"Kansas research shows reintroducing bison on tallgrass prairie doubles plant diversity"
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"The people resurrecting India's ancient fruit trees"
It can take an entire village to grow a new-age garden. That's what 42-year-old Shyju Machathi, a policeman living in Kannapuram in the Southern Indian state of Kerala, found out when his town was declared an "Indigenous Mango Heritage Area" by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board in 2020.
The honour came after the villagers had got together to grow over 200 indigenous species of mangoes, sourced from surrounding towns and villages, preserving diverse varieties that were in danger of dying out.
The technique that made it possible, Machathi says, is the age-old art of grafting. He started experimenting with the technique in July 2016, despite no formal training in farming, after an unfortunate incident shook the village of Kannapuram.
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There are interesting and exciting opportunities for how AI/Machine Learning can help Indigenous people protect their homes
This is not anything unusual or unbelievable, but it is an interesting confluence of technology and those people who most care about protecting their corner of the environment. One example in the article:
One of the first AI-based Indigenous conservation projects, undertaken by Cornell University, was co-developed with the Coral Gardeners, from Mo’orea, French Polynesia. Founded in 2017, this Indigenous group cultivates heat-resistant super corals and transplants them onto damaged parts of the reef. Cornell provides the software to track the sounds of the many organisms making their home here and, working also with the University of Hawaii, integrates them into a recording platform, ReefOS, a network of sensors and cameras collecting visual and acoustic data 24 hours a day. The AI-mediated soundscape tells the on-site respondents whether the reefs are starting to sound like healthy and stable reef systems, or whether additional restoration efforts are needed.
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"Beloved monarch butterflies now listed as endangered"
The monarch butterfly fluttered a step closer to extinction Thursday, as scientists put the iconic orange-and-black insect on the endangered list because of its fast dwindling numbers.
“It’s just a devastating decline,” said Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University who was not involved in the new listing. “This is one of the most recognizable butterflies in the world.”
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly for the first time to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.
The Monarch Butterfly holds a very important place in my heart as I will always connect them to my mother, who loved flowers and butterflies. On my wedding day I gave the wedding party and my family pins that had butterflies on them in memory of mother, since she had passed before the big day.
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"Africa’s wildlife parks managers meet to boost conservation"
Officials are meeting in Kigali in Rwanda this week as part of the continent’s first-ever Africa Protected Areas Congress in a bid to expand the preservation of land and marine wildlife, despite little funding and the low quality of many existing conservation areas in the region.
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The congress brings together wildlife parks and reserves managers, scientists, and Indigenous and community leaders. It’s hoped that increasing the dialogue between groups will improve the health of Africa’s biodiversity hotspots and combat worrying trends, such as the increase in poaching and the illegal wildlife trade.
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