WWF Report

JohnC6

JohnC6

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A rather grim report by the World Wildlife Fund especially re freshwater ecosystems..our rivers and streams(worldwide) where there is the strongest decline at -85% .That is something that didn't need to happen. When Trump was President he overturned Obama's ban on toxic waste from coal-fired power plants being dumped into rivers. I have a lot of reasons why I don't want to see him win the upcoming election and this one is up there at the top end of my list.

WWF report:
wwf.panda.org

Catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of wildlife populations in just 50 years reveals a

Report reveals a ‘system in peril’ as the world approaches dangerous, irreversible tipping points driven by nature loss and climate change.
wwf.panda.org wwf.panda.org

Toxic waste.
wwf.panda.org

Catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of wildlife populations in just 50 years reveals a

Report reveals a ‘system in peril’ as the world approaches dangerous, irreversible tipping points driven by nature loss and climate change.
wwf.panda.org wwf.panda.org

and this one too...
www.theguardian.com

New Trump public land rules will let Alaska hunters kill bear cubs in dens

The ‘amazingly cruel’ move by the National Park Service reverses Obama-era regulations which also affect wolves and coyotes
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

However Biden hasn't repealed those laws. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/07/hunting-rules-biden-administration-trump

The article states that the reasons are unknown. My guess is the November election.Alaska has been Republican since 1964. It would be a great win for Harris ..so tough on wildlife, it seems.
 
50 years John..................... within my life we have lost so much it's heartbreaking.and us older folks that scrubbled about as kids with mum nature........... had that bug early on......... know how different just our little known patch is now. I'm not worldly wise John but if my little known places are so different what is the world like?

Buddy we recently watched a series with Zac Effron and Darin Olien.tis called "down to earth " Lol I don't really know who either are.............buddy watch what the French folks do with water in Paris........we could do that.we won't cause we need to swell the coppers of rich folks we have sold the life blood of us to others . Is our gov man enough to change that, FFS it's our water it isn't a comodity to make money of i is most of what we aret

John at times that series was a bit "hhmmmm I'm not sure it's a bit american for a simple stu.but there is a resonance in if we all did a bit, to help mum natures then maybe we could make things a gnats better.

But and this is a biggun John........................ BUT........................ you have posted this on a talk about nature fora mate and a few days in my first visit back I'm your first reply a few days gone by and yet no one apart from Pete wants to muse this if only by sharing his sadness....you posted to partisan folks ........................the silence is deafening

Therin is mum nature's problem mate, a catastrophe is happening it's right there slapping us around the head and one either feels powerless to do much simply can't see it or is burying heads in sand even folks whom wanna make piccies of natures choccy box don't really want to debate this cold hard reality

I dunno how we change this bud I just don't know ............this isn't about hunting bear cubs ( sure it's about money and power but how do we get to folks with money and power whom will never go hungry

it's a whole other scale of awaremess of how we need to meld into mum nature's way of doing things........these little things matter , but they aren't the big picture :(



the folks in the amazon call us little brother.they live as part of their ecosystem,they know how we affect them the damage we do to them...yet they call us their brother...I guess that's profound if one stops and thinks long enough
 
Very profound,Stu. It can be a strange place on here,at times with regards to what gets a response and what doesn't. I do recall the badger question..the most recent one re culling and Brian May's input and one a long time ago had good responses as have a couple more issues so not all doom and gloom.

Anyway.. in keeping with the post here's some more doom and gloom. The Amazon forest is now emitting more CO2 than it's absorbing. I heard a conversation about it on the radio last week.It affects the world so there should be an international response.It cannot be left to the whim of whoever is president of Brazil. Bolsanaro, who was president until Lula da a Silva replaced him in January last year, allowed a wild west situation to develop and turned a blind eye to illegal logging until he made it legal. No doubt for kick-backs. He also did nothing about the displacement and often murder of the indigenous peoples whose land the illegal loggers wanted. There's also the illegal gold-panning using arsenic.

This is dated September 17th. Last month by Amazon watch.

amazonwatch.org

From Crisis to Catastrophe: The Man-Made Inferno Devouring the Amazon | Amazon Watch

One commonality between Brazil and neighboring countries suffering from a scourge of drought and fires is a propensity to treat the symptom and not the illness.
amazonwatch.org amazonwatch.org
 
It is so sad what’s happening, I’m of a similar age that I remember the meadows at the bottom of our council estate in Basingstoke when I was little were full of butterflies, it’s all gone now all bowling alleys and that sort of thing :(
I also read what is happening to the Amazon rainforest it’s heartbreaking
Makes me cross as well Stu what’s happening to the rivers , we went on a holiday to Switzerland, the village we stayed at you can literally drink the river water if you wanted to, Even in Bern a large city the water is completely clean people go for a swim and a paddle in their lunchtime
am lucky that we live in North wales now and the river is still cleaner than some, I spend my days in the spring and summer watching the insects along the river
Even here though in North wales developers are taking away our wild places a few years ago one of the last sites for the Grizzled Skipper butterfly was destroyed to build a prison, there were suitable places nearby but the developers were allowed to build right on the habitat
 
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About 30 years ago, we broke down and the AA man was from Exeter. When he told me where he used to live, I said (words to the effect of) "Well, the fields behind your house are now where we live!"

As with all too many of the World's problems, it's down to there being too many of us wanting too much and taking it.
 
Another way of looking at this is that everything changes, species come and go and the world trundles on.

The most successful species on the planet is some single celled organism that keeps on reproducing and has done so for at least a billion years. All the more complex species come and go but that single celled survivor will ignore us mutants and probably feed on our remains, as another mutation comes to temporary prominence.

Truthfully, c'est la vie...
 
My wife works in the water industry, and so I have something of an 'inside view' of how parts of it work in the UK.

Much of the current issues are historical in nature - when the Water industry was privatised it was due to the government realising it needed big investment, and the money wasn't there for it.
Privatisation, with the promise of bringing in external investment based on a reliable, fixed return, was seen as the answer.
The regulation fixes bills in 5 year blocks - the companies plan what they want to do over the 5 years, cost it out, and the regulator then approves the plan and customer bills for that period.
Included in the plans are a bunch of targets (EG Leakage levels, river quality, etc), with penalties for failure to meet those targets.
The issue we have now is that in the past (10-15 years ago and more) the regulation allowed some investment blocks to take over some companies and under invest, take excessive dividends, asset strip, etc. then sell up and move on.
The regulation then became stronger and stopped a lot of this - as well as requiring longer term planning (the current set of plans looks at needs projected 50 years in the future to determine the way water resources need to be developed - things like new reservoirs take a long time from conception to completion), but at the same time public opinion (fuelled by the media) demanded something be done about the issues that were starting to become obvious - so 5 years ago, despite all the projections saying more investment was desperately needed, and all the public consultation showing people would accept a small (£5-£10 per year) increase in bills to help fund this, the Government stepped in and insisted bills fall (before inflation).
So we didn't get a lot of the investment 5 years ago - we did get bits of it, so the plan to deal with sewage overflows into rivers, for example, had 2 main parts - firstly to hugely expand the monitoring, and secondly to start to resolve the core problems in the worst know places.
We just got the increased monitoring - so, surprise, surprise, it now seem much worse because the full set of data is available. It's also 5 years later, so it's more expensive to fix.
The Water Companies aren't perfect - and there is a fair share of the blame to be laid on them for their actions in the past, but the failure to properly regulate in the past, compounded by Government 'meddling' to appear to be doing something has made the situation worse.
Note: The Government actually quite likes it when the water companies miss targets and are fined - as any fines go to the Government... (though the regulator also has the option of demanding a bill rebate, which also happens).
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Another way of looking at this is that everything changes, species come and go and the world trundles on.

The most successful species on the planet is some single celled organism that keeps on reproducing and has done so for at least a billion years. All the more complex species come and go but that single celled survivor will ignore us mutants and probably feed on our remains, as another mutation comes to temporary prominence.

Truthfully, c'est la vie...
Click to expand...
My bold: But the problem is not the natural rise and fall of species.

Apart from isolated occurrences no one species has wiped out another the way humans have. Cats have caused a lot of wildlife destruction ..all over the world but we are behind that, too.Eg cats escaping from ships in bygone days and devastating island wildlife..especially birds.

From this article below.
Recent studies estimate about eight million species on Earth, of which at least 15,000 are threatened with extinction. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact extinction rate because many endangered species have not been identified or studied yet. A number of scientists grapple with improving methods for estimating extinction rates.Judging from the fossil record, the baseline extinction rate is about one species per every one million species per year

naturalhistory.si.edu

Extinction Over Time

Learn about the 5 mass extinctions, and see a list of some extinct species. Explore how we can prevent extinctions, or possibly reverse them.
naturalhistory.si.edu naturalhistory.si.edu

We've destroyed forests and damed rivers. Anthropological climate change is now doing its worst..some would say..not yet its worst and I tend to agree.

Also in that article is a list of natural extinctions.
 
JohnC6 said:
Apart from isolated occurrences no one species has wiped out another the way humans have.
Click to expand...
They most certainly have.

When a favourable mutation takes hold, that species often becomes deadly to one or more other species, which were themselves successful previously. This is why species disappear, to be replaced by species which are, in that place at that time, more suited to survive. Old Charlie Darwin published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" (the text is even more long winded than the title) in 1859 and it's been the accepted theory ever since, despite a spirited rear guard action by the Lamarckists.
 
JohnC6 said:
Also in that article is a list of natural extinctions.
Click to expand...
Extinctions caused by humans are, by definition, "natural" extinctions. We're just another biological species, despite anything you may have heard to the contrary.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Extinctions caused by humans are, by definition, "natural" extinctions. We're just another biological species, despite anything you may have heard to the contrary.
Click to expand...
Andy are you cool with the devastation we are causing. to mum nature? ...............bud you guys are way beyond me intelligence wise education wise.I'm not sure if your playing devil's advocate here?

Yes surely sommit like an amoeba will out do most of all life but do you not worry on a world where our kids grand kids might live, do you not want them to have the amazing species we have now. and not want to be part of their distruction

See probably your correct in your definition of natural extinctions relative to us......... BUT.one might propose that the difference we have is .........

Humanity has the ability to recognise our affect/effect on our surroundings I'm unsure but does any other species have that capacity.so we can alter our behaviours to accomodate other species loss/es

if we want to?????????
 
No species ever has done the damage that we are doing. It is unlikely that we will change our ways, as money and self interest take precedence over humanity and the bioshpere.
 
Stuart Philpott said:
Andy are you cool with the devastation we are causing. to mum nature?
Click to expand...
If people decide to go to hell in their choice of handcart, who am I to tell them not to?

In any case, "nature" itself is quite capable of destroying the environment, as those who lived through the 1880s would no doubt tell you, if they were still around.
​
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
In any case, "nature" itself is quite capable of destroying the environment, as those who lived through the 1880s would no doubt tell you, if they were still around.
​
Click to expand...
so, if the environment was destroyed in the 1880s, what is it that we’ve got now?
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Extinctions caused by humans are, by definition, "natural" extinctions. We're just another biological species, despite anything you may have heard to the contrary.
Click to expand...

In that case, I guess everything is ok and we carry on until we only have Chickens, Cows and Pigs left roaming the fenced in landscape

/s
 
TheTimeChamber said:
In that case, I guess everything is ok and we carry on until we only have Chickens, Cows and Pigs left roaming the fenced in landscape
Click to expand...
That is one possible outcome. Many others are, of course, available.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
That is one possible outcome. Many others are, of course, available.
Click to expand...
Following your logic, as part of nature (!) we should build the outcome that we want/need. Which should obviously maximize biodiversity and conservation for innumerable reasons.
 
Gold said:
Following your logic,
Click to expand...
... I claim no copyright on the subject. I wouldn't be surprised if 8 billion people came to the same conclusion before me.
 
If I wanted to buy an EV I wouldn't buy a Tesla because of Musk and what he represents. Two doors away, either side of my home,they have the Y model and both proudly showed me their vehicles when they first got them and I've been out in both . Of course,diplomacy wins. They are neighbours,after all ..sooo., "Great car..lovely and quiet and quite fast" :)
 
LCPete said:
It is so sad what’s happening, I’m of a similar age that I remember the meadows at the bottom of our council estate in Basingstoke when I was little were full of butterflies, it’s all gone now all bowling alleys and that sort of thing :(
I also read what is happening to the Amazon rainforest it’s heartbreaking
Makes me cross as well Stu what’s happening to the rivers , we went on a holiday to Switzerland, the village we stayed at you can literally drink the river water if you wanted to, Even in Bern a large city the water is completely clean people go for a swim and a paddle in their lunchtime
am lucky that we live in North wales now and the river is still cleaner than some, I spend my days in the spring and summer watching the insects along the river
Even here though in North wales developers are taking away our wild places a few years ago one of the last sites for the Grizzled Skipper butterfly was destroyed to build a prison, there were suitable places nearby but the developers were allowed to build right on the habitat
Click to expand...
Pete a gnat's B of irony.we have a very close to me G S site.at one time folks from a local prison were doing work to help create a better habitat for said skippers.strang how these things go around isn't it. To me shame I don't spend enough time with them Pete.mind I don't spend enough time in the field full stop. I do have this one evening indelibly etched in my head:

it was windy mate my guts took me to where I should be this little sheltered place and I was somehow intoxicated with bumbling into a grizzled skipper roost they were everywhere around me. dude the joy of 'em ahh mate the joy.

Somewhere in these isolated incidents of a fool bumbling around in nature is a magic.... if I, We mate, all of us nature togs, could weave that spell around the masses.that insane feeling of joy.then just maybe the world nature outlook wouldn't be so dire.

But that me olde mate is a monster of an ask.....,,,,,I guess one I'll never be worthy of.......how the hell can I get that evening with a tiny flutterby into an image. the joy mate the emotions I felt.

soz slow in reply bud lot going on, .

~ @JohnC6 hmm me profound.bless ya buddy, sorry slow with comeback, we got a few takers huh and I fiink I got a reply from a guy in politics:LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
Stuart Philpott said:
Pete a gnat's B of irony.we have a very close to me G S site.at one time folks from a local prison were doing work to help create a better habitat for said skippers.strang how these things go around isn't it. To me shame I don't spend enough time with them Pete.mind I don't spend enough time in the field full stop. I do have this one evening indelibly etched in my head:

it was windy mate my guts took me to where I should be this little sheltered place and I was somehow intoxicated with bumbling into a grizzled skipper roost they were everywhere around me. dude the joy of 'em ahh mate the joy.

Somewhere in these isolated incidents of a fool bumbling around in nature is a magic.... if I, We mate, all of us nature togs, could weave that spell around the masses.that insane feeling of joy.then just maybe the world nature outlook wouldn't be so dire.

But that me olde mate is a monster of an ask.....,,,,,I guess one I'll never be worthy of.......how the hell can I get that evening with a tiny flutterby into an image. the joy mate the emotions I felt.

soz slow in reply bud lot going on, .

~ @JohnC6 hmm me profound.bless ya buddy, sorry slow with comeback, we got a few takers huh and I fiink I got a reply from a guy in politics:LOL::LOL::LOL:
Click to expand...

That’s such a nice example prisoner’s helping to restore the habitat, probably was rewarding for them as well
Know what you mean they are special little butterflies, I don’t see them very often now, the local site as I mentioned doesn’t exist anymore and the nearest place is more than an hour away and nowhere near as good for them as my original place
It was what they called a brownfield site but was reclaimed by nature, a special place that you could wander around for ages discovering things
I’m lucky though my local river the Alyn is a special place still clean and full of nature this spring spent ages watching and photographing the Beautiful Demoiselles
I was lucky enough to see a Hare last spring as well along the river Dee that made my day they are rare in our area now they never used to be though
 
I think it's a good thing too bud, but also quite hard for me, forgive me i've deleted my explanation

My house is made from a brick works say 2 fields away Pete I grow much of our food on that same clay kinda organically............ ha there is an art to that

Said brickworks are long gong.but once again tis a brownfield site and that's where those skippies live..seems inadvertantly we can create habitats for some stunning species, or is that just the power of mum nature.?

So many suffer with MH and of late it seems there is an aweness growing of just how good being in nature is for us, I have always judt humbly called it soul food I know I NEED her, to be intoxicated by her,

Your joy with them blue and green fairies is shared bud.

and finally, ha ha, brown hares ( no glee emoji glad you saw one), well, they shouldn't be here...................... but they are.:D....................... and despite my dearth of shared images this year, we still learn and still spend time with 'em.didn't really tag a leveret properly this year Pete, but possibly got the best boxing images so far ............who knows.

I still find it incredible that I can sort of build an edgy bond of trust with our fastest land mammal, utterly built for flight not fight, I figure the enchantment of a brown hare might linger a while mate ;) It's a strange thing building this massive portfolio of one species sharing little just chipping away trying to be better
 
Stuart Philpott said:
Pete a gnat's B of irony.we have a very close to me G S site.at one time folks from a local prison were doing work to help create a better habitat for said skippers.strang how these things go around isn't it. To me shame I don't spend enough time with them Pete.mind I don't spend enough time in the field full stop. I do have this one evening indelibly etched in my head:

it was windy mate my guts took me to where I should be this little sheltered place and I was somehow intoxicated with bumbling into a grizzled skipper roost they were everywhere around me. dude the joy of 'em ahh mate the joy.

Somewhere in these isolated incidents of a fool bumbling around in nature is a magic.... if I, We mate, all of us nature togs, could weave that spell around the masses.that insane feeling of joy.then just maybe the world nature outlook wouldn't be so dire.

But that me olde mate is a monster of an ask.....,,,,,I guess one I'll never be worthy of.......how the hell can I get that evening with a tiny flutterby into an image. the joy mate the emotions I felt.

soz slow in reply bud lot going on, .

~ @JohnC6 hmm me profound.bless ya buddy, sorry slow with comeback, we got a few takers huh and I fiink I got a reply from a guy in politics:LOL::LOL::LOL:
Click to expand...


Amazing to read about how you reached such heights of emotions by seeing grizzled skippers.
 
Stuart Philpott said:
I think it's a good thing too bud, but also quite hard for me, forgive me i've deleted my explanation

My house is made from a brick works say 2 fields away Pete I grow much of our food on that same clay kinda organically............ ha there is an art to that

Said brickworks are long gong.but once again tis a brownfield site and that's where those skippies live..seems inadvertantly we can create habitats for some stunning species, or is that just the power of mum nature.?

So many suffer with MH and of late it seems there is an aweness growing of just how good being in nature is for us, I have always judt humbly called it soul food I know I NEED her, to be intoxicated by her,

Your joy with them blue and green fairies is shared bud.

and finally, ha ha, brown hares ( no glee emoji glad you saw one), well, they shouldn't be here...................... but they are.:D....................... and despite my dearth of shared images this year, we still learn and still spend time with 'em.didn't really tag a leveret properly this year Pete, but possibly got the best boxing images so far ............who knows.

I still find it incredible that I can sort of build an edgy bond of trust with our fastest land mammal, utterly built for flight not fight, I figure the enchantment of a brown hare might linger a while mate ;) It's a strange thing building this massive portfolio of one species sharing little just chipping away trying to be better
Click to expand...

You are a poet, Stu.......
 
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