Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Luca Bussotti, Professor at the PhD Course in Peace, Democracy, Social Movements and Human Development, Universidade Técnica de Moçambique (UDM)

Samora Moisés Machel, the first president of independent Mozambique, was born in 1933 in Gaza province, in the south of the country. He died in an unexplained plane crash on 19 October 1986, in Mbuzini, South Africa.

Authoritarian and popular, humble and arrogant, visionary and tactical. All these words have been used to describe Machel. Despite these contradictions, there was one quality that everyone recognised in him: his charisma. At the time this gift wasn’t lacking in many political leaders of emerging countries, especially those of Marxist-Leninist inspiration. Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro above all.

Their common faith went beyond any personal or family interest. It was a faith for the progress of humanity, for the liberation of oppressed peoples from the colonial yoke, from the chains of capitalism and from traditional values and practices considered regressive.

Machel’s enlightenment programme was as fascinating as it was difficult to achieve in Mozambique in the mid-1970s. Small farmers, with all their “traditional” beliefs, made up the majority of the population. It was a political battle for social justice as well as a cultural crusade.

Machel’s speech on 25 June 1975, at the Machava Stadium in Maputo, proclaiming Mozambique’s independence from Portugal, highlighted the contradictions. The new head of state addressed the “workers”, who represented a small minority of the Mozambican people. At the same time, he called for freedom from colonial-capitalist oppression and the effective, total independence of the new country, already identifying its possible enemies: the unproductive and exploitative bourgeoisie.

The task of nation-building

Machel’s charisma recalled that of the proto-nationalist hero Gungunhana, who had tried to resist the Portuguese occupation at the end of the 19th century. Machel’s grandfather, Maguivelani, was related to the “terrible” Gungunhana, the last emperor of Gaza, who was defeated in 1895 by Mouzinho de Albuquerque after years of struggle. He was deported to Portugal, where he died in 1906.

Paradoxically, the anti-traditionalist Machel was the descendant of a great traditional chief. This heritage played a role in shaping his personality and political action.

Machel’s main task was to build a nation that only existed because of political unification under the Portuguese. The initial choices, embedded in the Cold War atmosphere, forced the nationalist Machel to opt for a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Mozambique formally adopted a Marxist-Leninist doctrine at its Third Congress in 1977.

That approach meant political intolerance and the repression of “dissidents”, as well as the marginalisation of certain ethnic groups, above all the Amakhuwa people, who did not sympathise with Machel’s party, Frelimo.

The forces opposed to the Marxist-Leninist solution expected democratic elections to be held after the proclamation of independence from Portugal. But this opportunity never came. Portugal handed over power to Frelimo (Lusaka Accords, 1974), ignoring the existence of other political groups.

The treatment of leaders who opposed Frelimo’s vision was harsh. On their return from abroad, many were imprisoned in concentration camps in the north of the country.

They included the resistance leader Joana Simeão, along with others such as Uria Simango, former vice-president of Frelimo, his wife, Celina Simango, and Lázaro Kavandame, the former Makonde leader who left Frelimo because he didn’t agree with its political line.

They were put on arbitrary trial and executed. The dates and the method of execution are still officially unknown, despite the former president Joaquim Chissano’s public apology, in 2014, for these deaths.

About a year after independence, an armed opposition, Renamo, was formed. It was financed first by Ian Smith’s Southern Rhodesian government, and then by the South African apartheid regime.

Renamo, contrary to Machel’s expectations, had a solid popular base in central and northern Mozambique, especially among peasant populations who had expressed opposition to the policies of collectivisation and cooperation imposed by the Marxist-Leninist government.

And it was war which led Machel to a controversial agreement with the South African apartheid enemy. The Nkomati Accords, signed in 1984, provided for the end of Mozambique’s logistical support to the exiled African National Congress in Mozambique and South Africa’s military and financial support to Renamo.

This agreement did not bring peace. On the contrary, the war intensified, as the South African regime continued to finance Renamo.

Machel died in 1986, with the war still raging, unable to see the end of a conflict that had devastated Mozambique and which defeated the socialist principles.

The General Peace Accords between the Mozambican government, represented by the president, Chissano, and Renamo, represented by its leader, Afonso Dhlakama, were only signed in Rome in 1992.

End of an era

Machel took the first, important steps towards a rapprochement with the west, as demonstrated by his visit to Ronald Reagan in Washington in September 1985.

It can be said that with his death the First Mozambican Republic ended, with all its positive and negative elements. The dream of building a fair Mozambique with an equitable distribution of national wealth came to an end.

Machel had worked hard to ensure that health, education, transport, water and energy were distributed equally among Mozambicans. A poor but fair welfare state was born. But it was quickly dismantled in the years following his death. The Mozambican state had very few resources to devote to the welfare state. The rest was done by the rapid abandonment of an ideology, the socialist ideology, which by then the Frelimo elite no longer believed in.

In addition, international financial institutions entered the country, with the notorious structural adjustment policies, as early as 1987.

Corruption, which Machel sought to combat with various measures, and which he addressed at many of his rallies, spread across the country and all its institutions. The Frelimo political elite soon became the richest slice of the nation.

Several observers began to speak of a kleptocracy. The country suffered from continuous corruption scandals. One of the biggest became known as “hidden debt,” in which the political elite, including one of ex-president Armando Guebuza’s sons and former intelligence chief, Gregório Leão, were convicted of a scheme that cost the public treasury more than US$2 billion.

However, the main defeat was the fall of an inapplicable socialism.

The adoption of a capitalist, liberal and democratic model, at least formally, put an end to the arbitrary violations of human rights as in the age of the socialist state, such as “Operation Production” of 1983. The programme aimed to move “unproductive” people living in cities to the countryside to promote agricultural production.

In reality, it turned into arbitrary detentions and displacement of entire families, increasing the systematic violation of human rights by the state.

At the same time, the end of socialism meant democratic openness. Since the 1990 constitution, Mozambique has had as its fundamental principles respect for civil and political freedoms based on the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. Still, socio-economic rights have been denied as a result of the dismantling of the welfare state.

How he’s remembered

Today, many people miss Machel’s rule. Those who were close to him, such as José Óscar Monteiro, the former interior minister, recall him as an ethical statesman, intolerant of corruption and abuses against “his” people. So do some of the international media.

Others, since the 1980s, such as Amnesty International, have denounced the serious violations of the most basic human rights by the Mozambican government and its leader.

What remains of Machel today is above all his ethical teaching. He died poor, committed to the cause of his nation, leaving his heirs moral prestige.

It is curious that his figure is associated, even in musical compositions by contemporary rappers from Mozambique, with his historical enemy, Dhlakama, who died in 2018.

This popular tribute is proof of the distance between the country’s current ruling class and a “people” who are looking to the charismatic figure of Venâncio Mondlane, the so-called “people’s president”. But that’s another story that won’t fit here.

Luca Bussotti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Samora Machel’s vision for Mozambique didn’t survive: what has taken its place? – https://theconversation.com/samora-machels-vision-for-mozambique-didnt-survive-what-has-taken-its-place-260110

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Maurice Hutton, Research Associate, School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester

Kontuthu Ziyathunqa – Smoke Rising – was what they used to call Bulawayo when the city was the industrial powerhouse of Zimbabwe. Now, many of its factories lie dormant or derelict. The daily torrent of workers flowing eastward at dawn, and back out to the high-density western suburbs at dusk, has diminished to a trickle.

But there is an intriguing industrial-era institution that lives on in most of the older western suburbs (formerly called townships). It is the municipal beer hall or beer garden, built in the colonial days for the racially segregated African worker communities. There are dozens of these halls and garden complexes, still serving customers and emitting muffled sounds of merriment to this day.

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Read more:
Mbare Art Space: a colonial beer hall in Zimbabwe has become a vibrant arts centre

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Like other urban areas in Rhodesia (colonial Zimbabwe), Bulawayo was informally segregated from its inception, and more formally segregated after the second world war. Under British rule (1893-1965) and then independent white minority rule (1965-1980), municipal drinking amenities were built in the townships to maintain control of African drinking and sociality. At the same time, they raised much-needed revenue for township welfare and recreational services.

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Zimbabwe’s economy crashed – so how do citizens still cling to myths of urban and economic success?

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I researched the history of these beer halls and gardens as part of my PhD project on the development of the segregated African townships in late colonial Bulawayo. As my historical account shows, they played a key role in the contested township development process.

From beer halls to beer gardens

Bulawayo’s oldest and most famous beer hall, MaKhumalo, also known as Big Bhawa, was built more than a century ago. It still stands at the heart of the historic Makokoba neighbourhood. It’s enormous, but austere, and in the early days it was oppressively managed. Drinkers would describe feeling like prisoners there.

The more picturesque beer gardens began to emerge in the 1950s, reflecting the developmental idealism of Hugh Ashton. The Lesotho-born anthropologist was educated at the Universities of Oxford, London and Cape Town, and took up the new directorship of African administration in Bulawayo in 1949.

He was tuned into new anthropological ideas about social change, as well as developmental ideas spreading through postwar colonial administrations – about “stabilising” and “detribalising” African workers to create a more passive and productive urban working class. He saw a reformed municipal beer system as a key tool for achieving these goals.

Ashton wanted to make the beer system more legitimate and the venues more community-building. He proposed constructing beer garden complexes with trees, rocks, games facilities, food stalls and events like “traditional dancing”. So the atmosphere would be convivial and respectable, but also controllable, enticing all classes and boosting profits to fund better social services. As we shall see, this strategy was full of contradictions…

Industrial beer brewing

MaKhumalo, MaMkhwananzi, MaNdlovu, MaSilela. These beer garden names, emblazoned on the beer dispensaries that stick up above the ramparts of each garden complex, referenced the role that women traditionally played in beer brewing in southern Africa. This helped authenticate the council’s “home brew”.

But the reality was that the beer was now produced in a massive industrial brewery managed by a Polish man. It was piped down from steel tanks at the tops of the dispensary buildings into the plastic mugs of thirsty punters at small bar windows below. (It was also sold in plastic calabashes and cardboard cartons.)

And the beer garden bureaucracy, which offered a rare opportunity for African men to attain higher-grade public sector jobs, became increasingly complex and strictly audited.

As the townships rapidly expanded, with beer gardens dotted about them, sales of the council’s “traditional” beer – the quality of which Ashton and his staff obsessed over – went up and up.

Extensive beer advertising in the council’s free magazine mixed symbols of tradition (beer as food) with symbols of modern middle-classness.

Beer monopoly system

The system’s success relied on the Bulawayo council having a monopoly on the sale of so-called “native beer”. This traditional brew is typically made by malting, mashing, boiling and then fermenting sorghum, millet or maize grains. Racialised Rhodesian liquor laws restricted African access to “European” beers, wines and spirits.

So, the beer hall or garden was the only public venue where Africans could legally drink (apart from a tiny elite, for whom a few exclusive “cocktail lounges” were built). The council cracked down harshly on “liquor offences” like home brewing.

This beer monopoly system was quite prevalent in southern and eastern Africa, though rarely at the scale to which it grew in Bulawayo. Nearly everywhere, the system caused resentment among African townspeople, and so it became politically charged.

In several colonies, beer halls became sites of protest, or were boycotted (most famously in South Africa). And they usually faced stiff competition from illicit drinking dens known as shebeens.

In Bulawayo, the more the city council “improved” its beer system after the Second World War, the more contradictory the system became. It actively encouraged mass consumption of “traditional” beer, so that funds could be raised for “modern” health, housing and welfare services in the townships. Ashton himself was painfully aware of the contradictions.

In his guest introduction to a 1974 ethnographic monograph on Bulawayo’s beer gardens, he wrote:

The ambivalence of my position is obvious. How can one maintain a healthy community and a healthy profit at one and the same time? I can almost hear the critical reader questioning my morality and even my sanity. And why not? I have often done so myself.

Many citizen groups – both African and European – questioned the system too. They called it illogical, if not immoral; even some government ministers said it had gone too far. And when some beer gardens were constructed close to European residential areas, to cater for African domestic workers, many Europeans reacted with fear and fury.

As Zimbabweans’ struggle for independence took off in the 1960s, African residents increasingly associated the beer halls and gardens with state neglect, repression, or pacification. They periodically boycotted or vandalised them. Nevertheless, with few alternative options, attendance rates remained high: MaKhumalo recorded 50,000 visitors on one Sunday in 1970.

After independence

After Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, the township beer gardens remained in municipal hands. They continued to be popular, even though racial desegregation had finally given township residents access to other social spaces across the city.

The colonial-era municipal beers continued to be produced, with Ngwebu (“The Royal Brew”) becoming a patriotic beverage for the Ndebele – the city’s majority ethnic group.

But with the deindustrialisation of Bulawayo since the late 1990s, tens of thousands of blue collar workers have moved to greener pastures, mostly South Africa. The old drinking rhythm of the city’s workforce has changed, and for the young, the beer gardens hold little allure. Increasingly, they have been leased out to private individuals to run.

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Read more:
Beer, politics and identity – the chequered history behind Namibian brewing success

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Nevertheless, there is always a daily trickle of regulars to the beer gardens, where mugs and calabashes are passed around among friends or burial society members. Some punters play darts or pool. And there are always some who sit alone, ruminating – perhaps in the company of ghosts from the past.

The beer gardens of Bulawayo embody the moral and practical contradictions of late colonial development – and the ways in which such systems and infrastructures may live on, but change meaning, in the post-colony.

Maurice Hutton received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the University of Edinburgh’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences to conduct the research on which this article is based.

– ref. Alcohol and colonialism: the curious story of the Bulawayo beer gardens – https://theconversation.com/alcohol-and-colonialism-the-curious-story-of-the-bulawayo-beer-gardens-256511

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Elena Merenda, Associate Head of Early Childhood Studies, University of Guelph-Humber

This story contains spoilers about Lilo & Stitch.

At first glance, Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, set in Hawaii, seems like a playful, heartwarming film about an alien’s misadventures and a young girl’s search for connection and friendship. But there’s a deeper story — one about childhood grief in the life of the main character, Lilo, and how she navigates the loss of her parents.

Lilo’s story offers a meaningful glimpse into how grief shows up in children through their emotions and actions.

Grief in childhood is often misunderstood and overlooked. A common misconception is that children don’t grieve because they’re too young to understand loss. But just because children don’t express grief the way adults do, it doesn’t mean they aren’t grieving.

As an early child educator who teaches families and post-secondary students about children’s grief, I often say this: anyone who is capable of loving is capable of grieving — and children are deeply capable of love.

Children express grief through behaviours

Lilo’s grief is never directly named in the film, but it’s everywhere — she lashes out, isolates herself and clings tightly to Stitch. These behaviours mirror how many children express grief through actions rather than words.

Research from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network notes that young children often grieve through behaviour — aggression, regression, somatic complaints or withdrawal. This is tied to their stage of cognitive development.

As the theory of cognitive development by renowned psychologist Jean Piaget outlines, children aged two to seven think concretely and egocentrically, making abstract concepts like death hard to understand.

In one scene, Lilo insists on feeding a sandwich to her pet fish Pudge, believing he controls the weather — an imaginative ritual that helps her feel a sense of control in a world that feels uncertain and unstable. In multiple scenes she refuses to listen to her sister Nani, reflecting how grief often shows up through routines, symbolic actions or emotional withdrawal.

Grief can make children feel ‘different’

The Canadian Alliance for Children’s Grief estimates that one in 14 children in Canada will lose a parent or sibling before age 18. Yet despite how common it is, childhood grief is often overlooked — especially in schools, where emotional pain may go unnoticed.

In Lilo & Stitch, we see this reality through Lilo. She knows she doesn’t fit in and asks her sister why no one likes her. Her classmates tease her for being “weird” and emotionally reactive. In one scene, she tries to share a handmade bracelet during dance class, only to be mocked and excluded. The moment may seem small but it reveals a deeper truth: grief can make children feel isolated, overwhelmed and fundamentally different from their peers.

Research confirms this. Studies in the Journal of School Psychology show that bereaved children often describe themselves as “not normal” or “different,” especially when their peers haven’t experienced a similar loss. Without safe, validating spaces to process their grief, these feelings can lead to loneliness, behavioural struggles and low self-esteem.

Grief grows with us

Grief in childhood isn’t a single moment — it evolves and deepens over time. As children grow, so does their understanding of what they’ve lost. They often revisit their grief at new developmental stages, carrying it in different ways.

Lilo & Stitch reflects this beautifully. Lilo doesn’t talk much about her parents’ death, but we see her grief in the routines she clings to — like listening to Elvis or sharing old family photos. These aren’t just quirks; they’re ways she keeps her parents close.

This reflects what grief researchers call the continuing bonds theory, which emphasizes that maintaining emotional connections to the deceased can support healthy adaptation. Grief isn’t something children “get over.” It’s something they learn to carry — with support, connection and love.

Healing doesn’t mean Lilo returns to who she was before her parents’ deaths. Her grief remains, but she begins to rebuild her world with Stitch, Nani and her new ‘ohana (family).

They don’t replace what was lost, but they become a space where grief and love can coexist.

One of the film’s most memorable lines captures this truth:

“This is my family. I found it, all on my own. It’s little and broken but still good. Yeah… still good.”

Connection is the path to healing

Just as grief is rooted in love, healing is rooted in connection.

Lilo’s healing comes from presence. Despite the chaos he brings, Stitch stays. Nani, overwhelmed and unsure, keeps showing up.

Their love and steady, unconditional presence allow Lilo to begin feeling safe enough to grieve and grow.

This reflects what attachment research tells us: strong, secure relationships are among the most powerful protective factors for children navigating loss. When a child feels emotionally safe with a caregiver, they’re better able to regulate emotions, build resilience and integrate the pain of loss into their development. In bereavement, the presence of a stable, responsive adult can determine whether a child’s grief becomes traumatic — or transformative.

In Lilo & Stitch, connection becomes both the container for Lilo’s grief and the bridge to her healing. The film gently reminds us: love may be the reason we grieve, but it’s also the most powerful way through it.

How caregivers can support a grieving child

1. Maintain routine and consistency.

In times of grief, structure helps children feel safe. Predictable routines — like mealtimes, bedtime rituals and daily rhythms — offer a sense of stability when everything else feels uncertain

2. Normalize and validate emotions.

Help your child name what they’re feeling and let them know it’s OK. Say things like, “It’s OK to feel that way,” or “Whatever you feel is welcome here.” Validation helps reduce shame and gives children permission to process their grief openly.

3. Answer questions honestly.

Children need truthful, age-appropriate information about what has happened. Avoid euphemisms like “went to sleep” or “passed away,” which can cause confusion. Instead, use clear, simple language: “Their body stopped working and they died.” Honesty builds trust and supports children’s cognitive and emotional development as they process the permanence of death.

4. Seek support.

Grief can feel overwhelming — for children and their parents or caregivers. Reach out to school counsellors, grief therapists or local support groups, because support can reduce isolation, support expression and improve coping in grieving families.

Elena Merenda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Lilo & Stitch: With love, a bereaved child feels safe enough to grieve and grow – https://theconversation.com/lilo-and-stitch-with-love-a-bereaved-child-feels-safe-enough-to-grieve-and-grow-259873

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rebecca Woods, Associate Professor, Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology, University of Toronto

In just the last several months, de-extinction — bringing back extinct species by recreating them or organisms that resemble them — has moved closer from science fiction to science fact. Colossal Biosciences — an American for-profit de-extinction startup headed by geneticists George Church and Beth Shapiro — announced two major achievements almost back-to-back.

In the first, scientists spliced part of the woolly mammoth’s genome into mice to create “woolly mice,” incredibly cute pom-pom like rodents sporting coats that express the genes of long-extinct woolly mammoths.

Just a few weeks later, Colossal announced an even bigger achievement, claiming to have brought back the dire wolf, a contemporary of the woolly mammoth who, like their Ice Age proboscidean co-travellers, last roamed the Earth roughly 10,000 years ago.

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Colossal Bioscience’s attempt to de-extinct the dire wolf is a dangerously deceptive publicity stunt

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Mammoth popularity

Woolly mammoths are at the forefront of these controversial de-extinction efforts. Despite a deep bench of more recently extinct species — the dodo, the moa, passenger pigeons, the bucardo, quagga, thylacine, aurochs and a whole host of others — readily available to take centre stage in de-extinction efforts, woolly mammoths figure prominently in de-extinction stories, both scientific and popular.

Woolly mammoths featured prominently in the imagery of Revive & Restore, a “genetic rescue” conglomerate of scientists and futurists headed by tech-guru Steward Brand; in 2021, Colossal “established ownership” over woolly mammoth revival. Colossal’s own logo visualizes CRISP-R, the gene-splicing technology that facilitates de-extinction, and the signature spiralled tusks of Mammuthus primigenius.

In popular culture, woolly mammoths have been a source of fascination for the last several centuries. Thomas Jefferson famously held out hope that live mammoths would be found beyond the frontier of American colonialism in the late-1700s, while early excavations of American mastodons were major events in the early 1800s. American painter Charles Willson Peale captured the first such excavation in oils, and later capitalized on that mastadon’s skeleton in his Philadelphia museum.

More recently, Manny the mammoth featured in the ongoing Ice Age animated film franchise, first launched in 2002.

Climate icons

At the same time, woolly mammoths have also become an emblem of the contemporary climate crisis. During the recent wave of defacing famous artwork in order to draw attention to the climate crisis, environmental activists painted the (fortunately artificial) tusks of the Royal B.C. Museum’s woolly mammoth model bright pink.

In a 2023 publicity stunt, the Australian cultured-meat startup, Vow, unveiled a mammoth meatball produced out of the woolly mammoth’s genome with sheep DNA as filler. Not for sale, the mammoth meatball was scorched before an audience at the Dutch science museum, Nemo.

The stunt was intended to call attention, again, to the plight of the Earth’s climate, the unsustainability of industrialized food systems and the potential for lab-grown meat to square this particular circle.

Model animals

For a creature that no human being has ever seen live and in the flesh, woolly mammoths certainly get a lot of media exposure. How did this long-extinct species become the emblem of contemporary extinction and de-extinction?

People have been interacting with the remains of woolly mammoths for hundreds of years. Dig a hole deep enough almost anywhere in the northern hemisphere, and you are apt to come across the bones or maybe the tusks of extinct mammoths or mastodons.

In early modern Europe, mammoth fossils were famously interpreted as the bones of unicorns and giants before being recognized as belonging to elephant-like creatures around 1700. Only around 1800 were mammoths recognized as a distinct and extinct species of proboscidea.

Elsewhere in Arctic regions, especially Siberia, Indigenous Peoples were familiar with mammoth remains preserved by permafrost. As rivers and their tributaries surged during annual thaws, whole carcasses of mammoths (and woolly rhinos) were sometimes exposed.

Local peoples who came across these remains, apparently recently dead but belonging to creatures they never saw walking the Earth’s surface, surmised that they were great burrowing rodent-like animals that tunnelled through the ground and perished if they accidentally came into contact with atmosphere.

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Read more:
Ancient DNA suggests woolly mammoths roamed the Earth more recently than previously thought

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Around the Arctic, including in Alaska, permafrost prevented the fossilization of mammoth tusks as well as bodies, and this ice ivory was — and remains — an important element of Arctic economies, carved locally and exchanged into historically regional, and now global, markets.

Continued relevance

Despite their association with the distant past, woolly mammoths have long resonated with modern human cultures as their fossilized or preserved body parts entered economic practices and knowledge systems alike. But as the extinction of once numerous species like the passenger pigeon, the American bison and African elephant began to loom over the late 19th century, woolly mammoths took on new meanings in the context of modern extinction and emergent understandings of human evolution.

Revolutions in geology, archeology, paleontology and related disciplines were changing long-held assumptions about the origin of humankind.

Narratives of the rise of “man the hunter” arose in natural history institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum in Chicago. These origin stories were explicitly connected to the presumed extinction of woolly mammoths and their evolutionary relatives, the mastodons.

These led to some of the most powerful expressions of mammoths in visual form, like the frescoes and paintings produced by renowned paleoartist Charles R. Knight.

At the same time, cave paintings in France, Spain and elsewhere came to light in the early 20th century. For example, the 40,000-year-old frescoes at Rouffignac, France clearly depicting woolly mammoths were interpreted as further evidence of this deep and powerful historical connection.

It is this connection — the association of the rise of modern humankind with the decline and extinction of the woolly mammoth — that feeds today’s continued fascination. Notions of human complicity in extinction stories have long been embedded in modern scientific understandings of woolly mammoths. It is no accident that woolly mammoths are so central to de-extinction projects and climate activism alike.

Rebecca Woods received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Why are we so obsessed with bringing back the woolly mammoth? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-we-so-obsessed-with-bringing-back-the-woolly-mammoth-253432

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Charlotte Milne, PhD Candidate, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia

Every spring, melting snow and heavy rainfall brings a higher risk of flooding and riverbank erosion to parts of Canada. Bank erosion is responsible for a significant portion of annual flood damage in Canada, with estimates suggesting the costs could grow as high as $13.6 billion anually by the end of the century.

In British Columbia, erosion is primarily managed by “hardening” riverbanks with large rocks called riprap. These rocks are so prevalent along B.C. rivers that you might think they are part of the natural environment, but they are not.

Hardened riverbanks offer temporary protection from river movement, but riprap can lead to degraded rivers. Erosion is a natural process that helps maintain healthy and diverse river habitat. However, as societies expand, there is more demand to control river movement and prevent erosion.

Through my work as a river scientist and flood risk researcher in New Zealand and Canada, I have witnessed the sometimes devastating impacts of river erosion and have also seen just how lifeless rivers can become when overly restricted.

Of course we need to protect people, property and infrastructure from riverbank erosion. But current erosion management is hurting B.C. rivers.

The problem with riprap

Riprap is essential for stabilizing riverbanks when infrastructure and property are at immediate risk. The rocks are often laid down as “temporary” erosion prevention before or during floods.

The problem is, if you harden one area with riprap, that bank transfers the erosion-hungry current elsewhere, driving the need for further riprap to be installed.

The exact impact that riprap is having on B.C. waterways requires more research, but professionals working in the province’s rivers are already seeing the damage.

During a workshop I led with colleagues from Resilient Waters and Watershed Watch, we found that in a group of 83 river and flood management professionals, 53 had witnessed adverse impacts from riprap use in the province’s Lower Mainland region.

It is now estimated that more than half of the gravel sections of the Fraser River have been hardened through riprap. To date, there has been limited consideration of the environmental consequences of such widespread bank hardening.

Riprap can bury the shallow spawning habitats preferred by many fish. It can prevent the “undercutting” of banks, a process that creates important spaces that salmon species prefer for shelter.

In addition, riprap causes water temperatures to rise as rocks trap heat from sunlight that would normally be shaded by riparian vegetation. That lack of vegetation also means less wood and debris in the rivers, which would normally add essential habitat complexity that is preferred by many fish species.

Riprap also acts as a potential migration barrier for salmon and other species trying to navigate the riverbanks. Finally, as riprap lessens available habitat for indigenous species, it can offer preferential habitat for invasive ones instead.

Given the potential for environmental harm, there have been calls to limit riprap use in British Columbia. Experts have suggested it should only be used in essential cases, ideally in river systems that are already heavily impacted by humans.

Bioengineering, revegetation alternatives

The good news is that there are bank-stabilizing alternatives to riprap.

Bioengineering involves using vegetation to create or support engineered structures. For example, live tree cuttings can be woven together to create wattles or brush mattresses. This process creates living tree walls and coverings that grow and strengthen over time.

Revegetation is another approach, using riparian planting to strengthen riverbanks with root systems. In some cases, this can be as simple as laying down seeds at the right time of year, often with other erosion control options like mulch terraces.

The key to the success of bioengineering and revegetation efforts is that they need to be done proactively. Unlike riprap, which can be installed as an emergency response measure, vegetation needs time to grow.

Next steps for B.C.

Is it possible to move on from our over-reliance on riprap in B.C.?

During our workshop, experts discussed what needs to happen to support environmentally friendly bank stabilization options.

First off, we need to be talking about the overuse of riprap more. Currently, decision-makers and property-owners are often unaware of the potential harm that riprap can have on our rivers, or that alternatives exist. While many alternatives won’t be appropriate in extreme erosion cases, for the province’s smaller and healthier rivers, they would be ideal.

For this to happen, the bank-stabilization regulation process in B.C. needs to change. Currently it is hard to receive consent or funding to undertake bank strengthening activities outside of emergency riprap installation.

The B.C. government needs to adapt local guidelines and regulations to allow wider use of alternative methods, prioritizing proactive bank strengthening. They can draw on findings from elsewhere in Canada where alternative bank-stabilization options are already being tested.

Shifting away from a dependence on riprap won’t be easy, but in a province that relies on healthy rivers and fish, it should be a priority.

As one workshop attendee put it: “We don’t want to see sterile kilometres of riprap.”

Charlotte Milne receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Public Scholars Initiative at UBC. The research mentioned in this article received funding from UBC’s Sustainability Scholars Program and support from Resilient Waters and the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

– ref. Overuse of riprap to prevent riverbank erosion is harming B.C. rivers – https://theconversation.com/overuse-of-riprap-to-prevent-riverbank-erosion-is-harming-b-c-rivers-255283