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Wildlife attacks and strange animal behavior — fake images spark conservation concerns
(news.mongabay.com)
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Deusdedit RuhangariyoICT
Around the world: Aboriginal tourism rewrites western Australia’s global narrative, dental care gaps deepen Indigenous health inequities in Canada, in Nepal sacred mountains clash with development and power, and Rangatahi Māori redefine belonging across worlds.
AUSTRALIA: Aboriginal tourism rewrites western Australia’s global story
Western Australia has crossed a historic threshold: more than one million international visitors in a single calendar year, a milestone achieved on the back of a booming Aboriginal tourism sector. New data from Tourism Research Australia shows the state welcomed a record 1.024 million overseas visitors in the 12 months to October 2025 — surpassing pre-pandemic levels and completing its tourism recovery two years ahead of national forecasts, reported The Indigenous Business Review.
At the center of this resurgence is a growing global appetite for Aboriginal cultural experiences.
Indigenous-led tours, storytelling, art, and on-country experiences are no longer niche offerings but core drivers of Western Australia’s tourism identity. The Western Australian Indigenous Tourism Operators Committee says international participation in Aboriginal tourism continues to rise, providing a strong foundation for long-term growth.
This recovery is translating into real outcomes. More than three million tourism trips were recorded in the year to December 2024, the highest ever, with international travelers accounting for 37 percent. For Indigenous operators, the impact is tangible: job creation, business expansion, and renewed confidence that culture-centered tourism can be both economically viable and culturally grounded.
Government and industry investment has played a role. Global campaigns such as Walking On A Dream and celebrity-led initiatives like Daniel Ricciardo’s Drive the Dream have helped reintroduce Western Australia to the world. Expanded aviation links now connect the state to 20 global cities, with international seat capacity exceeding pre-COVID levels.
Yet the deeper story is not marketing — it is meaning. Visitors are increasingly seeking experiences that are relational, place-based, and led by the people whose knowledge systems predate the modern tourism industry by millennia. Aboriginal tourism offers that depth, reframing travel as encounter rather than consumption.
Tourism Minister Reece Whitby has called the milestone “just the beginning.” For Indigenous communities, the opportunity is equally forward-looking: to scale on their own terms, protect cultural integrity, and ensure that growth strengthens — not dilutes — connection to country. Western Australia’s record numbers suggest a broader truth: when Indigenous peoples lead, the world follows.
CANADA: Dental care gaps deepen Indigenous health inequities
When Janine Manning needed a root canal, the procedure itself was routine. The cost was not. As a member of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, Manning relies on Canada’s federal Non-Insured Health Benefits program, designed to cover health services not included under provincial plans for First Nations and Inuit. Yet NIHB approved only $159 of a nearly $2,200 treatment, reported CBC News.
Even after private insurance, Manning paid close to $600 out of pocket — a burden many Indigenous patients simply cannot absorb. Her experience exposes a widening gap between Indigenous dental coverage and contemporary Canadian standards of care.
NIHB operates as a payer of last resort, requiring patients to exhaust other coverage first. While the program includes dental care, vision, prescriptions, and medical travel, both patients and dentists say its reimbursement rates and procedural limits have failed to keep pace with real costs. As a result, more dentists are opting out, citing administrative complexity and delayed payments.
This creates a cascading access problem. Many NIHB patients cannot pay upfront, and fewer clinics are willing to navigate the system. What begins as a policy shortfall becomes a practical denial of care — particularly in rural and remote communities.
Dental health is not cosmetic. Untreated oral conditions can lead to infection, chronic pain, lost income, and broader health complications. For Indigenous communities already navigating structural health inequities, the gap compounds historical disadvantage.
Critics argue that the program, while essential, reflects an outdated model — one that treats Indigenous health as supplemental rather than integral to national standards. Without updates that reflect modern procedures, fair compensation, and streamlined administration, the program risks entrenching inequity rather than resolving it.
Manning’s frustration is not unique; it is emblematic. Access to dental care should not depend on personal savings or insurance loopholes. If Canada is serious about reconciliation and health equity, Indigenous people must not be left navigating a system that covers yesterday’s care at today’s prices.
NEPAL: Sacred mountains clash with development and power
High in eastern Nepal, a cable car project intended to serve the Pathibhara Devi temple has ignited deep conflict. For Hindu pilgrims, the project promises easier access. For the Indigenous Yakthung (Limbu) people, it threatens a sacred landscape central to spiritual identity, ecological balance, and ancestral stewardship, Mongabay reported.
The World Bank Group’s Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman has now confirmed it is assessing a complaint filed by Yakthung representatives against the International Finance Corporation, alleging failures in transparency, environmental safeguards, and respect for Indigenous rights. The complaint was formally accepted in December 2025.
At issue is the IFC’s advisory involvement with IME Group, the conglomerate behind the project. Although IFC says it exited early and did not directly advise on the cable car, complainants argue that the delayed disclosure of IFC’s role undermines accountability particularly given the project’s environmental and social impacts.
The site lies near the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area and is home to threatened species, including red pandas and protected Himalayan yew trees. Critics say environmental assessments were inadequate, omitting key species and avoiding a full impact study. Protests escalated in January 2025 when police fired rubber bullets at demonstrators, injuring community members.
For Yakthung leaders, this is not simply a development disputem, it is a question of free, prior, and informed consent. They argue that sacred land cannot be offset by promises of tourism revenue or job creation. The spiritual cost, they say, is irreversible.
The CAO’s 90-day assessment will determine whether the case moves toward dispute resolution or a full compliance review. While the process does not judge merits, its outcome carries symbolic weight. It tests whether global financial institutions can reconcile development narratives with Indigenous self-determination and environmental responsibility.
For communities on the ground, the stakes are existential. As one complainant said, defending the mountain is about safeguarding heritage, not opposing progress. Nepal’s cable car controversy reflects a global pattern: when development arrives without consent, it often travels the same path, through sacred ground.
NEW ZEALAND: Rangatahi Māori redefine belonging across worlds
From a town of fewer than 4,000 people, Siadin Ellis is quietly reshaping what possibility looks like for rangatahi Māori. At 23, she has walked New Zealand Fashion Week runways twice while graduating with a law degree and being admitted to the High Court. Today, she works in Treaty law — bridging creativity and jurisprudence in spaces Māori have long been excluded from, RNZ reported.
Ellis grew up in Tūrangi, a predominantly Māori town often reduced to negative statistics. Those narratives shaped her resolve. She speaks openly about feeling caught between worlds — “too white” for Māori spaces at times, “too Māori” for others — especially after returning from childhood years in Australia without fluent te reo.
Law became both refuge and resistance. University life in Auckland brought isolation, impostor syndrome, and financial strain, compounded by starting during the pandemic. What sustained her was whānau — particularly her younger siblings — and a determination to show that origin does not define limit.
Alongside law, Ellis found freedom in fashion. Rejected by agencies for not fitting conventional standards, she persisted, embracing visibility as a bigger-bodied Māori woman. On the runway, she says, she feels seen — not for attention, but recognition.
One defining moment came when her ankle tā moko was clearly visible in a national advertising campaign. Rather than being erased, it was centered. The response affirmed what representation can do — not just for the individual, but for those watching from the margins.
Today, Ellis calls her Māoritanga a “superpower.” Understanding tikanga strengthens her legal work and grounds her creativity. Her message to rangatahi Māori is direct: systems were not built for you, but that does not mean you do not belong. The work is to enter anyway — and change them.
My final thoughts
This column has always been about more than headlines. It has been about patterns, about how Indigenous peoples across continents encounter the same forces wearing different names: development, recovery, reform, progress. From tourism booms to healthcare gaps, from sacred mountains to fashion runways, the stories change, but the underlying question remains the same: who gets to define value?
In western Australia, we see what happens when Indigenous leadership is recognized as an asset rather than an obstacle. In Canada, we see the cost of systems that promise care but fail to modernize. In Nepal, we witness the collision between global finance and ancestral responsibility. In Aotearoa, we are reminded that identity is not a barrier, it is a source of power.
Together, these stories reveal a world in transition. Indigenous communities are not asking to be included in broken systems, they are modeling alternatives — grounded in consent, continuity, and care. The challenge for institutions is whether they are willing to listen before conflict forces the issue.
As I close this final Global Indigenous column, I do so with gratitude.
To the readers who have walked with me across borders, belief systems, and hard truths over the last few years, thank you. Your attention has mattered. Your willingness to sit with complexity has mattered.
This column ends not because the work is done, but because new responsibilities now call. The stories will continue, even if the byline changes. Indigenous futures are not a series, they are a constant unfolding.
Carry these stories with you. Question whose voices are centered. Ask what consent looks like in practice. And remember that survival is not the ceiling, self-determination is the horizon.
Thank you for reading.
The post LAST GLOBAL INDIGENOUS: Indigenous stories ‘reveal a world in transition’ appeared first on ICT.
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Since his presidency began last year, Donald Trump has embarked on an all-out campaign to destroy the nation’s nascent offshore wind industry. He has halted all wind lease sales in federal waters, issued stop-work orders for nearly-completed wind farms, and told oil industry executives that his “goal is to not let any windmills be built.” Last month, his Interior Department said it would terminate five major wind farms that are under construction in the north Atlantic Ocean, citing vague “national security” issues. These wind farms would together generate around 5.6 gigawatts of power, enough to supply around 4 million homes.
Trump’s actions have all but destroyed the U.S. offshore wind industry, which was already facing significant economic challenges during the Biden administration. While the developers behind the five terminated wind farms recently secured court orders allowing them to complete construction, dozens of other potential wind installations have been scrapped, and investors are retreating from offshore projects. Even as solar energy continued to grow at a rapid clip in 2025, wind saw virtually no growth in the United States.
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That’s not just bad for the climate — it will also make it harder to keep the lights on in the U.S. northeast. The nation’s densest region is counting on dozens of new wind farms to meet rising power demand; the stretch of coastal states from Maine to Virginia have collectively committed to buy more than 45 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2040, almost ten times more than the five nearly-complete projects will provide. The region does not have many other good options for filling the gap. Without wind, residents of states like Massachusetts and New York will pay more money for dirtier fuel. The energy future of these states now hinges on whether they can tempt offshore wind developers back to a market that the federal government has just spent a year destroying.
“The market is at less than zero confidence right now,” said Kris Ohleth, director of the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, an independent organization that supports the buildout of the industry.
The country’s first crop of major offshore wind farms has been a generation in the making. Developers have been trying to sink steel turbines onto the ocean floor since the turn of the century, but their projects collapsed amid high prices and community opposition. It wasn’t until the Obama administration that the federal government laid the groundwork for wind leases in federal waters near Long Island, conducting landmark studies that identified ocean zones where wind is strongest and environmental risks are lowest. That attracted major renewable energy developers like the Danish firm Ørsted and the Norwegian company Equinor, who leased territory in the north Atlantic and sketched out billion-dollar wind farms.
Even before Trump, these projects were on shaky financial ground. Ørsted and its peers signed power contracts with states including New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts before the COVID-19 disruptions, but pandemic-driven shortages and the supply-chain chaos of Russia’s war on Ukraine drove up costs for construction materials like steel and copper. State governments also demanded developers put up more money for port improvements and onshore manufacturing jobs.
At the same time, developers encountered a wave of opposition from fishermen’s groups, conservative activists, and shoreline residents concerned about their ocean views. Prominent Republicans like U.S. Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey championed these groups. The opposition filed several lawsuits that slowed down the permit process for a few major wind farms, with one suit even reaching the Supreme Court.
“These were new, first-of-a-kind-in-the-U.S. permits, and we were trying to improve the permitting process as we were going along,” said Elizabeth Klein, who led the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management under former President Biden. (Klein said that by the end of Biden’s term the average environmental permit review took between two and three years, much longer than the more established procedure for offshore oil and gas.)
After the 2024 election, Trump’s sudden assault on the industry destroyed what little investor confidence was left. Even though several companies still hold leases that give them the right to build wind farms in federal waters, the industry has frozen in place. Other than the handful of major wind farms that are suing Trump for permission to finish construction, there are no large-scale projects in the pipeline. This freeze stands in stark contrast to the fate of solar energy, where installed capacity grew by 27 percent in 2025.
“In order for someone to get a commercial gleam in their eye, you need alignment with the federal government, the state government, and the market,” said an energy consultant who has advised offshore wind developers. “That’s gone, and it makes projects literally impossible. There’s no beating around it.” (The consultant requested anonymity in order to speak frankly given federal government backlash against the wind industry.)
Though the Biden administration focused primarily on the north Atlantic, it also auctioned federal wind leases in places like South Carolina, Louisiana, and Oregon. Klein believes that those states may now turn away from offshore wind given the market turmoil — and also because they have increasing access to alternatives like solar and cheap natural gas.
The Northeast does not have the same luxury. It is too dense and too cloudy to allow for large-scale solar farms, and other baseload power sources like nuclear will be hard to site, given population density and local opposition.
“There’s no other energy source coming to save them,” said Klein.
The situation is most acute in New England. In a report analyzing decarbonization scenarios, the energy nonprofit Clean Air Task Force found that offshore wind would have to make up almost half of all power generation by 2050 for the region to fully decarbonize. But it’s not just that these states need offshore wind to ditch fossil fuels. Experts also say that, with federal support, wind could be both the easiest-to-build and the most reliable power source for New England. That’s in part because communities across the region have mobilized against new gas pipelines and power plants. Furthermore, the region’s winter power needs will increase as more homes switch away from heating oil and begin to use electric heat pumps instead. Offshore wind turbines also fare much better in cold weather than power plants fueled by natural gas and oil.
“For all the difficulties, building [wind] and interconnecting is easier than almost anything else you would do,” said John Carlson, the senior Northeast regional policy manager at Clean Air Task Force, which co-produced the report on New England’s decarbonization. “At the end of the day, this has to happen. There isn’t another option.”
The first prerequisite to a revival of the industry would be a cooperative federal government. Given how long it takes to build a wind farm, many experts believe that some form of permitting reform will be necessary to tempt investors back into the market. Clean energy lobbyists and oil industry groups alike have endorsed bills that would prevent presidents from pulling already-approved permits, but Congress has yet to pass one. The most recent negotiations collapsed after Trump’s attempt to terminate the five major wind farms. (Beyond the five nearly-complete wind farms, there are several more projects that have obtained most or all of their federal permits, and their developers may just try to wait out the administration.)
But there are other constraints, one of which is money. Industry insiders say global firms like Ørsted and Equinor have little desire to make further investments in the U.S. market, though they’re still holding on to their federal leases in windy sections of the ocean. There may be smaller developers who may want to take the leases off their hands. Before the current crop of massive European-built wind farms, smaller American developers tried to build minor farms along New England’s coast. These projects collapsed amid local opposition, but it’s possible that American energy developers may now want to get back into the fray. (Both Ørsted and Equinor declined to comment on their future investment plans.)
The problem is that these smaller companies will have a harder time borrowing the billions of dollars it takes to build big wind farms, and they may need to charge more money for the electricity they produce. Experts say that state governments in the region will likely need to grease the wheels for investment by putting up taxpayer money rather than asking developers to bear all the costs.
“The ability for the state to de-risk the investment environment is enormously valuable in terms of making Maine an attractive state,” said Jeremy Payne, a lobbyist for the government affairs firm Cornerstone and the former director of Maine’s renewable energy trade association. Payne said that the state could attract investment by training wind workers or coordinating with neighboring states on transmission corridors for wind power cables, taking some of the work off the developer’s hands.
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Infrastructure is also a key constraint. The first wind projects required states to spend billions of dollars on port upgrades and onshore construction. Massachusetts has spent well over $100 million to upgrade the old whaling port of New Bedford so it can serve as a staging area for massive wind turbine blades that can stretch the length of a football field. New York built a similar wind staging area along the harbor in Brooklyn.
But this infrastructure is still not sufficient to support wind development on the scale that the region needs. The New Bedford port is just a quarter of the size of an offshore wind terminal under construction at the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and it may be too narrow to accommodate some large vessels. Massachusetts is planning to build a second facility in Salem — but Trump canceled a $34 million grant for that project, and its future is now uncertain.
The states along the eastern seaboard must invest now in order to make it easier for future projects to get off the ground. That includes upgrading transmission infrastructure, investing in workforce training, and expanding ports to accommodate larger turbines.
“We understand that whatever we’re doing now, we’re doing for 2029 or maybe 2030,” said Bruce Carlisle, the managing director of offshore wind for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a quasi-state agency that supports the buildout of renewable energy. “We want to make sure we’re balancing state investment with realistic timelines.”
At the same time, Carlisle said states may not get all they originally wanted from wind projects. In the first go-round, Massachusetts and other states pushed developers to hire local workers for manufacturing and assembly, but Carlisle now says that the state may need to walk some of those requests back, because they will further raise costs for developers. Instead, states may need to allow firms to source labor and materials from Europe — which has built out far more offshore wind and therefore has a developed labor force and supply chains already — rather than demanding they build out a U.S. manufacturing base.
Given that President Trump has refused to issue new permits for offshore wind, it will likely be impossible for states like New Jersey and Massachusetts to achieve their current procurement targets on time. In the rest of the country, planned projects may never materialize. But offshore wind will still dominate the Northeast power grid in the long run, even if future projects are more expensive and require more state support. For all the blows the industry has taken, the region just doesn’t have good alternatives.
“I think it’s more a question of ‘when’ than ‘if,’” said Ohleth.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump destroyed offshore wind. The Northeast can’t live without it. on Jan 28, 2026.
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Article Summary
• The EPA announced it will ‘freshly reassess’ the safety of the controversial weedkiller paraquat, news that was celebrated by supporters of the Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.
• In fact, the agency is not starting a new evaluation. The agency is continuing some work begun by the Biden administration EPA, in response to lawsuits. That doesn’t include evaluating new evidence on the chemical’s links to Parkinson’s disease, which many health experts say is now robust.
• Health advocates warn that the EPA is not doing enough to protect people from the deadly herbicide, which has been banned in 74 other countries.
In early January,Reuters and other major media outlets posted headlines declaring that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would “reassess” the safety of paraquat, a controversial weedkiller linked to Parkinson’s disease.
Such a reassessment would have been an important development for public health advocates, including members of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, who argue the EPA’s risk-benefit analysis of paraquat is outdated. While the EPA maintains it can be used safely, the herbicide is banned in more than 70 countries, including China, Brazil, and the United Kingdom—nations with similarly industrialized agricultural systems.
“More MAHA Progress!” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin posted on X. “The Trump EPA has made the important, proactive decision to freshly reassess the safety of PARAQUAT. It’s all about gold-standard science and radical transparency for Americans.”
In fact, the EPA did not start a new review of paraquat. Starting with an announcement in November, Zeldin is simply continuing reviews started by the Biden administration in response to lawsuits.
“Zeldin is repackaging things that EPA had already committed to do or is legally required to do and is touting it as some new announcement,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a staff attorney at Earthjustice. “In the meantime, the EPA is allowing workers in communities across the country to remain exposed to unsafe levels of paraquat and is failing to take action that is more than justified based on the science.”
“Zeldin is repackaging things that EPA had already committed to do or is legally required to do and is touting it as some new announcement.”
The agency did not answer detailed questions from Civil Eats about whether it is taking new action or when the various pieces of the current work being done were started. Instead, it sent a statement that again referred to a “reassessment” and referenced ongoing studies on the pesticide’s volatilization.
“If the new studies show that paraquat poses more risk than previously thought, the EPA could put stricter rules in place, limit how it can be used, or take other actions to protect farmworkers and people living in rural communities,” a spokesperson said.
Zeldin’s initial post came after several months of courting MAHA supporters who have been critical of the agency’s approach to pesticide regulation. After some in the movement started a petition calling for his dismissal, Zeldin and other top EPA officials invited them to the agency to discuss pesticide policy. He and other EPA officials have also made regular appearances on MAHA Action’s weekly calls since December.
As a result, some MAHA supporters believe Zeldin is truly listening to their concerns. While they would prefer that he ban paraquat and other pesticides with serious health risks outright, they say, the announcement is a step in the right direction.
“It’s great that they’re actually looking at paraquat,” Zen Honeycutt, the founder of Moms Across America and a prominent voice within the MAHA movement, told Civil Eats. “Saying that you’re going to do something is good, if there’s actual follow through. We want to see that happen.”
Other advocates who have worked on pesticide policy for decades and have been tracking Zeldin’s dismantling of protective regulations are more skeptical, especially given the biggest issue—the risk of Parkinson’s disease—is not part of the reassessment.
“The fact that EPA is still reviewing paraquat rather than banning paraquat is what’s making Americans sick, not healthy,” said Scott Faber, the senior vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG). “EPA has been struggling to do what 74 other countries have done, to simply ban paraquat.”
Paraquat Risks and Policy: The Background
Paraquat, which was introduced in the 1960s, is the deadliest pesticide in American agriculture. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, farmers and other applicators in 2018 sprayed about 11 million pounds across corn, soybean, and cotton fields and in orchards and vineyards.
A single sip can kill a person, and the EPA classifies it as “restricted use,” requiring those who spray it to undergo special training. The agency has long held that if it is used with restrictions in place, its dangers can be avoided.
However, multiple reports have shown that violations of safety requirements on pesticide labels are common, and the EPA does not actively enforce restrictions. In addition, experts say the agency’s registration process often fails to adequately account for the impacts of long-term exposure to pesticides, even as new evidence emerges.
In recent years, the evidence linking paraquat exposure to increased risk of Parkinson’s disease has been piling up.
In recent years, the evidence linking paraquat exposure to increased risk of Parkinson’s disease has been piling up.
“That evidence includes epidemiological studies involving farmworkers and other people who are exposed to paraquat,” Kalmuss-Katz said. “It includes laboratory studies where animals who were dosed with paraquat exhibited the telltale symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and it includes cellular studies, which explain exactly how paraquat is causing the neurological changes associated with Parkinson’s disease. . . . So, not only is there a very large body of evidence, but there’s a coherence between the multiple lines of evidence.”
Thousands of farmers and other pesticide users have sued Syngenta, which manufactures paraquat, and Chevron, a former distributor, claiming use of the pesticide caused them to develop the disease. Syngenta maintains there is no causal link between paraquat use and Parkinson’s. The company has also worked to influence academic and media reports on the issue and to fend off further regulation.
“Despite decades of investigation and more than 1,200 epidemiological and laboratory studies of paraquat, no scientist or doctor has ever concluded in a peer-reviewed scientific analysis that paraquat causes Parkinson’s disease,” the company claims on a website dedicated to defending paraquat. “Our view is endorsed in science-based reviews by regulatory authorities, such as in the U.S., Australia and Japan.”
“The law requires EPA to periodically review the state of the science on pesticide risks and to strengthen their regulations as needed to protect the public and the environment.”
The EPA is required to review registered pesticides every 15 years. In 2021, the EPA published an “interim decision” on the re-registration of paraquat, which included some new restrictions to account for the chemical’s risks. But soon after, a group of environmental and health organizations, including the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Pesticide Action Network North America, the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, and Farmworker Justice, challenged the decision in court.
“The law requires EPA to periodically review the state of the science on pesticide risks and to strengthen their regulations as needed to protect the public and the environment,” Kalmuss-Katz, who represented them in court, said. “Here, the EPA failed to do that.”
The lawsuit claims the agency failed on three fronts: They challenged the EPA’s finding that the evidence linking paraquat to Parkinson’s is insufficient, they said the agency failed to look at all the ways people are exposed to paraquat, especially in terms of how it drifts when it’s sprayed, and they said the agency’s balancing of the environmental, social, end economic costs and benefits was comprehensive on the side of economic benefits to growers but not on the side of public health.
In response, the EPA did not directly defend its review. The agency acknowledged to the court some of the issues and said it needed more time to go back and consider more research, especially on the issue of drift, or “volatilization,” which can impact farmworkers and nearby communities.
The agency said it would gather new data from Syngenta on volatilization and that the process would take four years.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (left) welcomes Vice President JD Vance to the Official MAHA Summit in Washington, D.C., where top Trump administration officials, executives, and influencers discussed the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. (Photo credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
What Trump’s EPA Has Done
In November, Zeldin’s EPA put out a press release claiming that, based on data Syngenta had submitted in 2024, the agency found “greater uncertainty regarding the potential for paraquat to volatilize than previously considered.” As a result, the EPA said it will be requesting more data from paraquat manufacturers. (Syngenta makes the most popular U.S. product containing paraquat, but several other companies manufacture it.)
In the statement EPA sent to Civil Eats, the spokesperson said the uncertainty revealed in the new study prompted the agency to require additional “real-world” studies to get a better picture of the risks: “EPA will make the new data, our methods, and our updated risk analysis publicly available and open for public comment, so communities, independent scientists, and advocates can examine and provide feedback on our work.”
“EPA will make the new data, our methods, and our updated risk analysis publicly available and open for public comment.”
That the process is ongoing and that the agency is working to meet its legal obligation on volatility are positive notes, Kalmuss-Katz said, but the agency “has not committed to taking any further action on any of the other issues raised in the case,” most notably on the link to Parkinson’s.
Zeldin’s press release also said that the agency will complete Endangered Species Act and endocrine disruption assessments before making final registration decisions. Those are also required by law and had been planned prior to Zeldin’s arrival.
Kalmuss-Katz and Faber are both concerned that the agency’s announcements are part of a pattern, whereby Zeldin and other officials at the EPA are misrepresenting their actions to gain political capital among MAHA supporters while not actually strengthening protections from chemicals.
For example, on New Year’s Eve, the EPA announced it will regulate some uses of five phthalates, chemicals commonly used in plastics, because it found they “pose unreasonable risks to workers and to the environment,” under a law called the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Again, on X, Zeldin declared a “Massive MAHA win.”
But the new regulations only apply to industrial uses, not phthalates in consumer products like food packaging. More importantly, in September, the EPA proposed bigger changes to key components of TSCA, which experts said will, overall, “open the door to more chemical approvals with less oversight.”
What Advocates Want the EPA to Do
In November, Zeldin was facing calls for his ouster led by vocal opponents in the MAHA movement. At the time, Honeycutt at Moms Across America, supported a petition that called for Zeldin’s removal, based on his actions weakening protections against harmful chemicals.
But while the petition now has more than 15,000 signatures, it also contains a note added on Jan. 16: “Several petition signers have met with or are scheduled to meet with Lee Zeldin to discuss advancing the regulation of harmful chemicals. At this time, we are in a collaborative effort to advance the MAHA agenda at the EPA.”
“EPA doesn’t need to wait for new science to ban paraquat in the United States.”
Honeycutt said she does believe Zeldin wants to make progress. “I’m hopeful that further conversations won’t be about him being fired, it’ll be about what we can get done together and that’s what we’re working on now,” she said.
Last week, Moms Across America launched a new petition with seven asks for Zeldin. The third is for him to end the use of pesticides already banned in other countries, including paraquat.
“We want to see real change and real results, and that means actions that reduce our children’s exposure to toxic chemicals,” Honeycutt said. “Our farmers are also paying the price for the lack of regulation by our government and the lack of responsibility by these manufacturers who do not disclose these health risks on the labels.”
Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network, one of the groups involved in the paraquat lawsuit against the EPA, issued a statement on Jan. 14 that also called for the EPA to immediately ban the pesticide, instead of continuing the multiple-year process of gathering new data.
“EPA doesn’t need to wait for new science to ban paraquat in the United States,” they said. “Credible research meeting EPA’s ‘gold standard’ tenets has already been submitted to EPA demonstrating that exposure to paraquat causes harm to farmworkers, farmers, and rural communities, and that its continued registration for use poses an unreasonable risk to these communities.”
At EWG, Faber said that he still wants to believe the government will do the right thing when presented with all the evidence, but based on the Trump EPA’s approach so far, he is not convinced real action is coming.
It is more likely, he said, that “it will be states that lead the way.”
The post The EPA Is Not Starting a New Review of Paraquat appeared first on Civil Eats.
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At Civil Eats, Indigenous foodways has long been a core area of our coverage. For more than a decade, we’ve reported on foraging and subsistence hunting, food sovereignty, the landback movement, and much more, working with Native reporters and fellows to shine a light on overlooked stories of resilience, strength, and solutions.
With this series, we feature the voices of Indigenous food leaders who are reaffirming the value of Native foodways and celebrating their resurgence after centuries of suppression and near-erasure.
Our goal is to share ancestral ecological wisdom, a knowledge of how to live in balance with the earth at a time when such understanding is urgently needed and in short supply. Through these voices, we hope to shed light on the diversity and richness of Native food systems in this country, each formed by deep connection to a particular place over thousands of years.
This series will share stories of caring for the land, stewarding ecosystems, and responding to challenges that tribes continue to face. Along the way, it will showcase concepts that have guided Indigenous ecology for millennia—including reciprocity and relationships with the natural world. And about belonging to the web of life rather than seeking to control it.
We’ll hear directly from Native individuals as the rightful holders of knowledge, tradition, and ecological wisdom as part of their living culture. We acknowledge Indigenous people as the original keepers of this land, with the insight and agency to heal it, and this platform is theirs.
“Traditional food practices often embody sustainable principles—such as community well-being, biodiversity, and respect for natural resources—that offer valuable lessons for addressing the global challenges we face as a planet,” writes Lakota chef Sean Sherman in his recent cookbook Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America.
Our hope is that, story by story, we will deepen our understanding, drawing us toward a food system that could once again be sustainable.
The post Living and Eating in Kinship With the Land appeared first on Civil Eats.
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This story was produced byHonolulu Civil Beat, a nonprofit news organization covering Hawaiʻi that specializes in accountability and in-depth enterprise coverage. For more stories like this,subscribe to their newsletters.
Nick Grube
Honolulu Civil Beat
A Hawaiʻi congressman has called on the Small Business Administration’s inspector general to launch an inquiry into a federal program intended to give Native Hawaiians and other Indigenous groups access to massive no-bid contracts in exchange for a promise to use profits to uplift their people.
The request by Rep. Ed Case stems from an ongoing investigation into Native Hawaiian defense contractor Christopher Dawson, who died by suicide in December 2024 while the target of a federal criminal probe into whether he cheated the program to enrich himself.
Dawson owned a suite of companies that had landed more than $2 billion dollars in contracts largely through the SBA’s 8(a) business development program. But SBA officials and U.S. Justice Department prosecutors claim Dawson abused the program by siphoning millions of dollars away from his companies to spend on luxury properties, private jets and polo.
Trump administration officials and other Republicans have seized upon the Dawson case and others in an attempt to gut a program that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently described as a race-based handout that’s a “breeding ground for fraud.”
Case, a Democrat, said his intention is not to join in the GOP chorus, but instead to shore up a program that, despite troubles, is rooted in noble ideals.
In a Jan. 2 letter to SBA Deputy Inspector General Sheldon Shoemaker, Case cited an investigation by Civil Beat and ProPublica that detailed Dawson’s alleged transgressions and the SBA’s actions. In it, he requested a review of the agency’s oversight of the 8(a) program’s contracting preferences for Indigenous groups, including Native American tribes, Alaska Native corporations and nonprofit Native Hawaiian organizations.
Specifically, Case asked for an assessment of the “effectiveness and transparency” of 8(a) participants’ community give-back efforts and whether there are any “gaps or areas for improvement.”
“While I strongly support federal efforts to help the indigenous peoples of our nation, recent news reports have highlighted potential concerns with the contracting preferences provided to at least one NHO,” Case wrote. “Such allegations and publicly acknowledged criminal investigations undermine Americans’ trust in the 8(a) Program and the goal of ensuring our nation’s indigenous peoples have a fair opportunity to participate in federal contracting opportunities.”
In an interview at his congressional offices in Washington, Case said he has yet to receive a response from the inspector general’s office. But he described Dawson’s case as serious, and said it warrants more scrutiny of the 8(a) program as a whole.
Case said he wants to know whether the Dawson situation was an isolated incident or a reflection of broader deficiencies. He also encouraged anyone with concerns about the program to share them with his office.
“One thing that’s patently obvious,” Case said, “is that the actual oversight by SBA is insufficient.”
Calls For More Oversight From Various Camps
The SBA has struggled for decades to police the 8(a) program, and the Trump administration has made significant cuts to the agency’s workforce, which, Case said, further undermines its ability to provide accountability.
Case went to the inspector general, rather than SBA leadership or other Trump officials, because he wanted an independent assessment of the program free from political influence. He said he also didn’t want to provide ammunition to those seeking to dismantle a program he generally supports.
“For me, this is about defending a program against an outright attack, while still providing my responsibility of oversight to determine whether this program actually is working,” he said.
Case’s call for more oversight comes as the Trump administration and other Republicans try to dismantle the program as part of its ongoing initiative to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the federal government.
In June, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler announced a full-scale audit of the program after two 8(a) contractors pleaded guilty to taking part in a $550 million bribery scheme involving a federal contracting officer. At the time, she said the purpose was to “stop bad actors from making the kind of backroom deals that have already cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars” and to “start rewarding merit instead of those who game the system.”
A few months later, the Treasury Department announced its own audit after James O’Keefe, a right-wing influencer, cast doubt on an 8(a) company, owned by a California tribe, that was purportedly using the program to win contracts and pass them along to other non-qualifying firms.
U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, launched her own inquiry into the program. In December, she sent letters to 22 agencies, including the Department of Defense, asking top Trump officials to pause all 8(a) sole source contracts. In her letter to Hegseth, Ernst specifically cited the scandal involving Dawson as a reason to heed her call.
Just last week, Hegseth issued a video statement in which he said he wanted to take a “sledgehammer” to the program. Hegseth said he was particularly concerned about 8(a) firms being used as pass-throughs for larger consulting firms and that he intends to conduct a “line-by-line review” of all 8(a) sole-source defense contracts over $20 million.
That threshold specifically targets Native Hawaiian Organizations and other Native groups, including tribes and Alaska Native corporations, since firms owned by those groups can win sole source contracts above the $4.5 million and $7 million caps imposed on other 8(a) companies.
While Case said he could support an honest attempt at reform, what he’s seeing out of the current administration is thinly veiled. “It’s basically just a DOGE attack on the 8(a) program,” Case said. “I don’t think they’re trying to understand how the 8(a) program is functioning, I think they’re trying to take it out.”
‘Somebody Will Try To Attack You One Day’
Case’s concerns about the 8(a) program pre-date the controversy surrounding Dawson.
His main focus has been on the community benefits and whether NHOs have been following through on their promise to help Native Hawaiians. The SBA requires NHOs to report how much they’re spending on these benefits each year, but those disclosures are based on the “honor system,” Case said.
In 2021, Case and then-U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele sent a letter to the Native Hawaiian Organization Association, a trade group, seeking details about how much money was being spent to “serve, empower and uplift the Native Hawaiian community.” Such data, the congressmen wrote, would be invaluable to help “explain and defend the NHO program to policy makers and federal government officials.”
That oversight, Case said, was meant to push the association and its members to demonstrate that the benefits they were providing were real and to send a signal that Congress was paying attention. It also served as a warning that NHOs should be prepared to properly track and document those benefits because “somebody will try to attack you one day.”
That day has come, he said, and he’s hoping the NHOs are prepared.
For its part, the association has tried to downplay the import of the Dawson investigation as well as the increased pressure from the Trump administration.
Over the summer, after Loeffler announced the SBA’s 8(a) audit, Cariann Ah Loo — the head of the Nakupuna Foundation and president of the association — said in a statement to Civil Beat and ProPublica that the vast majority of NHOs “meet their compliance obligations and deliver excellent value to the government and the taxpayer.”
“Our members take those responsibilities seriously,” Ah Loo said, “and have repeatedly proven we can withstand any level of scrutiny.”
She did not respond to a follow up request for comment about Hegseth’s latest announcement or Case’s request for an inspector general review of the program.
The post Hawaiʻi Democrat Seeks Federal Review Of Native Hawaiian Contracting Program appeared first on ICT.
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