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The United States celebrated its 200th anniversary in 1976, and in a lot of ways it felt like a year-long celebration of everything that made our country great.

But there were dark sides to the American Bicentennial, including civil rights struggles, a gas crisis, and (of course) American capitalism.

The over-commercialization of the Bicentennial started long before 1976. As early as September 1974 people were already starting to call it the “Buy-centennial,” with many products designed to part fools from their money with maximum efficiency. Commemorative cars? Check. Special coins? Check. Red, white and blue lawn chairs? Check. Useless parchment certificates proclaiming your patriotism? Check.

Literally, write and mail a check (in those pre-Venmo days) and all of that could have been yours.

The “patriotic” commerce was everywhere. SeaWorld renamed one of its captive killer whales “Yankee Doodle.” Companies marketed toilet seats with eagles underneath the lids. George Washington and other Revolutionary icons were painted onto just about any piece of crap you could imagine.

There were even awards to celebrate the “most tasteless exploitation” of the Bicentennial, with “winners” such as “Paul Revere” ice cream and red-white-and-blue funeral caskets. (I’m sure that last one was some sort of violation of the Flag Code.)

And it wasn’t just these Bicentennial-themed products. Retailers also got into the act, with special “Spirit of 76” sales or “wrapped in the flag” marketing campaigns starting in January and running rampant as Independence Day approached.

What was funny — or, perhaps, completely predictable — is that a lot of the people who set out to exploit the Bicentennial ended up losing their shirts. Come July 5, 1976, whatever Bicentennial-branded products remained on the shelves became instantly worthless. One guy in Utah bought 7,200 Bicentennial chains and medallions; by the end of 1976 he had about 7,120 left that he couldn’t even give away. Our nation’s landfills must all have a layer of red, white and blue crap from around this time for any hardy archeologists with enough intestinal fortitude to dig deep and explore.

Of course, none of this is much different from the aisles of cheap, imported junk we still see in stores every year come July 4 — especially this year as our nation’s 250th anniversary looms. Right now you can go to any local grocery store, drug store, or big-box retailer to buy poorly made flag T-shirts, flag plastic plates, patriotic disposable forks, cups with bald eagles on the side, and maybe — if you look hard enough — an actual flag or two buried amidst the disposables and Monster energy drinks we use to “celebrate” Independence Day.

Photo: John R. Platt/The Revelator

And this year has the extra capitalist curse of the Trump presidency looming over it. Our Grifter in Chief and his family have emblazoned his name and ugly mug on a veritable infinite number of products designed to siphon the few remaining dollars from his acolytes’ wallets or bank accounts.

The one saving grace compared to 50 years ago is that a lot of this ephemeral Trump “merch” is print-on-demand, so there won’t be as much unsold excess to end up in a landfill — just hundreds of AI-generated images destined for a computer’s trash bin.

But even ephemera can last a long time, thanks to the wonders of the Internet. I spent a few years researching the Bicentennial (a project from which this essay is adapted), and I’ve uncovered a host of things that still speak to the lessons we haven’t learned over the past 50 years.

So as the Trump-infused Semiquincentennial bears down on us, let’s look back at the capitalist dystopia of the Buy-Centennial through the wonder of 1976 newspaper advertisements. Maybe they can offer a few reminders that unchecked capitalism and waste aren’t patriotic — or worth celebrating.

Sexism never went out of style.

Your constitutional right to banking.

A lot of stories ran prices like this during the Bicentennial.

Free flag with a bucket of chicken!

Existing mascots often found themselves wearing tri-corner hats and waving flags.

This clip art of sexy “Uncle” Sam showed up in newspapers all over the country.

Here’s that same model in an ad for “Buy-sale-tennial Specials.” Sheesh.

High inflation and labor exploitation … sounds like today.

The British are coming … to watch HBO!

Follow the troops to Beth’s Kitchen. Wow, this one’s offensive.

Metal detectors helped in the Revolutionary War?

I call this George Washington-washing.

Ouch. That’s some awful artwork. But soooo Seventies.

This one is actually kind of cute.

Not the greatest drawing, but…

…it sure got used a lot. For a lot of different things. All over the country.

Another mascot embraces the day.

A sexy minuteman — er, maid — sells cars. This photo was used by companies all over the nation. Because sex.

Our founding fathers’ best quotes turned into ads for various companies. This same spread shows up in regional papers all over the country selling different stuff for each town.

200th birthday, save $200. This clipart of a town crier showed up all over the place. I love the awful paste-up job on the text here.

So many companies did this. “America is 200, and we’re 50, so it’s exactly the same thing!”

Is pointing a gun at your customers ever a good idea?

Local businesses often ran photos or caricatures of their salespeople in their ads, but rarely like this.

I don’t even know what this mascot is supposed to be.

What are the most egregious Semiquincentennial products you’ve encountered? Let me know at jplatt@therevelator.org — and send photos!

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Let’s Rename the Day After Thanksgiving ‘Extinction Friday’

 

The post America 250: Echoes of the Buy-Centennial appeared first on The Revelator.

PFAS are one of the biggest public health threats of our time. These “forever chemicals” have infested seemingly every facet of our lives, from water and soil to kitchen products, safety equipment, and even our babies’ toys. As a country we need real urgency to address this risk quickly and do it the right way.

Despite rollbacks and standstills of PFAS regulation federally, we’re seeing impressive bipartisan support to tackle forever chemicals at the state level. This is an important step in the right direction. But as states introduce legislation to regulate PFAS, it’s imperative that they move forward with responsible legislation that has been proven to be effective.

There are two policy paths moving through state legislatures, which I call the “Michigan model” and the “Maine model.”

Maine and Michigan both lead the charge for state-level PFAS regulation, but there are two key differences in their approaches that make the Maine Model the gold standard for states to follow.

First, Maine’s model takes a proactive approach, banning PFAS from consumer products before they’re manufactured.

Second, Maine was the first state in the nation to pass a comprehensive ban on the land application of sewage sludge, also known as biosolids, and the sale and distribution of sludge-derived compost. This stops PFAS before they have a chance to pollute our state’s drinking water, farmland, and local communities.

As a Maine policy leader who helped pass this legislation in my home state, I’ve seen the benefits of having a proactive strategy against PFAS. Currently, every state other than Maine and Connecticut is adding to its PFAS contamination through additional sludge spreading, which just deepens the crisis, increasing future remediation and health costs.

States Need a Proactive Legislative Strategy

Though Michigan was an early leader in setting drinking-water standards (Maximum Contaminant Level or MCLs) for specific PFAS chemicals, the Great Lakes state has now fallen behind. Michigan’s PFAS strategy depends on detecting PFAS and mitigating it through cleanup initiatives — a strategy that’s well intended but leaves room for harm to reach the public.

Adding to this, states are finding themselves needing more money to pay for PFAS cleanups, as settlements from polluters aren’t covering the costs.

Maine’s policies stand out because they anticipate the impact of sweeping PFAS prevention measures and create safety nets for the businesses and communities that are most at risk. This shows up in different ways, but a prime example is our partnership with farmers who have been harmed by toxic sludge threatening their land and livelihood.

About six years ago, we started to work with farmers who were no longer able to cultivate and sell their products safely due to PFAS contamination from fertilizer and sewage sludge on their land. We created a PFAS emergency relief fund, which gives farmers the resources they need to navigate safe transitions for their farms. The fund can help farmers pay for initial PFAS testing, access wellness and mental-health services, and sometimes receive short-term income replacement and invest in infrastructure adaptations — which are all essential when you lose your livelihood.

Since creating the infrastructure to transition farms safely away from threats of PFAS contamination, we have supported more than 100 farms. Only the earliest farms to discover contamination — prior to a safety net being in place — have faced closure.

This safety net for our agricultural leaders has been so successful because it prioritizes public health, financial stability, and long-term sustainability. Our food systems, public health, and economic vitality depend on our policies to both turn off the tap on PFAS chemicals being added to products that end up in the waste stream and create safety nets throughout the transition to cleaner infrastructure so small businesses are protected.

Combatting Lax Sludge Standards and Fighting for Accountability

In addition to being proactive, states need to set smart thresholds for sludge. Michigan has set incredibly high contamination thresholds for PFAS concentration in biosolids, which means that large amounts of contaminants will still be applied to the land. If thresholds aren’t meaningful, they aren’t protecting anybody.

Legislation with smart thresholds for sludge has quickly proven itself to be crucial, as attempts to water down anti-sludge policies are cropping up in states across the country. These attempts show up as high thresholds for PFAS contamination in sludge and liability shields for corporations engaged in sludge disposal. To prevent this policy trend from growing, it’s imperative that anti-sludge and anti-PFAS legislation addresses corporate loopholes like these.

Maine’s policies opt for a more comprehensive approach, regulating PFAS as an entire category rather than by individual chemical regulations. Furthermore, we were the first state to mandate a near-total ban on PFAS in products.

Our state has also passed legislation that pushes for accountability from manufacturers who are unable to rid their products of PFAS, giving them a Currently Unavoidable Use (CUU) determination. Our Department of Environmental Protection will only issue a CUU to businesses if the department has determined a product is essential for health, safety, or the functioning of society and for which alternatives are not reasonably available.

Pretty soon it won’t be a choice of whether or not states take action against PFAS, but how they do it. And Maine’s policy is the blueprint for how the rest of America should address this issue to prevent this poisonous public-health threat at the source.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

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

The post Amid National PFAS Frenzy, the ‘Maine Model’ Shows States How to Stop ‘Forever Chemicals’ at the Source appeared first on The Revelator.

Dozens of countries have called out growing “coordinated attacks” by fossil fuel interests aimed at undermining the role of climate science in the UN negotiations at the mid-year talks in Bonn.

Under the banner of ‘Friends of Science’, in an overflowing press conference room lined with negotiators and civil society supporters, diplomats from Fiji, Nepal, the European Union, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Panama vowed to ensure that decision-making in the UN climate process remains based on the “best available science”. That includes reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate science body, they said.

While steering clear of singling out any specific country, they said efforts to cast doubt on established scientific concepts, such as the 1.5 global warming limit, are led by “the usual suspects” and those who think “science threatens their economic prospects”. 

Saudi Arabia and India have opposed calls in draft texts to encourage scientific work on scenarios that would minimise the magnitude and duration of any overshoot of 1.5C, according to one negotiator in the room and summaries of closed-door discussions published by a reporting service. 

UN chief António Guterres conceded last year that a temporary breach of the key warming limit is inevitable, while urging countries to redouble efforts to bring temperatures back down.

‘Polluted narrative’

Scientists have long established that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of man-made climate change and a rapid shift away from oil, coal and gas is essential to curb global warming.

Saudi Arabia is dependent on oil and gas exports, while India largely relies on coal to power its economic development.

One negotiator said that research on how climate action can be equitable for developing countries, produced by Indian universities, had been published too late to be incorporated into the last IPCC assessment report in 2023. This incident led the Indian government to try and discredit the IPCC, they said. Some Indian scientists have argued that the IPCC’s scenarios are unfair on developing countries.

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Saudi Arabia and India have played down the importance of making sure that the latest IPCC assessments – regarded as the gold standard of climate science – are available for the next global stocktake, the UN scorecard of climate action around the world. 

“Anyone that is blocking references to science – they are not our friends,” Sivendra Michael, lead negotiator for Fiji, told a press conference, highlighting the rise of a “polluted narrative” both inside and outside the negotiating rooms.

1.5C is a ‘hard limit’

Speaking for the AILAC coalition of Latin American countries, Panama’s Ana Aguilar said they went to Bonn to negotiate positions, not to negotiate the facts laid out by science.

“We see coordinated efforts to cast doubt on the best available science driven by a narrow set of interests, not by the needs of our people,” she added. “We have seen this playbook before… manufacture doubt, delay the response and let the vulnerable people pay this bill.”

Negotiators, researchers and civil society activists attend a press conference on defending science in the UN climate process in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2026. (Photo: Teo Ormond-Skeaping) Negotiators, researchers and civil society activists attend a press conference on defending science in the UN climate process in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2026. (Photo: Teo Ormond-Skeaping)

The ‘Friends of Science’ coalition stressed that the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement cannot be negotiated, as the survival of the most climate vulnerable communities is at stake if it is permanently breached.

“Science tells us that 1.5C is a hard limit for many countries, including the small island developing states and least developed countries,” said Manjeet Dhakal, a negotiator for Nepal. “We still have a chance to keep 1.5 degrees in reach and minimise the overshoot if we act fast and drastically.”

Long-running IPCC standoff

While diplomats claimed attacks on science are broadening, one long-standing issue of contention is whether the latest assessment reports of the IPCC will be ready in time for the next UN global stocktake due to start this November and end in 2028. 

This matters because, as some experts have pointed out, previous IPCC findings played a key role in the first such exercise, which culminated at COP28 in Dubai in the landmark agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it

Since the start of the latest IPCC assessment cycle, known as AR7, a battle over the timing has dragged on for over two years at successive IPCC meetings, with governments repeatedly failing to find a breakthrough. 

A large majority of nations have been pushing for an accelerated timeline that would ensure the AR7 reports can be fed into the UN’s global stocktake. But a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, China, Russia and Kenya, have said at previous IPCC meetings they want a longer process, arguing a fast-tracked assessment would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources.

Science and the stocktake

That fight has now bled into the Bonn talks where governments began discussing the arrangements for the next stocktake. At a session earlier this week, most developed countries, Latin American and small island states, and the world’s poorest nations emphasised the assessment of collective climate action must be guided by the “best available science” – code for the findings of the IPCC reports.

The Maldives, speaking for small island states, said IPCC science remains “essential to the integrity, credibility and usefulness” of the stocktake. AILAC said that starting the process “on the right footing” requires a political decision on the timeline to deliver the AR7 reports in time. Switzerland said IPCC reports “ask more than is politically comfortable, but that is precisely why they must guide every decision we make”.

Saudi Arabia, however, said no particular scientific input – and in particular what comes out of the IPCC – should be prioritised. Similarly, India warned against creating “some kind of preferred hierarchy” in the role that any specific source of information should play in the process.

Ghana’s Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, who chairs the African Group, told a press conference on Tuesday that some countries think rushing to get IPCC inputs into the global stocktake could “undermine or compromise the IPCC process”. “Africa is for science,” he said, without saying where the continent stands on the IPCC timeline.

Crunch talks in October

At the “Friends of Science” press conference, Dhakal pushed back on the idea that science would have to be rushed to be incorporated. He said the IPCC leadership has “perfectly made it clear” that they can deliver the report before the global stocktake. “It is the scientists who are saying they can deliver it on time,” he said. 

The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace) The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace)

The discussion will be picked up again at the next IPCC session in October, where its boss Jim Skea is hoping to reach an agreement. “As a scientist myself, I cannot overstate the importance of this decision,” he told governments in Bonn last week.

Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at campaigning group 350.org, told Climate Home News that the debate may sound procedural, “but it is anything but”. “Science is the backbone of the Paris Agreement ambition cycle, and the evidence assessed through AR7 will help determine not only the emissions pathways countries pursue, but also how the world responds to mounting climate losses and who receives support,” he said in Bonn.

The post Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

I’m lucky to live immediately adjacent to Point Reyes National Seashore in California and make frequent visits to indulge my photography hobby. In the summer I can work a full day and still search for bobcats through the evening golden hour. And I’m truly privileged to be able to advocate for its restoration and protection in my capacity as executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network.

Photo: Ken Bouley. Used with permission.

Point Reyes is a coastal treasure protecting about 110 square miles of some of the most scenic and biodiverse landscapes on the planet. Surrounded by marine protected areas on its western coastline and buffered by open spaces of various jurisdiction on eastern inland boundaries, the West Coast’s only national seashore supports extraordinary species richness for both plants and wildlife. Meanwhile its proximity to San Francisco and Oakland provides an unusually accessible oasis for humans seeking recreation and outdoor experiences. Point Reyes receives more than 2 million visitors per year.

That number could soon increase — and it should. People deserve to see this amazing landscape. A recent legal settlement added new protection to Point Reyes that should make it even more magnificent. But getting to that point still requires effort, coordination, and vigilance against both new and returning threats.

How We Got Here

The Seashore has a rocky history. It was signed into existence by John F. Kennedy in 1962. Over the next decade or so, the federal government purchased private ranches in the area, adding acreage in a puzzle-piece fashion, and sparing the whole peninsula from seemingly inexorable sprawl development.

What followed were decades of controversy and conflict over the best ultimate uses of the park. Commercial ranches were initially allowed to stay in operation, leasing back the land they’d just sold to the public. But beef and dairy cattle operations increasingly conflicted with the park’s preservation and public-use principles. Damage from overgrazing and ranching lease violations came under public scrutiny. A battle raged over controlling tule elk in the only national park where they still occur. With growing concerns of extinction and climate crises, pressure from citizens and environmental groups boiled over and, following a recent settlement, the government enacted changes to move away from private businesses guiding park management.

Now 10 out of 12 commercial cattle operations have now vacated the park. With the departure of all dairy and most beef cattle ranches, around 17,000 acres of formerly overgrazed lands are shifting from “pastoral working zone” to “scenic landscape” — meaning they are slated, in theory at least, for ecological restoration.

Photo: Ken Bouley. Used with permission.

The January 2025 Point Reyes settlement took more than a decade of intensive pressure: several iterations of a park management plan, litigation, protests, public hearings and comments, investigative journalism, town halls, letters to the editor, petitions, intrepid photographers photo-documenting lease violations and environmental degradation, ranch infrastructure decay, extended drought, and collapse of dairy markets.

The heavy lifting was done via lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity (publisher of The Revelator), Resource Renewal Institute, and Western Watersheds projects, with pro bono support from Advocates for the West. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) provided a reported $40 million in voluntary lease buyouts to incentivize the ranch leaseholders to vacate. As part of the deal, the National Park Service has repurposed the former grazing leases into restoration leases, initially to be held and managed by TNC.

The transition marks a rare moment in conservation: A large, publicly owned coastal landscape has a chance to recover its ecological integrity. Stakeholders including federal agencies, conservation nonprofits, ranching interests, tribal representatives, scientists, and the broader public are asking a high-stakes question: Now what?

Here are five key areas of focus that can guide the restoration of Point Reyes as a model for ecological recovery, climate resilience, and inclusive stewardship.

1. Restore Native Coastal Prairie — A Scarce and Valuable Ecosystem

California’s native coastal prairie is among the most imperiled ecosystems in North America. Once widespread along the Pacific Coast, this unique habitat survives in less than 1% of its former glory today. Grasslands that remain are fragmented, degraded, and under constant pressure from invasive species, altered fire regimes, and adjacent land-use practices.

At Point Reyes the reduction of commercial cattle grazing is an unprecedented opportunity to restore thousands of acres of coastal prairie. This is not as simple as removing fences and letting nature take its course. Decades of intensive cattle grazing have compacted and altered soils, caused erosion, and spread invasive plants.

Photo: Ken Bouley. Used with permission.

Effective restoration will require planning and active management: controlling invasive plants, reseeding native bunchgrasses and wildflowers, reintroducing natural disturbance regimes such as prescribed fire and grazing by elk, monitoring ecosystem responses, and adaptive management.

Native prairie restoration is about more than just plants. These ecosystems support pollinators, ground-nesting birds, small mammals, and a host of invertebrates that form the foundation of coastal biodiversity. Rebuilding prairie habitats also enhances carbon sequestration in soils, contributing to climate mitigation.

At Point Reyes we have a chance to recover a nearly lost landscape, one that is both ecologically rich and culturally significant. This is also a rare opportunity to learn how formerly grazed grasslands react to different restoration regimes. Point Reyes offers a valuable laboratory for soil science, botany, and restoration ecology.

2. Wildlife Recovery and Reintroduction: Rebuilding A Functional Ecosystem

The management changes at Point Reyes will allow recovery of existing wildlife populations, as well as opportunities for reintroduction of wildlife species that have been extirpated but once played essential ecological roles.

The most visible beneficiaries will be tule elk, endemic to California. Once thought extinct, tule elk were reduced to a single remnant population in the San Joaquin Valley that was protected and became the source for elk reintroductions around the state. The National Park Service reintroduced two dozen elk to Point Reyes in 1978, and today the park’s population has grown to about 700 elk.

Photo: Ken Bouley. Used with permission.

The Park Service has removed a large fence across Tomales Point that formerly pinned elk on a peninsula, allowing them to roam freely. Under the settlement the agency also abandoned a proposed arbitrary population cap on elk that would have greenlighted annual shooting and hazing of tule elk to reduce competition with grazing cattle. With the removal of ranching infrastructure and cattle that competed for forage, elk will have significantly more room to roam in the park, potentially improving herd health and reducing human-wildlife conflicts.

Marin County is notably the only coastal county north of the Golden Gate Bridge without wild beavers. Beaver reintroduction represents a powerful, nature-based solution for watershed restoration. As ecosystem engineers, beavers create wetlands that improve water storage, reduce erosion, enhance biodiversity, benefit wildlife such as coho salmon and other endangered species, and build resilience to drought and wildfire.

Similarly, formerly abundant sea otters were extirpated during the fur trade era. Today southern sea otters are listed as endangered, and their recovery along the central and northern California coasts is an important conservation priority. Reestablishing sea otter presence at Point Reyes could contribute to broader population resilience and recovery. Sea otters are also keystone species, helping to maintain eelgrass and kelp forests, which in turn support fisheries, biodiversity, and carbon storage.

In the heart of Point Reyes, Drakes Estero is an excellent potential reintroduction location for sea otters, since the estuary is free from predatory sharks and dangerous boat traffic, rich in marine invertebrate foods for otters, and surrounded by designated wilderness. Sea otters could help control invasive Eurasian green crabs who have upset the local ecology.

And that’s not all: A recent report by Turtle Island Restoration Network explores the feasibility of reintroducing these three native mammals — and four more — to Point Reyes, and the ecological benefits and practical considerations for such efforts.

Reintroduction works best when it restores natural ecological processes, putting nature in the form of elk, beavers, and otters to work in restoring habitats. But such ecological changes must be approached carefully and require rigorous assessment, long-term monitoring, and collaboration amongst agencies and communities.

Point Reyes already serves as an ark against the Anthropocene flood of human impacts, harboring nearly 100 endangered, threatened, or rare plants and animals. If the Bay Area’s signature park can bring back animals extirpated upon European arrival, it will be an exemplary and inspiring example of the national parks as “America’s best idea.”

3. Tribal Co-Management and Cultural Renewal

Point Reyes is the ancestral home of the Coast Miwok, whose stewardship shaped the area over many thousands of years. Colonization removed and displaced these communities and disrupted their relationship with unceded land. The restoration of Point Reyes presents an opportunity to move beyond acknowledgment toward meaningful partnership. As a formal part of the settlement and the newly revised general management plan for the Seashore, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, whose membership includes Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo peoples, are official management partners with the National Park Service.

Tribal comanagement can bring Indigenous knowledge, cultural practices, and stewardship values back into land management, including the use of cultural burning to maintain grasslands, restoration of culturally significant plant species, protection of archeological and sacred sites, and the bolstering of programs that support cultural revitalization. Indigenous stewardship practices have sustained ecosystems for millennia and offer valuable insights for modern restoration challenges.

4. Expanding Public Access to Newly Opened Lands

For decades large portions of Point Reyes were effectively inaccessible to the public due to active ranching operations. While technically open, these lands were often surrounded by barbed wire, gated, or difficult to navigate safely. They were also covered with what cows do — high boots were not optional.

With the departure of most ranches, thousands of acres of public land can now be reimagined for public use. This presents an opportunity to expand trail systems, improve connectivity between existing park areas, and create new spaces for hiking, wildlife viewing, and environmental education.

Photo: Ken Bouley. Used with permission.

However, increased visitation can bring unintended impacts: trail erosion, habitat disturbance, and pressure on sensitive species. Restoration and recreation must be balanced through careful planning, including designated trails, seasonal closures of sensitive areas, visitor education, and enforcement.

Done right, expanded access can deepen public appreciation for the landscape while fostering a constituency that supports its protection. It can also redistribute visitor use, reducing overcrowding in heavily trafficked areas of the Seashore.

This is not just about opening gates; it’s about evolving how people engage with public lands in a way that aligns with ecological recovery.

5. Environmental Justice and Equitable Access to Nature

For many residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly those from historically marginalized communities, access to national parks remains limited by economic, transportation, logistical, and cultural barriers.

Progressive environmental organizations have long emphasized the importance of linking conservation with community engagement. Ensuring that restoration benefits are shared broadly, not just ecologically but socially, is key to building lasting support.

With expanded access and renewed focus, the Seashore can become a gateway to nature for millions of people who may not have the opportunity to visit Yosemite or Yellowstone. This will require intentional programming: transportation initiatives, community partnerships, multilingual education efforts, and outreach that reflects the diversity of the region. Groups such as Outdoor Afro, Latino Outdoors, Rainbow Sierrans, and others can partake in, support, and enjoy increased access and restoration of the Seashore.

Equity in access is not an afterthought; it’s central to the mission of public lands. A restored Point Reyes can serve as a model for how national parks can better serve the public in all its diversity.

Notes of Skepticism

There is, of course, an orange elephant in the room. Until the next presidential election, any progress involving federal agencies or federal funding faces more of a vertical cliff than an uphill battle.

For example, reintroducing beavers would occur under the auspices of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and might actually make progress, whereas reintroducing sea otters would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a federal agency suffering from DOGE budget cuts and firings and under Trump’s Interior Department that is hostile to conservation.

Worse than simply starving the relevant agencies of resources, there remains the specter of active interference in the Point Reyes settlement by the Trump administration. Local businessman and “regenerative ranching” pied piper Albert Straus has made overtures to Washington to roll back the decision and bring private commercial dairies back to the Seashore. Mr. Straus owns Straus Family Creamery and stands to gain financially if his implausible prayers are answered at the Department of the Interior.

The ranchers with the two remaining ranching leases in the Seashore have sued the Park Service to try to overturn the settlement. One of these beneficiaries of publicly subsidized generous lease conditions and reduced grazing fees and personal rent, Nicolette Hahn Niman, ran for Congress against incumbent Jared Huffman (D-CA-2) in an apparent attempt to penalize Huffman’s support for the Seashore settlement, but lost in June’s primary.

Another issue of concern is the question of how committed The Nature Conservancy will be to actual and full ecological restoration at Point Reyes given the political backlash by ranchers, agricultural interests and the Trump administration. TNC is proud of its longstanding relationships with ranchers and champions “restoration grazing” vociferously. The Point Reyes settlement includes managing the new leases for ecological, restoration, public use, and historical and cultural values. This will include continued cattle grazing, but at significantly reduced stocking rates and duration, with promises of rotating cattle off of grasslands before damage occurs. Will TNC implement rotational grazing minimally and as part of a practical restoration regime, or will it recreate the overgrazing and degraded conditions that characterized Point Reyes for decades?

Among the coalition of environmentalists and advocates who fought for Point Reyes restoration, there is skepticism or cautious optimism about the way and degree to which TNC will use cows on leased land in the Seashore. This concern was amplified when TNC awarded a short-term rotational grazing contract to a remaining private ranch leaseholder who forewent the settlement negotiations, sued to overturn the settlement, and is maneuvering to maintain or expand his commercial operations in the Seashore.

TNC is of course aware of these concerns and has committed to a transparent public process to develop a management and restoration plan for the lease lands and is sharing their vision and plan with the concerned public.

Conditions for Success

The opportunities for ecological restoration and public benefits at Point Reyes are significant, but they are not guaranteed. Realizing them depends on several critical conditions:

First, the settlement that enabled this transition must be upheld and allowed to proceed without interference. Legal certainty provides the foundation for long-term planning and investment.

Second, agencies with authority, particularly the Park Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, must actively engage, coordinate, and commit resources to the restoration.

Third, collaboration among stakeholders is essential. Conservation groups, Tribal representatives, scientists, and local communities must work together. Local environmental groups should be allowed to bring their expertise, volunteer power, and funding to the restoration effort. This, unfortunately, has not yet occurred, and there’s no committed timeline.

Fourth, restoration must be understood as an ongoing process, not a one-and-done. Ecosystems take time to recover, and adaptive management will be necessary as conditions change.

Finally, all stakeholders must understand and commit to the established purposes of the national park system, as stated in the Organic Act of 1916: “to conserve the scenery, natural/historic objects, and wildlife, while providing for public enjoyment in a manner that leaves them ‘unimpaired’ for future generations.”

Point Reyes stands at a rare inflection point. Few places have the chance to reclaim such a large and ecologically significant landscape in one coordinated effort. The question is no longer whether restoration is possible. It is whether we will rise to meet the opportunity.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

This Is What Community-Powered Restoration Looks Like

The post Rewilding Point Reyes National Seashore: Why and How appeared first on The Revelator.

On quiet streets across the Californian city of Monterey Park, green-and-white “YES on Measure NDC” signs stood on front-yard lawns as volunteers walked door-to-door, drumming up support among residents to vote in favor of a ban on new data centers in their area.

They clarified the ballot wording in English, Spanish and Chinese, while distributing multilingual flyers warning about the rise in electricity demand, industrial infrastructure and environmental impacts associated with AI-related data center development.

Less than a month later, on June 2, Monterey Park voters overwhelmingly approved the ban in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, with 86.4% voting in favor and 13.6% opposed, according to county election results.

Social opposition to data centers is on the rise, especially in the US, as artificial intelligence (AI) and the technology hubs needed to support it stoke competition for electricity, water and land in communities where they are based. Industry advocates say data centers bring economic benefits and do not always result in higher power prices for households.

A front-yard sign encourages Monterey Park residents to vote “YES on Measure NDC” (No Data Centers) in the San Gabriel Valley, LA County on May 9, 2026 (Photo: Kristen Mayol) A front-yard sign encourages Monterey Park residents to vote “YES on Measure NDC” (No Data Centers) in the San Gabriel Valley, LA County on May 9, 2026 (Photo: Kristen Mayol)

The result in Monterey Park made it the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centers through a voter-approved ballot measure.

“This week our city has been celebrating the landslide results from Measure NDC,” Monterey Park Mayor Elizabeth Yang said in a phone interview.

On social media, Yang described the city’s response as the result of sustained resident organizing and civic engagement. “We want to fulfill our duty of listening to residents,” Yang told Climate Home News.

A community campaign takes shape

The vote came after months of public testimony, neighborhood outreach and organizing surrounding a proposed data center project on Saturn Street in Monterey Park. Here, developers planned to replace an existing commercial office building with a nearly 50-megawatt data center intended to serve growing demand for AI computing.

Supporters of Measure NDC (Measure No Data Centers) argued that keeping this, and other such centers, out of their community would help protect air quality, drinking water resources, public health and local infrastructure.

According to CoStar News, a real estate information platform, the backers of the Saturn Street project – Digico Infrastructure REIT and HMC Capital’s StratCap – had already withdrawn their planning application on April 3 amid growing local opposition and regulatory uncertainty, including the city’s decision to place a data center ban before voters.

Subsequently, on April 20, the Monterey Park City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting all data centers within the city limits.

Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?

Company representatives later said they would explore future “productive land uses … supported by the broader community”. Potential alternatives discussed publicly have included housing, although no formal proposal has been submitted.

Reuters reported in May that DigiCo Infrastructure, an Australian company, was exploring “monetisation options” for its two Los Angeles sites after rowing back on the Monterey Park proposal. DigiCo is also selling its Chicago data center for $750 million to pay down debt and fund the development of another site in Sydney.

DigiCo and HMC Capital did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Potential local benefits of data centers

Industry lobby groups argue that data centers can provide economic benefits to host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents major operators and developers, data centers generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.

The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households. A recent report by energy consulting firm Energy + Environmental Economics (E3), commissioned by the coalition, found no historical evidence that data centers had driven up residential electricity rates under existing utility pricing structures. It argued that factors including inflation, grid modernization costs, natural gas price volatility and investments in wildfire resilience have played a bigger role in rising electricity bills.

According to E3, large users can, under certain regulatory frameworks, reduce prices for other customers by contributing more revenue to utilities than they cost to serve. In a previous analysis of Amazon data centers, the consultancy found that payments from the facilities exceeded the incremental costs incurred by utilities. The report also noted that regulators across the US have increasingly adopted specialized pricing structures as data center demand has expanded.

An aerial photo shows the Alibaba Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center in Hangzhou, China, on April 11, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) An aerial photo shows the Alibaba Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center in Hangzhou, China, on April 11, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) Hefty carbon, water and land footprints

The concerns raised in Monterey Park mirror debates over the environmental and infrastructure demands of AI being heard in many countries around the world, from Europe to North America and Asia.

This month, a UN report estimated that the data centers required for AI globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 – roughly twice France’s 2025 power consumption.

This, it calculated, would have a carbon footprint needing some 6.7 billion trees grown over 10 years to offset, a water footprint equal to the annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a land footprint of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area. 

In a 2026 report, Key Questions on Energy and AI, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that electricity consumption from AI-focused data centers grew by approximately 50% in 2025 alone.

It warned that “social acceptability is also a growing issue, as communities push back against data center projects”, citing concerns about environmental sustainability, electricity affordability, infrastructure strain and democratic participation in land-use decisions.

Global data center electricity consumption by sensitivity case, 2020-2035

Left axis shows terawatt hours. (IEA: Licence CC BY 4.0) Left axis shows terawatt hours. (IEA: Licence CC BY 4.0)

AI-focused facilities consume substantially more electricity than traditional data centers and often require extensive supporting infrastructure, including cooling systems, industrial electrical equipment, backup generators running on diesel and large-scale energy storage systems.

The IEA also noted that operators are increasingly exploring onsite natural gas generation and battery infrastructure to maintain electrical reliability as AI workloads intensify.

Local concern over industrial infrastructure

Samuel Brown Vazquez, an East San Gabriel Valley community organizer, said doubts about the proposed data center in Monterey Park were informed by broader debates over industrial development in the area.

Brown cited community opposition to proposals that could bring battery energy storage facilities – and potentially data centers – to the former Puente Hills Mall site  in the City of Industry, where residents have raised concerns about pollution, fire risks, and the impacts of new industrial infrastructure on nearby residential neighborhoods and schools.

Many viewed the campaign as part of a larger conversation about how communities should respond to the rapid expansion of AI-related infrastructure across Southern California.

Power-hungry AI data centres seen driving demand for fossil fuels

According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data center projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 amid increasing local opposition.

Mayor Yang wants Monterey Park’s experience to encourage other communities to take a more active role in decisions about AI-related infrastructure. “We’re hoping other cities can follow similarly in banning data centers with proposed ballot measures,” she said, adding that whether such efforts succeed elsewhere will depend in part on how local officials respond to residents’ concerns.

Materials for the “Yes on Measure NDC” campaign, May, 2026 (Photos: Kristen Mayol) Materials for the “Yes on Measure NDC” campaign, May, 2026 (Photos: Kristen Mayol)

The new UN report this month called on governments and companies to address AI’s environmental impacts proactively to ensure that the technology develops sustainably and its benefits are shared fairly.

Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, who led the investigation team for the report, said AI “is a technological transformation that is improving the lives of billions of people around the world”. But, he added, it must be used “responsibly”.   

“We have a narrow window to ensure that the backbone of the technological revolution of our era develops within planetary limits, and that the communities who provide the critical minerals for advancing AI and the ones that host its infrastructure and e-waste are also among those who benefit from it,” he said.

This story was developed, reported and produced under the Covering Climate Now (CCNow) Climate Journalism Student Mentorship, which connects USC student journalists with professional newsrooms in CCNow’s global network. Participants receive training, editorial mentorship, and the opportunity to report and publish original climate stories with partner outlets while being paid professional freelance rates.

The post The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI appeared first on Climate Home News.

In January 2025, the Trump administration began shutting down projects within the EPA’s independent science division that touched on climate change and environmental justice. Air quality researcher Thomas Luben, who had worked at the agency for 18 years, was fired for objecting.

Read more on E360 →

When Congress approved a $1 billion Energy Resilience Fund for Puerto Rico in 2022, the money was desperately needed. Multiple hurricanes had battered the island’s notoriously fragile electric grid, and lawmakers envisioned the money supporting rooftop solar and battery systems that could provide resilient backup power during emergencies.

The Biden administration’s Department of Energy developed a plan to distribute the funds to about 40,000 low-income Puerto Ricans, many of whom live with health conditions requiring access to reliable power. Biden officials envisioned a network of solar and battery systems that would keep medically vulnerable Puerto Ricans safe during storms and reduce reliance on the island’s unstable grid.

The Trump administration has different ideas.

The plan all but disappeared after President Trump took office last year. Trump’s DOE has since redirected a large share of the funds to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, the bankrupt utility that operates the island’s grid. The money is now poised to shore up PREPA’s fleet of power plants, which largely run on fossil fuels, and $50 million will fund a new natural gas pipeline. The administration has defended the decision by arguing that PREPA’s infrastructure improvements will ultimately benefit a broader swath of the island’s population.

The process by which Trump’s DOE unilaterally redirected the resilience funds, seemingly against Congress’ intent, has so far been shrouded in secrecy. But public records obtained by Grist under the Freedom of Information Act shed new light on how Trump’s political appointees engineered the change. The documents show that the DOE gave PREPA unusually favorable treatment, in part by soliciting no competing bids for the funds, fast-tracking the review process, and using Trump’s executive order announcing an “energy emergency” as the justification for the award. 

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Most eyebrow-raising, perhaps, was the way that the DOE waived its typical requirement that grant recipients pony up substantial funding of their own to contribute to project costs. Exceptions are sometimes made for indigent recipients or economically distressed communities, but for large organizations such as PREPA — which has nearly $4 billion in annual revenue — the agency typically requires a 50 percent cost share. 

In PREPA’s case, the DOE accepted just a 1 percent cost share, noting that the utility was under “significant financial stress” and that waiving the cost-share requirement is “necessary in order to provide a more stable foundation for Puerto Rico to begin to perform long-term energy planning and repairs.”

Some critics who have worked at the agency in the past are unsatisfied with this explanation.

“The 1 percent cost share is potentially unprecedented for a DOE award of this size, and to a recipient with this much cash flow,” said a former Biden administration DOE official, who spoke under condition of anonymity due to concerns it would affect their current employment. The former official noted that in order for such an exception to be legal, it must have been made by the secretary of energy, Chris Wright, himself. “Congress decreed that cost-share waivers are only supposed to be available via a secretarial determination. They weren’t intended to be used often, and they haven’t been.” 

A spokesperson with the Office for Electricity at the DOE said that the agency “carefully evaluated procurement options and determined that a noncompetitive, sole-source award to PREPA was justified” and that achieving the goals of the energy resilience fund required the use of PREPA. The spokesperson acknowledged that the “reduction from the standard 50 percent cost share is significant,” but noted that the determination was made under authority provided by the Energy Policy Act. 

“PREPA continues to face severe fiscal constraints while maintaining responsibility for critical generation and transmission infrastructure,” the spokesperson said. “Requiring a 50 percent cost share would not have been feasible and would have delayed urgently needed grid stabilization and repair activities, undermining the core purpose of the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund.”

The agency seemed well aware that its decision to award the funds to PREPA without considering competing applicants — and without seeking congressional approval for reallocating the funds from their intended use — would likely draw scrutiny. A section titled “Sensitivities” in a memo drafted by the head of the agency’s Grid Deployment Office highlighted that the decision to waive a 30-day congressional notice period, not seek other bids, and “the cost-share reduction may generate negative commentary, as the initial monies were planned to fund solar installations for multi-family housing (limited to common areas), community-based healthcare facilities.” The memo also went on to state that the “sole source designation to PREPA may raise objections to fairness, and perceived undue favoritism.” (“Sole source designation” is the term of art for a noncompetitive award to a single vendor.)

Puerto Rico’s electric grid has long been fragile. The average resident on the island experienced more than 70 hours of outages in 2024. When Hurricane Maria made landfall in 2017, the island’s more than 3 million residents lost power for weeks. It took PREPA more than nine months to restore power to some parts of the island. In the aftermath of the deadly disaster, Congress allocated more than $17 billion to modernize the grid. But almost a decade later, PREPA has completed very few projects with that massive influx of funding, and the utility has continued to navigate bankruptcy proceedings since 2017. The resilience funds being redirected to PREPA are in addition to this earlier allocation. The DOE memo acknowledges these issues, noting that “all parties involved are in less than desirable financial condition.” 

“It is really surprising that DOE would plan to send these sums to PREPA itself, given its record of federal spending,” the former Biden administration official added.

Still, Trump’s DOE came to the conclusion that PREPA was best suited to receive the funds. The memo argued that even if the agency had undergone a time-consuming competitive process — one that would have taken 18 months — it would have ultimately selected PREPA because the operator has sole ownership of the island’s grid. “Given the urgency of the situation, there is no other entity in Puerto Rico with the breadth of capability, asset ownership, and legal mandate to execute energy emergency response, grid stabilization, and recovery projects at this scale,” according to the document.

Read Next Solar was poised to help Puerto Ricans survive blackouts — until Trump axed nearly $1B in funding Naveena Sadasivam

Last month, more than 40 congressional Democrats sent Secretary Wright a letter demanding to know why the agency had redirected the resilience funding. The lawmakers asked for a briefing that would detail the agency’s justification for moving funds to PREPA. 

“DOE’s lack of transparency, wasteful reuse of the funding, disregard for congressional intent, and potentially illegal cancellation of contracts — combined with the resulting increase in energy poverty and loss of energy security — raise serious questions about the Department’s uses of the Puerto Rico-Energy Resilience Fund,” the letter said. 

The lawmakers were particularly concerned about the funds being used to build a natural gas pipeline. On its website, the DOE does not detail funding of the pipeline directly but instead refers to the project as “fuel supply security between San Juan and Palo Seco.” In internal documents, however, the DOE plainly notes that it intends to allocate $50 million to construct a natural gas pipeline. According to reporting in El Nuevo Día, a Puerto Rican publication, local authorities have already been working on building a natural gas pipeline connecting power stations in San Juan and Palo Seco, which is about 9 miles away. 

“Trying to force a liquefied methane pipeline project onto the people of Puerto Rico would help lock in the need to import fuels — keeping methane gas prices exorbitant for decades to come, putting ratepayers on the hook for funding it, and adding to already astronomical electricity costs,” the lawmakers’ letter reads. 

toolTips('.classtoolTips7','A powerful greenhouse gas that accounts for about 11% of global emissions, methane is the primary component of natural gas and is emitted into the atmosphere by landfills, oil and natural gas systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, and wastewater treatment, among other pathways. Over a 20-year period, it is roughly 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside the government’s push to divert Puerto Rico solar funds to a bankrupt utility on Jun 17, 2026.

Georgia’s legislature has allotted $2 million for the first year of the Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund. Farm landowners across the state have applied for a piece of that funding to protect their land from development — for housing, warehouses, data centers, and other uses. Applicants will find out in August if they’ve been selected.

Some 30 states have what are known as “purchase of agricultural conservation easement” programs, though the amount of funding varies a great deal from state to state. Texas allocates $2 million annually, while Florida set aside $300 million in 2022 and $100 million in 2024. Georgia’s law, modeled after these initiatives, was passed in 2023, established a formal program to coordinate federal, state, and local match funding, and created an advisory council to review and approve proposals. The legislature passed the initial round of funding in 2024, and the first round of applications closed May 20.

The easements allow landowners to sell the future development rights for their land to an organization, like a land trust. An appraisal process determines the value of those development rights, and the farmer and easement holder negotiate the details of their agreement. The landowner receives an upfront payment, half of which comes from the state funds. The rest is match funding, which could come from a land trust, local government, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which allocates $450 million annually to match dollars in state conservation programs. The landowner can continue farming, growing and harvesting timber, or however else they use their land. They can even sell the land — just not to a developer who will turn it into housing, a strip mall, or an industrial site.

“It’s a compelling alternative to our farming landowners that are feeling a lot of financial crunch and are just being inundated with offers for selling out,” said Katherine Moore, president of the Georgia Conservancy, which advocated for the new state fund.

Those offers to sell can vary widely, depending on location, development plans, and many other factors. Prices in the sale of transitional land — property changing from one use to another — ranged from just over $6,000 to more than $260,000 per acre in 2025, according to a report by Saunders Land, a real estate brokerage and management firm. The value of a conservation easement varies widely too for similar reasons, though a landowner would typically receive less money for an easement than they would in an outright sale, since they’re selling rights rather than the land itself.

One such farmer is Russ Moon, who grows corn, soybeans, and strawberries and raises cattle on his family farm in Madison County, Georgia, outside of Athens. His family has worked that land for four generations, around 100 years. He wants to keep it that way and pass the farm on to his kids one day. Moon said he’s watched more housing and development come to the area over the years. It’s appealing to many, he said, to live near the University of Georgia in Athens and also enjoy the bucolic rural setting. Other farms around him have already sold, he said, and he’s worried that if left unchecked, the development rush will fundamentally change the community.

The irrigation system waters a field on Russ Moon’s family farm outside Athens, Georgia. Russ Moon

“Selling the land is really not an option,” he said of his own plans. “I intend on remaining in agriculture for as long as possible.” 

Moon said he’d only sell if forced to. But that could happen someday, for him or for his kids when they take over. Farming can be an unstable business, subject to weather and changing crop prices and global markets.

“There may be a day where they have to sell, but I don’t want the land to be developed,” he said. “That’s my desire, that’s my family’s desire.”

Some of Moon’s land is in a conservation easement, which he entered into directly with a land trust in 2019. The state’s new conservation fund aims to protect more land in a similar way by providing state funding to help facilitate such deals. 

It’s a critical step, said Moore of the Georgia Conservancy.

“It is unprecedented for Georgia to have such a program, which is a little wild when you think that, you know, agribusiness in total is our number one economic engine in the state,” she said.

Even though agriculture is Georgia’s leading industry, farmers face mounting pressure to sell to developers. The state could lose some 800,000 acres of farmland by 2040, according to the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

“That means 10 percent of our farmland will be gone in the next 15 years or so,” said state agriculture commissioner Tyler Harper. “And that’s a staggering statistic.”

That’s a concern not only because farms provide food and jobs and are a big part of the state’s economy, but also because of the potential climate impacts. 

Converting farmland to other uses can increase greenhouse gas emissions, according to the American Farmland Trust. Topsoil often has to be removed to pave the land, releasing the carbon that’s stored in it. Uses like low-density residential development or industrial operations often produce more emissions than farming. Conservation easements, on the other hand, can encourage farming and management practices that sequester more carbon, and they often protect non-agricultural land adjacent to fields — like woods and wetlands.

State leaders often tout the booming economy, proudly calling Georgia the number one state to do business. But that gives Moon pause.

“The whole time we keep being the number one place to do business, we’re hurting our number one industry,” he said. That damage could be permanent. “Once you develop a piece of property, you’re never going to — it’s never going to go back. You lose farmland, it’s gone forever,” Moon said.

He hopes that getting more farmland into conservation can help maintain some balance before it’s too late.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia is losing farmland fast. Is a state conservation fund enough to save it? on Jun 17, 2026.

The scales fall from our eyes Channel Comment brendan 17th June 2026 Teaser Media

Researchers are increasingly digitizing plant and fungi specimens and using A.I. to analyze them, work that is transforming conservation science, according to a new report.

Read more on E360 →

Dark clouds are gathering over adaptation finance. The US has all but stopped providing it and European countries are slashing their aid budgets to spend more on their militaries. Much of what is flowing comes in the form of loans and doesn’t reach the most vulnerable, as we’ve reported.

Over the years, one bright spark has been the Adaptation Fund and its grants to developing countries for pioneering work in communities. It has allocated $1.6 billion to 226 projects, benefiting 90 million people, its website says. And, while rich nations are failing to give the fund all the money it needs to finance its growing pipeline, new revenues are supposed to come in from the Paris Agreement’s new carbon market, known as Article 6.4.

Back at COP26 in Glasgow, governments agreed that the Adaptation Fund should get 5% of the proceeds from all Article 6.4 carbon credits – other than those based in small islands and least developed countries.

How much money that will amount to is uncertain. It depends on how many projects there are and the price of their credits. 

The fund got over $200 million from a similar share of proceeds under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), although the price of those credits collapsed. 

While $200 million was a disappointment as ten times that was expected, the Adaptation Fund head Mikko Ollikainen told Climate Home News in Bonn that the sum was “not insignificant”. By comparison, the fund has been seeking $300 million per year from donor governments in recent years.

Hopes are that the CDM’s successor will yield bigger sums for adaptation. But for the fund to get its hands on the share of cash it is expecting from Article 6.4 projects , governments need to agree to transition the fund to “exclusively” serve the Paris Agreement. They are hoping to wrap up those talks in Bonn this week, so that they can rubber-stamp the decision early at COP31.

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It has not been plain-sailing. As small islands’ lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen told a press conference on Tuesday, this transition “is being blocked, frustrating efforts to replenish the fund and ensure that the crucial adaptation finance can flow to those that need it the most”.

This issue, along with other finance complaints, leads small islands “to question whether the implementation of the NCQG [the 2035 finance goal agreed at COP29] is dead on arrival”, she added.

The problem is related to who is considered a developed country at UN climate talks, with the responsibilities for providing climate finance that designation implies.

Traditional donor countries, which have been pushing for years for some wealthier developing countries like Saudi Arabia and China to contribute to climate finance as well, want the Adaptation Fund’s board seats to be split between “developed” and “developing” countries. 

They argue that these are the categories referred to in the Paris Agreement and so are appropriate for a fund that exclusively serves that accord.

Developing countries – which have long opposed any of their members being considered developed – argue that the board seats should continue to be split between “Annex 1” and “non-Annex 1” countries. 

These categories, based on lists of nations drawn up in 1992, are more rigid than “developed” and “developing”. While development status can change over time, you’re either on the Annex 1 list or you’re not.

Ollikainen said a delay in agreement beyond COP31 – a risk if the issue is not resolved here in Bonn – would harm people in the real world where adaptation needs are rising sharply while the money to protect them from worsening climate impacts is not.

“If we don’t address adaptation,” the fund’s head told Climate Home News, “that will lead to loss and damage and that’s going to be even more costlier than adaptation – and the cost will be borne by people who have done least to cause this problem who typically don’t have social safety networks to support them.”

The post Bonn Bulletin: Adaptation Fund stalemate puts people at risk, says head appeared first on Climate Home News.

Dr. Stacy Jupiter is the Executive Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Marine Program. Melissa Wright is Bloomberg Ocean Initiative Lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies. 

For years, the dominant story on coral reefs has been one of inevitable loss, with news headlines focusing on mass bleaching, ecosystem collapse, and catastrophic tipping points. As ocean temperatures continue to rise, many people have come to see the decline of the world’s reefs as unavoidable. 

The threats are real and urgent, but new evidence points to a more complicated and useful conclusion: some reefs still have a meaningful chance to survive and recover, provided they are protected. 

A major new analysis, published today with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, identifies more than 165,000 square kilometers of coral reefs, across 71 countries and 100 territories and jurisdictions, with the strongest potential to withstand and recover from climate impacts. 

Drawing on more than 45,000 coral surveys, along with decades of climate and ocean data, the research finds that three times more reefs may be capable of surviving the climate crisis than previously understood. That has major implications for reef-dependent communities, food security, coastal protection, fisheries, tourism, and national economies. 

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Essential natural infrastructure for communities

The findings make clear that reefs will not all respond to climate impacts in the same way. Some are located in rare underwater cool spots that can help shield them from extreme heat. Some show greater resistance to bleaching and other climate-related stress. Others recover more quickly after severe disturbances. These differences matter because they show where protection can have the greatest long-term impact. 

More than 500 million people depend on reefs for food, livelihoods, and coastal protection. For those communities, climate-resilient reefs are not an abstract conservation priority. They are essential natural infrastructure. They help protect coastlines, sustain fisheries, support local economies, and reduce climate risk. Because ocean currents move coral larvae and marine life between reef systems, some of these reefs may also help regenerate wider reef ecosystems after climate shocks. 

This should change how governments, funders, and conservation partners prioritize action. 

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Climate change remains the greatest long-term threat to coral reefs. At the same time, many of the pressures pushing reefs closer to collapse are immediate and local. Sewage pollution, deforestation, agricultural runoff, destructive fishing practices, and poorly managed coastal development continue to damage reefs that are already under stress. Recent research shows that water pollution and fishing pressure are now among the leading local threats affecting nearly two-thirds of the world’s coral reefs. 

These pressures can be reduced. Governments and local partners are already working to improve reef management, cut pollution, strengthen enforcement, and protect critical ecosystems. Those efforts need to move faster, alongside much stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Prioritising climate-resilient reefs

The new maps of climate-resilient reefs give governments, communities, and reef managers a clearer basis for action. They show where reefs have the strongest potential to persist over time, and where protection can deliver the greatest benefits for people, coastlines, and economies. 

Right now, only around 28 percent of the identified climate-resilient reefs fall within protected or conserved areas. If these reefs are among the most capable of surviving climate impacts and helping regenerate broader reef systems, they should be prioritized for protection, management, and investment. 

The case for action is practical as well as ecological. Healthy reefs can reduce wave energy by up to 97 percent, helping protect coastlines from storms, flooding, and erosion. They support fisheries that feed millions of people, sustain tourism jobs and local economies, and help reduce climate risk for vulnerable coastal communities. 

For many families, a healthy reef means food, income, and protection when storms hit. For Indigenous Peoples and coastal communities, reefs are also tied to culture, heritage, identity, and traditional knowledge systems. 

Ocean conservation must catch up

Governments are beginning to recognize the urgency of protecting climate-resilient reefs. At last year’s UN Ocean Conference in Nice, 11 countries signed a declaration committing to stronger protection of these reefs, including action to address destructive fishing, pollution, and unsustainable coastal development.

As leaders meet in Kenya this week to discuss the challenges facing the world’s ocean, more governments should join the declaration and help build a broader coalition committed to safeguarding these critical ecosystems. 

As coral reefs pass tipping point, ocean protection rises up political agenda

Some countries are already showing what this leadership can look like. Brazil has included corals in its national climate plans. The Bahamas is embedding reef protection into national policy and local stewardship systems. The declaration offers a way to build on these efforts and scale them globally. 

But commitments will not be enough. Success will depend on implementation. That means stronger protection and management, reduced local pressures, increased investment, and meaningful support for the Indigenous Peoples and local communities stewarding these ecosystems. 

The science is clear. Many reefs still have the capacity to persist and recover. The question is whether policy and investment will move quickly enough to protect them, so they can continue sustaining communities, economies, and coastlines for generations to come. 

The post Coral reefs are not doomed – but policy must catch up with the science  appeared first on Climate Home News.

The oceanic phenomenon known as El Niño, which increases temperatures worldwide, has officially begun, according to U.S. weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. 

Meteorologists have warned that this could be the strongest El Niño this century. It is expected to drive extreme weather events around the world, including both severe droughts and heavy rainfall, likely leading to major disruptions in agricultural production and food security. 

El Niño is part of a cyclical, naturally-occurring weather pattern that redistributes warm air, surface water temperatures, and moisture across the tropical Pacific Ocean. During El Niño, trade winds that typically blow east-to-west from the Americas to southeast Asia slow down or sometimes reverse. Normally, these winds push warm water along the Equator — but during El Niño conditions, that warm water shifts back east. Although El Niño does not follow a specific timeline, it typically occurs every two to seven years. 

Beginning in the summer, El Niño typically peaks around December or the following January. (The pattern was named El Niño — Spanish for little boy — by fishermen in South America who noticed warmer waters around Christmas time, and associated it with the birth of Jesus Christ.) That means the most significant impacts of the cyclical weather phenomenon may not be felt until months from now. NOAA’s most recent calculations show a high likelihood of a “very strong” El Niño, meaning average surface temperatures in the Pacific jump by more than 2 degrees Celsius. (Some experts are calling this year’s a “super” El Niño, although some agencies, like the World Meteorological Organization, reject this language.)  

Because it impacts a “diverse set of geographies,” said Weston Anderson, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland, so “there is no one set of impacts.” El Niño can contribute to severe droughts in one part of the world and heavy rainfall in others — both of which can disrupt growing seasons in key breadbaskets of the world. 

But the ways in which this year’s El Niño will interact the effects of global warming — and what that means for food security — is something scientists are still actively observing and untangling. 

The typical impacts of El Niño to the continental U.S. and Canada during Northern Hemisphere winter. NOAA

“That question is still really important open science,” said Jennifer Burney, a professor at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability whose work focuses on climate and food security. 

History can give us some examples. In 1877, one of the strongest El Niños ever recorded was associated with historic droughts across Asia, as well as in parts of Brazil and northern Africa. These droughts, “along with colonial policies contributed to famines in many regions which were really devastating,” said Deepti Singh, an associate professor at Washington State University who co-authored a study on this period of global famine. 

The fatalities associated with these famines, upwards of 50 million people, said Singh, “are humbling to think about.”

The last El Niño occurred in 2023 and 2024. It was one of the five strongest El Niños ever recorded, according to the World Meteorological Organization, or WMO, and is considered to have contributed to the historic temperatures in 2024, making it the hottest year on record. 

That year came with devastating consequences for growers, especially in arid regions where agricultural producers primarily rely on rainfall to irrigate their crops. Droughts driven by El Niño across southern Africa contributed to increased food insecurity and malnutrition in several countries. 

Burney noted that in some vulnerable regions, local governments may have adaptive strategies in place to grow key crops earlier in the growing season or to increase imports during El Niño years, which can help offset food insecurity. But even in those cases, local farmers who depend on growing and selling crops to support themselves and their families may still experience economic setbacks. In other words, certain policies may ensure there’s “enough food,” but “that’s not going to take care of the people whose livelihoods depend on” agriculture, Burney said. 

This year, El Niño conditions are expected to impact a number of growing areas — another setback for agricultural producers who have faced higher input costs stemming from the Iran War. Although the United States and Iran are potentially set to unveil an agreement to reopen the all-important Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil flows, farmers worldwide have already been impacted by fertilizer shortages and price hikes since the passage closed this spring. 

Weather variability fueled by El Niño will add to growers’ woes. India, where the majority of the world’s rice comes from, is projected to have a weaker monsoon season, which could reduce yields. Drier, hotter conditions could lead to diminished maize production in southern Africa. The southern U.S. states, from California all the way to the eastern seaboard, will experience a wetter year than normal, which could lead to flooding and upend crop production. 

But the exact way that this El Niño will unfurl is yet unknown. As El Niño interacts with the additional warming and moisture currently in our atmosphere caused by climate change, “there is likely to be a change in which regions are likely to be affected” by extreme weather, said Singh. Still, she added, we can expect “the severity, extent, and likelihood” of extreme weather events like droughts “to be higher” in today’s warmer climate.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The ‘super El Niño’ is here. What happens next could upend food systems worldwide. on Jun 16, 2026.

Ende Gelände's new beginning Channel News brendan 16th June 2026 Teaser Media

Civil society groups have called for an investigation into the first carbon credits approved under a new UN mechanism, alleging the project is linked to Myanmar’s military junta – which the UN says is guilty of human rights abuses – and has “massively” overstated its climate impact. 

The programme, which aims to cut emissions by distributing efficient cookstoves across Myanmar, received approval to issue around 650,000 carbon credits from the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body in February, in a landmark moment for the Paris Agreement’s carbon market. Only two projects have been given the green light by the mechanism’s regulator so far.

But two reports published last week, led by the Global Forest Coalition and Brussels-based NGO Carbon Market Watch, raised serious concerns about the project’s implementation in conflict zones where civilians have faced airstrikes and mass displacement as well as its emission-reduction calculations.

Project continued after military coup

Myanmar has been ravaged by a brutal civil war since the country’s military overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup d’état in February 2021. The military regime has attacked civilian populations, persecuted ethnic minorities and committed widespread sexual violence, among other serious human rights violations, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar said in April.

The cookstove programme started in 2018 under the previous UN-run carbon offsetting scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – as a partnership between Myanmar’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) and the Climate Change Center (CCC), a South Korean NGO, with investment from private South Korean firms.

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The project continued operating after the coup. For most of the period between 2021 and 2022 in which the issued credits were generated, MONREC was led by Colonel Khin Maung Yi, who was sanctioned by the European Union in 2021 for supporting the military regime, the Global Forest Coalition report said.

CCC acknowledged engaging with government authorities after the coup but said this “should not be interpreted as political endorsement” of the junta. The South Korean NGO added that abandoning the programme when political circumstances changed “would not necessarily have been the most responsible outcome for the households involved”.

Conflict prevents on the ground verification

The Global Forest Coalition report raised particular concerns about the project’s implementation in Myanmar’s central Dry Zone, including Sagaing Region, an anti-junta resistance stronghold that has been most heavily affected by the conflict and routinely targeted by airstrikes and violent attacks. The region accounts for more than a third of Myanmar’s 3.8 million internally displaced people.

The NGOs said that, in addition to ethical concerns about carbon credits being produced by the military government in an area actively affected by its attacks, this raises questions over the ability to effectively verify the climate integrity of the projects.

TAK, THAILAND – JANUARY 01: Internally displaced people (IDP) from Myanmar carrying bags of donated supplies from Thailand while crossing the Moei river as seen from behind a fence with razor wire on the river bank in Mae Sot, a district at the Thai-Myanmar border on new year on January 1, 2022 in Tak, Thailand. (Photo by Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images) TAK, THAILAND – JANUARY 01: Internally displaced people (IDP) from Myanmar carrying bags of donated supplies from Thailand while crossing the Moei river as seen from behind a fence with razor wire on the river bank in Mae Sot, a district at the Thai-Myanmar border on new year on January 1, 2022 in Tak, Thailand. (Photo by Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images)

Before carbon credits are issued, external auditors need to validate the claims made by project developers and confirm that the emission reductions claimed are correct. This process usually includes site visits to a representative sample of households to check how the improved cookstoves are being used. 

But, because of the “volatile political situation” in Myanmar, the auditing team was not able to leave the capital Yangon and could only speak to project participants remotely via Zoom, project documents show. 

“Due to ongoing armed conflict on the ground, the data currently used to justify carbon credit issuance in Sagaing by the Burmese military junta is unverifiable and highly likely fraudulent,” said Zaw Tuseng, founder and president of the Myanmar Policy Institute, which contributed to the report, in a written statement. “This demands an immediate suspension of credit transfers until a neutral, conflict-sensitive audit can be conducted.”

“Exceptional circumstances”

CCC told Climate Home News that, although it recognises that on-site verification is “generally preferable, particularly in complex operating environments”, the decision to opt for remote controls was not taken “as a discretionary shortcut, but as an approved alternative under exceptional circumstances”.

The South Korean NGO added that it reviewed the feasibility of the project at community level “on an ongoing basis” and it “did not identify conflict-related incidents that directly affected project implementation activities in participating communities during the monitoring period”.

A spokesperson for the UN climate change body told Climate Home News that, when site access is not possible, the UN carbon credit mechanism allows for “alternative verification approaches while still maintaining conservative assumptions and environmental integrity safeguards”. “These provisions ensure that crediting can only proceed where evidence is reliable,” they added. 

Contested methodology

Carbon markets are seen as an important channel to raise money to help low-income communities in developing countries switch to less polluting cooking methods, both reducing CO2 emissions and improving air quality. But several cookstove offsetting projects have faced criticism from researchers and campaigners who argue that climate benefits are often exaggerated and weak monitoring can undermine claims of real emission reductions.

The project in Myanmar uses a contested methodology developed under the earlier Kyoto Protocol that was rejected last year by The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a watchdog that issues quality labels to carbon credit types, because it found it “insufficiently rigorous”.

EU carbon credits could supercharge world’s clean cooking push, France says

After transitioning from the CDM to the new mechanism, the project was required to apply “more conservative” assumptions to calculate emission reductions, which resulted in 40% fewer credits being issued, according to the UN climate change body.

“The result is consistent with environmental integrity requirements and ensures that each credited tonne genuinely represents a tonne reduced and contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which oversees the mechanism, said in February. 

Too many credits issued

But Carbon Market Watch claimed in a second report last week that, despite the adjustment, the project is still likely to issue seven times more credits than its real climate impact justifies, comparing its calculations with values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.

The biggest driver of the credit inflation, the group said, is the failure to account for “stacking” – the widespread practice of households using multiple stoves at the same time, including more polluting ones the project does not monitor. 

Peer-reviewed science considers a stacking rate of 68% a conservative assumption, but the methodology used by the Myanmar programme makes no allowance for it at all, the report said. 

CCC disputed those findings. In a written response to Climate Home News, it said the project was developed under methodologies approved within the UN climate framework and that external recalculations by researchers are not “determinative of the level of crediting achieved”.

The credits are expected to be used primarily by major South Korean polluters to meet obligations under the country’s emissions trading system – a move that will also enable the government to count those units toward emissions reduction targets in its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the UN climate body told Climate Home News.

Myanmar will use the remaining credits to achieve in part the goals of its own national climate plan under the Paris Agreement.

“Over-crediting, at any magnitude, cannot be compatible with the climate ambition of a world striving to limit global warming to 1.5ºC,” said Isa Mulder, an expert at Carbon Market Watch.

The post UN’s first Paris Agreement carbon credits face human rights and climate concerns appeared first on Climate Home News.

The headlines are inescapable: In Washington D.C., generations-long environmental rules are currently under assault. Industry-friendly officials and lawmakers seem intent on enriching multibillion dollar corporations while lowering life expectancies for thousands of Americans.

These efforts are as concerning as they are morally reprehensible. Thankfully, some of the impact is limited. States are in charge of developing and implementing their own rules intended to limit harmful emissions from polluting industries. 

In Colorado, this important responsibility falls on the Air Pollution Control Division (APCD). The staff at APCD:

• Grant and enforce permits for polluting facilities
• Monitor and model various air pollutants
• Craft policy and programs intended to reduce emissions of those pollutants
• And respond to public concerns about air quality issues. 

Due to the successful advocacy of Colorado communities fighting for changes to policy and legislation, APCD staff have also taken on additional responsibilities in recent years. The APCD must now provide expanded regulatory oversight of dangerous air toxics like benzene. They must advance environmental justice when developing and when enforcing air quality rules. And they must respond to community air quality complaints rapidly and with thorough, on-the-ground inspections.

All of this work is essential. It is also costly, in part because much of it remains unfinished. For instance, we recently highlighted significant improvements in responsiveness from APCD enforcement staff when we share evidence of harmful oil and gas pollution with the agency. Maintaining and building on these improvements requires sustained investment in staff capacity and resources for years to come. 

(Top) Gas plant in Weld County. (Bottom) Optical gas imaging (OGI) video showing significant hydrocarbon emissions including methane and other harmful volatile organic compounds from permitted venting from the facility’s compressors.

Fortunately, the state of Colorado is making these investments. In late May, the Air Quality Control Commission in Colorado unanimously approved a fee increase on polluters that will generate an additional $13.5 million to help fund the APCD. 

This means that polluters are footing the bill for advancing environmental justice and regulating air toxics, not Coloradans.

Colorado’s fee increase follows a historic fee increase in New Mexico. Regulators in New Mexico can now invest in new staff and resources to hold oil and gas companies accountable for their pollution. 

The federal government is stepping back from a commitment to protecting communities and the environment from polluting industries. States like Colorado and New Mexico have an even greater responsibility to demonstrate leadership and take action. Ensuring that regulatory agencies have the resources to enforce air quality rules is essential for this important work.

The post In Colorado, Polluting Just Got More Expensive appeared first on Earthworks.

By the time Mexican turtles and tortoises arrive in Chris Rodriguez’s rehabilitation center in Southern California, most of them are in desperate shape.

“As with most illegally smuggled animals, they arrive dehydrated and often malnourished,” says Rodriguez. He’s the cofounder of Carapace Conservation, a rescue and rehabilitation organization specializing in trafficked turtles. “This stems from them being collected over a period of time and held in poor conditions until the poachers have enough animals to send.”

Rodriguez says the most frequently confiscated species trafficked through the Port of Los Angeles are box turtles and mud turtles. They’re prized by wildlife traffickers precisely because their colorful shells make them attractive to the pet market and their habits make them easy to catch in the wild.

And they’re not alone.

A Smuggling Frenzy

Every day traffickers pack imperiled turtles and tortoises into coolers, load them into personal vehicles, and drive them north through Tijuana and into San Ysidro, California — the busiest land border crossing in the world.

Mexico harbors the second highest turtle diversity in the world, with 48 documented turtle species, according to a peer-reviewed analysis published in the Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad. This biological richness has made the Tijuana–San Diego corridor one of the most active entry points for illegally trafficked reptiles in the country, according to federal wildlife agents.

The Jalisco and Baja California regions sit at the center of this crisis, their extraordinary density of Chelonians (the taxonomic order that covers turtles) drawing organized trafficking networks that operate with the sophistication and impunity of criminal syndicates — because that is exactly what they are.

The scale of the problem came into sharp relief in late September 2025 when Mexican authorities executed coordinated raids across five locations in Jalisco and Baja California, confiscating more than 2,300 wild-caught turtles in a single sweep. What made the raid significant was the intelligence behind it: Multiple agencies worked in coordination across five locations simultaneously, which demonstrated a proactive, intelligence-driven approach that a 2025 study in Frontiers in Conservation Science found remains rare in Mexican wildlife enforcement. Responses to trafficking in Mexico are predominantly reactive, and law enforcement agencies frequently lack clarity on their specific responsibilities.

According to a December 2024 report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare titled Wildlife Crime in Hispanic America: An Analysis of Seizures and Poaching Incidents in 18 Countries (2017–2022), 1,945 seizures and poaching incidents were documented across the region during that period, involving a minimum of 102,577 wild animals. That only counts the animals who were confiscated and documented by authorities, not those who were successfully smuggled or died during transit.

The species disappearing into this pipeline are not generic “turtles.” They are some of the most ecologically irreplaceable reptiles in the Western Hemisphere.

The Mesoamerican slider (Trachemys venusta) is one of the most commonly trafficked species in Mexico and carries special government protection under Mexico’s Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection due to severe overexploitation of wild populations. The Central American river turtle (Dermatemys mawii) sits on the IUCN Red List as critically endangered, facing what researchers describe as widespread, dramatic, and ongoing population declines.

Rodriguez flags two additional species as his priorities right now.

“Our biggest concern out of Mexico is the Vallarta mud turtle,” he says, referring to Kinosternon vogti, a species found in only one waterway in small numbers, which is already appearing in illegal shipments.

At Carapace’s Madagascar program — a reminder that this problem is not exclusive to Mexico — the spider tortoise (Pyxis arachnoides) has emerged as a newer crisis.

“Adults are only around six inches, so they are the perfect size for smugglers,” Rodriguez explains. “Their small size means females only lay one egg at a time. This drastically increases the risk of extinction for this species if poaching trends continue.”

For animals who are seized and reach a facility like Carapace, recovery is possible, but far from guaranteed.

“It all starts with triage and quarantine,” Rodriguez says. “The animal needs to be evaluated immediately for injuries, external parasites, and disease until the vets are able to run tests. The animals stay in a quarantine area to prevent the spread of disease to healthy animals in our program.” Recovery timelines vary widely depending on each animal’s condition at arrival.

Reintroduction to the wild remains the end goal, Rodriguez notes, but comes with its own complex hurdles: international cooperation, safe monitored release sites, and protections to prevent trafficked animals from being collected again once returned.

Turtles in Crisis

The picture for turtles and tortoises is grim across the board.

“Populations across the globe are declining,” Rodriguez says, “with countries like Mexico and Madagascar being primary targets for smuggling due to a lack of funding for wildlife protection.”

When breeding adults — animals who may not reach reproductive maturity for 15 to 20 years — are stripped out of already-stressed wild populations, the damage doesn’t show up immediately. It shows up a decade later, when the next generation fails to appear and field surveys come back empty.

Scott Tregassar, executive director of The Biodiversity Group, a conservation nonprofit working across the American Southwest and Mexico, says the population-level consequences can be both immediate and catastrophic.

“In some cases it can be severe and apparent immediately, since someone, or a group of people, can collect enough mature individuals to disrupt the population dynamics overnight,” he says.

What makes tortoises particularly vulnerable, Tregassar explains, goes beyond simple numbers.

“Tortoises are fairly social creatures, and they suffer when their social group is disrupted. They know who their offspring are and they have a map of where all their neighbors, potential mates, and rivals live. In many cases, if even a single reproductive female is removed from a population, that could significantly reduce the population’s chances of long-term survival.”

Exploiting an Enforcement Gap

Traffickers don’t need drama; they need volume and consistency.

According to Kim Lovich, curator of herpetology at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, animals move north from collection points across Baja and central Mexico. They’re then consolidated by regional distributors before crossing through San Ysidro in coolers, hidden compartments, and personal vehicles. A single seizure can carry 50 or more tortoises with a street value approaching $55,000.

From San Diego the pipeline extends further still. The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance identifies LAX as the most-used port for shipping reptiles out of the U.S., bound primarily for China and Vietnam, where rare reptiles command premium prices as status pets.

In many ways turtles and other animals are just add-ons to make trafficking other illegal goods even more profitable. Mexico serves as the primary hub for a multinational criminal pipeline — sourcing wildlife from across the Caribbean, Central and South America — with transnational criminal organizations using logistics infrastructure built for drug, human, and arms smuggling to move exotic animals as a low-risk, high-margin side operation, according to a 2017 policy analysis by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. And as Brookings Institution researcher Vanda Felbab-Brown has documented, cartels have also leveraged wildlife operations by supplying Chinese traders with animal products in exchange for the chemical precursors. These are then used to manufacture fentanyl and methamphetamine, making the turtle trade not just an ecological crisis, but a threat in a much larger and more dangerous web.

As The Revelator has previously reported, ports of entry remain chronically understaffed for wildlife inspection, and traffickers are sophisticated enough to know exactly when and where enforcement bandwidth runs thin. That enforcement gap is the story within the story. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fields roughly 250 special agents to cover all wildlife crime across the entire country. Customs and Border Protection, meanwhile, directs every available resource toward fentanyl interdiction, firearms, and the Trump administration’s focus on migration that consumes the political oxygen in every border briefing. Wildlife trafficking doesn’t make the agenda.

The 2,300 turtles seized in Baja California last fall represent a moment of coordination that should be the rule, not the exception. For every animal confiscated, no one can say how many crossed undetected. The border stays open for business until wildlife crime earns the same urgency as every other form of organized crime moving through San Ysidro.

Right now, it doesn’t. And the tortoises are paying the price.

How to Help

Anyone considering buying a turtle or tortoise should ask for captive-bred documentation. Legitimate breeders can provide it. Animals sold without paperwork, at unusually low prices or in bulk, are red flags worth reporting to USFWS at 1-844-397-8477 or through the iWildlife app. Wildlife crime stays low-risk only because consumers don’t ask questions. That’s the one variable any of us can change today.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Green Crime: Inside the Minds of the People Destroying the Planet, and How to Stop Them

The post Smuggled Alive: Turtles and Tortoises Trafficked Across the Mexico-U.S. Border appeared first on The Revelator.

In Albania, a mass protest movement has emerged to challenge a plan, spearheaded by Jared Kushner, to build a sprawling resort along the delta of the last wild river in Europe. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the capital city of Tirana last week, raising signs that said “Albania Is Not for Sale,” with marches continuing over the weekend.

Read more on E360 →

In a packed room last Friday, the COP30 Presidency presented preliminary elements of the work on the global roadmap for the transition away from fossil fuels and some European and small island governments argued the roadmap should be integrated into the formal negotiation process. But besides the global work, how is Brazil’s national roadmap coming along?

“The presidential order [by Lula at COP30] was that the ministries of environment, finance and energy should work together,” Flávia Bellaguarda, extraordinary advisor to Brazil’s environment ministry, told Climate Home News in Bonn. 

“We do have different points of view about what the roadmap means. We have to face our contradictions and bring them to the table because the roadmap is about energy security, economic security, social security,” she said, adding that “we have reached a common place of the guidelines of what must be addressed on the roadmap”.

Those guidelines—that Bellaguarda couldn’t share yet—are now under revision by the Brazilian presidency and then will be analysed by the National Energy Policy Council (CNPE). After those revisions, the three ministries will begin working on the roadmap itself and its governance. That work will include consultations with different stakeholders, including representatives of the energy sector and civil society organisations. 

The Brazilian government still prefers not to give dates for these next steps because “they do not expect it to be something quick,” but rather to respect the steps and time that the process requires.

Roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels are, at least for now, voluntary for each country. “There is no right and wrong on how to do the roadmap. Countries know what is best for each reality,” said Bellaguarda, encouraging countries to advance on their national roadmaps alongside the global one. “It’s not easy to address the issue nationally, but it’s totally necessary.”

The post Bonn Bulletin: Ministry divisions complicate Brazil’s roadmap away from fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.

When investor Phil Tagami first proposed building an export terminal in Oakland, California, more than a decade ago, he probably didn’t anticipate the firestorm of litigation and controversy that would follow, in a saga that has now spanned three presidential administrations. There were early rumors that the terminal would export coal, much to the consternation of local residents, but Tagami said in a newsletter that the naysayers were “misinformed.” It was all downhill from there.

Tagami and others entered into a development agreement with the city of Oakland in 2013 after the city decided to redevelop a defunct army base on the city’s west side. At the time, Tagami was adamant that the developers were interested in building an all-purpose bulk terminal and capturing some of the traffic that Oakland was losing to other West Coast ports. But two years later, Oakland residents and environmental groups had their suspicions confirmed when the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the developers had quietly entered into an agreement to use the terminal to ship coal from Utah to buyers overseas. The revelation sparked intense backlash in the progressive city, and the ensuing conflict has put both the developers and the city on the hook for million-dollar losses at various times, though litigation is ongoing. 

Now, in the latest twist, the U.S. Department of Energy has stepped in to provide up to $75 million for building the terminal. The funding is the latest effort by the Trump administration to prop up the country’s coal industry — the Energy Department’s announcement last week also included over $400 million in support for coal-fired power plants — even as the fossil fuel’s role in generating U.S. electricity continues to collapse. Over the last year, the administration has loosened regulations that apply to the country’s coal fleet, ordered aging plants scheduled for retirement to keep running, and shifted the responsibility of overseeing coal contamination to states. 

The administration also argues that homegrown coal is still valuable abroad.

“For too long, limited West Coast export capacity has constrained America’s ability to move coal and other energy resources to global markets,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright in a press release announcing the funding. Investing in the terminal would help in “advancing American energy dominance,” he added. 

Critics counter that the federal funding is the latest attempt to prop up a dying industry.

Ben Eichenberg, an attorney with the San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental group in the Bay Area, said that terminal construction “really hasn’t gone anywhere because there’s no money to build” the facility. “The Trump administration stepping in and saying they’re going to supply that money gives it a new lifeline,” he said. “This terminal project was drowning, and they’ve just been thrown the life preserver.”

The Energy Department’s Hail Mary is unlikely to end the embattled terminal’s long saga. After Oakland officials learned a decade ago that the developers intended to transport coal through the terminal, they held public hearings and eventually passed an ordinance and adopted a resolution that barred the storage of coal anywhere in the city. That set the stage for the first round of lawsuits against the city.

Oakland’s development agreement stated that it would provide regulatory certainty for the terminal backers by locking in the regulations that existed at the time. In other words, the city wasn’t allowed to change the rules about what the terminal could be used for after development started. The developers sued Oakland on these grounds, claiming that the city had violated the terms of the agreement by passing the new anti-coal-storage ordinance, thereby affecting the developers’ ability to proceed with their project. 

The agreement did, however, make an important exception. New rules can be applied to the terminal if the city determines that the absence of those rules would put the people of Oakland in “substantial danger.” The city had held public hearings and collected evidence of the threat posed by coal dust, but the developers argued that the record was insufficient — and ultimately the judge overseeing the case agreed. He found that “the record is riddled with inaccuracies, major evidentiary gaps, erroneous assumptions, and faulty analyses, to the point that no reliable conclusion about health or safety dangers could be drawn from it.”

Crucially, the judge did not claim that the transport of coal through Oakland does not pose a threat to residents, or that the city didn’t have the right to pass an ordinance banning coal. A higher court also agreed with that decision and affirmed the ruling. 

“The fight was not about whether coal is safe or dangerous, but it was about the terms of the development agreement,” said Colin O’Brien, an attorney with Earthjustice, the nonprofit that represented the San Francisco Baykeeper and the Sierra Club as an intervenor in the proceedings. 

After suffering a loss in the courts, the city tried a different tack. The developers had signed a lease with the city, which required them to meet certain construction milestones. Because of the years spent litigating the terms of the development agreement, the developers hadn’t begun construction. Oakland officials cancelled the lease on these new grounds, dragging the city into its next round of legal battles. The developers sued in state court in 2018, arguing that the city’s own decisions had prevented them from meeting the construction deadlines. The court once again sided with the developers, as did a higher court on appeal last year.

By then, Insight Terminal Solutions, the company that was slated to operate the terminal, had filed for bankruptcy in Kentucky and decided to pursue claims against the city. During the bankruptcy proceedings last year, the company claimed that the protracted legal battles with Oakland were to blame for its financial woes — and that it was owed more than $650 million in damages. A sympathetic bankruptcy court judge agreed with the firm’s rationale, but on appeal in a federal district court, the ruling was vacated late last year, much to the historically cash-strapped city’s relief. 

Despite the influx of federal support for the terminal, the project’s backers still have a long road ahead. The terminal needs to secure a range of permits, including air quality permits from the Bay Area Air Quality District, and local advocates have already mounted a campaign to require stringent regulations for the facility. (Tagami and another representative of California Capital & Investment Group, the lead developer of the project, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

For their part, environmental groups are keeping a close eye on the permitting process.

“We’re going to do everything in our power to protect the community in San Francisco Bay from the pollution that this coal terminal represents,” said Eichenberg. “We’ll be evaluating all of those permits and any additional action that we can take to protect the community and fulfill our mission.”

Editor’s note: Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Even $75M from Trump may not save Oakland’s embattled coal terminal on Jun 15, 2026.