614">distributive justice</a>. Distributive justice refers to discrepancies between who bears costs, like having power plants and equipment in sight, and who benefits, such as from revenue and energy produced.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460404/original/file-20220428-26-mmdz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tourists play on a beach with the Block Island Wind Farm in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460404/original/file-20220428-26-mmdz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460404/original/file-20220428-26-mmdz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460404/original/file-20220428-26-mmdz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460404/original/file-20220428-26-mmdz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460404/original/file-20220428-26-mmdz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460404/original/file-20220428-26-mmdz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460404/original/file-20220428-26-mmdz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Block Island Wind Farm’s five turbines power the island with renewable energy. The rest of the electricity goes to the mainland grid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-ge-alstom-block-island-wind-farm-stands-3-miles-off-of-news-photo/609854808?adppopup=true">Scott Eisen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The answers got more interesting when we asked about exporting power to specific states.</p>
<p>For people in New Hampshire, wind power projects that send power to their North Woods brethren in Maine were more palatable than projects that would connect to more urban Massachusetts.</p>
<p>For Rhode Islanders, a wind power project serving Massachusetts was OK, but not one serving New York. That reaction was consistent with the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, with people in <a href="https://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/finding-the-true-border-between-yankee-and-red-sox-nation-using-facebook-data/">Red Sox-loving</a> Rhode Island preferring the electricity be sent to New England instead.</p>
<p><iframe id="6TWDt" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6TWDt/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Our study demonstrates that not only are people less supportive of other states claiming electricity produced off their shores, but it also matters which state is involved. It’s important to remember that once electricity goes into the Northeast grid, power from those wind turbines could go anywhere in the region. The power company and state that contract with a wind farm can benefit from the price and credit for contributing that clean energy, but electricity itself isn’t limited to that state, and the climate and clean energy benefits are also global. However, perceptions of who benefits matter for public acceptance.</p>
<h2>What this means for the future</h2>
<p>How will this regionalism play out for actual projects? We are not sure, but these are not just hypothetical situations.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.capegazette.com/article/%C3%B8rsted-selected-expand-windfarm-area-delaware-coast/232524">project off the Delaware coast</a> will supply power to Maryland. A <a href="https://www.nationalfisherman.com/northeast/final-approval-for-south-fork-wind-project">project recently approved</a> for development off Rhode Island will provide electricity to Long Island, New York.</p>
<p>The U.S. is poised for a rapid rise in offshore wind power. The Biden administration has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/29/fact-sheet-biden-administration-jumpstarts-offshore-wind-energy-projects-to-create-jobs/">committed enthusiastically</a> to offshore wind development, and coastal states have already committed to generating nearly 45 gigawatts of offshore wind power. That’s close to the <a href="https://gwec.net/global-wind-report-2022/">global total of around 57 gigawatts</a>, and about 1,000 times the current U.S. production from its seven existing offshore wind turbines. The first large-scale project, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-approves-its-first-big-offshore-wind-farm-near-marthas-vineyard-its-a-breakthrough-for-the-industry-160747">Vineyard Wind</a>, is under construction south of Martha’s Vineyard to ultimately provide up to 800 megawatts of electricity to its home state of Massachusetts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440937/original/file-20220114-16-u7vu61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of coasts showing lease areas offshore" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440937/original/file-20220114-16-u7vu61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440937/original/file-20220114-16-u7vu61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440937/original/file-20220114-16-u7vu61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440937/original/file-20220114-16-u7vu61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440937/original/file-20220114-16-u7vu61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440937/original/file-20220114-16-u7vu61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440937/original/file-20220114-16-u7vu61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The maps show areas leased for future offshore wind projects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/mapping-and-data/renewable-energy-gis-data">BOEM</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><iframe id="98cQU" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/98cQU/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Offshore wind energy has faced some controversy in the U.S. An early proposed project, Cape Wind, was scuttled by <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2015/01/09/cape-wind-faces-uncertain-future">two decades of litigation</a>. Public objections often arise over potential impacts to ocean views, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2020.404">fishing industry</a> and whales and other wildlife. Concerns over distributive justice could also turn public opinion against future projects. </p>
<h2>What to do about it</h2>
<p>One means of addressing fairness for energy projects is by providing “community benefits” such as <a href="https://revenuedata.doi.gov/how-revenue-works/gomesa/#:%7E:text=The%20Gulf%20of%20Mexico%20Energy,in%20the%20Gulf%20of%20Mexico.">sharing revenues</a> with communities affected by offshore energy projects. We believe offshore energy developers and policymakers should <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101393">broaden engagement</a> to neighboring states and communities and consider how the project might affect nearby communities.</p>
<p>The energy transition may also be expedited by acknowledging <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.110044">place-based identities</a> and planning accordingly, downplaying rivalries. For example, the federal government could move away from naming areas of the ocean designated for offshore wind development after specific states.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.</em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bidwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Firestone is a former (uncompensated) Director of First State Marine Wind (FSMW), which owns a land-based wind turbine adjacent to the University of Delaware's Lewes campus. UD is the controlling owner of FSMW, with SGRE, the turbine manufacturer, owning a minority interest. Wind turbine revenues are used for research, and here provided grant funding for the Rhode Island research. Firestone has never received industry support from SGRE or any other entity. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Ferguson receives funding from New Hampshire Seagrant</span></em></p>The regionalism that fuels the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is also found in U.S. attitudes about energy production, a new study shows. That could have repercussions for the renewable energy transition.David Bidwell, Associate Professor, Department of Marine Affairs, University of Rhode IslandJeremy Firestone, Professor, School of Marine Science and Policy, University of DelawareMichael Ferguson, Assistant Professor in Recreation Management and Policy, University of New HampshireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1398332020-08-17T12:23:50Z2020-08-17T12:23:50ZA rush is on to mine the deep seabed, with effects on ocean life that aren’t well understood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350675/original/file-20200731-23-xc0axb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C14%2C1908%2C1054&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Manganese nodules on the Atlantic Ocean floor off the southeastern United States, discovered in 2019 during the Deep Sea Ventures pilot test. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1907/logs/nov7/nov7.html">National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mining the ocean floor for submerged minerals is a little-known, experimental industry. But soon it will take place on the deep seabed, which <a href="https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part11-2.htm">belongs to everyone</a>, according to international law. </p>
<p>Seabed mining for valuable materials like copper, zinc and lithium already takes place <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/centers/pcmsc/science/global-ocean-mineral-resources?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects">within countries’ marine territories</a>. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/seabed-mining-foes-press-u-n-to-weigh-climate-impacts/">As soon as 2025</a>, larger projects could start in international waters – areas more than 200 nautical miles from shore, beyond national jurisdictions. </p>
<p>We study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wB-EYosAAAAJ">ocean policy</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cURq4KsAAAAJ&hl=en">marine resource management</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=y_yqq1oAAAAJ&hl=en">international ocean governance</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iZkMOjYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">environmental regimes</a>, and are researching <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103957">political processes that govern deep seabed mining</a>. Our main interests are the environmental impacts of seabed mining, ways of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110809">sharing marine resources equitably</a> and the use of tools like <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199363445-0123">marine protected areas</a> to protect rare, vulnerable and fragile species and ecosystems. </p>
<p>Today countries are working together on rules for seabed mining. In our opinion, there is still time to develop a framework that will enable nations to share resources and prevent permanent damage to the deep sea. But that will happen only if countries are willing to cooperate and make sacrifices for the greater good.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lwq1j3nOODA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">To mine the seafloor, ships will lower collector vehicles into the depths to vacuum up nodules containing valuable minerals.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An old treaty with a new purpose</h2>
<p>Countries regulate seabed mining within their marine territories. Farther out, in areas beyond national jurisdiction, they cooperate through the <a href="https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_overview_convention.htm">Law of the Sea Convention</a>, which has been ratified by 167 countries and the European Union, but not the U.S.</p>
<p>The treaty created the <a href="https://www.isa.org.jm/">International Seabed Authority</a>, headquartered in Jamaica, to manage seabed mining in international waters. This organization’s workload is about to balloon.</p>
<p>Under the treaty, activities conducted in areas beyond national jurisdiction must be for “<a href="https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part11-2.htm">the benefit of mankind as a whole</a>.” These benefits could include economic profit, scientific research findings, specialized technology and recovery of historical objects. The convention calls on governments to share them fairly, with special attention to developing countries’ interests and needs. </p>
<p>The United States was involved in negotiating the convention and signed it but <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/lawofthesea/chapter-eleven/">has not ratified it</a>, due to concerns that it puts too many limits on exploitation of deep sea resources. As a result, the U.S. is not bound by the treaty, although it follows most of its rules independently. Recent administrations, including those of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, sought to ratify the treaty, but <a href="https://www.voanews.com/usa/why-hasnt-us-signed-law-sea-treaty">failed to muster a two-thirds majority</a> in the Senate to support it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352816/original/file-20200813-20-1bbfg26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of world oceans showing where major metal deposits lie." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352816/original/file-20200813-20-1bbfg26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352816/original/file-20200813-20-1bbfg26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352816/original/file-20200813-20-1bbfg26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352816/original/file-20200813-20-1bbfg26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352816/original/file-20200813-20-1bbfg26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352816/original/file-20200813-20-1bbfg26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352816/original/file-20200813-20-1bbfg26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Locations of three main types of marine mineral deposits: polymetallic nodules (blue); polymetallic or seafloor massive sulfides (orange); and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts (yellow).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/312755/fmars-04-00418-HTML-r2/image_m/fmars-04-00418-g001.jpg">Miller et al., 2018, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00418</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Powering digital devices</h2>
<p>Scientists and industry leaders have known that there are valuable minerals on the seafloor for over a century, but it hasn’t been technologically or economically feasible to go after them until the past decade. Widespread growth of battery-driven technologies such as smartphones, computers, wind turbines and solar panels is <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-these-six-metals-are-key-to-a-low-carbon-future">changing this calculation</a> as the world runs low on land-based deposits of copper, nickel, aluminum, manganese, zinc, lithium and cobalt.</p>
<p>These minerals are found in potato-shaped “nodules” on the seafloor, as well as in and around <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/vents.html">hydrothermal vents</a>, seamounts and midocean ridges. Energy companies and their governments are also interested in extracting <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-world-eyes-yet-another-unconventional-source-of-fossil-fuels-methane-hydrates%3Cu">methane hydrates</a> – frozen deposits of natural gas on the seafloor.</p>
<p>Scientists still have a lot to learn about these habitats and the species that live there. Research expeditions are continually <a href="https://newatlas.com/science/expedition-30-new-species-longest-known-animal/">discovering new species in deep-sea habitats</a>. </p>
<h2>Korea and China seek the most contracts</h2>
<p>Mining the deep ocean requires permission from the International Seabed Authority. Exploration contracts provide the right to explore a specific part of the seabed for 15 years. As of mid-2020, <a href="https://www.isa.org.jm/deep-seabed-minerals-contractors">30 mining groups have signed exploration contracts</a>, including governments, public-private partnerships, international consortiums and private multinational companies.</p>
<p>Two entities hold the most exploration contracts (three each): the government of Korea and the <a href="http://www.comra.org/en/index.htm">China Ocean Mineral Resources R&D Association</a>, a state-owned company. Since the U.S. is not a member of the Law of the Sea treaty, it cannot apply for contracts. But U.S. companies are investing in others’ projects. For example, the American defense company Lockheed Martin owns <a href="https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-gb/products/uk-seabed-resources.html">UK Seabed Resources</a>, which holds two exploration contracts. </p>
<p>Once an exploration contract expires, as several have since 2015, mining companies must broker an exploitation contract with the International Seabed Authority to allow for commercial-scale extraction. The agency is working on <a href="https://www.isa.org.jm/mining-code">rules for mining</a>, which will shape individual contracts. </p>
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<h2>Unknown ecological impacts</h2>
<p>Deep-sea mining technology is still in development but will probably include vacuuming nodules from the seafloor. Scraping and vacuuming the seafloor can destroy habitats and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.02.014">release plumes of sediment</a> that blanket or choke filter-feeding species on the seafloor and fish swimming in the water column. </p>
<p>Mining also introduces <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00418">noise, vibration and light pollution</a> in a zone that normally is silent, still and dark. And depending on the type of mining taking place, it could lead to chemical leaks and spills.</p>
<p>Many deep-sea species are <a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-7-2851-2010">unique and found nowhere else</a>. We agree with the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz5922">scientific community</a> and <a href="http://www.deepseaminingoutofourdepth.org/">environmental advocates</a> that it is critically important to analyze the potential effects of seabed mining thoroughly. Studies also should inform decision-makers about how to manage the process. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>This is a key moment for the International Seabed Authority. It is currently writing the rules for environmental protection but doesn’t have enough information about the deep ocean and the impacts of mining. Today the agency relies on seabed mining companies to report on and monitor themselves, and on academic researchers to provide baseline ecosystem data. </p>
<p>We believe that national governments acting through the International Seabed Authority should <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103823">require more scientific research and monitoring</a>, and better support the agency’s efforts to analyze and act on that information. Such action would make it possible to slow the process down and make better decisions about when, where and how to mine the deep seabed.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jnJE37twrzk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Footage from an expedition to the Ningaloo Canyons off Western Australia in spring 2020 that discovered up to 30 new species.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Balancing risks and benefits</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2018/03/19/race-to-the-bottom">race for deep-sea minerals is imminent</a>. There are compelling arguments for mining the seabed, such as <a href="https://www.mining-technology.com/features/deepsea-mining-the-environmental-debate/">supporting the transition to renewable energy</a>, which some companies assert will be a <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/deep-sea-mining-an-environmental-solution-or-impending-catastrophe/">net gain for the environment</a>. But balancing benefits and impacts will require proactive and thorough study before the industry takes off.</p>
<p>We also believe that the U.S. should ratify the Law of the Sea treaty so that it can help to lead on this issue. The oceans <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/why-care-about-ocean.html">provide humans with food and oxygen and regulate Earth’s climate</a>. Choices being made now could affect them far into the future in ways that aren’t yet understood. </p>
<p><em>Dr. Rachel Tiller, Senior Research Scientist with SINTEF Ocean, Norway, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Companies are eager to mine the deep ocean for valuable mineral deposits. But scientists are concerned about impacts on sea life, including creatures that haven’t even been discovered yet.Elizabeth M. De Santo, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Franklin & Marshall CollegeElizabeth Mendenhall, Assistant Professor of Marine Affairs and Political Science, University of Rhode IslandElizabeth Nyman, Assistant Professor of Maritime Policy, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1027022018-09-27T10:34:16Z2018-09-27T10:34:16ZAfter a fatal shark attack on Cape Cod, will the reaction be coexistence or culling?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238152/original/file-20180926-48650-1p9k13w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Warning sign at a Cape Cod beach.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Carlos García-Quijano</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Interactions between people and animals offer insights into human culture and societies’ core values. This is especially true with respect to large predators – perhaps due to a collective memory of our <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Man-the-Hunted-Primates-Predators-and-Human-Evolution-Expanded-Edition/Hart-Sussman/p/book/9780813344034">evolutionary past as hunted prey</a>. </p>
<p>Along with fellow anthropologist <a href="https://web.uri.edu/soc-anth/meet/john-poggie/">John Poggie</a>, I have been studying relationships between humans and <a href="https://www.fishbase.de/summary/Carcharodon-carcharias.html">white sharks</a> (<em>Carcharodon carcharias</em>) on Cape Cod since 2015. Atlantic white sharks have historically <a href="https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/08/qd/contribution-36_0.pdf">preyed on grey seals</a>, but largely disappeared from Cape waters after hunting reduced local seal populations in the 19th century. After the Marine Mammal Protection Act was adopted in 1972, seals <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/06/14/sharks-should-be-happy-about-new-google-earth-survey-of-seal-populations/?utm_term=.966b6b6650f5">recovered in force</a>, and white sharks have followed. </p>
<p>Since the mid-2000s, shark sightings in Massachusetts waters in summer and early fall have progressively increased. Until recently, the public response was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/us/sharks-in-cape-cod-town-draw-tourists-flipping-the-jaws-script.html">largely positive</a>. Our work with local stakeholders indicated an encouraging but delicate balance in the relationship between people and sharks. </p>
<p>But with more sharks appearing, risks increased. In 2012 a swimmer sustained <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/08/us/massachusetts-shark-victim/index.html">moderate injuries</a> from a white shark bite. Another swimmer was <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shark-attacks-swimmer-at-cape-cod-beach-longnook-beach-truro-2018-08-16/">seriously injured by a shark</a> on August 16, 2018. Then, on September 16, a 26-year-old bodyboarder was killed in what is believed to be the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/us/cape-cod-shark-attack.html">first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936</a>. </p>
<p>We have been told often on Cape Cod that a fatal attack could change everything. Now the region faces a choice: Live with predators, or try once again to eliminate either sharks or their prey. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237528/original/file-20180921-129868-1jw5ds1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237528/original/file-20180921-129868-1jw5ds1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237528/original/file-20180921-129868-1jw5ds1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237528/original/file-20180921-129868-1jw5ds1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237528/original/file-20180921-129868-1jw5ds1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237528/original/file-20180921-129868-1jw5ds1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237528/original/file-20180921-129868-1jw5ds1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237528/original/file-20180921-129868-1jw5ds1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Lytton, of Scarsdale, New York, suffered deep puncture wounds to his leg and torso after being attacked by a shark on Aug. 15, 2018 while swimming off a beach in Truro, Massachusetts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Shark-Study/ea4357f7be0f482b84284ade2a2c2443/2/0">AP Photo/Steven Senne, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A changing ecosystem and economy</h2>
<p>Cape Cod is an extremely popular warm-weather destination that is highly dependent on beach tourism. Its year-round population of <a href="http://www.statscapecod.org/towndata/population.php">about 215,000</a> swells to over 500,000 in summer.</p>
<p>According to a 2012 study led by Massachusetts state shark biologist Greg Skomal, white sharks are <a href="https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/08/qd/contribution-36_0.pdf">repeat seasonal visitors</a> to Cape Cod waters, and new white shark individuals continue to be recruited to the region every year. Anecdotal evidence supports this pattern, with shark sightings and beach closures increasing around the Cape. Media reports have featured <a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/video-captures-shark-attacking-seal-feet-away-from-cape-cod-beach/22752280">sharks killing seals just feet from a beach</a> and <a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/5813734137001/?#sp=show-clips">taking striped bass off fishing lines</a>. </p>
<p>Sharks are culturally salient for practically every human society that has come into contact with them. Part of this reflects the risk of attack. Fatal shark attacks in the Americas have been documented by archaeologists <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Talking-Taino,1914.aspx">as far back as A.D 1000</a>. </p>
<p>In a variety of coastal locations, including South Africa, Australia and California, beach tourism and water sports-dependent economies have developed in the presence of white sharks. On Cape Cod, however, the timing has been different. As grey seal populations dwindled by mid-20th century, white sharks “left” the area. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the relationship between people and their local coastal environment <a href="http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/cape-cod">shifted</a> as the Cape transitioned from a fishing-dependent economy into a water tourism destination. Most tourism revenue for the entire year is earned in summer – precisely when sharks converge around Cape Cod to hunt seals. </p>
<p>As sightings increased around the Cape over the past decade, the Massachusetts state government and nongovernmental organizations such as the <a href="http://www.atlanticwhiteshark.org/">Atlantic White Shark Conservancy</a> launched acoustic tagging and monitoring programs to understand shark behavior. They also conduct public outreach and education initiatives to help people understand, appreciate and respect sharks. </p>
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<h2>Embracing the return of white sharks</h2>
<p>We have interviewed and surveyed more than 1,300 Cape Cod residents and visitors to document challenges and opportunities posed by the sharks’ growing presence. For example, while the risk of shark attack can negatively impact beach tourism, visitor interest in white sharks is also a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shark-sightings-off-cape-cod-a-boon-for-tourism/">potential source of revenue</a>. </p>
<p>In previous research, I have found that the tourism industry can be highly responsive to people’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44150988?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">interest in charismatic wildlife</a>. The Cape Cod town of Chatham has adopted white sharks as icons, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/08/17/chatham-bold-attempt-become-new-england-great-white-shark-capital/TtfcEZsAo6PN7lUoBKe1kO/story.html">branding itself as “the summer home of the great white.”</a> In June 2015 Massachusetts enacted regulations <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shark-massachusetts/massachusetts-sets-restrictions-on-shark-baiting-tours-idUSKBN0OX2NV20150617">restricting recreational and commercial activities around white sharks</a>.</p>
<p>Shortly after the August 16 nonfatal attack, we conducted an online survey of 1,120 Cape Cod residents and visitors to assess beliefs, attitudes, values and knowledge about white sharks in local waters. Overall, nonresidents’ attitudes seemed to be driven by their general views of nature and sharks’ place in it. Residents tended more to draw on their experience of local issues and conditions, such as how their use of beaches and local waters had changed because of sharks. They also were more likely to refer to the return of seals as a driver of rising shark populations.</p>
<p>Other researchers have found that when people perceive the presence of large land predators as conveying both risks and benefits, they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12072">more likely to tolerate those predators near places of human activity</a>. In our survey, respondents strongly agreed that white sharks had great potential to attract tourism revenue and raise environmental awareness. However, there was less agreement about how much inherent risk from sharks was acceptable. Residents were more likely to be concerned about the growing potential for shark attacks to harm tourism, fishing and their own enjoyment of water activities. </p>
<p>Respondents almost universally opposed lethal control measures. However, some residents strongly supported seal culls, and a number of them called the Marine Mammal Protection Act an unwanted intrusion into local affairs. In their view, the law had caused overpopulation that threatened fisheries and human safety, both via direct conflict with seals and by attracting sharks. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VDZWdBUNs2Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Massachusetts state marine biologist Greg Skomal explains how little is known about white shark populations along the East Coast.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A decision point</h2>
<p>Since the fatal September 16 attack, one local politician has endorsed culling both <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cape-cod-shark-sightings-killing_us_599f86f9e4b05710aa5b537d">sharks</a> and <a href="https://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/09/17/cape-cod-culling-seals-shark-attack/">seals</a>. Biologists call culling ineffective and assert that tagging sharks is providing <a href="http://www.capecodchronicle.com/en/5235/opinion/2045/Why-Culling-Great-White-Sharks-Is-A-Bad-Idea.htm">crucial scientific knowledge</a>. Nonetheless, the attack has raised serious concern on and around Cape Cod, and is spurring discussion about <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/09/21/after-cape-shark-fatality-tourism-industry-reels/a3uCRU6VnjEDPsnc4JdIYI/story.html">the ethics of profiting from shark tourism</a>.</p>
<p>As a precedent, Cape Cod officials and residents could look to Colorado, where <a href="http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Puma_concolor/">cougars</a> <a href="https://www.beastinthegarden.com/">recolonized the area around Boulder in the 1990s</a>. </p>
<p>As with sharks on Cape Cod, cougars were not purposefully reintroduced. Rather, measures protecting their habitat and food sources and restricting hunting made it possible for them to return to a new, human-dominated landscape, where leisure and outdoor recreation had largely replaced extractive resource uses such as logging and ranching. And Boulder residents had developed new sets of beliefs, attitudes and values about sharing space with large predators. After a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/03/us/too-often-cougars-and-people-clash.html">high-profile fatal attack in 1997</a> and a contentious political process, Coloradans opted to forgo lethal control and focus on modifying human behavior near cougars. </p>
<p>Ultimately, in my view, the only activities that humans can manage and modify in a lasting way are our own. Social science can help communities strike a balance with nature by identifying acceptable trade-offs between the risks and benefits of coexistence. The return of white sharks to Cape Cod is just the latest example of the complex challenges, opportunities, and trade-offs posed by conservation in a time when humans have such broad influence over the natural world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos G. García-Quijano has received research funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Sea Grant. </span></em></p>The return of white sharks to Cape Cod, Massachusetts was a tourism success story – until a shark killed a swimmer. Can the Cape’s residents and visitors learn to share the ocean with these apex predators?Carlos G. García-Quijano, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Marine Affairs, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/849172017-10-06T09:38:47Z2017-10-06T09:38:47ZMenghitung badak Jawa tak mudah—tapi itu langkah pertama untuk menyelamatkannya dari kepunahan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188349/original/file-20171002-12149-1vp0417.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Badak Jawa adalah salah satu mamalia paling langka di dunia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WWF-ID/Sugeng Hendratmo</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Badak Jawa (<em>Rhinoceros sondaicus</em>) hanya dapat ditemukan di ujung paling barat Pulau Jawa, di habitat hutan hujan tropis di Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon di Pandeglang, Banten. Dahulu tidak demikian. Memang ada banyak spesies yang secara alamiah wilayah jelajahnya tak luas, tapi badak Jawa dahulu mendiami sebagian besar Asia Tenggara. </p>
<p>Kini perubahan lanskap, hilangnya habitat, dan perburuan telah mengurangi jumlah mereka menjadi sangat sedikit. Badak Jawa yang terakhir diketahui ada di <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.03.014">daratan Asia</a> dibunuh pada 2009. Sekarang badak Jawa terdaftar sebagai binatang yang <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/19495/0">terancam punah </a> oleh International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), organisasi internasional di bidang konservasi alam. </p>
<p>Meningkatkan populasi binatang liar yang jumlahnya sudah sangat sedikit amatlah sulit. Populasi dengan jumlah kecil tumbuh sangat lambat bahkan dalam kondisi terbaik. Penurunan jumlah hewan yang kecil saja karena perburuan, penyakit atau faktor lain, merepresentasikan proporsi yang relatif besar dari keseluruhan populasi. </p>
<p>Menghitung jumlah populasi yang kecil dan mencatat karakter distribusi mereka secara tepat juga sangat sulit. Sering, informasi kritis ini tidak diketahui dengan baik, yang membuat ilmuwan kesulitan untuk menelusuri populasi dan mengevaluasi apakah tindakan mereka memiliki dampak positif. Meski demikian, ilmuwan dan pemerintah Indonesia sedang menyiapkan rencana untuk menyelamatkan spesies yang dalam bahaya kepunahan ini. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peta Pulau Jawa. Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon di Banten ada di ujung sebelah kiri bagian barat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Java_region_map.png">Burnesedays/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mengapa menghitung badak begitu sulit</h2>
<p>Garis keturunan badak telah bertahan selama 50 juta tahun melalui periode es dan serangan binatang purba, seperti <a href="http://prehistoric-fauna.com/Hemicyon">“anjing-beruang” (<em>Hemicyon sansaniensis</em>)</a>. Badak memegang peran penting dalam struktur ekosistem. Badak Jawa menciptakan habitat yang unik di dalam hutan hujan dengan menyebarkan benih, menciptakan kubangan lumpur, dan membuang tanaman yang tumbuh di bawah bayang-bayang kanopi hutan hujan (<em>understory plants</em>) dalam jumlah yang besar. Kehilangan badak Jawa berarti hutan akan berkurang sifat keragamannya. </p>
<p>Meski hampir seabad lamanya penelitian tentang badak telah dilakukan, pengetahuan kita soal badak Jawa tetap relatif sedikit. Pada 1937, estimasi pertama soal populasi badak di Ujung Kulon adalah antara <a href="http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/index.php?s=1&act=pdfviewer&id=1354686368&folderit=135">20 hingga 25</a> ekor. Sejak itu, setidaknya 36 survei populasi untuk menghitung jumlah badak telah dilakukan, tapi sebagian besar gagal menghasilkan data yang tepercaya untuk jumlah seluruh populasi atau untuk menyediakan pengetahuan tentang faktor-faktor yang mendorong pola penyebaran mereka di dalam taman nasional. </p>
<p>Badak Jawa mengembara di wilayah hutan hujan yang padat, berawa-rawa, dan luas. Peneliti jarang melihat mereka. Kami malah menemukan jejak dan kotoran. Ini membantu kami memahami habitat tempat badak hidup. Namun, jejak dan kotoran bukan indikator yang baik untuk ukuran populasi. Para ilmuwan sempat mencoba menempatkan perangkap kamera untuk menangkap gambar badak, tapi tanpa gambar dengan kualitas tinggi sulit untuk membedakan antara badak satu dan badak lainnya. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zfRT6cnBevg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Video badak Jawa dari perangkap kamera di Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon, Pandeglang, Banten.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Baca juga:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/perdagangan-ilegal-kura-kura-mengapa-saya-menyimpan-rahasia-86683">Perdagangan ilegal kura-kura: mengapa saya menyimpan rahasia</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Selama empat tahun terakhir, saya bekerja sebagai penasihat sains. Saya bekerja bersama peneliti dan ahli biologi dari <a href="http://www.wwf.or.id/">World Wide Fund For Nature Indonesia</a> dan <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/">Amerika Serikat</a>, ahli biologi Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon, <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/">Global Wildlife Conservation</a>, dan lembaga swadaya masyarakat <a href="http://badak.or.id/">YABI</a> untuk menciptakan strategi pemantauan badak Jawa yang bernas dan akurat. </p>
<p>Bergerak dari usaha-usaha yang sudah dilakukan di masa lalu, rekan-rekan saya mengembangkan pendekatan sistematis untuk menempatkan perangkap kamera di wilayah habitat badak di Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon. Ahli biologi lapangan masuk ke wilayah hutan hujan yang sangat rimbun untuk memasang kamera di 178 lokasi. Setiap kamera diatur untuk merekam klip video berkualitas tinggi dari binatang apa pun yang lewat. Biasanya, ahli biologi jarang beruntung melihat satu saja dari badak-badak ini. Namun, kerja keras menjaga kamera beroperasi selama satu tahun berhasil mengumpulkan 36.104 klip video, 1.660 di antaranya mengandung klip video badak. </p>
<p>Dalam proyek ini, peran saya adalah mengembangkan metode statistik yang bernas bersama para ahli biologi. Menggunakan data video kami menggunakan metode statistik ini untuk menghasilkan estimasi ukuran populasi dan penyebaran. Namun, pertama-tama kami harus memastikan bahwa satu per satu badak yang terekam di video dapat diidentifikasi secara pasti.</p>
<p>Kami membentuk tiga tim yang independen dari satu sama lain untuk mengidentifikasi badak dan membandingkan hasilnya. Ini menjadi proses identifikasi multi-langkah yang menggunakan ciri morfologi, seperti jenis kelamin, bentuk dan posisi cula, lipatan kulit di sekitar mata, lipatan kulit di leher, dan bekas luka. </p>
<p>Sesudah kami dapat mengenali badak satu per satu, kami bisa hitung berapa kali kami melihat badak tertentu dan di mana lokasinya. Menggunakan model statistik, kami masukkan data untuk memperkirakan pergerakan badak, ukuran populasi, dan distribusi spasial. Kami menjelaskan perkembangan dan penemuan kami di <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/conl.12366">artikel ilmiah yang diterbitkan di jurnal Conservation Letters</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Foto perangkap-kamera badak Jawa dari Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon Banten.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WWF-ID</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yang terpenting, kami berhasil mengestimasi secara cermat populasi badak sebanyak 62 ekor. Kami lihat ada tanda-tanda positif mengenai populasi badak, seperti video badak bayi dan remaja. </p>
<p>Namun, populasi badak tidak menunjukkan tanda-tanda bertumbuh. Populasi badak Jawa secara umum tidak tumbuh dengan cepat. Para betina biasanya mencapai kematangan seksual sesudah mencapai usia tiga atau empat tahun, tapi jantan biasanya tidak mencapai tingkat kedewasaan seksual sampai mereka berusia enam tahun. Betina biasanya hanya memiliki satu anak pada satu waktu dan biasanya tidak melahirkan anak lagi sampai empat atau lima tahun berikutnya. Masa tumbuh janin adalah 16 bulan. </p>
<p>Menggunakan model statistik, kami juga mendapati bahwa badak jantan menjelajah wilayah yang lebih luas dibandingkan betina dan baik jantan maupun betina lebih suka wilayah dengan ketinggian rendah, dan biasanya dekat garis pantai. Mereka hampir seratus persen menghindari wilayah pegunungan di taman nasional. Badak-badak ini juga lebih suka dekat-dekat dengan kubangan lumpur, tempat mereka melumuri kulit mereka sepanjang hari untuk mengatur suhu tubuh, menghindari gigitan serangga, dan menghilangkan parasit. </p>
<h2>Menciptakan rencana konservasi</h2>
<p>Dengan informasi baru ini di tangan kami, kami sedang membantu pemerintah Indonesia dan mitra konservasi pemerintah untuk mengambil langkah-langkah lanjutan untuk melindungi badak Jawa di Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon dan mempertahankan spesies tersebut. Penelitian kami menunjukkan badak berisiko menjadi korban tsunami, karena mereka suka habitat yang dekat garis pantai. </p>
<p><a href="http://volcano.si.edu/region.cfm?rn=6">Busur Sunda</a>, wilayah lempeng tektonik bertemu dan secara rutin menyebabkan gempa bumi yang dapat memicu tsunami dekat dengan garis pantai Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon. Di utara taman nasional ada gunung api <a href="http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/krakatau">Anak Krakatau</a> yang sejak 1920 terus tumbuh di dalam kaldera Krakatau, gunung api yang meletus hebat pada 1883, menciptakan tsunami yang membunuh lebih dari 30.000 orang. Anak Krakatau sering meletus dan berpotensi tinggi menghasilkan tsunami. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gunung Anak Krakatau, 3 Januari 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anak_Krakatau,_january_2016.jpg">Tyke/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Melindungi badak Jawa dari kepunahan akan memerlukan pengembangan populasi tambahan, yang artinya sebagian badak dari Taman Nasional Ujung Kulon perlu dipindahkan. Memindahkan binatang liar merupakan <a href="https://theconversation.com/galapagos-giant-tortoises-make-a-comeback-thanks-to-innovative-conservation-strategies-67591">pendekatan yang umum dilakukan dalam konservasi</a>, meski langkah tersebut mengandung risiko untuk hewan-hewan tersebut. Namun, mengingat risiko kepunahan terhadap badak Jawa sebagai spesies, tidak melakukan apa-apa bukan solusi. </p>
<p>Usaha konservasi ini membutuhkan investasi yang signifikan dan kemitraan lintas pemerintah, LSM, dan universitas. Ahli konservasi dan pemerintah Indonesia sudah mendiskusikan ide pengembangan populasi badak Jawa baru selama berpuluh-puluh tahun. </p>
<p>Penelitian kami menyediakan ketepatan ilmiah yang dapat memastikan kita memiliki informasi demografi dasar yang diperlukan untuk mengambil keputusan ini dan dorongan untuk melangkah tanpa ditunda-tunda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Gerber tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Badak Jawa termasuk mamalia yang terancam punah. Mereka tinggal di ujung barat Pulau Jawa di jalur tsunami. Untuk menyelamatkan mereka, populasi baru harus dikembangkan.Brian Gerber, Assistant Professor of Natural Resources Science, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/817392017-09-20T03:15:59Z2017-09-20T03:15:59ZSaving amphibians from a deadly fungus means acting without knowing all the answers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186613/original/file-20170919-22613-bbobzd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A male boreal toad waits for opportunities to mate near a Colorado mountain lake. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brittany Mosher</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The calls of frogs on warm nights in the spring are a welcome sound, telling listeners that the seasons are changing and summer is coming. Today, however, ponds that once echoed with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6-8pC8o5fw">chirps</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdJApsDYwM">chuckles</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOQ_dehNgnw">calls</a> of frogs and toads are falling silent around the world. </p>
<p>This loss is worrying. Amphibians are the environment’s canaries in the coal mine. Their declines provide early warning signs to scientists that stressors like habitat loss, climate change, pollution and disease are making ecosystems unhealthy. Without amphibians, insect and algae populations multiply, causing cascading effects on other organisms – including humans.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726443-300-habitat-loss-drives-decline-in-amphibians/">Almost half of all amphibian species on Earth are declining</a>, and a disease called chytridiomycosis is one culprit. We work with a team of scientists and resource managers who are trying to keep amphibian populations healthy in the face of this disease. </p>
<p>Good science always involves uncertainty, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/saving-javan-rhinos-from-extinction-starts-with-counting-them-and-its-not-easy-75688">uncertainty makes it hard</a> for managers to decide <a href="https://theconversation.com/galapagos-giant-tortoises-make-a-comeback-thanks-to-innovative-conservation-strategies-67591">which of many</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/saving-javan-rhinos-from-extinction-starts-with-counting-them-and-its-not-easy-75688">possible actions</a> to take. Moreover, while scientists do field work, analyze data and present results, government agencies and other land managers typically make the decisions about how to conserve species. However, we have learned that when these groups work together, we can move toward solutions step by step.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186636/original/file-20170919-22632-17ks4he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186636/original/file-20170919-22632-17ks4he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186636/original/file-20170919-22632-17ks4he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186636/original/file-20170919-22632-17ks4he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186636/original/file-20170919-22632-17ks4he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186636/original/file-20170919-22632-17ks4he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186636/original/file-20170919-22632-17ks4he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186636/original/file-20170919-22632-17ks4he.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Global distribution of threatened amphibian species.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/initiatives/amphibians/analysis/geographic-patterns">IUCN</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Confronting an ‘amphibian apocalypse’</h2>
<p>The word “amphibian” has Greek roots and means “double life.” These aptly named creatures split their time between water and land. Many amphibians use their sponge-like skin to breathe and absorb nutrients, so they are sentinels of environmental changes in both habitats.</p>
<p>The frog infection chytridiomycosis is caused by a fungus known as Bd, short for <em>Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis</em> and popularly known as chytrid fungus. Like amphibians, Bd has several life stages: a swimming spore that lives in water and an encysted form that occurs on frogs’ and toads’ sensitive skin. Infected animals grow lethargic and malnourished, often dying within weeks.</p>
<p>Several of the world’s most extraordinary amphibian species have already gone extinct due to chytridiomycosis, including the stranger-than-fiction <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/19475/0">gastric-brooding frog</a> (which reared offspring in its mouth) and the beautiful <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/54563/0">Panamanian golden frog</a>. Hundreds of other species are on the brink of extinction. Eradicating Bd is likely impossible, so we need to take alternative management actions to bolster amphibian populations if we want to see them survive.</p>
<p>Scientists have learned a great deal about Bd and its impacts over the past 20 years. Researchers know that some <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3354/dao068047">Bd strains</a> are more dangerous than others; that some amphibians are genetically <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1106893108">resistant</a> or have <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/meet-colorful-new-weapon-scientists-are-using-save-toads-devastating-fungus-180961462/">other mechanisms</a> that help them tolerate infection; and that environmental differences can create <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/acv.12199">drastically different</a> disease dynamics. </p>
<p>Researchers have called the disease-related decline of amphibians an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(12)61761-8">apocalypse</a> that requires an <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1128396">unprecedented conservation response</a>. But despite great advances in knowledge about Bd and amphibians, no one has identified consistent, effective actions that we can use to halt or reverse these declines.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186258/original/file-20170916-13360-10m2vym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186258/original/file-20170916-13360-10m2vym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186258/original/file-20170916-13360-10m2vym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186258/original/file-20170916-13360-10m2vym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186258/original/file-20170916-13360-10m2vym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186258/original/file-20170916-13360-10m2vym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186258/original/file-20170916-13360-10m2vym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186258/original/file-20170916-13360-10m2vym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The life cycle of Bd starts with an aquatic spore that burrows into the skin of amphibians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/nviYJe">Brian Gratwicke</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Knowing enough to act</h2>
<p>For the past three years, we have been part of a team tasked with merging science with management in an effort to save <a href="http://blog.sustainability.colostate.edu/?q=mosher">boreal toads</a>, which live at high elevations in the Rocky Mountains. Juvenile toads are the size of your fingernail, but eventually grow as large as baseballs when they are sexually mature. They spend more than half of their lives buried in snow, waiting for opportunities to feed and breed in spring. Boreal toads are highly susceptible to Bd and now occupy only a fraction of their former range.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181427/original/file-20170808-21888-tks8t1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181427/original/file-20170808-21888-tks8t1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181427/original/file-20170808-21888-tks8t1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181427/original/file-20170808-21888-tks8t1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181427/original/file-20170808-21888-tks8t1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181427/original/file-20170808-21888-tks8t1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181427/original/file-20170808-21888-tks8t1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181427/original/file-20170808-21888-tks8t1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A researcher swabs the skin of a boreal toad to test for chytrid fungus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brittany A. Mosher</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://cpw.state.co.us/learn/Pages/ResearchBorealToad.aspx">The Boreal Toad Conservation Team</a> includes resource managers from federal and state agencies in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico and <a href="http://biodiversity.colostate.edu/people/larissa-bailey">scientists from Colorado State University</a> and the U.S. Geological Survey. The team used research on current toad populations to help predict how toads might fare in the future under various possible management actions. It was humbling and exhilarating to see our work used to make decisions that might influence the fate of a species. But we wondered whether “our” science was truly the best available, and whether our team would make the “right” decision – or even have enough information to know which choice was most likely to succeed.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/conl.12393">action plan</a>, recently published in Conservation Letters, proposes multiple strategies, including reintroducing toads to wetlands in Colorado; managing wetland habitats to prevent them from drying out; and slowing the spread of Bd by requiring researchers to carefully disinfect boots and gear after visiting a wetland.</p>
<h2>No single solution</h2>
<p>We have found that <a href="http://www.kunc.org/post/colorado-works-save-boreal-toads-one-pond-time">relocating captive-reared boreal toads</a> is an especially effective strategy and shows some promise of successfully restoring this mountain resident to its high-elevation ecosystem. Lessons from our research will help other scientists find effective strategies for monitoring and making decisions in areas where Bd may spread. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186257/original/file-20170916-25673-1y78coe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186257/original/file-20170916-25673-1y78coe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186257/original/file-20170916-25673-1y78coe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186257/original/file-20170916-25673-1y78coe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186257/original/file-20170916-25673-1y78coe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186257/original/file-20170916-25673-1y78coe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186257/original/file-20170916-25673-1y78coe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers carefully monitor tadpoles that they have introduced to a site in Rocky Mountain National Park. Eggs are collected from the wild, reared to tadpole age in captivity, and then carried in backpacks filled with water to the reintroduction site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brittany A. Mosher</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4341422/">Bd has recently spread to Madagascar</a>, a mega-biodiversity hotspot with about 300 frog species, nearly all of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Our work could help managers in Madagascar formulate a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10393-013-0869-8">national monitoring plan</a> and prioritize strategies for conserving amphibian populations.</p>
<p>Wildlife diseases are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2301.161452">notoriously hard to study and act on</a> because they are new and complicated problems. At the start, scientists may not even be able to differentiate helpful actions from those which might be harmful. We have learned that it is rare that one single action will save a species. Rather, conservation is a learning process and a product of many actions and people. And the promise of restoring singing frogs to silent ponds is a powerful incentive for all of us to keep learning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brittany Mosher receives funding from the US Geological Survey's Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Gerber receives funding from the National Park Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larissa Bailey receives funding from US Geological Survey's Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative, the National Park Service, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife. </span></em></p>Frogs and toads are declining around the world, with many species on the brink of extinction. Acting in time means trying strategies without complete information about how likely they are to work.Brittany A. Mosher, Postdoctoral Researcher, Colorado State UniversityBrian Gerber, Assistant Professor of Natural Resources Science, University of Rhode IslandLarissa Bailey, Associate Professor of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/761192017-05-31T02:09:25Z2017-05-31T02:09:25ZWhat rural, coastal Puerto Ricans can teach us about thriving in times of crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171529/original/file-20170530-23707-vm9jgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man fishing from a dock in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Puerto Ricans are searching for solutions to the island’s worst economic and social crisis in a long time. </p>
<p>An unprecedented debt level is creating widespread uncertainty about employment and the state’s ability to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/us/puerto-rico-insolvency-business-owners-anxiety.html?action=click&contentCollection=DealBook&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article">provide basic services</a>. This crisis is not going away <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/business/dealbook/puerto-rico-debt-bankruptcy.html">anytime soon</a>, but solutions may be closer than we think.</p>
<p>As cultural anthropologists, we have spent more than a decade studying how people’s everyday lives relate to <a href="http://athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/handle/10724/23117">larger social and economic processes</a> and have documented the <a href="http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/AAI3180227/">negative effects</a> of inequality. In doing so, we have also witnessed people in Puerto Rico who “refuse to play by the rules” of capitalism. Some <a href="http://www.ram-wan.net/restrepo/modernidad/the%20otherwise%20modern-trouillot.pdf">scholars</a> have even argued that <a href="http://libreriaisla.com/el-arte-de-bregar-ensayos-2113.html">Caribbean peoples are experts</a> at living with and resisting the negative effects of modern capitalism because it was there that one form of capitalism was <a href="http://sidneymintz.net/caribbean.php">first tested</a>. Beginning in the 18th century, Caribbean sugar plantations were <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674066212">early models for factory labor management and capitalist trade</a> with the European metropolis.</p>
<p>People on the rural coasts of Puerto Rico are forging good lives without necessarily accumulating material wealth and climbing the socioeconomic ladder. Examining the lives of those who have been “left behind” by the mainstream economy may provide examples of how to live well in troubled times.</p>
<h2>Diversity in times of instability</h2>
<p>Working in a salaried full-time job with a single employer can be a good strategy for survival in times of abundance and stability. However, it comes at the expense of reduced flexibility and resiliency under <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Evolution_in_Changing_Environments.html?id=EsNMDQEACAAJ">conditions of scarcity and uncertainty</a>. People who are poor and live in rural areas, such as many coastal Puerto Ricans, have long relied on <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220389808422553">diverse</a> <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1563_reg.html">livelihoods</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Occupational_Multiplicity_in_Rural_Jamai.html?id=rMWNoAEACAAJ">income streams</a> to adapt to prolonged scarcity and uncertainty.</p>
<p>Puerto Ricans occasionally combine formal and informal labor with taking advantage of benefits offered by the state. Take Juana, a single mother and lifelong resident of Arroyo, Puerto Rico whom we interviewed for a <a href="http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/contentgroups/center_international_human_rights/PR%20Self%20Determination%20Conference%20(Final)%204-12-16.pdf">2016 study</a>. Because our interviews are usually carried out under agreement of confidentiality, we use pseudonyms instead of interviewee names.</p>
<p>Until retiring, Juana worked on and off as a temporary clerk in a local hospital. When she was out of work, she babysat children of working mothers in her community. Now, Juana often barters produce from her small fruit and vegetable garden with neighbors for their labor: for example, a mechanic who fixes her car. One of her nephews, whom she babysat as a kid, is a spearfisher who provides a few fish or a lobster for Juana’s fridge. Juana said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I do not want or need for anything. I often have more than I know what to do with.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171163/original/file-20170526-6380-1ug8qpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Public art depicts the cultural importance of fishing for a coastal town in Puerto Rico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hilda Lloréns</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Central to these arrangements is investment in community relationships by <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Moral_Economy_of_the_Peasant.html?id=qu5KUdN_rDkC">gift-giving, bartering and sharing expertise</a>.</p>
<p>In our work, we have documented repeated instances in which people <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01532.x/abstract">gave away valuable goods</a>, like fresh fish or shellfish, instead of holding on to them or selling them to accrue wealth. <a href="https://app.box.com/s/65t6moiyoxebzr7r68k0">A recent study</a> found that more than 90 percent of fishers around Puerto Rico’s southeast coast routinely separate part of their catch for giving to family, friends or neighbors in need. They choose to invest in community <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/The-Gift/">relationships and solidarity</a>. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=b5WDDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=keeps+no+accounts+because+it+implies+a+relation+of+permanent+mutual+commitment&source=bl&ots=18LhUi6RQm&sig=eSvQ_JGlSHwAZwMquF_B2h1OSFg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj37NS5k6zTAhUBH2MKHasVAR0Q6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=keeps%20no%20accounts%20because%20it%20implies%20a%20relation%20of%20permanent%20mutual%20commitment&f=false">kind of reciprocity</a> occurs in communities where people recognize that their well-being depends on that of others, rather than on undependable labor markets.</p>
<h2>Leaning on community</h2>
<p>In Puerto Rico, as in other places such as New England, fishers tend to have relatively low incomes but <a href="http://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her152/pollnacpoggie.pdf?q=poggie">high cultural significance</a> in their communities. Fishers hold an iconic image as independent workers who engage in an adventurous and arduous lifestyle to provide for their communities.</p>
<p>A fisher from Salinas, Puerto Rico explained that he wanted to provide an honorable occupation for his grandson and grandnephew.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Who will employ these kids if I do not? I hardly ever pay to fix my boat, my engine, or my nets. People fix them for me, because I bring them food. Many times I give fish away for free or on credit, and I also provide employment for community members.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These communities often have centers that organize initiatives for residents such as community gardening, solar power, home improvement workshops and summer camps for about 100 children. In 2016, Carmen, the current president of a community board in Salinas, Puerto Rico, told us about their summer camp: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We charge a monthly five dollar fee per child. We recruit volunteers to offer workshops for the children. We get free breakfast and lunch through the Department of Education. Otherwise, we fund the camp with our own money and donations from local businesses. Members of the community board of directors and parents help staff the camp.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When we asked why she felt that hosting the children’s summer camp is important, Carmen answered: “We are a ‘poor’ community, but when we pool our time and resources we are able to offer the children a good summer camp and teach them good values.”</p>
<h2>Lessons from the margins</h2>
<p>The idea with <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.3998/jar.0521004.0071.201">these examples</a> is not to glamorize poverty or lack of access to income. Instead, our work points out that people have exercised their agency in such situations by learning to outmaneuver “the game” by changing the rules and goals so that they stand a better chance to win. </p>
<p>People living in the hinterlands of the modernizing world have long realized the undependable nature of working in industries such as pharmaceutical, energy and corporate tourism, where jobs come and go with economic cycles. Local workers are often the last hired, the first fired and have the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/ae.1992.19.1.02a00040/full">lowest-paying, more hazardous jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is time to look to people who have been deemed outcasts or “backwards” – Caribbean rural fishers and farmers, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Estuarys-Gift-Atlantic-Cultural-Biography/dp/0271019514">mid-Atlantic fishers and pine tar harvesters</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/us/beyond-coal-imagining-appalachias-future.html?_r=0">Appalachian farmers and coal workers</a> – to understand how they have created rich lives in the margins of the mainstream economy. Perhaps we can apply their strategies for our own survival in these turbulent times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos G. García-Quijano has received research funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Sea Grant. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hilda Lloréns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At society’s margins, people without access to the mainstream job economy are able to carve out lives rich in other resources and community.Carlos G. García-Quijano, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Marine Affairs, University of Rhode IslandHilda Lloréns, Faculty in Anthropology, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/756882017-05-31T02:06:51Z2017-05-31T02:06:51ZSaving Javan rhinos from extinction starts with counting them – and it’s not easy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171365/original/file-20170529-25210-gkcbd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Javan rhinos are one of the rarest mammals in the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WWF-ID/Sugeng Hendratmo</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Javan rhino (<em>Rhinoceros sondaicus</em>) is found only at the very western tip of the Indonesian island of Java, in the rainforest habitats of Ujung Kulon National Park (UKNP). However, this wasn’t always so. Many species have small natural ranges, but Javan rhinos once inhabited much of Southeast Asia. Now landscape changes, habitat loss and hunting have reduced their numbers to a precarious few. The last known Javan rhino in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.03.014">mainland Asia</a> was poached in 2009. Today Javan rhinos are <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/19495/0">listed as critically endangered</a> by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. </p>
<p>Recovering any wild animal population with so few individuals remaining is very difficult. Small populations grow slowly even in the best of circumstances. And if even a few animals are lost to poaching, disease or other factors, the loss represents a relatively large proportion of the population. </p>
<p>It also is very hard to count small populations and characterize their distribution accurately. Often this critical information is poorly known, which makes it challenging for scientists to track the population and evaluate whether their actions are having positive effects. Nonetheless, scientists and the Indonesian government are forming a plan to rescue this imperiled species.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171367/original/file-20170529-25219-a2z38u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of Java, Indonesia. Ujung Kulon National Park is at the far left (west) end.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Java_region_map.png">Burnesedays/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why counting rhinos is hard</h2>
<p>The rhino lineage has survived 50 million years through ice ages and attacks from prehistoric animals, such as the <a href="http://prehistoric-fauna.com/Hemicyon">“dog-bear” (<em>Hemicyon sansaniensis</em>)</a>. Rhinos play a significant role in structuring ecosystems. The Javan rhino creates unique habitats within the rainforest by dispersing seeds, creating mud wallows and removing large amounts of understory plants. Losing it would mean a less diverse forest.</p>
<p>But despite almost a century of studies on the Javan rhino, we still know relatively little about them. The first estimate of the rhino population in UKNP, made in 1937, put their numbers at <a href="http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/index.php?s=1&act=pdfviewer&id=1354686368&folder=135">20 to 25</a>. Since then, at least 36 population surveys have attempted to count the rhinos, but most have failed to account reliably for the entire population or provide much insight into the factors that drive their distribution within UKNP. </p>
<p>Javan rhinos range over large areas of dense and swampy rainforest, and researchers rarely see them. Instead we find tracks and dung, which help us understand the habitats that rhinos use, but are rarely good indicators of population size. More recently, scientists set up camera traps to capture images of rhinos, but without high-quality images it was hard to tell individual animals apart.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zfRT6cnBevg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Video of a Javan rhino from a camera trap in Ujung Kulon National Park, West Java, Indonesia.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the past four years, I have worked as an external scientific advisor with researchers and biologists from <a href="http://www.wwf.or.id/">World Wildlife Fund Indonesia</a> and <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/">the United States</a>, UKNP biologists, <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/">Global Wildlife Conservation</a> and the Indonesian nongovernment agency <a href="http://badak.or.id/">YABI</a> to help create a robust strategy for monitoring Javan rhinos.</p>
<p>Building on past efforts, my colleagues developed a systematic approach to deploy camera traps throughout the rhino habitat of UKNP. Expert field biologists trekked over intense rainforest terrain to install cameras at 178 locations. Each camera was set to record a high-quality video clip of any animal that walked past. While biologists are rarely lucky enough to see one of the rhinos, their hard work keeping the cameras operating over the course of a year led to obtaining 36,104 video clips, of which 1,660 were of rhino. </p>
<p>My role was to work with these expert biologists to develop robust statistical methods using these video data to provide estimates of population size and distribution. First, however, we had to ensure that we could reliably identify individuals from the videos. We did this by having three independent teams identify rhinos and compare results. This led to a multi-step identification process that uses morphological features, such as sex, horn shape and position, skin wrinkles around the eyes, neck skin folds and scars.</p>
<p>Once we could recognize individual rhinos, we could figure out how often we saw each rhino and where. We fit these data using statistical models to estimate rhino movement, population size and spatial distribution. We outline our developments and findings in a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/conl.12366">new research paper, published in the journal Conservation Letters</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164977/original/image-20170412-26706-jpwqhp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Javan rhino camera-trap photo from Ujung Kulon National Park, West Java, Indonesia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WWF-ID</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most importantly, we were able to precisely estimate the population of Javan rhinos at 62 animals. We saw some positive signs, such as videos of calves and juvenile rhinos, but the population does not appear to be growing. Javan rhino populations generally do not grow very fast. Females typically reach sexual maturity by three to four years of age, but males typically aren’t mature until six years of age. Females have only one calf at a time and will typically not produce another for four to five years. Their gestation period is 16 months.</p>
<p>Using our statistical model, we also found that male rhinos range over larger areas than females and that both sexes prefer low-elevation areas, often near the coastline. They almost completely avoid mountainous regions of the national park. Rhinos also prefer to be close to mud wallows, where they can spend much of a day caking their skin with mud to regulate their body temperature, ward off biting insects and remove parasites.</p>
<h2>Forming a conservation plan</h2>
<p>With this new information in hand, we are working to help the Indonesian government and its conservation partners take steps to further protect Javan rhinos in UKNP and preserve the species. Our research shows that the rhinos are at serious risk from tsunamis, since their preferred habitat is near the coastline. </p>
<p>Just off the coast of UKNP lies the <a href="http://volcano.si.edu/region.cfm?rn=6">Sunda Arc</a>, an area of converging tectonic plates that routinely cause earthquakes which can trigger tsunamis. And just north of UKNP is <a href="http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/krakatau">Anak Krakatau</a> volcano, which has been forming since the 1920s within the caldera of Krakatau (often misspelled Krakatoa), the famous volcano that exploded in 1883, creating tsunamis that killed more than 30,000 people. Anak Krakatau, or “child of Krakatau,” erupts frequently and has high potential to produce tsunamis.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171368/original/file-20170529-25222-11eihab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anak Krakatau, Jan. 3, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anak_Krakatau,_january_2016.jpg">Tyke/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Protecting the Javan rhino from extinction will require establishing additional populations, which in turn will require removing some rhinos from UKNP. Translocating wild animals is <a href="https://theconversation.com/galapagos-giant-tortoises-make-a-comeback-thanks-to-innovative-conservation-strategies-67591">a common approach in conservation</a>, although it can pose notable risks to the animals. But given the risks to Javan rhinos as a species, doing nothing is not a viable solution. </p>
<p>This recovery effort will require significant investment and partnerships across governments, nongovernment agencies and universities. Conservationists and the Indonesian government have discussed the idea of establishing additional Javan rhino populations for decades. Our research provides the scientific rigor to ensure we have the basic demographic information needed to make these decisions and the impetus to move forward without delay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Gerber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Javan rhinos are among the most endangered mammals in the world: They live on one island in Indonesia, in the path of tsunamis. Saving them will ultimately require establishing additional populations.Brian Gerber, Assistant Professor of Natural Resources Science, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/697632016-12-09T02:08:20Z2016-12-09T02:08:20ZIn Puerto Rico, environmental injustice and racism inflame protests over coal ash<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149333/original/image-20161208-31379-6yby1o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A five-story coal ash pile next to the AES electric power plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hilda Llorens</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For scholars like me who study environmental justice, it has been encouraging to see <a href="https://theconversation.com/piping-as-poison-the-flint-water-crisis-and-americas-toxic-infrastructure-53473">residents in Flint, Michigan</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/victory-at-standing-rock-reflects-a-failure-of-us-energy-and-climate-policy-69881">Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota</a> organize against threats to their homes and health. But elsewhere in our country, other struggles are happening out of the spotlight – and often dragging on for years.</p>
<p>In Puerto Rico’s south, <a href="http://blog.cleanenergy.org/2016/11/28/coal-ash-protesters-arrested-in-puerto-rico/">protests are building</a> over the disposal of toxic coal ash in landfills. Small-scale protests began in 2014, but opposition has grown. A <a href="http://latinousa.org/2016/11/29/prcoalash/">recent demonstration</a> drew an estimated 1,000 people. Protesters have been routinely harassed by police and arrested. </p>
<p>As a native of the island’s southeast, I have been following these developments closely. Historically this region has been a zone of human exploitation and natural resource extraction. In the struggle over coal ash disposal, poor and mostly black communities in Puerto Rico’s hinterlands are being forced to sacrifice their health and the health of their environment to support the island’s energy-intensive economy and lifestyle. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149339/original/image-20161208-31364-1p4k7yr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149339/original/image-20161208-31364-1p4k7yr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149339/original/image-20161208-31364-1p4k7yr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149339/original/image-20161208-31364-1p4k7yr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149339/original/image-20161208-31364-1p4k7yr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149339/original/image-20161208-31364-1p4k7yr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149339/original/image-20161208-31364-1p4k7yr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The AES coal-fired power plant in Guayamas, Puerto Rico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hilda Llorens</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This crisis illustrates two closely connected problems: environmental injustice and environmental racism. The first refers to disproportionately high levels of exposure to environmental risks experienced by some segments of the population. The latter describes cases in which those unequal impacts fall on communities of color. Both are factors in this conflict and reflect Puerto Rico’s socioeconomic history. </p>
<p>But even as locals fight these problems, there is one hopeful development: the spread of rooftop solar power as a replacement. <a href="http://puertoricotequiero.com/idebajo-gestor-de-apoderamiento-y-autonomia-ciudadana/">Coquí Solar</a>, a project initiated in a Jobos Bay community near Guayama’s AES plant, is working to define an alternative to the underlying problem – coal-fired energy – and find ways to achieve it.</p>
<h2>A sacrifice zone</h2>
<p>Like many places that struggle with environmental injustice, Puerto Rico’s Guayama-Salinas region along the island’s Caribbean coast is a low-income area with a high fraction of minority residents. The median yearly household income is US$15,000, and more than half of residents live below the poverty line. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 17 percent of people in the region self-identified as black or African-American, compared to the national average of 12.4 percent. (In Puerto Rico, large concentrations of black residents are a marker of poverty.)</p>
<p>The area has suffered historically from high unemployment and poverty rates. It lies far from the national capital, San Juan, and was highly dependent on sugar cane agriculture for many years. Because of this legacy, the coastal environment is especially valuable to residents. It provides resources that buffer them against local and global economic crises – much like <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-05047-170305">resource-dependent communities along the U.S. Gulf Coast</a> that face similar environmental justice struggles.</p>
<p>One recent study <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01532.x">quotes a saying</a> among Puerto Rican artisanal fishers: “Nos defendemos con pescado fresco,” meaning, “We defend ourselves with fresh fish.” <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/jar.0521004.0071.201">Another study</a> found that people in this region who made a significant part of their living from fishing in the ocean and foraging in the mangroves derived a sense of cultural identity and well-being from these activities, along with food and income. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149340/original/image-20161208-31385-eh0z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149340/original/image-20161208-31385-eh0z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149340/original/image-20161208-31385-eh0z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149340/original/image-20161208-31385-eh0z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149340/original/image-20161208-31385-eh0z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149340/original/image-20161208-31385-eh0z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149340/original/image-20161208-31385-eh0z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coastal mangrove forest in Puerto Rico. Mangrove forests provide habitat for many species of fish and shellfish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ricardo_mangual/6385190709">Ricardo Mangual/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The source of the coal ash is a 454-megawatt coal-fired electric power plant in Guayama owned by the utility AES that has been operating since 2002. The plant is adjacent to a <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/region02/waste/fsphilli.htm">Superfund site</a> where Chevron Phillips operated an oil refinery from 1966 through 2002. </p>
<p>Throughout the area, former sugar cane fields, mangrove forests and oceanfront lands have been converted to housing developments, shopping plazas, manufacturing and power plants over the past 50 years. Residents thus already bear a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8A3FM34ZLx8C&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=heavy+environmental+burden+in+jobos+bay+puerto+rico&source=bl&ots=MCdZmExe82&sig=upRSU69rOKzAExzt80BgcuNTiGQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj9tvG-leHQAhVKMSYKHYFCDWsQ6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=salinas&f=false">heavy burden</a> from development that has compromised their health and the natural resources that many rely on for their livelihoods. </p>
<h2>Broken promises</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://ieefa.org/in-puerto-rico-aes-corp-gets-away-with-a-coal-ash-mess-that-wouldnt-be-tolerated-in-the-states/">coal ash</a> generated by AES in Guayama is known to contain high levels of arsenic, heavy metals and radioactivity. Under current EPA regulations, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/coalash/coal-ash-rule">coal ash can be disposed of</a> in surface impoundments and landfills, in surface-waste ponds or recycled into products such as concrete and drywall. These methods are widely practiced throughout the United States and other parts of the world. </p>
<p>AES pledged in 1996, before the plant started operating, that it would not deposit coal ash in landfills on the island. The company’s initial strategy was to ship thousands of tons of ash to two rural coastal communities in the Dominican Republic. But after local doctors reported <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-04/aes-settles-suit-over-coal-ash-dumping-in-dominican-republic">increases in spontaneous abortions and birth defects</a> near those areas, AES was ordered <a href="http://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2016/03/something-happened-in-arroyo-barril/">to clean up</a> the ashes and paid $6 million in a legal settlement with <a href="http://ambiente.gob.do/">the Dominican Republic’s Environmental and Natural Resources Agency</a>. </p>
<p>AES then developed a construction product called <a href="https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?dirEntryId=307594">Agremax</a>, a filler based on coal ash. Some two million tons of coal ash were used throughout Puerto Rico to build roads, parking lots, malls and as fill in tract housing developments, including sites near public water wells, farms, wetlands and beaches. Alarmed by fugitive dust and other impacts, environmental groups sued. In 2014, lacking customers, Agremax was retired from the construction market. </p>
<p>In response, Puerto Rico’s Environmental Quality Board and the island’s public power company (which buys the coal plant’s electricity) allowed AES to reverse its pledge and <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2695381-AEE-2DA-ENMIENDA-CONTRATO-AES.html#document/p1">deposit coal ash in local landfills</a>. But <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/puerto_rico_landfills_fact_sheet_final_0.pdf">according to the EPA</a>, a majority of Puerto Rico’s 29 landfills are over capacity, and some are open dumps that do not comply with current regulations. The agency currently has legal agreements to close 12 landfills. In sum, the ash disposal controversy is worsening a landfill crisis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149341/original/image-20161208-31396-13kkdsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149341/original/image-20161208-31396-13kkdsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149341/original/image-20161208-31396-13kkdsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149341/original/image-20161208-31396-13kkdsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149341/original/image-20161208-31396-13kkdsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149341/original/image-20161208-31396-13kkdsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149341/original/image-20161208-31396-13kkdsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Taking core samples at the site of a coal ash spill on the Dan River in North Carolina, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwssoutheast/12616139883">Steve Alexander, USFWS/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Slow violence</h2>
<p>The struggle over coal ash is rooted in colonial and economic policies that have turned Puerto Ricans into migrants, consumers and debtors over the past century. These circumstances illustrate what Princeton University’s Rob Nixon calls “<a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072343">slow violence</a>”: a steady accumulation of gradual, and often invisible, environmental harms endured by vulnerable individuals and communities during capitalist expansion. </p>
<p>Southeast Puerto Rico was populated in the 18th century by enslaved Africans, and later free blacks and mixed-race individuals, who worked on sugar cane plantations. When the island industrialized in the mid-20th century, many workers left farms for <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739189184/Imaging-The-Great-Puerto-Rican-Family-Framing-Nation-Race-and-Gender-during-the-American-Century">factories</a>, while others sought agricultural work in the United States. Massive migration to U.S. cities became a way of life for Puerto Ricans, and multinational corporations began to build facilities on empty agricultural land.</p>
<p>As a result of these processes, people in this part of Puerto Rico have little political or economic clout and are vulnerable to exploitation by corporations like AES. But they recognize that landfilling coal ash threatens the resources that they depend on, and are trying to end it.</p>
<h2>A solar-powered future?</h2>
<p>Residents of the Coquí neighborhood in the Bay of Jobos are working with scientists at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez to build and install solar panels throughout the community. If this initiative succeeds, it would be the first solar-powered community in Puerto Rico. Community volunteers will receive training in the hopes that they will be able to install and maintain the equipment locally. Perhaps anticipating this shift, AES has opened a <a href="http://newsismybusiness.com/aes-ilumina-powers-up-guayama-solar-energy-farm/">solar energy farm</a> on fallow agricultural land in Guayama.</p>
<p>Many other communities in places far from the public eye face what can seem like insurmountable obstacles in their own struggles against enduring environmental injustice and racism. Every case is unique, but as pioneering environmental justice scholar Robert Bullard <a href="https://theconversation.com/flints-water-crisis-is-a-blatant-example-of-environmental-injustice-53553">argues</a>, the central challenge is the same: providing equal protection to disenfranchised communities, and ensuring that their voices are heard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hilda Lloréns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Low-income residents in Puerto Rico are fighting disposal of toxic coal ash in their communities. They’re also campaigning to shift from coal energy – the source of the problem – to solar power.Hilda Lloréns, Faculty in Anthropology, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/610702016-06-23T10:05:36Z2016-06-23T10:05:36ZTrump’s dog whistle: the white, screwed-over sports icon<p>While <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Sport-Stars-The-Cultural-Politics-of-Sporting-Celebrity/Andrews-Jackson/p/book/9780415221191">athletes and coaches</a> can be overlooked vehicles of political ideology, they often play key symbolic roles in the cultural and political life of any nation. Look no further than Muhammad Ali, whose recent death reminded us how an athlete can also stand up for racial justice and religious freedom.</p>
<p>In this year’s presidential race, one candidate has been especially eager to capitalize on the support of athletes and coaches. On June 11, at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QhomID2IuM">crowed to his supporters</a> that Steelers star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had his back. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I love Big Ben. Do we love Big Ben? I just spoke with him, what a great guy. And he’s with us 100 percent. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The only problem? Roethlisberger reportedly told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ed Bouchette that <a href="https://sportsnaut.com/2016/06/ben-roethlisberger-will-not-endorse-acquaintance-donald-trump/">he hadn’t endorsed Trump and doesn’t plan on doing so</a>.</p>
<p>This wasn’t the first time Trump name-dropped a famous local sports hero to try to ingratiate himself with an audience. </p>
<p>Along with Roethlisberger, he has humble-bragged about friendships with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight and the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. He’s appeared at campaign events with Knight, NASCAR CEO Brian France and NASCAR drivers Bill and Chase Elliott. </p>
<p>Reportedly, Trump even wants to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-convention-sports-celebrities.html?_r=0">hold</a> a “winner’s evening” during the Republican convention that will showcase American athletes, because “our country needs to see winners… We don’t see winners anymore. We have a bunch of clowns running this country.”</p>
<p>So what, exactly, is Trump doing? Well, these sports figures all have one thing in common: They’re all white men. </p>
<p>As someone who has examined the racial and gender meanings embedded in media stories about sport stars, I’ve been fascinated by Trump’s repeated use of white male sports icons on the campaign trail – especially in a contemporary American sports landscape where people of color increasingly dominate the playing ranks.</p>
<p>Unlike other politicians’ use of sports stars when campaigning, Trump seems to be taking it a step further, using them as a way to “dog whistle” his support for white, male entitlement.</p>
<h2>Sports as presidential symbols</h2>
<p>For years, presidential candidates have attempted to connect themselves with sports or famous athletes to endear themselves to voters. </p>
<p>For candidates seeking to cultivate mass appeal – especially in an era of media fragmentation – there’s perhaps no better association to make. <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/183689/industry-grows-percentage-sports-fans-steady.aspx">Nearly 60 percent</a> of Americans call themselves sports fans, and almost 112 million <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/media/super-bowl-50-ratings/">tuned in for Super Bowl 50</a>.</p>
<p>In his book <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Leading_Men.html?id=MNcUfuPYeB4C">“Leading Men: Presidential Campaigns and the Politics of Manhood,”</a> masculinity scholar <a href="https://www.jacksonkatz.com/">Jackson Katz</a> has documented how American presidents and presidential candidates have long used sports metaphors – and even invented personal sporting histories – to try to endear themselves to the electorate.</p>
<p>Teddy Roosevelt loved to talk about how he followed boxing and college football, while Ronald Reagan drew his nickname – “The Gipper” – from his performance as Notre Dame football star George Gipp in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne, All American.” John F. Kennedy famously played vigorous games of touch football with family and, of course, Gerald Ford was a standout football player at the University of Michigan. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127765/original/image-20160622-7170-olgpsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gerald Ford was a star football player at the University of Michigan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gerald_Ford_on_field_at_Univ_of_Mich,_1933.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More recently, George W. Bush made Little League baseball games on the front lawn of the White House an annual event. Sarah Palin’s playing days as a high school point guard <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0809/13/se.03.html">were highlighted </a> when she was first introduced as John McCain’s vice presidential nominee. </p>
<p>And even though he made <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/weekinreview/06vannatta.html">an embarrassing attempt at bowling</a> to better connect with working-class white voters, President Barack Obama regularly talks about his love of basketball. He’s also made filling out NCAA March Madness basketball brackets on <a href="http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/14984934/president-barack-obama-chooses-kansas-jayhawks-win-tournament">ESPN</a> an annual event. </p>
<h2>On dog whistles</h2>
<p>But when it comes to Trump’s direct appeal to sports fans, there might be something more sinister at play.</p>
<p>Many have wondered whether Trump’s fiery rhetoric and policy proposals are simply <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/11/us/politics/where-trump-breaks-with-the-republican-party.html">a less filtered version of the usual Republican stances</a> or whether they signal a more dangerous <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-fascist-354690">proto-fascist</a>, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/doandl-trump-face-fascism-home-and-abroad#.V168axYzGIQ.facebook">far right</a>, <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/21/the-plague-of-american-authoritarianism/">authoritarian</a> political turn.</p>
<p>But no one has addressed how Trump’s use of white sportsmen operates as an important “dog whistle” during his bid for the presidency.</p>
<p>According to UC-Berkeley law professor Ian Haney-Lopez, a “dog whistle” occurs when one makes a racial appeal to a targeted audience without explicitly mentioning race. </p>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dog-whistle-politics-9780199964277?cc=us&lang=en&">Dog Whistle Politics</a>,” Haney-Lopez shows how American politicians – most often, Republicans – have used this sort of coded talk since the civil rights movement to appeal to white voters who fear that changes to American society have diminished their social status. Phrases like “<a href="http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/09/the-long-ugly-history-of-law-and-order-candidates/405709/">law and order</a>,” “<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2012/07/top-five-racist-republican-dog-whistles">states’ rights</a>,” “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/politics/weflare-queen/">welfare queens</a>” and “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/">the makers and the takers</a>” have been regularly used by politicians to stoke white fears without any explicit mention of race. </p>
<p>In Trump’s case, he may be using these white sportsmen as crucial symbols to connect voters with his political message.</p>
<h2>The racial undertones of Trump’s athletes</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-trumpian-coalition/481272">According to data</a> collected by the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, “Trump’s core strength remained his advantage amongst men and non-college-educated whites.” </p>
<p>Trump taps into and cultivates the anger and angst of those white men who feel as though they’ve lost social standing relative to immigrants, LGBT individuals, women and people of color (<a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/topics/race-and-ethnicity/page/2/">despite all evidence to the contrary</a>). </p>
<p>Through his inclusion of white sports legends like Brady, Paterno and Knight in his campaign to “Make America Great Again,” Trump symbolically reveals how white men who are – in his vernacular – <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-tom-brady-suspension-deflategate-2015-9">“total winners”</a> constitute his vision for America’s future. </p>
<p>But these athletes and coaches aren’t just “winners.” They’re also each, in their own way, polarizing figures who have suffered falls. </p>
<p>Talk to fans of Knight, Paterno or <a href="http://thornography.weei.com/sports/boston/2015/07/29/5-arguments-youll-need-to-defend-tom-brady/">Brady</a> and they’ll rant about how their legacies have been tarnished by bureaucrats, ranging from university officials to the NFL’s commissioner’s office. </p>
<p>Listen more closely and you’ll hear, in coded form, a defense of white male entitlement. You’ll hear echoes of Trump’s belief that the country is now run by “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/12/09/donald-trump-says-were-all-too-politically-correct-but-is-that-also-a-way-to-limit-speech/">PC-police</a>” who have withdrawn institutional support for white men.</p>
<p>Recall how <a href="http://www.musicboxfilms.com/happy-valley-movies-115.php">Penn State students swarmed the streets of Happy Valley</a>, overturned cars and demonstrated vociferously when Penn State fired Paterno, despite his complicity in protecting assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/06/jerry_sandusky_verdict_sandusk.html">who had been found guilty of 45 counts of child sexual abuse</a>.</p>
<p>Or Knight’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/sports/ncaabasketball/12hoosiers.html?_r=0">astonishment</a> when he was fired from his job as the basketball coach at Indiana University after decades of documented abusive behavior toward students, players, staff and administrators. (IU students also took to the streets and even issued <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=100606&page=1">threats</a> to Knight’s final accuser, an IU student himself.) </p>
<p>In both cases, Paterno, Knight and their devout supporters seemed unable to comprehend how a white male sporting legend was not entitled to a blank check of protection from an institution – perhaps even society writ large – because they were “winners” who had brought moments of joy to their communities. (Even <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2015/07/28/armour-tom-brady-deflategate-cover-up/30791437/">Brady</a> and <a href="http://steelerswire.usatoday.com/2015/07/07/steelers-ben-roethlisberger-crime-charges-legacy/">Roethlisberger</a> have also had their moments of notoriety.) </p>
<p>And Trump probably realizes that to his crowds, these sports icons evoke a version of white manhood – embattled, unapologetic, and uncompromising – that strongly resonates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle W. Kusz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Politicians are often eager to embrace the support of sports stars. But when Donald Trump trots out a very specific type of athlete and coach at his events, who’s he really trying to appeal to?Kyle W. Kusz, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies of Sport/Media, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162412013-07-22T13:22:13Z2013-07-22T13:22:13Z4D model solves Yellowstone’s geographical mysteries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27826/original/jfgy97kx-1374491685.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From geysers to tectonic plate movements, corn syrup has the answers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trey Ratcliff</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A decade ago, with Ross Griffiths of the Australian National University, we aimed to build a 4D model which could replicate the Earth’s tectonic processes. Now, our research has helped us understand how some of America’s most mysterious geographical formations took shape.</p>
<p>We wanted to build a new lab apparatus for simulating <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/natural_hazards/tectonic_plates_rev4.shtml">subduction zones</a>. These are regions of the Earth where cold, dense oceanic plates meet less dense continental plates and descend into the Earth’s mantle. The mantle is the viscous layer between the Earth’s crust and outer core. Subduction is the dominant force driving movement of such plates, and one of the features that makes Earth unique in the solar system. Our goal was to represent pressures and movements in the mantle as it responded to the sinking oceanic plates, as well as to <a href="http://www.dlr.de/pf/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-4878/">thermal evolution</a>, which is movement of heat from the core to the surface. </p>
<p>Many areas of science and engineering have a long tradition of employing analog - rather than computerised - models, to represent larger scale processes. Just as toys like planes, boats and dolls can be modelled to represent larger versions using scale factors, laboratory experiments may be used to model the mantle system by employing certain dynamic scale factors. To our 3D analog model we added a fourth dimension - time.</p>
<p>We used a fiberglass plate to represent the Earth’s subducting oceanic plate and high viscosity corn syrup to represent the Earth’s mantle. Three features make corn syrup a nice analog for the mantle. Like the mantle, the fluid is inertia-free. This means that when forces are removed the flow stops immediately. Corn syrup has a temperature-dependent viscosity, so heat makes it runny while cold makes it strong and unyielding. It also scales well to the mantle (and can provide a nice dessert after the work is complete).</p>
<p>We first used our apparatus to study a number of general aspects and mechanisms of subduction zones, without focusing on any particular region. But all that changed when we joined a diverse group of geoscientists, interested in determining the cause of some strange magma activity in the Pacific Northwest over the last 20 million years.</p>
<p>The focus then became an odd volcanic track in central and eastern Oregon in the US, called the High Lava Plains. The goal was to connect the dots between the High Lava Plains and two other notable geographical features - the Columbia River Flood Basalts and the Snake River Plain. This area around the Yellowstone park is the epicentre of much debate in the earth sciences. </p>
<p>A number of scientists have said that the Columbia River Flood Basalts and the Snake River Plain are the expressions of a surfacing mantle plume. A mantle plume is made of hotter, less dense rock, buoyed upward through the mantle toward the Earth’s surface. They resemble the kinds of plumes that we see every day: hot air balloons, lava lamps, pasta sauce on a stove and steam plumes from industrial towers are all common examples, where less dense fluid or air rises through denser material.</p>
<p>In the mantle, plumes take on a classic shape: a large, bulbous, leading volume called the “plume head” followed by a thin tail, called the “plume conduit”. The surfacing of plume heads has been linked with huge outpourings of basalt called “large igneous provinces”, while tails are commonly proposed as the cause of linear volcanic tracks like the Hawaiian Island chain in the Pacific.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27824/original/gsw2mkks-1374491055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27824/original/gsw2mkks-1374491055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27824/original/gsw2mkks-1374491055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27824/original/gsw2mkks-1374491055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27824/original/gsw2mkks-1374491055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27824/original/gsw2mkks-1374491055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27824/original/gsw2mkks-1374491055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of Cascades-Yellowstone subduction system showing general locations of the Steens Columbia River Flood Basalts (SCRB) and the opposite trending volcanic tracks (the High Lava Plains (HLP) and the Snake River Plain (SRP))</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">C. Kincaid, H. Gao & K. Druken/Nature Geoscience</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But for our area, a plume was not the most obvious suspect. One issue is that the Columbia River Flood Basalts and the Snake River Plain are not laid out in a linear pattern, as would be expected if a plume surfaced beneath the westward-drifting North American continental plate. Instead, the two features seem broken, with the Snake River Plain track displaced well south of the flood basalts. </p>
<p>Nor does the High Lava Plains volcanic track fit the classic plume model. It is odd for two reasons: it appears west of the flood basalts, and its magma output grows younger toward the west. We would intuitively expect the opposite. As the plate moves west, the head of the plume should arrive at the surface first, causing the flood basalts, while the tail should cause a track of volcanic activity that grows younger toward the east, just like the Snake River Plain. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27838/original/83kqxjv7-1374498305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27838/original/83kqxjv7-1374498305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27838/original/83kqxjv7-1374498305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27838/original/83kqxjv7-1374498305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27838/original/83kqxjv7-1374498305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27838/original/83kqxjv7-1374498305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27838/original/83kqxjv7-1374498305.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A schematic representation of the plume-subduction lab apparatus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">K. Druken, C. Kincaid/Nature Geoscience</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To accurately represent this complex subduction system, we needed to include a number of features. One of these was a phenomenon called “rollback subduction”, which is when the sinking oceanic plate rolls back underneath itself as it descends into the mantle.</p>
<p>We also had to represent the extension of the overriding plate. The overriding plate is made up of buoyant continental crust and heavy chilled mantle. The dense oceanic plate - which has only a sliver of crust - sinks beneath the overriding plate. Between the sinking and overriding plates lies what is referred to as the “mantle wedge”, the source region for volcanic arcs that roughly parallel the trench in most subduction zones.</p>
<p>The project’s pièce de résistance was the representation of the mantle plume, where we could control the plume’s buoyancy and position. We did this by using a modified pressure cooker where corn syrup was heated and then injected through a heated pipe into the base of the tank. By controlling its temperature, we controlled the density, viscosity and rise rate of the plume. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27825/original/pdf79nhm-1374491319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27825/original/pdf79nhm-1374491319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27825/original/pdf79nhm-1374491319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27825/original/pdf79nhm-1374491319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27825/original/pdf79nhm-1374491319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27825/original/pdf79nhm-1374491319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/27825/original/pdf79nhm-1374491319.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pouring more corn syrup in the setup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kelsey Druken</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most prior models inject plumes into a simplified fluid environment. Models which incorporate both subduction and a plume show this simple view is not sufficient. Rollback motion produces vigorous flow from the back to the front of the subducting plate. This is known as a “torroidal flow”. This is like a super large eddy in the mantle. Our results showed that torroidal flow had a big impact on the buoyant plume feature. </p>
<p>In the initial stages, we released the plume into a tank of still fluid, where it evolved in textbook fashion: a large, leading head formed, which rose to the surface, stalled and spread out. Behind this was a narrow conduit through which plume fluid was continuously fed from the base to the surface of the tank. But as soon as we turned the plates on it was apparent this simple morphology was no longer in play.</p>
<p>Circulation currents driven by the plates immediately deformed both head and tail, dramatically limiting the ability for continued upward, buoyant motion. As the torroidal flow moved around the edge of the sinking plate, it effectively took a bite out the plume head, drawing the material into a thin lens and dragging it towards the edge of the subducting plate. The remains of the plume surfaced in a pattern that matches the location and timing of the High Lava Plains. The unchewed part of the plume head rose and surfaced as a big pulse of heated, melting substance, similar to the flood basalts. </p>
<p>The plume tail tilted over beneath the westward-drifting overriding plate, leaving patterns of heating and melting that grew younger to the east, just like the Snake River Plains. The torroidal flow not only bit the head in half, it also pushed the tail well to the south, matching the real feature. This is how corn syrup helped us explain how a single plume could be responsible for the Columbia River Flood Basalts, the southerly deflection of the Snake River Plains and the bizarre, westward-younging High Lava Plains track. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Kincaid receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>A decade ago, with Ross Griffiths of the Australian National University, we aimed to build a 4D model which could replicate the Earth’s tectonic processes. Now, our research has helped us understand how…Christopher Kincaid, Professor of Oceanography, University of Rhode IslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.