Green & indigenous News

What if you could look into a cow's face and know whether it had a fever? A new tool from the Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision Lab at the University of Arkansas uses artificial intelligence and thermal cameras to estimate the body temperature of cattle.

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In a study conducted at the University of Helsinki, AI was trained to classify bird sounds with increasing accuracy. The results of the study have been used, among others, in the "Muuttolintujen kevät" (Spring of Migratory Birds) mobile application, which has become a substantial platform for collecting bird recordings.

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Neuroscientists have been trying to understand how the brain processes visual information for over a century. The development of computational models inspired by the brain's layered organization, also known as deep neural networks (DNNs), have recently opened new exciting possibilities for research in this area.

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This story was originally published by the Daily Montanan.

Micah Drew
Daily Montanan

The Gallatin County Commission at its Dec. 16 meeting voted unanimously for 25-year-old Katie Fire Thunder to take over the remainder of former Democratic Rep. Ed Stafman’s term in the Legislature.

Stafman, a 71-year-old former trial attorney and Rabbi Emeritus, served his third Legislative session in Helena this year, representing House District 59, but resigned his post in early November.

The county commissioners considered three candidates for the House seat, forwarded from the Gallatin County Democrats Central Committee.

Along with Fire Thunder, the committee recommended JP Pomnichowski, who previously served in as a legislator in both chambers from 2007-2009 and 2013-2021, and Tanya Reinhardt, a trustee for the Bozeman School District for nine years.

Fire Thunder is a co-founder of Bozeman Tenants United, works as a legal assistant the Gallatin County Attorney’s Office and has been involved in politics as a student political action director at Montana State University and as a legislative aide to the Montana Budget and Policy Center in 2025.

In brief remarks to the commission, Fire Thunder said she was raised in Bozeman by a single mother in a low-income household — real-life experiences she said will ground her in the Legislature.

“My mom is a success story. She graduated with a master’s guide to her own private practice and bought a house. However, the reality is we still live paycheck to paycheck, and I constantly question if I’m going to be able to afford to live in this community long term and continue to live in this state,” Fire Thunder said. “As an Indigenous woman, a part of the Ogalala Lakota Sioux Tribe, my people, have been forgotten from this land that we want stewarded and called home.

Montana currently has 12 Native lawmakers as part of the Montana American Indian Caucus, with Fire Thunder bringing the number to 13, and comprising more than 8 percent of elected legislators.

Fire Thunder will have to run for election in 2026 for a full term beginning the 2027 Legislature. She said that until then, she will spend her time “strengthening relationships across the aisle, building coalition and ensuring that the voices of House District 59 are always at the table.”

Stafman told the Daily Montanan his decision to step down during the interim came after he decided he wouldn’t run for a fourth term and wanted to spend more time with his family, including a new grandchild.

He served on the Law and Justice Interim Committee and said he wanted his replacement to have a step up, if they went on to win the seat in next year’s election.

The post Gallatin County Commission appoints Katie Fire Thunder to Legislature appeared first on ICT.

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Premier David Eby speaks at a press conference about the province’s economic security on Nov. 17, 2025. Photo courtesy Government of B.C./Flickr

This story was originally published in The Narwhal and appears here with minor style edits.

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In 2019, “British Columbia” unanimously passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

It was celebrated as a major step toward working with First Nations in a better, more equal way.

But a court ruling last month seems to be contributing to a change of heart for Premier David Eby.

On Dec. 5, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled the government’s obligations under the Declaration Act are legally enforceable.

Eby is now arguing judges shouldn’t be setting the province’s reconciliation agenda. And he says he is willing to change the law to make sure they can’t.

“The work we do in reconciliation is to empower people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, not to empower the courts,” Eby told attendees at a B.C. Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Dec. 10.

“Last week’s court of appeal decision invites further and endless litigation,” he added.

“It is the exact opposite of the direction we need to go: less certainty, not more; more conflict, not less.”

When the legislature resumes in the spring, Eby said the government will introduce amendments to the act to make things clear.

Merle Alexander, a lawyer who helped draft the Declaration Act, called the premier’s pledge to swiftly amend the province’s first law co-developed with First Nations — one that passed into law with the full support of the legislature — troubling.

“[The Declaration Act] was a tacit agreement between the B.C. government and B.C. First Nations that the status quo wasn’t working and an agreement that we were going to change things together,” said Alexander, a lawyer with Miller Titerle and Co. who specializes in Indigenous law.

“The idea that you could go back and unilaterally change some of its core purposes by yourself, with or without First Nations, to me, on the face of it, is extremely offensive.”

Cynthia Callison, a partner with Callison & Hannah Law who has advocated for First Nations in the province for 29 years, called Eby’s vow to alter the Declaration Act a knee-jerk reaction.

“Every time a court has acknowledged Indigenous Peoples’ rights or tried to encourage reconciliation between the Crown and First Nations, there’s always a backlash,” Callison, who is a member of the Tahltan Nation, said in an interview.

“It’s something to be expected.”

In 2019, members of the First Nations Leadership Council (centre) and MLAs applaud the introduction of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) in the B.C. Legislature, which would make ‘B.C.’ the first province to enact the United Nation’s Indigenous rights declaration into law. Photo courtesy Government of B.C./Flickr

What is UNDRIP and why does it matter?

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) affirms the inherent human rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide.

It acknowledges those who have suffered and continue to suffer persecution, genocide, cultural erasure, marginalization and disproportionate impacts from resource extraction and climate change.

In 46 articles, the declaration covers a range of basic rights that represent the “minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being” of Indigenous Peoples.

In other words, UNDRIP and “B.C.’s” equivalent legislation, are an acknowledgement of the basic rights of Indigenous Peoples, including the right to “free, prior and informed consent” about decisions that affect their lives and well-being.

When the province introduced the Declaration Act, the government stressed this did not amount to a veto for First Nations on issues like resource development.

Instead, the government described the act as “a path forward” for relations between First Nations and the province.

The idea was the legislation would hold the government accountable, in law, to its stated commitments on reconciliation.

In 2021, it was Eby, in his former role as attorney general, who put forward a change to the province’s Interpretation Act, which gives courts guidance on how to apply provincial laws and statutes.

At the time, Eby said the changes would make it “explicit that the province’s preferred approach” is to have laws and regulations interpreted in ways that align with the United Nations declaration.

That same year, the federal government passed its own law to use the declaration “as an international human rights instrument that can help interpret and apply Canadian law.”

Callison believes it will be difficult for the province to insulate its laws from being held to a widely recognized international standard, especially one that the federal government upholds.

“Whether or not it’s legislated, it’s still something that courts are able to use in decisions. Maybe they’re not bound to it, but they still can recognize those principles,” Callison said.

“The reason why Indigenous people wanted it to be legislated, I think, was because then it was clear that the court could use that standard.”

The recent appeal court ruling concluded the Declaration Act has “immediate legal effect” on provincial laws — not just the ones the province has decided to bring into alignment with the principles of UNDRIP.

“What the court did in the decision, unfortunately, is to say that at any time, any nation can come to court and apply to find a law invalid [under the United Nations declaration],” Eby said on Dec. 10. “And that was never the intention.”

But how a government hopes its legislation will be applied by the courts — as conveyed by ministers speaking in the legislature, for example — can only be secondary to the letter of the law, Alexander explained.

“The most important part of the interpretation is the literal words of the statute itself,” he said.

Those laws lay out a process for legal reforms to be co-developed with First Nations, Alexander added, but don’t contain any language barring the courts from interpreting them.

Linda Innes, Gitxaala’s elected chief councillor, speaks to supporters and media on the steps of the B.C. Court of Appeal in Vancouver alongside Gitxaała hereditary chiefs and members. Photo by Amy Romer

What’s happened to date in the Gitxaała case?

The appeal court’s Dec. 5 decision was the result of a challenge to part of a 2023 B.C. Supreme Court ruling launched by the Gitxaała and Ehattesaht First Nations.

That ruling agreed with the nations’ claim that “B.C.’s” mineral claim-staking regime did not fulfill the government’s obligations to consult with First Nations.

It also concluded that the province’s Declaration Act was not legally enforceable, which is what the nations just successfully appealed.

Gitxaała hailed the appeal court’s ruling as “precedent-setting.”

“Aligning all B.C. laws with the [United Nations] declaration and upholding the standard of free, prior and informed consent is the only pathway to the investor ‘certainty’ the mining sector seeks,” Gitxaała Chief Councillor Linda Innes said in a statement.

The case was brought forward by Gitxaała in 2021.

Like many court cases that centre on infringement of Indigenous rights, its scope was wide-reaching — but its origins stemmed from environmental damages that occurred on Lax k’naga dzol (Banks Island) in 2015 and subsequent mineral claims staked there between 2018 and 2020.

Banks Island, which Gitxaała refer to as their “bread basket,” is on the province’s northwest coast, south of the Skeena River estuary.

The provincial Mineral Tenure Act is “colonial legislation” that dates back to the mid-1800s gold rush, the ruling stated.

While the law, often called the free-entry system, has been updated and amended over the years, it still allowed for anyone to stake a claim on lands in “B.C.” without first asking permission from the landowner or First Nations.

Callison described the appeal court’s ruling as a logical next step to address a legal infringement on Indigenous rights that the province has been aware of for a long time.

“In this case, it’s quite obvious that this mineral tenure system, the free miner system, is inconsistent with Indigenous Peoples’ rights,” Callison said.

And fulfilling the requirements of the Gitxaała decision will create more certainty for First Nations and the mining industry, Callison argued.

“They can’t complain that they don’t know what is culturally important to First Nations if it’s identified and if it’s been declared as a non-staking area.”

Naxginkw Tara Marsden, who works with the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, called the recent decision “pivotal.”

“A lot of our problems in resource management centre around these fundamental legislation like [the Mineral Tenure Act], where industry effectively gets unfettered access to the rights to resources,” she told The Narwhal.

“But undoing the free-entry system, bolstered by the legal effect of UNDRIP, moves us away from that. It’s a paradigm shift, and can spill over into others.”

Leaders from Quw’utsun Nation and their lawyer stand after an Aug. 11 press conference about their Supreme Court of B.C. victory. From right to left: Chief Shana Thomas (Lyackson First Nation), Chief Cindy Daniels (Cowichan Tribes), Chief Pam Jack (Penelakut Tribe), and Chief John Elliott (Stz’uminus First Nation), and lawyer David Robbins (Woodward & Company). Photo courtesy Cowichan Tribes/Youtube

How is the political world reacting to the Gitxaała decision?

The appeal court decision on the Gitxaała case isn’t the only one troubling the premier.

During his address at the luncheon, Eby called the appeal court ruling and the B.C. Supreme Court’s decision in the Cowichan Tribes case “deeply troubling.”

Eby, the one-time head of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, slammed provincial judges for issuing “dramatic, overreaching and unhelpful” decisions he claimed could destabilize the provincial economy.

“It’s hard to understate the damage that could be done or has already been done to public support for the delicate, critical and necessary work we have to do with First Nations in a province that was almost entirely settled without treaties, and in a country that has Section 35 of the Constitution,” Eby warned.

“While this work is essential to our success, it could also be the undoing of our province as a place to do business.”

Amending the Declaration Act and the Interpretation Act will make the government’s intentions clear, Eby told the audience, and prevent future court decisions from potentially destabilizing economic development.

Alexander believes the premier’s plan could have the opposite effect, potentially triggering more court cases from First Nations and thereby creating more uncertainty for resource extraction and other industries in the long run, while also damaging the province’s relationship with First Nations.

“People have very fragile trust in the government of the day,” he said, “but when they so intentionally change legislation to ensure that there’s no objective party reviewing how they perform reconciliation, it seems very insidious.”

This year, “B.C.” passed legislation to fast-track the North Coast transmission line, renewable energy projects and yet-to-be-defined “provincially significant projects.”

The provincial government admitted it had not fulfilled its consultation obligations before introducing the legislation, which many First Nations forcefully criticized.

Eby’s vow to amend the Declaration Act could even stiffer opposition from First Nations leaders, Alexander warned.

“It’s hard to know how damaging it will be to reconciliation,” he said. “Because, in truth, Premier Eby himself has damaged reconciliation in the province so tremendously in the last year, it’s hard to measure.

“There’s a lot of burning bridges already.”

The post Frustration grows over premier’s plan to alter ‘B.C.’ Indigenous rights legislation appeared first on Indiginews.

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VAUPÉS, COLOMBIA – As a baby, Elisa Fernández Sánchez’ mother would place her into the bow of the canoe and glide across the murky waters of the Vaupés River in the thick Amazon rainforest. Their journey towards the traditional forest gardens was not easy, but they did it almost every day. Her mom would plunge the canoe into a series of small river channels, ducking to protect herself from the violent blizzard of branches, vines and leaves that threatened to gouge her eyes if she was not careful. Like most members of the mostly Cubeo Macaquiño community at the time, her mother respected nature and the spiritual beings that guard its sacred sites. It was dangerous to enter the forest unprotected. To enter sacred sites, the payé (an Indigenous authority responsible for maintaining the community’s cultural and spiritual well-being) had to pray to the spirits for permission. Failure to respect this rule could result in severe illness, they believed. Through rituals, prayers and their careful relationship with nature, the Macaquiño community has maintained a healthy territory. It is one of four Indigenous communities that form part of the Association of Traditional Indigenous Authorities Surrounding Mitú (AATIAM), a public entity with a state-recognized right to govern autonomously. Manuel Claudio Fernández, the captain of Macaquiño, said that the community does not care for the land; they co-exist with it. “How do we co-exist? By respecting the forest, the articulation of spirits, the water, the forest and us humans. We, the people, depend…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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A new study of the impact of the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires has found that even after fires are extinguished, residents who return to their homes may remain at risk of exposure to known carcinogens because of smoke damage.

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The devastating Los Angeles fires in the very heart of a built-up urban interface sparked global interest, including in Australia, as communities, media and governments asked how the fires happened and could such a catastrophe happen here.

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Once in a while, an animal shows up where it’s least expected, including places from where it was thought to have gone extinct. These rare sightings bring hope — but also fresh concerns. These are some of the wildlife sightings Mongabay reported on in 2025. Colossal squid recorded for the first time in its deep-sea home Researchers made the first confirmed recordings of a colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), the world’s heaviest invertebrate, while exploring the deep sea near Antarctica. Until then, everything scientists knew about the species came from the bits of them that turned up in the bellies of other animals. (Read story) Eurasian otter reappears in Malaysia after a decade In Malaysia, camera traps in Tangkulap Forest Reserve photographed a Eurasian otter near a waterbody. This is the first confirmed sighting of the species in Malaysia in more than a decade and makes Tangkulap Forest Reserve the only place in the country where all four East Asian otter species coexist. (Read story) First elephant sighting in a Senegal park since 2019 Camera traps in Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park captured video of a large bull elephant named Ousmane, thought to be a hybrid of the critically endangered African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) and savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana). Researchers say this is the first elephant to be seen in the park in six years. (Read story) Screenshot of an elephant captured by a camera trap in Senegal, courtesy of Panthera & Senegal’s National Parks Directorate. Rare Javan leopard sighting Camera…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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The Cardamom Mountains sprawl across southwestern Cambodia and are among the best-preserved rainforests in the country. Protected by rugged terrain, heavy rains and a low population density, the Cardamoms remain a biodiversity hotspot, providing habitat for threatened elephants, pangolins and the region’s last viable fishing cat population. This Special Issues documents the myriad threats facing one of Cambodia’s last, best rainforests. Since 2021, Mongabay has uncovered illegal loggers operating out of prisons, revealed how dam building gives cover to timber traffickers, and investigated where conservationists clash with Indigenous communities while land grabbers rush in, carving up the Cardamoms.This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. After five decades studying the plants and peoples of the Amazon, Mark Plotkin, an ethnobotanist and co-founder of the Amazon Conservation Team, is still asked whether the rainforest’s glass is half-full or half-empty. His answer is unchanged. “By definition, any glass that is half-full is half-empty.” The point, he argues in a commentary for Mongabay, is not optimism or pessimism, but accuracy about a region where progress and peril now coexist. When Plotkin first arrived in the 1970s, the Amazon barely registered in the global imagination. Scientists such as Richard Schultes, Tom Lovejoy and E.O. Wilson helped shift that view, reframing the forest from “green hell” to a storehouse of biodiversity. Indigenous leaders and activists like Payakan and Chico Mendes added political force. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro marked the high-water line of global attention. Since then, trends have swung sharply. Brazil’s deforestation soared in the late 20th century, plummeted in the early 2000s, rose again after 2019 and fell once more in 2023. Similar cycles now shape Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. Yet millions of hectares are today under some form of protection, and Indigenous territories generally show lower rates of loss. Plotkin is quick to note the other side of the ledger. Criminal networks have expanded into mining, logging and land grabbing. Mercury contamination, violence and corruption undermine local governance. Climate disruption has pushed rainfall patterns off balance, drying…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Life begins with a single fertilized cell that gradually transforms into a multicellular organism. This process requires precise coordination; otherwise, the embryo could develop serious complications. Scientists at ISTA have now demonstrated that the zebrafish eggs, in particular their curvature, might be the instruction manual that keeps cell division on schedule and activates the appropriate genes in a patterned manner to direct correct cell fate acquisition. These insights, published in Nature Physics, could help improve the accuracy of embryo assessments in IVF.

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Countries under the international treaty to protect migratory animals have proposed increasing protections for 42 species. These include numerous seabirds, the snowy owl, several sharks, the striped hyena, and some cheetah populations. The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) aims to protect species ranging from butterflies and fish to birds and mammals that cross national borders for food and reproduction. Species listed in the convention’s Appendix I are considered to be in need of strict protection across their range countries, while those in Appendix II are thought to benefit from international cooperation. The CMS published its first ever report on the state of the world’s migratory species in 2024, noting that 399 species are globally threatened or near threatened but not yet listed under the CMS. Parties to the CMS recently proposed listing 42 such species and one subspecies in Appendix I or II. Zimbabwe proposed including populations of cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia — considered part of the Southern African transboundary cheetah population — in Appendices I and II. Other cheetah populations are already included in Appendix I. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan proposed including the striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), which undertakes wide-ranging movements across arid and semiarid environments, in Appendices I and II. Thirty-one species and one subspecies of birds have also been proposed for listing. These include Norway’s proposal to include the snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) in Appendix II, noting that the owl has lost a third of its population in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Phyllis Pacheco, 72, lives about 6 miles from the New Mexico border in an unincorporated community called Lobatos, so small that its mailing address is nearby Antonito, Colorado. She’s lived there most of her life, and still works as a certified nursing assistant. Pacheco took cooking classes offered by Conejos County twice in 2020, healthy food education that taught her to shop better, read food package labels more effectively, and prepare more nutritious dishes.

“Instructor Lois was a real pro in presenting the classes and made them fun and educational,” she said. “I found the shopping class very educational, and to this day I am using the skills I learned and very much appreciated. There was excellent turnout for the classes. We needed and wanted them in this area.”

While Colorado has a strong health ranking, Conejos County has a low overall health equity score and higher rates of obesity and lifestyle-related diseases. For residents like Pacheco, cooking classes help to make mealtime “colorful and appetizing,” but also heart-healthy and lower in fat, salt, and sugar.

Those healthy cooking classes are a casualty of a Trump administration decision to end SNAP-Ed, the longstanding educational arm of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP-Ed started as a pilot program in 1977 and was formalized in 1992.

“There will be some losses in my community,” Pacheco said. “We won’t have that guidance, or help in comparing quantity and quality when we shop for groceries.”

For more than three decades, SNAP-Ed has helped millions of food-insecure Americans make healthier food choices. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated the program in July, giving program administrators 90 days to dismantle a nationwide network of nutrition classes and outreach efforts. Funding ended Sept. 30.

Some states, like Georgia, will be able to keep their SNAP-Ed programs intact for about a year due to other funding sources, but other states, like Colorado, are already experiencing significant losses, starting with staff layoffs at nutrition programs.

At a time when food prices are at a record high, reducing the infrastructure and staff for community nutrition work will have a cascade of long-term consequences, according to public health nutrition experts. Experts are concerned that eliminating SNAP-Ed—community-level guidance in healthier home cooking and food choices—will exacerbate Americans’ poor metabolic health and likely drive even more reliance on ultra-processed foods.

Potential Nationwide Impacts of Snap-Ed’s End

SNAP-Ed brought nutrition education directly to around 2 million low-income Americans annually, and to another 10 million through community collaborations. Its work was carried out in more than 23,000 community sites that helped individuals and families make healthier, cost-effective food choices through cooking classes, physical activity promotion, and other activities.

In 2025, SNAP-Ed’s budget was $536 million, less than 1 percent of SNAP’s total budget. SNAP recipients receive $2.23 per meal in SNAP benefits on average, making it a challenge to put nutritious food on the table, but SNAP-Ed aimed to help recipients stretch their food dollars further.

SNAP-Ed’s elimination was justified by a 2019 U.S. Government Accountability Office report that claimed poor coordination across programs, program duplication, and insufficient information on whether the program met its goals.

In some sense, redundancy or duplication was baked into how SNAP-Ed was administered. Federal SNAP-Ed money was doled out to states, which in turn decided upon implementing agencies, which in turn partnered with community-based organizations.

This meant there might be two organizations in one low-income community that, while overlapping geographically, served different populations. A neighborhood’s community center and a food pantry down the street might both have offered “better for you” cooking classes, demonstrations, or literature funded by SNAP-Ed, for instance.

“So much of the work SNAP-Ed did isn’t visibly SNAP-Ed, because it was seamlessly integrated with partners,” said Chris Mornick, policy committee co-chair with the Association of State Public Health Nutritionists and a member of the leadership team of the Association of SNAP Nutrition Education Administrators (ASNNSA). “We had subcontractors who didn’t even realize they were funded through this federal program.”

It’s also difficult to measure success for a program like SNAP-Ed and whether it prompted participants to change their cooking and eating habits. But USDA studies have shown that for every $1 spent on SNAP-Ed, up to $10.64 is saved in healthcare costs.

For national anti-hunger organizations, the end of SNAP-Ed is less immediate and quantifiable than when 42 million Americans were at risk of losing SNAP food assistance benefits during the government shutdown. But it will undoubtedly impact the infrastructure and staff for community nutrition work, for which SNAP-Ed was one of the largest funding sources, said Carolyn Vega, associate director of policy analysis at No Kid Hungry.

“We won’t fully realize the effects of that for a number of years,” she said.

Grassroots community organizations will be hit particularly hard, said Mornick. “Small community-led organizations relied on SNAP-Ed to support their work, and they don’t have another way to fill that gap,” she said.

Roughly 12,000 jobs will be lost nationwide, according to ASNNSA. The program’s end also jeopardizes classes and educational support for local schools, food pantries, community gardens, and families. States are allowed to spend residual money from the program until September 2026, so a patchwork of programming will continue.

States will all be affected differently, said Gina Crist, who has overseen SNAP-Ed’s work in Delaware. Some states have employed SNAP-Ed educators in the hundreds, others as few as a dozen—“and it’s not that the largest states have the largest number of employees.”

Colorado as a Case Study in State SNAP-Ed Losses

SNAP-Ed’s funding formula was based half on historic precedent and half on SNAP participation. Colorado was in the middle of the pack. It will lose $6.3 million in annual federal funding due to SNAP-Ed’s elimination, and more than 40 full-time positions will be cut across the state at the two implementing agencies, Nourish Colorado and the University of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Prevention Research Center, as well as at the community organizations they partner with; those cuts have already begun.

Denver resident Dinah, 31, who preferred to not share her last name, lives in a household of three that includes her 9-year-old son. She works part-time a few days a week doing cleaning and childcare and has taken SNAP-Ed cooking classes at Metro Caring, a local anti-hunger organization.

The classes helped her in many ways, including learning new cooking techniques, meeting new people, practicing the English language, and breaking out of her routine, she said through a Spanish translator. For example, she learned different methods for seasoning food, such as incorporating maple syrup and pepper, which were not common in her kitchen.

“I think that if we lose these classes,” she said, “we not only lose the opportunity to connect with different people, but also the chance to learn about nutrition and how it relates to our family’s future and how to create new things through cooking.”

Colorado’s SNAP-Ed program had three components: a school-based nutrition education program and a preschool program, both overseen by UC Denver, and Cooking Matters classes for adults and caregivers, overseen by Nourish Colorado.

Nourish Colorado had 17 employees this summer, according to Executive Director Wendy Peters Moschetti. It now has 12.

“We had to let go everyone who was fully funded from SNAP-Ed. Six of us had partial funding from SNAP-Ed, so we were able to fill that for the rest of 2025,” she said.

“The other losses people don’t talk about are the loss of administrative overhead that organizations lose when large contracts just disappear,” she added, and said the SNAP-Ed contract was going to pay Nourish Colorado $170,000 for administrative, overhead, and indirect costs in fiscal year 2026, in addition to paying nutrition education staff salaries.

“Now that is all gone as well,” she said. “So, now the rest of our work has to cover all administrative costs with zero time for us as an organization to pivot or fundraise. Organizations like ours are in a real pickle and are facing a very tight 2026 without private dollars coming in to help with the loss of something so significant.”

Peters Moschetti said Nourish no longer provides nutrition education, but the team is continuing its farm-to-school programming, another program that provides extra cash for households to purchase fruits and vegetables, and its state and federal policy advocacy work.

“Broadly speaking, what we are losing is support for food pantries and corner stores that want to highlight and promote fresh foods, and support for schools to integrate more school gardens and other things,” she said, adding that even the toolkits and online resources intended to help agencies make data-informed decisions will go away with the end of the program.

The Trickle-Down Effect in Colorado

Jazmin Bojorquez was one of the staffers who lost her job on Sept. 30 with Nourish Colorado, where she served as the policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change manager. Her four-person team, all funded by SNAP-Ed, were laid off, too. They spent their final 60 days winding down a 30-year program: reporting on impact, closing down initiatives, and getting remaining funds into the field.

“As examples of PSE, we would have food skills and nutrition messaging at corner stores, food pantries, mobile markets, and farmers’ markets, where we would share ideas on how to use familiar and unfamiliar produce,” Bojorquez said. “We would use community gardens as social hubs and expand growing operations at large food pantries so we didn’t always have to purchase food.”

One effort aimed to improve infant and maternal health with a baby café offered in many counties. Moms would receive lactation consultation in addition to nutrition education and cooking classes, as well as vouchers for shopping at the free food market downstairs.

Bojorquez has started her own urban planning consulting firm but said that former colleagues are still looking for work.

A Nourish Colorado partner, Denver’s Metro Caring, used SNAP-Ed funding for community-led nutrition classes like Cocina y Nutrición and Kidz in the Kitchen, offered in both English and Spanish, which Dinah attended. The collaboration allowed Metro Caring to provide nutrition education, cooking classes, and lactation support, according to Brandon McKinley, Metro Caring’s communications and marketing specialist.

Thus far, he said, they have dropped one cooking class but have managed to retain staff by moving resources around.

Metro Caring received SNAP-Ed funding for the first time this year, which created new possibilities and stability, especially for nutrition programs, McKinley said. The loss will impact ingredient sourcing for classes and grocery store-style food markets offering free, culturally specific foods.

“Overall, this is yet another blow to an already unstable funding period,” he said. “It comes on the heels of the federal government’s Local Food Purchasing Agreement not being renewed.”

Andrea Cervantes, Metro Caring’s nutrition team lead, depended on the Bridge Project, which she said was a community-support organization similar to Metro Caring, while growing up in subsidized housing in Denver.

“A program in low-income housing for decades, it helped fund some of my education, and I was able to come back as a nutrition educator in their summer programming,” she said. “We had a makeshift kitchen where we taught kids from kindergarten to high school. Denver’s a diverse community, so I got to learn about different cultures.”

Cervantes said the people she teaches at Metro Caring are hungry for any sort of relatable nutrition information.

“They are people who want to share a safe space,” she said. “It’s families and often older retired folks who have medical conditions, and they want to learn more about nutrition to manage their conditions.”

Cervantes is currently still teaching, but the way forward is hazy.

“Our hope is to continue programming. We are going to figure it out,” she said. “We just don’t know how yet.”

The post The End of SNAP-Ed Leaves Underserved Communities With Even Fewer Resources appeared first on Civil Eats.

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As lawmakers wrapped up 2025 and agriculture leaders signaled they intend to move forward on a five-year farm bill early this year, many introduced bills that would typically be included in that larger legislative package.

Called marker bills, the proposals cover a wide range of farm group priorities, from access to credit to forever-chemical contamination to investment in organic agriculture.

House Agriculture Committee Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) told Politico in December that he would restart the farm bill process this month. In an interview with Agri-Pulse, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Arkansas) said his chamber would work on it “right after the first of the year.”

But most experts say there’s no clear path forward for a new farm bill. The last five-year farm bill expired in September 2023. Because Congress had not completed a new one, they extended the previous bill, then extended it again in 2024. In 2025, Republicans included in their One Big Beautiful Bill the biggest-ever cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and a boost in commodity crop subsidies, and later extended other farm programs in the bill package that ended the government shutdown.

The SNAP actions torpedoed Democrats’ willingness to compromise (some have signaled they won’t support a farm bill unless it rolls back some of the cuts), while the extension of the big farm programs took pressure off both parties.

Still, that didn’t stop lawmakers from introducing and reintroducing over the last month many marker bills they hope to get in an actual farm bill package if things change. Here are 10 recent proposals important to farmers, most of which have bipartisan support.

Fair Credit for Farmers Act: Makes changes to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) to make it easier for farmers to get loans. Introduced by Representative Alma Adams (D-North Carolina) in the House and Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont) in the Senate. Key supporters: National Family Farm Coalition, RAFI.

FARM Home Loans Act: Increases rural homebuyers’ access to Farm Credit loans by expanding the definition of “rural area” to include areas with larger populations. Introduced by Representatives Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Michigan) and Bill Huizeng (R-Michigan). Key supporters: Farm Credit Council.

USDA Loan Modernization Act: Updates USDA loan requirements to allow farmers with at least a 50 percent operational interest to qualify. Introduced by Representatives Mike Bost (R-Illinois) and Nikki Budzinski (D-Illinois). Key supporters: Illinois Corn Growers Association, Illinois Pork Producers Association.

Relief for Farmers Hit With PFAS Act: Sets up a USDA grant program for states to help farmers affected by forever-chemical contamination in their fields, test soil, monitor farmer health impacts, and conduct research on farms. Introduced by Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) in the Senate and Representatives Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Mike Lawler (R-New York) in the House. Key supporters: Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act: Requires the USDA to weigh factors including environmental sustainability, social and racial equity, worker well-being, and animal welfare in federal food purchasing, and helps smaller farms and food companies meet requirements to become USDA vendors. Introduced by Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) and several co-sponsors in the Senate, and Representative Alma Adams (D-North Carolina) and several co-sponsors in the House. Key supporters: National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

AGRITOURISM Act: Designates an Agritourism Advisor at the USDA to support the economic viability of family farms. Introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and several co-sponsors in the Senate, and Representatives Suhas Subramanyam (D-Virginia) and Dan Newhouse (R-Washington) in the House. Key supporters: Brewers Association, WineAmerica.

Domestic Organic Investment Act: Creates a USDA grant program to fund expansion of the domestic certified-organic food supply chain, including expanding storage, processing, and distribution. Introduced by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) in the Senate, and Representatives Andrea Salinas (D-Oregon) and Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisconsin) in the House. Key supporters: Organic Trade Association.

Zero Food Waste Act: Creates a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant program to fund projects that prevent, divert, or recycle food waste. Introduced by Representatives Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Julia Brownley (D-California) in the House, and Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) in the Senate. Key supporters: Natural Resources Defense Council, ReFed.

LOCAL Foods Act: Allows farmers to process animals on their farms without meeting certain regulations if the meat will not be sold. Introduced by Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont) and several co-sponsors in the Senate, and Representative Eugene Vindman (D-Virginia) and several co-sponsors in the House. Key supporters: Rural Vermont, National Family Farm Coalition.

PROTEIN Act: Directs more than $500 million in federal support over the next five years toward research and development for “alternative proteins.” Introduced by Senator Adam Schiff (D-California) in the Senate, and Representative Julia Brownley (D-California) in the House. Key supporters: Good Food Institute, Plant-Based Foods Institute.

The post 10 Farm Bill Proposals to Watch in 2026 appeared first on Civil Eats.

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The federal government gave up its claim to ownership of the North Fork of the Fortymile River in Alaska’s eastern Interior.

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In the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon, locals tap rubber and extract Brazil nuts from the rainforest for a living. It’s a way of life dependent on the forest that goes back generations — and which rubber tapper Chico Mendes, who gave the area its name, was murdered trying to defend in 1988. The reserve has been strengthened in recent years thanks to a massive conservation program known as ARPA, the Amazon Region Protected Areas. First established in 2002 by the Brazilian government, and later expanded with the support of WWF and private donors, ARPA helps protect 120 conservation areas spanning more than 27 million hectares (67 million acres) — about the size of Aotearoa New Zealand — of the Brazilian Amazon. The program initially worked on creating new protected areas and then on designing a durable financial mechanism to support their protection. A new phase, called ARPA Comunidades (Communities), is now shifting the focus to the traditional communities who live within the forest and help protect it. Half of the conservation areas covered by ARPA are sustainable-use conservation units like the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, inhabited by local communities who live sustainably off the forest’s resources. “We were missing closer attention to the communities living in these sustainable-use conservation units, who were contributing to conservation,” said Fernanda Marques, project development consultant at FUNBIO, the Brazilian organization responsible for managing the $120 million fund that underpins ARPA Comunidades. Brazil nuts in the hand of Raimundão. Image © Tessel in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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At the end of 2024, the Azores stood as a beacon of hope and a global leader in ocean conservation, having created the largest network of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the North Atlantic. The Azores safeguarded 30% of its waters — an expanse more than three times larger than Portugal’s landmass — years ahead of the global commitment to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030 (30×30). This decisive action was praised both at home and internationally, with other countries and regions seeking advice from the Azores on how to follow suit. But in a world where major powers are retreating from crucial environmental commitments, the Azores now faces a pivotal test of its own. Early in 2025, a proposal to allow pole-and-line tuna fishing within areas designated as no-take was submitted to the Regional Assembly and is currently under discussion. This maneuver, if successful, risks undoing a monumental achievement. Crucially, half of this network is fully protected, banning all extractive and damaging activities, meaning it far exceeds the European Union’s mandate to fully protect at least 10% of its waters. Allowing industrial tuna fishing within the Azores’ fully protected areas would turn these areas into “paper parks” and defy their very purpose. Rays in the Azores. Image courtesy of Emanuel Goncalves / Oceano Azul Foundation. In other words, these areas would fail to meet the definition of “fully protected” set out in the strict standards established by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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A new study reveals that microplastics are impairing the oceans' ability to absorb carbon dioxide, a process scientists find crucial for regulating Earth's temperature.

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In Guatemala, outside the town of Jocotán, in a house hidden from the main road by a thin wall of vegetation, I met Elena, a slight 38-year-old with bright eyes and dark hair that was just starting to show the first hints of gray. Elena had seven kids whom she spent most of her time caring for, while her husband found unsteady work as a for-hire farmer. Her husband’s job paid enough to get by, just barely, but the family struggled to travel to see a doctor for their 5-year-old daughter, who had an undiagnosed heart issue. The eldest daughter, who was 19, had been going to school but dropped out during the COVID-19 pandemic because they could no longer afford the $40 per month for books, her uniform, and other costs. Meanwhile everything was getting more expensive, Elena complained, and it often did not rain enough to yield a fruitful harvest.

We met in a neighbor’s dirt-floor compound, where chickens and ducks pecked at a trash heap and muddy patches of ground. Behind me, tortillas smoked on the stove in the detached cinder-block kitchen. Nearby, cars and trucks rumbled down the main road heading to the Honduras border a half hour away.

When I asked Elena about the prospect of going to the United States, a shy smile crept across her face. Her husband talks about it, she said, but she knows it’s just a dream. It would cost thousands of dollars to hire a coyote and make the trip, and the only way they could raise that kind of cash would be to put up their land as collateral. Some of her neighbors have made that bet, and sometimes it has worked out, but not always. Migration would be a huge risk. It could take weeks or months for Elena’s husband to travel and establish himself in the United States, assuming he could even get in, during which time Elena would have no source of income. If things didn’t work out and her husband was deported or couldn’t pay off the coyote’s fee plus interest — or worse, if he was injured or killed en route — their land could be swiped from under them, leaving them even worse off than they already were. She would go in a heartbeat, she said, if only it were realistic. And it wasn’t.

Author Julian Hattem, editor of the Migration Policy Institute’s online journal. Amanda Joy Photographics

We might say that Elena is trapped. Emigrating to the United States would almost surely be transformational for her and her family, even if just one member could establish a foothold there. She would no longer need to worry about going hungry. It could put her family on a path of upward mobility, with better access to health care and education. Elena’s children would probably have a markedly more comfortable life than her own, which is the desire of all parents worldwide. This was exactly the story of hundreds of millions of Americans whose ancestors scraped together their savings to come to the United States, where they suffered abuse and worked hard, benefited from and contributed to its economic growth, and in a few generations had descendants with a profoundly different quality of life. Instead, she and her family are stuck in a rural farming community where the land is drying up and falling apart and where the prices at the market are climbing ever higher.

In the long run, “trapped populations” may be the worst victims of climate change. Migration costs money and can be complicated and, if traveling internationally, usually illegal. Leaving might enable people like Elena to find better paying jobs elsewhere and send back money that could help protect their homes and families against encroaching climate change.

A barbed wire fence overlooks the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas. Migrant crossings have dropped significantly in the past year, peaking in the last months of 2023.
John Moore / Getty Images

Yet for a million reasons people stay in place, even if doing so is dangerous. Many of them cannot leave. When disaster strikes, people with disabilities, the elderly, and the poor tend to be less likely to be able to evacuate, and therefore account for an outsize number of fatalities. When Hurricane Katrina hit the United States, for instance, about half the dead were 75 years and older. Moreover, there is probably no way that Elena could get to the United States legally, and laws can be difficult things to break, especially when they are backed by the full weight and force of the U.S. government. It also often takes connections to be able to move, which many people do not have. If Elena had a cousin or friend in the United States who would help her out — tell her whom to call, where to stay, how to get a job — her family might have an easier time. Without this social capital, she’s facing an uphill climb.

And of course, it is about 1,000 miles to get from Guatemala to the United States, and even farther for people from Asia or the Pacific Islands. Deserts and oceans are physically difficult to cross, and often deadly. It is a sad fact that many tens of thousands of people migrating for a better life never live to see it. The United Nations has recorded the cases of more than 72,000 migrants who died or disappeared in their journeys from 2014 to 2025, but this is surely a tremendous undercount, given the remote deserts, forbidding jungles, and expanse of oceans that migrants must cross when they have no legal path. There is no telling how many people die every year trying to seek out a better life.

The security-first dogma of Western border policies makes these journeys even deadlier than they would be otherwise. As authorities clamp down, migrants are forced to take even more precarious routes to evade detection, putting themselves at increasing risk of dehydration, assault by criminal groups, and shipwreck. The Mediterranean, by far the deadliest migration corridor worldwide, became even deadlier as Italian and EU officials cracked down on lifesaving search-and-rescue operations in the mid-2010s. On the U.S.-Mexico border, the world’s deadliest land crossing, aggressive security policies have historically not necessarily stopped people from crossing, but they have pushed migrants into more dangerous routes deeper into the desert. As the world gets warmer, remote stretches of the desert become deadlier, increasing the risk of dehydration, heat stroke, and exposure.

If she could migrate away from the Dry Corridor, the data suggest that Elena would be financially better off. Migration, by and large, tends to be good for people. Although the actual act of migrating is difficult and expensive, the economic payoff is great. Worldwide, migration has lifted millions of people out of poverty — probably billions. According to the World Bank, migrants going from a lower-income country to a higher-income country typically see their wages grow between three and six times.

A view of traffic at the civic center of Guatemala City in August 2025. Johan Ordonez / AFP via Getty Images

Migrating abroad or just to a higher-income city can not only lift oneself out of poverty, but also provide a foundation to help build resilience in one’s hometown. The money that migrants send back to friends and loved ones in their origin communities can help build new protections against disaster or make it easier to rebuild afterward. As we drove across Guatemala, a future in which more people left home didn’t actually seem all that bad. The U.S. media tends to portray all of Central America as distressingly poor, with tin roofs, unreliable electricity, and barely-there dirt roads. It is anything but.

Even far from Guatemala City, our car glided on smooth asphalt past gleaming strip malls that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a suburban Phoenix subdivision. Throughout Guatemala, grand two- and three-story houses tower over the road, peeking above the trees and looking oddly out of place behind rough-hewn wood shacks selling pineapples and tortillas. My hotel in Chiquimula featured two separate swimming pools, the water shimmering in the midday sun, perched in a lush sprawling yard where teenagers played soccer and flirted while parents lounged under the pergola. Nearby, an entrepreneur offered tourists paragliding adventures and the chance to go sightseeing in a helicopter. My driver, Conrado, showed me TikTok videos of thrill-seekers screaming with joy in a giant swing at a similar adventure attraction not far away.

Much of the money used to invest in this growth comes from one place: “Remesas,” Conrado said simply. Remittances. Money from the United States that migrants send back via Western Union, a mobile phone app, or a range of other services. About 3 in 10 households in northern Central America receive remittances from abroad, typically about $350 per month in Guatemala. That’s only about 5 percent of median U.S. household income but can be a life-changing amount of money in Guatemala that can easily cover expenses or provide a significant down payment on climate protections. In Guatemala, more money comes from remittances than from all foreign exports combined.

On a hillside in the tiny village of Barbasco, where drought has ravaged farmlands and extreme weather has accelerated erosion, I met a 40-year-old woman with kind eyes named Consuela, who received money from her son in New York. Intense and recurrent hurricanes had split the earth underneath her home, creating a 6-inch gash in the dirt floor where one end of the building was beginning a slow march toward the edge of the cliff. Inch by inch and bit by bit, the ground underneath had started to give way and slide downhill. It was a common sight on these hills, where coffee and corn plants perched precariously on steep slopes that threatened to give way with the next storm.

Consuela’s home in Barbasco, Guatemala. Julian Hattem

Fortunately for her, Consuela was using some of the money sent back by her son to build a new house away from the mountain edge, helping her avoid the collapsing ground. Elsewhere, in Ghana, remittances help farmers invest in irrigation systems and crop rotation. They also help recipients build houses out of concrete rather than mud, so families can withstand landslides and other disasters, and provide access to electricity and telephones that alert them to upcoming disasters and enable them to get help when they need it. In hot, coastal Mexico, remittances help residents — particularly poorer residents — purchase air conditioners to stay cool even in the sweltering summer months. In Bangladesh, some recipients say remittances make up half their household income.

In large part because of these remittances, migration has long been one of the most effective strategies for lifting people out of poverty — not just migrants themselves, but also their families and communities in their homeland.

As the world reckons with climate change that will particularly hurt poor, rural communities in places like Guatemala, migration is not simply a way to escape impending climate disaster but also a strategy to defend against it. Making it easier for people to leave their home can not only help them flee the most dire disasters but also help them earn money to invest in adaptation and resilience strategies. In fact, some economists say governments should actively spend money to encourage people to migrate, at least to urban areas within their own countries, to boost growth. Subsidizing transportation to cities and helping people find jobs or enroll in new training would mitigate the negative impacts of climate change in rural areas, the thinking goes, and help increase the productivity of cities. The biggest climate migration problem may be that there’s simply not enough of it.

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From Shelter From the Storm: How Climate Change Is Creating a New Era of Migration by Julian Hattem, to be published on January 6, 2026, by The New Press.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The biggest climate migration problem may be that there’s not enough of it on Jan 5, 2026.

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Algae is a ubiquitous feature in waterways throughout the globe, including western North America. Slippery, green epilithic algae is a familiar sight on river rocks. Toxic blue-green algae—cyanobacteria—is a visually interesting, yet worrisome phenomenon. Increasingly prevalent filamentous algae, with its long, voluminous green strands joins the picture, and is presenting new questions for scientists, recreationalists and land managers.

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With a human population of 8.3 billion people worldwide and millions facing malnutrition, food security is something to think about. But imagine if the ocean could help with that.

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In the mountains of central Veracruz, scientific work is rarely abstract. It means walking narrow paths through cloud forest, speaking patiently with communities, and learning to read landscapes that yield information slowly. It also means accepting risk as a condition of knowledge. Field research unfolds in places where the state is often distant and authority is uneven. That context matters for understanding the disappearance of Miguel Ángel de la Torre Loranca, a Mexican biologist who was kidnapped on November 21, 2025, after leaving his home in the Sierra de Zongolica. He had gone out in response to what was described as a request for dialogue. Hours later, his family received a ransom demand. After an initial payment, communication stopped. Since then, there has been no verified information about his whereabouts. De la Torre Loranca was not a public figure in the conventional sense. He was known locally for his work rather than his profile: a herpetologist who documented reptiles most people avoided, an educator who helped build institutions in regions rarely centered in national debates, and a guide who believed that conservation depended on familiarity rather than fear. Over decades of fieldwork, he contributed to the description of multiple species and trained students who learned to treat data collection as work with real consequences. One snake from Oaxaca, Geophis lorancai, bears his name, an honor usually conferred after a career has run its course. Photo by Loranca. There was also administrative work, less visible but equally durable. As the first…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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As 2025 draws to a close, environmental advocates across the U.S. find themselves weighing a year marked by both setbacks and successes.

Despite major environmental reversals taken by the Donald Trump administration, including loosening fossil fuel rules and weakening endangered-species safeguards, conservationists, lawmakers, and researchers still notched key wins at local and state levels.

Here are some environmental triumphs across the country amid a year of political turbulence.

1. California launches methane-tracking satellite

California turned to space technology this year to curb methane pollution, launching a new program that uses satellite-mounted sensors to spot major leaks in near real time.

The $100 million effort, funded through the state’s cap-and-trade program, sends data to the California Air Resources Board as the satellite passes over the state roughly five times a week. One satellite is already in orbit, with seven more expected to launch in the coming years.

By November, the system had helped identify and stop 10 large leaks of the colorless and odorless gas since May — the climate equivalent of taking about 18,000 cars off the road for a year.

2. Hawai‘i researchers identify microplastic-eating fungi

Scientists at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have discovered that many fungi living around the islands can naturally degrade plastic, with some even being trained to consume the microparticles faster.

In February, after testing various marine fungi species, researchers announced that over 60 percent could break down polyurethane, a common plastic found in consumer and commercial products. By repeatedly exposing the fastest-growing fungi to plastic, researchers also boosted their degradation rates by up to 15 percent in just three months.

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Joseph Winters

With the equivalent of roughly 625,000 garbage trucks’ worth of plastic entering the ocean annually, researchers are now determining whether the plastic-eating species or other fungi can break down more stubborn, less degradable plastics such as polyethylene.

3. Scientists discover culprits of honeybee decline

Scientists have identified key viral drivers behind the massive honeybee die-off that has devastated U.S. beekeepers since early 2025.

In a new Department of Agriculture study awaiting peer review and conducted amid Trump-era funding cuts, researchers found that nearly all sampled colonies carried bee viruses spread by Varroa mites — parasites now resistant to amitraz, the primary chemical used to control them.

These mites rapidly transmit infections, which can also spill over into wild pollinators. However, researchers have also cautioned that resistant mites are only part of the problem, with the climate crisis, pesticide exposure, and shrinking forage also contributing to record-breaking colony losses.

4. Hypoxia levels in Long Island Sound reach lowest levels in 40 years

Levels of hypoxia, or low oxygen in bottom waters as a result of an overgrowth — and decomposition — of algae, have reached their lowest in 40 years, marking a major recovery milestone for the East Coast’s second-largest estuary.

New state data shows the sound’s “dead zones,” which are depleted of oxygen and uninhabitable for marine life, shrank to 18.3 square miles and lasted only 40 days — among the shortest and smallest events since monitoring began in the late 1980s. The numbers reflect a significant decline from 43 square miles in 2024 and 127 square miles in 2023.

Scientists credit decades of local and state-led efforts to cut nitrogen pollution, as well as this year’s dry summer conditions that helped reduce algae growth across the sound.

5. San Diego researchers develop new gel to restore coral reefs

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a groundbreaking gel, Snap-X, that could transform coral reef restoration.

With coral larvae being particularly selective about where they settle, researchers announced in May the creation of a material that releases chemical cues to indicate suitable habitats.

Read Next

The business case for saving coral reefs

Saqib Rahim

Snap-X, composed of nanoparticles suspended in a UV-curable gel, gradually releases coral-attracting chemicals over the course of a month. In laboratory tests on the Hawaiian stony coral species Montipora capitata, surfaces treated with Snap-X promoted coral resettlement at six times the rate of untreated surfaces. Furthermore, in experiments simulating reef environments with flowing water, Snap-X boosted coral larval settlement by 20 times, according to researchers.

The research breakthrough comes as more than 80 percent of the world’s reefs were hit earlier this year by the worst global bleaching event on record.

6. New Mexico invests $50 million into wildlife crossings

In April, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham committed $50 million to expand wildlife crossings as part of a statewide effort to reduce dangerous wildlife collisions. The funding, included in the state’s House Bill 5, marks the largest single-year state appropriation for wildlife crossings in the U.S.

It supports projects identified in the New Mexico Wildlife Corridors Action Plan, including the high-priority US 550 corridor north of Cuba, commonly known as the Valley of Death due to severe elk and deer collisions.

With roughly 1,200 wildlife crashes in the state each year, officials and conservationists have welcomed the investment, saying it will help reduce collisions while also protecting the natural behaviors of elk, mule deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, black bears, and cougars.

7. Researchers reduce sea turtle bycatch through solar-powered fishing nets

Researchers from Arizona State University, NOAA Fisheries, and the World Wildlife Fund have developed solar-powered, flashing LED lights for gillnets — walls of netting designed to entangle fish — to reduce sea turtle bycatch.

Developed in collaboration with local fishers along Mexico’s Gulf of California, the lights also serve as buoys. Built with polycarbonate housings, flexible solar cells, lithium polymer batteries, and green LEDs, the lights are capable of running for up to five nights without direct sunlight.

As a result, researchers found that solar-powered nets reduced sea turtle bycatch by 63 percent compared with conventional nets. Researchers also found that the lights did not reduce the catch rates of targeted species such as yellowtail tuna.
The development comes as bycatch comprises 40 percent of the total global seafood catch, or 63 billion pounds per year, with most of the waste involving endangered marine animals including sea turtles, sharks, and dolphins.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Despite Trump-era reversals, 2025 still saw environmental wins. Here are 7 worth noting. on Jan 4, 2026.

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A new state law aimed at preventing suicides on California bridges and overpasses will take effect in January, alongside another measure allowing San Bernardino County to expand its local parkland.

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