NewzIntel.com

Category: Environment

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Lecturers from Henan Urban Planning University completed an internship at SPbGASU

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – FIEiGKh teachers and colleagues from China

    Teachers from Henan University of Urban Planning (China) completed an internship at the Department of Water Use and Water Disposal of SPbGASU and received certificates.

    According to Shuainat Akhmadulaeva, Head of the International Activities Department of SPbGASU, cooperation with Henan University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (HSU) has been developing dynamically since 2017 and includes a wide range of areas, including the implementation of joint educational programs, academic exchange of teachers and students, holding joint summer schools, carrying out scientific and technical developments, holding scientific and practical conferences, expanding the laboratory base, and publishing activities.

    “Since 2022, SPbGASU has been participating in the implementation of the educational program for training bachelors in “Water Supply and Sanitation”, financed by the Chinese side. Up to 20 teachers from seven departments of our university took part in this work annually. Now, eight teachers from Henan University of Urban Development have completed an internship at the Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Urban Economy,” explained Shuainat Akhmadulaeva.

    Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Engineering Ecology and Urban Economy for Career Guidance Olesya Samodolova said that the interns also attended a class in the laboratory of the Department of Heat and Gas Supply and Ventilation. SPbGASU teachers Nikolay Ponomarev and Kirill Sukhanov held a laboratory class on a heating device, demonstrated the equipment, talked about virtual laboratory work and stands.

    Presenting certificates of completion of the internship to colleagues from China, Dean of the Institute of Economics and Geochemistry Dmitry Ulrikh expressed hope that the experience gained will be useful to them in their professional activities.

    “Within the framework of cooperation with Henan University of Urban Development, quite large prospects have emerged. With the management of our university, we discussed the possibility of implementing a double degree program in the specialty of water supply and sanitation with the subsequent expansion of training areas. While cooperating in educational activities, we will be glad to jointly develop the scientific direction as well,” noted Dmitry Ulrikh.

    The head of the Chinese delegation, He Yali, associate professor at Henan Urban Development University, confirmed that they had indeed learned a lot of new things during the several days of the internship.

    “We attended classes and appreciated the very high level of teaching. We hope to continue cooperation, including within the framework of the double degree program. We will also be glad to see you at our university,” He Yali noted.

    Head of the Department of Water Use and Ecology at SPbGASU Svyatoslav Fedorov added that the cooperation continues: next week, SPbGASU teachers will go to Henan University of Urban Development, where they will conduct classes.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: [World Sleep Day] Recovering From Daylight Savings May Take More Than Three Weeks, Youngest Hit Hardest

    Source: Samsung

    Do you find yourself feeling more tired once the clocks spring forward for Daylight Savings Time (DST)? Well, you’re not alone. Although losing an hour the night of DST may seem insignificant, examining the sleep patterns of global Samsung Health user’s[i] from the US, Canada and more than 40 European countries reveals a ripple effect that causes weeks-long disruptions to sleep patterns, hitting younger age groups the hardest.
     
    DST Takes a Toll on Sleep, With Younger Generations Most Disrupted
    When looking into how much of an impact DST has on people the morning after, one thing is clear, everyone’s sleep patterns are thrown off. In fact, people spent a little too much time counting sheep the night of the time change, falling asleep 33 minutes later than the previous night, waking up 19 minutes earlier. While losing sleep isn’t easy at any age, those in their 20s likely felt it the most thanks to an extremely late bedtime and a seeming inability to sleep in.
     

     
    Moreover, Sleep Score – calculated based on an evaluation of a users’ total sleep time, awake time, sleep cycle, plus physical and mental recovery – was at the worst level for weeks after DST – and again, people in their 20s appeared to be most affected. When examining in the seven-day Sleep Score average, the 20s age group demonstrated the slowest score recovery rate, while older age groups adapted much quicker. By the third week, Sleep Score for all age groups were still not stable as normal, showing fluctuations in the quality of a good night’s rest.
     

     
    Useful Tips To Help You Get a Good Night’s Sleep and a Quicker Recovery
    The transition into DST clearly affects the sleep patterns of all age groups long after the clocks change, but for younger generations, prioritising sleep management during this time couldn’t be more important. In recognition of World Sleep Day, Samsung is sharing useful tips that make understanding your sleep patterns and habits as seamless and effortless as possible for a better night’s rest.
    Creating an ideal sleep environment is critical to a good night’s sleep. Later this month, Samsung Health app update[ii] will make this possible by providing guidance and analysis on the key factors that influence sleep quality, including temperature, humidity, CO2 and illuminance via a Sleep Environment Report[iii] – leveraging SmartThings and the power of Samsung’s extensive device ecosystem. With a better understanding of how your environment affects sleep, easily optimise your room conditions for an improved night’s rest.
     
    In addition to perfecting your sleep environment, understanding how activity can impact energy level is key. Samsung Health app updates also bring enhancements to Energy Score[iv], which provides an indicator of how much energy users can expend throughout the day. In addition to sleep and heart rate, a new detailed factor about activity – Activity Consistency – will help you understand your overall condition in greater detail by evaluating your activity levels over the past four weeks.
     
    It’s also important to understanding how you’re sleeping and making necessary adjustments through sleep training. Sleep Coaching makes this simple by seamlessly tracking your sleep patterns over 7 days and assigning a sleep animal based on the results. With a personalised coaching program, develop healthy habits and routines that set you on a positive path to achieving your sleep goals.
     
    World Sleep Day serves as an important reminder of the importance of sleep. With the latest Samsung Health app updates and the Galaxy ecosystem, Samsung remains committed to helping users optimise their sleep and lead healthier, more balanced life.
    [i]Findings analysed sleep data of Samsung Health users via Galaxy Watch series during DST in the spring of 2024.
    [ii]Certain features may vary by market, carrier or paired device.
    [iii]Sleep Environment Report feature will be available on smartphone with One UI 7 and Samsung Health app version 6.29.5 or higher, and when device is connected to SmartThings.
    [iv]Galaxy AI features track data and require compatible Samsung Galaxy phone, Samsung Health app and Samsung account.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: New evidence reveals that all Londoners are now breathing cleaner air following the first year of the expanded Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ)

    Source: Mayor of London

    1. Roadside Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) levels, a toxic gas that exacerbates asthma, impedes lung development, and raises the risk of lung cancer, have decreased by a record 27% across the entire capital [1].
    2. Particle emissions (PM 2.5) from vehicle exhausts, are 31% lower in outer London in 2024 than they would have been without the ULEZ expansion. [2]
    3. The environmental impact of ULEZ has been substantial, with carbon emissions equivalent to nearly three million one-way passenger trips between Heathrow and New York saved [3]
    4. Air quality has improved at 99% of air quality monitoring sites across London since 2019, and London’s air quality is improving at a faster rate than the rest of England [4, 5]

    In London, around 4,000 premature deaths per year were previously attributed to toxic air [6]. Air pollution increases the risk of developing asthma, lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, and there is growing evidence that air pollution exposure increases the risk of developing dementia [7]. 

    In April 2019, the Mayor of London launched the world’s first 24-hour Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in central London. The zone was expanded across inner London in 2021, and finally to cover the whole capital In August 2023, bringing the air quality and associated health benefits to the five million people living in outer London.

    A new City Hall report, extensively reviewed by an independent advisory group of experts* shows that the ULEZ has led to substantial improvements in air quality in outer London and across the capital. [1]

    Particle emissions (PM2.5) from vehicle exhausts are estimated to be 31% lower in outer London in 2024 than they would have been without the ULEZ expansion. Alongside NO2 and PM2.5 reductions, NOx (Nitrogen Oxides) emissions from cars and vans are also estimated to be 14 per cent lower in outer London. [2]

    The biggest reductions in NO2 levels have been in central London (54%) but there have also been substantial reductions in inner London (29%) and outer London (24%) [1].

    The boroughs that have seen the biggest reductions in NOx emissions due to the ULEZ expansion are Sutton, Merton, Croydon, Harrow and Bromley, where harmful emissions are estimated to be around 15 per cent lower in 2024 than would be expected without the expansion to outer London, which covers a large area of around 1250km2.

    Thanks to all phases of the ULEZ, NOx emissions from road transport are estimated to be 36 per cent lower across London in 2024, a saving of around 3400 tonnes – the equivalent of approximately one year of emissions from all passenger car trips in Los Angeles [8]. 

    The report also shows that the ULEZ has led to savings in carbon emissions.

    Cumulatively between 2019 and 2024, the equivalent of nearly three million one-way passenger trips between Heathrow and New York has been saved in carbon due to ULEZ as a whole [3]. 

    Deprived communities are seeing some of the biggest benefits. For some of the most deprived communities living near London’s busiest roads, there was an estimated 80 per cent reduction in people exposed to illegal levels of pollution in 2023 – this increases to 82 per cent in outer London, compared to a scenario without the ULEZ [9]. 

    Data from the report [2], alongside independent analysis [10] has found that the ULEZ expansion has not impacted footfall or retail and leisure spending in either outer London or London as a whole [8]. Visitor footfall in outer London increased by almost 2 per cent in the year after the London-wide ULEZ expansion.

    The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “When I was first elected, evidence showed it would take 193 years to bring London’s air pollution within legal limits if the current efforts continued. However, due to our transformative policies we are now close to achieving it this year. Today’s report shows that ULEZ works, driving down levels of pollution, taking old polluting cars off our roads and bringing cleaner air to millions more Londoners. 

    “The decision to expand the ULEZ was not something I took lightly, but this report shows it was the right one for the health of all Londoners. It has been crucial to protect the health of Londoners, support children’s lung growth, and reduce the risk of people developing asthma, lung cancer and a host of other health issues related to air pollution.   

    “With boroughs in outer London seeing some of the biggest reductions in harmful emissions and London’s deprived communities also seeing greater benefits, this report shows why expanding ULEZ London-wide was so important. 

    “Thanks to ULEZ and our other policies, all Londoners are now breathing substantially cleaner air – but there is still more to do, and I promise to keep taking action as we build a greener, fairer London for everyone.”    

    TfL data also shows that Londoners have continued to upgrade their vehicles to cleaner models with 96.7 per cent of vehicles seen driving in London now ULEZ compliant, up from 91.6 per cent in June 2023 and 39 per cent in February 2017, when changes associated with the ULEZ began. Van compliance in outer London is over 90 per cent for the first time (90.7 per cent). In February 2017, just 12 per cent of vans met the ULEZ standards, demonstrating the schemes’ impact on reducing the number of more polluting older vans driving in London. [2]

    The data also shows there were nearly 100,000 fewer non-compliant vehicles detected in London on an average day in September 2024 compared to June 2023, when the Mayor announced his plans to extend the ULEZ to outer London – a 58 per cent reduction in non-compliant vehicles. This has been aided by the Mayor’s scrappage scheme, which provided around £200m to support Londoners to switch to cleaner vehicles. The scrappage schemes that supported the introduction of the ULEZ to central London, and the expansion to inner London, were successful in removing 15,232 older and more polluting vehicles from London’s roads. Over 54,700 further applications were approved before the scheme closed in September 2024, including over 400 vehicles donated to humanitarian and medical efforts in Ukraine. A ULEZ scrappage scheme evaluation report to be published shortly will set out the full impact of the scheme, including the total numbers of vehicles scrapped, replaced and donated. 

    The ULEZ is the centrepiece of a range of measures the Mayor and TfL is implementing to tackle London’s toxic air, including putting a record number of 1900 zero-emission buses on the roads. Since 2019, air quality has improved in 99 per cent of air quality monitoring sites included in the analysis (8) across London, thanks to these measures and wider transport policies, with 80 per cent of monitoring locations showing average NO2 concentration reductions of more than 10 µg/m3, which is a quarter of the legally permitted annual NO2 concentration.   

    London’s air quality is improving at a faster rate compared to the rest of England (2017-2024). This is particularly notable in outer London where concentrations have improved more rapidly over recent years and are now similar to the rest of England average, which has historically been lower than London [9].  

    Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization: “Improving air quality through initiatives like the Ultra Low Emission Zone in London is crucial for protecting public health and reducing the burden of disease. Cleaner air leads to healthier communities, lower rates of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, and a better quality of life for all residents. The World Health Organization commends the efforts of cities like London in implementing measures to reduce emissions from vehicles and improve air quality, which ultimately contribute to a healthier and more sustainable urban environment.”

    Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, said: “Reducing car traffic is one of our greatest opportunities to address the climate emergency. Under the leadership of Mayor Khan, London is showing us what safer, healthier, and greener communities look like, and the results of London’s clean air zone speaks for itself. I commend Mayor Khan for his commitment, leadership and vision to addressing the climate crisis and protecting the lives and health of city residents. London is demonstrating once again that cities lead the fight against climate change.”

    Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah CBE, Global Heath Advocate and Founder of the Ella Roberta Foundation said: “I am delighted that the latest analysis since the expansion of ULEZ to outer London shows that air pollution has reduced.  My daughter Ella died from emissions from the South Circular Road close to where we live, and I will not stop until everyone in London can breathe safe, clean air, regardless of where they live in the city.  People’s health, particularly children’s, should always be prioritised by society, and I look forward to hearing what further plans the Mayor has to continue to clean up the air for all Londoners.  ULEZ was an important step, but there is so much more to do, and I will ensure that politicians and decision-makers are held to account, and do all they can to protect people’s health and clean up the air we breathe.”

    Christina Calderato, TfL’s Director of Strategy, said: “Bold and ambitious environmental schemes like the ULEZ are pivotal to making tangible long-term air quality improvements to tackle a public health crisis, as shown in this new report. Everyone in the capital is now breathing cleaner air because of ULEZ. Harmful NO2 concentrations are 27 per cent lower across the city than if there had been no ULEZ. There’s less PM2.5 exhaust emissions and NOx pollutants from cars and vans in outer London – an even greater reduction than reported in the first six months of ULEZ showing the continued success of the scheme.  

    “It is great to see it making a real difference to the air Londoners breathe, and together with our efforts to decarbonise the public transport network, will see generations to come reaping the benefits of a greener, cleaner London.” 

    Dr Gary Fuller, Imperial College London, and Chair of the ULEZ Advisory Group, said: “Each phase of the ULEZ has led to clear improvements in the air pollution next to London’s roads. This is good news for the current and future health of Londoners, as well as those who travel to London for work or leisure.   

    “The analysis in this report benefited from an international advisory group of scientists, all with experience in assessing the impacts of urban clean air policies. We worked with the Mayor’s team to stress-test key parts of the analysis and concluded that the core methodology used in this report, and in previous ULEZ reports, was appropriate and robust. The ULEZ is one of over 300 such schemes across the UK and Europe, and many cities are looking to London’s ULEZ results to inform their own plan.”

    Jemima Hartshorn, Director, Mums for Lungs said: “Today is a good day for children, and all of us: Air pollution has been reduced due to the pioneering measures of our Mayor and we are so glad about that. But air pollution across the country and even London remains too high. Hopefully, the national Government will learn from this success and support Mayors and councils in stopping pollution from diesel and wood burning making us sick.”

    Larissa Lockwood, Director of Policy and Campaigns at Global Action Plan said: “Clean air is a health and social justice issue. This report shows that bold, pro-environment policies can be successful – both in terms of health benefits and electoral success. We celebrate the air quality improvements from ULEZ, urge the Mayor to continue cleaning up the air in London and hope that other political leaders across the UK and the world will be inspired to implement bold measures to tackle air pollution.”

    Izzy Romilly, Sustainable Transport Manager at Possible said: “The largest clean air zone in the world has been a triumph. We’ve slashed pollution, and we’ve protected the lungs of the most vulnerable Londoners, with the biggest benefits being felt in areas of highest deprivation. Now, national government and leaders around the world should learn the lessons of ULEZ and show the same ambition to clean up toxic air. Here in London, these findings should give the Mayor the courage to go further and faster on tackling harmful emissions. We need to see more action on transport and traffic, a serious tax on SUVs, and a diesel phase out by 2030.”

    Jane Burston, CEO at Clean Air Fund said: “The new data shows how the ULEZ is making a real difference to the quality of the air Londoners breathe. It’s especially encouraging to see that the communities living near the busiest roads are seeing substantial benefits one year on. London’s progress provides an inspiring blueprint for others, including those in our Breathe Cities initiative, by showing how tackling air pollution can improve lives, boost public health and address the climate crisis.”

    Barbara Stoll, Senior Director at Clean Cities Campaign said: “Despite fierce opposition – even from the government of the time – the Mayor stood firm, and the results speak for themselves. The ULEZ shows that when city leaders have vision and determination, they can reduce inequities and transform urban life for the better. We urge the Mayor to continue his leadership in championing healthy, climate-friendly transport and to stay committed to making London the world’s first truly electric-vehicle-ready global city.”

    Michael Solomon Williams from Campaign for Better Transport said: “This report shows that clean air zones work and other cities should take encouragement from London’s experience. Reducing the harmful effects of road transport and ensuring there are good public transport, walking and cycling options are key to creating healthier, happier communities.”

    Livi Elsmore, Campaign Manager, Healthy Air Coalition said: “Over a year on from the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in London, we are delighted to see significant progress made in cleaning up the capital’s air to protect the health of everyone who lives and works in the capital, and future generations of Londoners.

    “Contributing to as many as 4,000 deaths each year in London, air pollution poses the greatest environmental threat to our health. Measures like the ULEZ are among the most effective tools we have to tackle toxic air and protect public health.

    “And the impact of ULEZ is now clear: toxic nitrogen dioxide emissions are 27% lower than they would be without the scheme.

    “We call on the Mayor of London to continue showing leadership through building a pathway for London to meet the air pollution levels recommended by the WHO, meet London’s transport targets, and take concerted action on unnecessary wood burning in the capital.”

    Henry Gregg, Director of External Affairs, Asthma + Lung UK said: “A year on it’s great to see the ULEZ expansion is having a positive impact on improving the capital’s air quality and helping protect the lung health of millions of people, every day. Expanding ULEZ reduced the number of polluting vehicles on the road and is helping every Londoner, regardless of age, ethnicity or background, breathe cleaner air. Air pollution is a public health emergency that affects us all – particularly the estimated 585,000 people in Greater London who have asthma or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Air pollution can worsen the symptoms of people with existing lung conditions, such as breathlessness, wheezing and coughing, and potentially lead to life-threating asthma attacks or serious flare-ups. In some cases it can lead to hospitalisation and even death – up to 4,000 early deaths a year in the capital are linked to air pollution. Unfairly, it is often those living in the most deprived communities who are affected the most by breathing in toxic air. There are no safe levels of air pollution and the government must commit to an ambitious Clean Air Act, which could protect people, wherever they live, from the dangers of polluted air.”

    Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr OBE, Mayor of Freetown and Co-Chair of C40 Cities: “Clean air is not a privilege, it’s a fundamental right. The success of London’s clean air zone serves as a powerful testament to the impact of bold action in protecting public health, especially for our most vulnerable communities. As his fellow Co-Chair of C40 Cities, I am proud to stand alongside him, and I urge leaders everywhere to take note of these transformative policies.”

    Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan: “The impact of London’s clean air zone is clear: better air, fewer emissions, and a healthier future for all Londoners. Milan supports and celebrates this achievement, as we work on similar policies to protect the health of our residents and make our cities greener and more liveable for all.” 

    Martin Lutz, formerly Berlin City Government, and member of the ULEZ Advisory Group, said: “With the latest step of extending the ULEZ to the whole city, London has set a global benchmark for how access restrictions for high emission vehicles can effectively reduce air pollution from cars.    

    “This one year report makes a very strong case for the success and health benefits of the ULEZ for Londoners, thanks to the wealth of data and measurements that have been painstakingly collected over the years of the zone’s gradual expansion.”   

    Ludo Vandenthoren, Mutualités Libres (a Belgian mutual health insurance firm), and member of the ULEZ Advisory Group, said: “It was an honour to work on this project alongside experts in the field. The GLA and TfL, with their commitment to the citizens of London, demonstrated great receptiveness to the feedback we provided. We were able to contribute information on the socio-economic aspects and health effects of air quality, offer input on the statistical methodology specific to this topic, and share valuable references for their reports. I am particularly proud that the study from the Belgian Independent Health Insurance Funds on air quality is seen as an inspiring model for their own approach. The London ULEZ is an ambitious initiative that will undoubtedly inspire other cities.”  

    Professor David Carslaw, University of York, and member of the ULEZ Advisory Group, said: “This report represents a detailed evaluation of the emissions and air quality impacts of the London ULEZ. London and its surrounding areas are fortunate in having one of the world’s most comprehensive air quality networks, which provides a strong basis for the evaluation of the air quality impacts of the ULEZ as it has expanded in recent years. The results show the benefits of the ULEZ are widely distributed and have accelerated the improvement in London’s air quality.”  

    Dr Chinthika Piyasena, Consultant Neonatologist in London said: “As a Londoner and clinician, I’ve long advocated for bold action on air pollution because the science is clear: toxic air harms babies before they even take their first breath. Nitrogen dioxide exposure has been linked to an increased risk of stillbirth, babies being born too early or too small, and even impacts brain development. So a year after the full expansion of ULEZ, it’s incredible to see real progress in reducing this pollutant. Every step we take towards cleaner air, is a step toward healthier pregnancies, healthier babies and a healthier future for all Londoners.”   

    Simon Birkett, Founder and Director of Clean Air in London said: “I have campaigned for low emission zones since April 2006 – almost two years before the first phase was implemented in London. I was also the first to call for an inner London low emission zone. It is particularly pleasing therefore that the Mayor’s One-Year report on ULEZ expansion – the ninth phase of low and ultra-low emission zones in London – has shown again that these big solutions work. In fact, together with related measures such as cleaner buses and taxis, they have almost single handedly helped London to slash nitrogen dioxide (“NO2”) concentrations by 2/3 near busy roads, and nearly comply with legal limits and the WHO’s 2005 air quality guideline of 40 micrograms per cubic metre (“mg/m3”) by 2025, probably ahead of smaller UK cities.” 

    Professor Kevin Fenton, London Regional Director, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and Regional Director of Public Health, NHS London said: “As well as reducing air pollution in outer London, this report also shows that ULEZ and its expansions continue to have a positive impact on air quality across the city. Londoners are now benefiting from improved air quality, and this is particularly true for those communities who live in more deprived areas of London.  

    “In a city where over 480,000 Londoners have a diagnosis of asthma and are more vulnerable to the impacts of air pollution, a 27% reduction in harmful roadside NO2 concentrations across the whole city will bring about invaluable health benefits. And I’m optimistic that Londoners will continue to benefit from better air quality, and subsequently, better health, due to the ULEZ and its expansions.”

    Chris Streather, Medical Director and Chief Clinical Information Officer, NHS England London, said: “It’s encouraging to see that all Londoners have experienced a significant improvement in air quality, and this reduction in pollutants directly contributes to better health outcomes.

    “Vital initiatives like the ULEZ create a healthier urban environment, reducing the risks of respiratory conditions such as asthma and lung cancer, and ultimately lessen the burden on our health system.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI: Alliance Witan PLC – Final Results

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Alliance Witan PLC (‘the Company’)
    LEI: 213800SZZD4E2IOZ9W55

    7 March 2025

    A landmark year

    Annual results for the year ended 31 December 2024

    Highlights

    • 2024 was a landmark year for the Company, which was promoted to the FTSE 100 after the combination with Witan Investment Trust Plc (‘Witan’).
    • The Company’s share price was 1,244 pence (£12.44) as of 31 December 2024, representing a Share Price Total Return1 of 14.3%.
    • The Company’s Net Asset Value Total Return1 of 13.3%, while strongly positive, trailed our benchmark index, the MSCI All Country World Index (‘MSCI ACWI’), which returned 19.6%.
    • The Company’s average discount narrowed to 4.7% from 5.4% at the end of 2023, which compared favourably with the average discount for the Association of Investment Company’s Global Sector of 7.9%.
    • A fourth interim dividend 6.73p per share was declared on 28 January 2025, bringing the total dividend for the year ended 31 December 2024 to 26.70p per share. This is a 6% increase on the previous year, the 58th consecutive annual increase.

    Dean Buckley, Chair of Alliance Witan, commented:

    “The Company delivered strong outright gains for shareholders in 2024, although in common with most active global equity strategies, we underperformed our benchmark index, MSCI ACWI, where performance was concentrated in a handful of the largest US companies. Even so, the Company’s longer-term performance remains competitive, and demand for our shares was healthy last year, with the Company’s discount narrowing, bucking the industry trend towards widening discounts. We also increased our dividend for the 58th consecutive year.

    “Thanks to the support of both sets of shareholders, we achieved a historic combination with Witan, which places the Company in a strong position to realise economies of scale and offer better liquidity for our shares. With solid performance and a refreshed brand, supported by a marketing campaign that will continue in 2025, the Board is confident that the Company is well placed to continue delivering attractive returns for shareholders”.

    About Alliance Witan PLC

    Alliance Witan aims to be a core investment that beats inflation over the long term through a combination of capital growth and rising dividend. The Company invests in global equities across a wide range of different sectors and industries to achieve its objective. Alliance Witan’s portfolio uses a distinctive multi-manager approach. We blend the top stock selections of some of the world’s best active managers into a single diversified portfolio designed to outperform the market while carefully managing risk. Alliance Witan is an AIC Dividend Hero with 58 consecutive years of rising dividends.

    https://www.alliancewitan.com

    For more information, please contact:

    For more information, please contact:
    Mark Atkinson
    Senior Director
    Client Management, Wealth & Retail    		   Sarah Gibbons-Cook
    Director
    Willis Towers Watson   Quill PR
    Tel: 07918 724303   Tel: 07702 412680
    mark.atkinson@wtwco.com   AllianceWitan@quillpr.com

    1. Alternative Performance Measure. Share Price Total Return is the return to shareholders through share price capital returns and dividends paid by the Company and re-invested. Net Asset Value (NAV) Total Return is a measure of the performance of the Company’s NAV over a specified time period. It combines any change in the NAV and dividends paid.

    Financial highlights as at 31 December 2024

    Net Assets Net Asset Value (‘NAV’) per Share
    £5.2bn 1,304.9p
    (2023: £3.3bn) (2023: 1,175.1p)
       
    NAV Total Return1 Share Price
    +13.3% 1,244.0p
    (2023: +21.6%) (2023: 1,112.0p)
       
    Share Price Total Return1 Discount to NAV1
    +14.3% -4.7%
    (2023: +20.2%) (2023: -5.4%)
       
    Earnings per Share (Revenue) Total Dividend per Share
    17.3p 26.7p
    (2023: 18.6p) (2023: 25.2p)

    1. Alternative Performance Measure – see page 116 of the Annual Report for further information.
    Notes:
    NAV per Share including income with debt at fair value.
    NAV Total Return based on NAV including income with debt at fair value and after all costs.
    Source: Morningstar and Juniper Partners Limited (‘Juniper’).

    Chair’s Statement

    • Landmark combination with Witan
    • Another strong year for equities
    • 58th consecutive annual dividend increase
    • Discount narrower than the AIC Global Sector average
    • Named by the AIC as a top 20 best performing investment trust over ten years1

    2024 was a landmark year for your Company. I would like to begin by thanking you for your support for the combination of Alliance Trust and Witan to form Alliance Witan and by welcoming all shareholders who have joined us as a result. This was a pivotal moment in our history, achieving economies of scale and elevating the Company to the FTSE 100. Now, as one of the industry’s leaders, this status will provide better liquidity for our shares and, with good long term investment performance and a strong brand, help us attract new investors. We made a number of commitments to investors as part of the proposals, for example in respect of dividends and costs, and you will see as you read through the Annual Report how we have achieved each of these.

    As I mentioned in the Interim Report for the six months ended 30 June 2024, there has been no change to the Company’s investment strategy, just a larger pool of assets for our Investment Manager, WTW, to manage with the same professionalism that it has brought to the job since April 2017.

    1. https://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/news/press-releases/top-20-best-performing-investment-trusts-for-your-isa

    Investment Performance

    It was another good year for global equity markets, and your Company delivered strong absolute returns. NAV Total Return was 13.3% and, due to a narrowing of the discount, Share Price Total Return was 14.3%. However, we lagged our benchmark index, the MSCI All Country World Index (‘MSCI ACWI’ or ‘Index’), which returned 19.6%. We also marginally underperformed our peers in the AIC Global Sector, which is disappointing, but we were slightly ahead of the much wider, more representative Morningstar peer group of open and closed-ended global equity funds.

    Simply put, our relative performance in 2024 suffered from not having enough exposure to the small number of very large companies that dominated market returns, especially in the US.

    The narrowness of returns from global equity markets has been a common problem for all active managers in recent years, and we take comfort from the fact that, despite this persistent headwind, we are ahead of the Index and have significantly outperformed both peer groups over three years. You can read more about the contributors/detractors to the Company’s investment performance during 2024 in the Investment Manager’s Report on page 9 of the Annual Report.

    Dividend increased for the 58thconsecutive year

    The Board declared a fourth interim dividend of 6.73p per share on 28 January 2025, resulting in a full year dividend of 26.70p, an increase of 6.0% on the prior year. This fulfils the promise we made at the time of the combination of Alliance Trust and Witan to increase dividends for the legacy shareholders of both companies. 2024’s increase marks the 58th consecutive annual increase, which is one of the longest track records in the investment trust industry. Dividends are well supported by revenue and reserves, and the Board is confident annual dividend increases can continue well into the future. Due to our steady approach, the Company has received a ‘Dividend Hero’ investment company award from the Association of Investment Companies (‘AIC’).

    Narrowing discount

    Many investment trusts continued to trade on large discounts to NAV throughout 2024, with the industry average widening to 14.7% from 12.7%.1 I am pleased to report that your Company fared better than most, with its average discount falling to 4.7% from 5.4% over the year. This compared favourably with the average discount for the AIC Global Sector of 7.9%.

    Your Board remains committed to the maintenance of a stable discount. We will continue to use share buybacks as appropriate and invest in promotional activity to widen our shareholder base, to support the management of the discount. During 2024, the Company bought back 4.7 million shares (1.2% of shares in issue2), versus 8.6 million repurchased in 2023. The shares bought back during the year were placed in Treasury. This level of buybacks was significantly below that of our peers, in a year in which industry-wide buybacks hit a record level of £7.5 billion3. The shares held in Treasury can be reissued by the Company at a premium to estimated NAV when there is market demand.

    Board changes

    Following the completion of the combination of Alliance Trust with Witan, we welcomed four new Non-Executive Directors to the Board: Andrew Ross, Rachel Beagles, Shauna Bevan and Jack Perry, all of whom were former directors of Witan.

    Clare Dobie, having served for almost nine years, is retiring as a Director at the conclusion of this year’s Annual General Meeting (‘AGM’), as is Jack Perry, reducing the size of the Board to eight members.

    On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Clare and Jack for their contributions.

    Annual General Meeting

    The Board looks forward to being able to meet shareholders again at this year’s AGM, which will be held at the Apex City Quay Hotel in Dundee on 1 May 2025. For those shareholders who are not able to attend in person, we will be live streaming the event. As well as the formal business of the meeting, there will be an investor forum afterwards featuring two of our Stock Pickers, Jennison and EdgePoint, as well as members of WTW’s investment team. There will be another in-person investor forum in London in the autumn. In addition, shareholders can engage with the Company and its Stock Pickers via online presentations during the year. Further details of how to attend all these events can be found on the website.

    The Board would strongly encourage shareholders to use the opportunity to have their say and use their vote at the AGM. Further information on the arrangements for the AGM, including information on how to vote either directly through the Registrar or though different platforms, is on pages 134 and 135 of the Annual Report.

    Keep up-to-date

    In these unusual times, the website will provide timely updates to shareholders. Therefore, I would encourage you to visit the website which contains a vast amount of information on investment performance, details of shareholder meetings and investor forums, monthly factsheets, quarterly newsletters, and Stock Picker updates, as well as the Annual and Interim Reports.

    As always, the Board welcomes communication from shareholders and I can be contacted through Juniper Partners (‘Juniper’), the Company Secretary at investor@alliancewitan.com.

    Outlook

    Since the start of President Trump’s second term of office in January, tariffs have created uncertainty about the outlook for equities. Diplomatic tensions over efforts to end the war in Ukraine and conflict in Gaza have also raised geopolitical risks. Furthermore, European bond markets are adjusting to the prospect of increased borrowing to fund higher levels of defence and infrastructure spending.

    While there is a risk that heightened levels of uncertainty will impact on business and consumer confidence, global growth and corporate earnings forecasts are currently healthy, giving some grounds for cautious optimism, about further gains for shareholders, especially if there is a broadening out of market leadership.

    While the Index is highly concentrated, your portfolio has broader exposure to many good businesses that have not yet received the market recognition our Stock Pickers believe they deserve.

    The portfolio will not always outperform the market in every discrete period, but we believe it will continue to add significant value for shareholders in the long run.

    I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at the AGM in Dundee or the next investor forum in London.

    1. Weighted average discount (excluding 3i Group). Source: Winterflood.
    2. Percentage based on the Company’s issued share capital (excluding shares held in Treasury) as at 1 January 2025.
    3. Source: AIC and Morningstar.

    Dean Buckley
    Chair
    6 March 2025

    Combination with Witan

    The most significant development during the year under review was the combination of the Company with Witan.

    Background

    Following a comprehensive review of management arrangements, the Witan Board concluded that a combination with the Company was in the best interests of Witan’s shareholders. Amongst other things this allowed them continued exposure to a successful multi-manager approach.

    The combination was undertaken by way of a scheme of reconstruction and members’ voluntary liquidation of Witan. The scheme required the approval of both the Company and Witan’s shareholders and took effect on 10 October 2024. It resulted in the Company acquiring approximately £1,539 million of net assets from Witan in consideration for the issue of new ordinary shares to Witan shareholders. The name of the Company became Alliance Witan and the stock exchange ticker ALW.

    Outcome

    The combination was expected to result in substantial benefits for all shareholders and future investors. The outcomes of the key elements of the proposals include:

    • Greater profile and FTSE 100 inclusion: the Company has assets of over £5 billion and is now a FTSE 100 Index constituent.
    • Lower management fees: WTW agreed a new management fee structure; this resulted in an even more competitive blended fee rate for all shareholders.
    • Lower ongoing charges: the new management fee structure and economies of scale have reduced ongoing charges to 0.56% (net of the management fee waiver).
    • No cost to either companies’ shareholders: the costs of the transaction were carefully managed, including the fee waiver from WTW, to ensure that the transaction was completed at no cost to all shareholders.
    • Attractive and progressive dividend policy: the third and fourth interim dividend payments of 2024 were increased to ensure that they were commensurate with Witan’s first interim dividend. It is expected that the dividend will continue to increase in the current year so that shareholders continue to see progression in their income.

    Portfolio Transition

    • The Company received assets including cash and equities from Witan and the Witan loan notes were novated to the Company. Details are provided in note 13 to the Financial Statements.
    • BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited managed the portfolio transition. Direct costs of the portfolio transition and Manager changes were less than 0.04% of the Net Asset Value of the enlarged portfolio.

    Investment Manager’s Report

    Market backdrop: equities untroubled by politics

    For the second year running, global equities delivered strong returns in 2024, with economics trumping politics. Despite a record number of elections, conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine reaching new heights, and a scary moment in Japan when the Nikkei Index of the top 225 blue-chip shares plunged 12% in a day at the beginning of August, investors focused on resilient global growth, falling inflation and interest rates, and healthy corporate profitability.

    Hence, our benchmark index, the MSCI ACWI, returned 19.6% in 2024 following a return of 15.3% in 2023. Since 1987, the Index has returned an average of 8.4% per annum1, so returns of this magnitude in two consecutive years are rare. The ebullient mood of equity investors was reflected in a surge in the prices of less established assets, such as cryptocurrency, with Bitcoin reaching all-time highs of over $100,000. Peanut the Squirrel Coin, a cryptocurrency named after the eponymous pet that New York environmental authorities seized and euthanised on 30 October 2024, at one point commanded a market cap of $1.7 billion.

    However, regional equity market performance was mixed. US markets once again led the way, with the S&P 500 delivering a 27% return when measured in British pounds. Chinese equities rallied briefly following government stimulus, but concerns over the country’s property market and trade tensions persisted. Together with a strong US dollar, these worries led to more subdued returns from emerging markets, which rose about 9%. In Japan, August’s technically driven decline proved temporary, and the Nikkei resumed its ascent to close the year at a record high, although the yen’s depreciation reduced returns for UK-based investors when converted into British pounds. The UK and European markets were more muted, with the FTSE All Share Index and the MSCI Europe ex UK Index returning 9.5% and 1.9% respectively.

    Gains driven by US tech giants

    Giant US technology related stocks were the standout performers, fuelled by investor excitement about generative artificial intelligence (‘AI’) and, from November onwards, hopes that Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election would weaken regulatory scrutiny. The share prices of the so called “Magnificent Seven” – Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Tesla – increased by 60% on average and were responsible for 43% of MSCI ACWI’s gains. This was less than 2023 when they contributed 53%, but still a huge number emphasising the extreme concentration of index returns in a small number of companies.

    Even so, from mid-year onwards, returns were no longer quite as skewed to the performance of a handful of shares. Although NVIDIA and Tesla returned a massive 176% and 65% respectively, giant tech was not the only game in town. Financial stocks returned 26.5%, and returns from the consumer discretionary, industrial and utility sectors were also well into double figures, pointing to the potential broadening out of market returns as stock-specific drivers came to the fore.

    1. https://www.msci.com/documents/10199/8d97d244-4685-4200-a24c-3e2942e3adeb

    Portfolio performance: strong absolute gains but lagged benchmark index

    Our portfolio’s NAV Total Return was a robust 13.3% but, as with most active managers, it lagged the Company’s benchmark index. The portfolio does, however, remain ahead of the Index over three years (28.0% vs 26.8%), albeit behind over five years (64.7% vs 70.8%). Disappointing though it was not to beat the MSCI ACWI in 2024, we were not alone. AJ Bell calculated that, to the end of November, just 18% of active global equity funds outperformed their passive peers, largely due to their inability to match high Index weightings in the “Magnificent Seven”. The sheer size of these companies in the Index is mind boggling. NVIDIA, Microsoft and Apple, for example, represent 13% of the MSCI ACWI as at 31 December 2024 and, together, are bigger than the entire stock markets of several sizeable countries.

    The skew of the Index towards mega-cap companies has been a challenge, to varying degrees, since the start of our multi-manager strategy in April 2017. As a broadly diversified strategy, with capital spread between 8-12 Managers, all with different approaches to investing, our portfolio naturally has a structural bias away from stocks that on rare occasions represent such a large proportion of our global benchmark. While we have some exposure to most of the “Magnificent Seven”, it would require a lot of the Managers to choose them as one of their best ideas for us to be at Index weight, never mind be overweight.

    The Index may have been hard to beat in recent years, but market concentration poses significant risks for passive strategies. At the end of 2024, the Index on average allocated around 150 times as much capital to each of Apple, NVIDIA and Microsoft as it did to the average stock, akin to us placing about 95% of the portfolio in one manager’s hands and 0.5% each in the other ten.

    We do not believe this is the right way to manage risk for shareholders, bearing in mind that index trackers are not investing lots of money in these companies because they are good businesses trading at good valuations, but because they are very big. If US large-cap stocks continue to dominate, tracker funds may continue to outperform active funds. But if sentiment on the technology sector turns sour, passive funds with big stakes will be hit much harder.

    Not owning enough NVIDIA was painful

    The strong outperformance of our portfolio versus our benchmark in 2023 continued into the first quarter of 2024, when the biggest contribution came from not owning, at that time, poorly performing Tesla and Apple. But thereafter stock selection became more challenging, particularly within the “Magnificent Seven”. Although we benefitted from owning Amazon and Microsoft, we moved from an overweight to an underweight position in NVIDIA in the first quarter after its extraordinary outperformance, which then made it our biggest single detractor last year as that outperformance continued. Having helped us in the first quarter, the lack of exposure to Tesla and Apple, which both recovered strongly as the year progressed, counted against us from then on. Overall, our positions in the “Magnificent Seven” accounted for a third of the portfolio’s underperformance versus the Index in 2024.

    The remainder of the portfolio’s underperformance came from a combination of being underweight in large-cap stocks in general and stock specific issues elsewhere, in some cases due to partial reversals of performance in 2023. For example, stock selection in financials detracted in large part due to our relative lack of exposure to strongly performing US banks such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. In the consumer discretionary sector, the share price of UK-based drinks company Diageo, owned by Veritas Asset Management (‘Veritas’) and Metropolis Capital (‘Metropolis’), continued to suffer from a post-Covid cyclical downturn, falling 8.5%, although both Managers believe the company will eventually recover lost ground when structural trends reassert themselves. Novo Nordisk, the Danish weight loss drugs company, was another notable detractor, as its shares fell 14% after disappointing test results. Our Stock Pickers see this as a temporary decline in a growing market in which Novo Nordisk has a leading position. Hence, it was one of our biggest purchases in 2024 (see table below).

    Indeed, our Stock Pickers express a high degree of confidence in the latent value of many of their holdings. By far the most important long run ingredient underpinning share price performance is strong fundamentals, such as market-leading products or services, solid profit margins, plentiful cashflow and strong management.

    Top 10 purchases and sales

    Top 10 purchases Value £m   Top 10 sales Value £m
    UnitedHealth Group 50.2   Alphabet 84.3
    Novo Nordisk 48.8   NVIDIA 71.3
    Synopsys 47.5   Fiserv 39.0
    Microsoft 45.0   Aena 37.9
    Netflix 41.5   Ebara 36.1
    Philip Morris 41.4   TotalEnergies 35.0
    Enbridge 39.4   PayPal 33.8
    AT&T 39.0   Bureau Veritas 33.4
    American Electric Power 37.3   KKR 33.2
    Eli Lilly 36.6   Taiwan Semiconductor 32.2

    Source: Juniper.
    The purchases and sales are calculated by taking the net value of all transactions (buy and sells) for each holding held within the portfolio over the period. The tables exclude any non-equity holdings such as ETFs and any transfers from the combination with Witan.

    Even so, in the short run, market sentiment can have a larger impact on share prices than fundamentals. When we break down the portfolio performance against the Index into fundamentals and sentiment, the portfolio’s strong absolute performance has been mainly as a result of company fundamentals, whereas the Index’s absolute performance has been more driven by market sentiment.

    A full breakdown of the contributors to our Total Return in 2024 is shown in the following table.

    Contribution analysis

    Contribution to Return in 2024 %
    Benchmark Total Return 19.6
    Asset Allocation -1.1
    Stock Selection -5.3
    Gearing and Cash 0.6
    Investment Manager Impact -5.8
    Portfolio Total Return 13.8
    Share Buybacks 0.1
    Fees/Expenses -0.6
    Taxation -0.1
    Change in Fair Value of Debt 0.4
    Timing Differences -0.2
    NAV Total Return including Income, Debt at Fair Value 13.3
    Change in Discount 1.0
    Share Price Total Return 14.3

    Source: Performance and attribution data sourced from WTW, Juniper, MSCI Inc, FactSet and Morningstar as at 31 December 2024. Percentages may not add due to rounding.

    In the table below, we also list the top five contributors and detractors to portfolio performance during the year relative to the portfolio’s benchmark.

    Sands, Vulcan and Lyrical were the top performers

    As we would expect from such a diverse line up, performance among our Managers was mixed. This is by design, as we do not want the portfolio to be biased towards any one approach of investing, which might make returns vulnerable to a sudden switch from one style to another. This happened in 2022 when growth stocks began to suffer significantly as central banks raised interest rates to combat inflation. Sands Capital (‘Sands’), Vulcan Value Partners (‘Vulcan’), and Lyrical Asset Management (‘Lyrical’) were the top performers last year. Sands and Vulcan both benefitted from owning tech giants. Sands held NVIDIA while Vulcan held Amazon, but Sands’ largest contributor to relative performance was Axon Enterprise, an industrial business which makes tasers, body cameras and other software products. Its share price surged by 134% last year.

    Top five stock contributors to performance

    Stock Sector Country Average Active Weight (%) Total Return in Sterling (%) Attribution Effect Relative to Benchmark (%)
    Amazon Consumer Discretionary United States 1.0 47.0 0.2
    Axon Enterprise Industrials United States 0.2 134.2 0.2
    Salesforce Information Technology United States 0.4 29.8 0.2
    NRG Energy Utilities United States 0.4 80.6 0.2
    Nestle Consumer Staples Switzerland -0.4 -25.9 0.2

    Bottom five stock detractors to performance

    Stock Sector Country Average Active Weight (%) Total Return in Sterling (%) Attribution Effect Relative to Benchmark (%)
    NVIDIA Information Technology United States -1.8 176.1 -1.2
    Broadcom Information Technology United States -0.5 113.4 -0.6
    Novo Nordisk Health Care Denmark 0.8 -14.0 -0.6
    Tesla Consumer Discretionary United States -0.8 65.4 -0.6
    Apple Information Technology United States -3.9 32.8 -0.4

    Source: WTW.

    The tables above illustrate the top five contributors and detractors to returns relative to benchmark in 2024. It aims to explain at a stock level which companies drove relative returns. For example, the Alliance Witan portfolio was underweight relative to benchmark in NVIDIA, Broadcom, Tesla and Apple. These stocks had very strong returns, which hurt our portfolio’s relative performance. Conversely, not having an exposure to Nestle helped our relative performance given the stock was held in the benchmark and was down over the year. Our overweight position in Amazon, Axon Enterprise, Salesforce and NRG Energy contributed positively to relative returns given their strong performance. The average active weight is the arithmetic simple average weight of the stock in the portfolio minus the arithmetic simple average weight of the stock in the benchmark over the period.

    Vulcan’s largest contributor to our performance was KKR, the US-based private equity group, which returned 82%, prompting Vulcan to take profits. Its holding in Salesforce also did well, rising nearly 30%.

    Lyrical, a deep-value style investor, benefitted from owning several less talked-about US-based companies, which all rebounded from cheap valuations. These included NRG Energy, Ameriprise Financials and eBay.

    Of our Managers, the most notable laggard was Sustainable Growth Advisors (‘SGA’), which was disappointing given its focus on large cap growth stocks which, as a group, had the strongest price momentum. SGA suffered from holding Novo Nordisk, and two of its other positions, ICON and Synopsys also stood out as detractors. The recent poor performance of SGA follows a long period of outperformance, so returns since we appointed SGA remain strong. Value Managers Metropolis and ARGA Investment Management (‘ARGA’), the latter replacing Jupiter Asset Management (‘Jupiter’) in April, also struggled in the recent market environment, which has generally favoured growth managers.

    Portfolio changes: two new Managers added after combination with Witan

    As well as adding ARGA for Jupiter in the first half of the year, following Ben Whitmore’s decision to leave Jupiter to set up his own business, there were two further changes to the Manager line-up during the integration of Witan’s portfolio. Altogether, this contributed to an unusually high level of turnover of 98.5% of the portfolio in 2024. Both Alliance Trust and Witan already had GQG Partners (‘GQG’) and Veritas in common, which meant that there were some in-specie transfers of stocks. Additionally, the combination of Alliance and Witan presented us with an opportunity to introduce Jennison Associates (‘Jennison’) to the portfolio at a low cost.

    Based in the US, Jennison specialises in investing in innovative, fast-growing businesses. It had been one of Witan’s most successful managers and blending it with our other Managers increased the diversity of holdings in growth companies. We also took the opportunity to replace Black Creek Investment Management (‘Black Creek’) with EdgePoint Investment Group (‘EdgePoint’), while we were using a transition manager to keep costs down to a minimum.

    This change was prompted by succession planning at Black Creek. We had been monitoring Black Creek for some time due to the departure of a senior team member for health reasons and the uncertainty surrounding the timing of founder Bill Kanko’s retirement. With a similar investment style to Black Creek, EdgePoint seeks to buy good, undervalued businesses and hold them until the market fully realises their potential.

    Through the combination, we inherited a small number of investment trust and private equity fund holdings, representing less than 3% of the combined portfolio. These are specialist funds with portfolios focused on, among other things, early-stage life sciences, valuable intellectual property, innovative internet platforms and renewable infrastructure assets. Collective investments such as these are not normally part of our investment strategy. However, they are all trading at prices we believe are well below their intrinsic value, so rather than sell them at a loss, we will hold them until we can achieve attractive values.

    Beyond that, the combination did not lead to any change in our investment approach. We retain high conviction in our line-up of Managers and their ability to pick winning stocks, although we keep them under constant review for any red flags and have access to a deep bench of talented replacements should these be needed.

    Gearing: remaining cautious

    Our gross gearing stood at 8.4% at the end of 2024 (4.9% net of underlying Manager and central cash), slightly above the level of 7.1% at the start of the year, reflecting the improving outlook for equities as the year progressed. However, given the strong performance from equity markets, it is still towards the lower end of the typical range of 7.5 to 12.5%.

    Market outlook: multiple risks warrant diversification

    As 2025 began, the mood among investors was upbeat, with many hoping President Trump’s promises of deregulation and tax cuts would be supportive of equity markets. If returns can spread beyond a narrow group of highly valued US mega-cap technology stocks, it could provide firmer foundations for another good year for shares. The strong start to the year for European equities certainly offered hope for geographical diversification.

    However, on-off tariffs and geopolitical tensions loom large, creating considerable uncertainty. This was reflected in an increase in equity market volatility in February.

    In the first 2 months of 2025, the benchmark index rose by 2.2% suggesting that investors were still willing to look through some of the risks while forecast global growth and corporate earnings remain healthy. But confidence is fragile and, with valuations in the US still close to a record high despite February’s pullback, the market is vulnerable to setbacks.

    In this environment, we believe bottom-up stock picking, based on company fundamentals, should be a more reliable way to add value for shareholders in the long term than making bold, top-down market calls. So, we will continue to position the portfolio to maintain balanced regional, sector and style exposures, that are similar to the Index weightings by periodically adjusting Manager allocations. This should provide stability and reduce risk, while we rely on our Managers to add value by seeking out the best companies in each market segment.

    While retaining some exposure to US mega-cap tech stocks that may continue delivering attractive returns, our portfolio is not reliant on them. It also contains many stocks that have remained in the shadows but have been performing well operationally and have excellent prospects not yet reflected in their share prices.

    Hidden gems: stock picks with high potential

    We asked our eleven Stock Pickers for examples of strong but underappreciated companies in the portfolio

    Lyrical highlighted five of its US holdings that have underperformed the S&P 500 Index since the start of 2024 but, at the same time, have grown their forecast earnings per share by more than the Index. These are healthcare providers Cigna and HCA, WEX and Global Payments, which both provide business-to-business payment technology, and Gen Digital, which is a leading provider of cyber security and identity protection.

    “Interestingly, even on this list there is inconsistency by the market,” says Lyrical. “Cigna has the worst stock performance, but the second-best earnings per share (‘EPS’) growth. Gen Digital has the slowest EPS growth in the group, but the best performance”.

    ARGA cited Accor, the global hotel business, which has transitioned to an “asset light” business model by selling most of its hotels, while maintaining the lucrative franchise and management agreements attached to these properties. While Sands Capital sees potential in the share prices of Sika, a maintenance and building refurbishment specialist.

    “Investment results have been weak despite solid fundamental results,” says Sands. “We believe that investors have focused on slower than historical organic growth, caused by several factors, including the real estate crisis in China, slowdown in electric vehicle production, and a pause in green building incentives.”

    Sands Capital also mentioned Roper Technologies, a diversified industrial technology company, and Keyence, a leading designer of high-end factory automation based in Japan, as attractive businesses with share price appreciation potential.

    Vulcan highlighted CoStar Group, an information provider to the commercial and residential real estate industries, and Everest Group, a global insurance and reinsurance business, while GQG mentioned the UK-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, the Brazil-based oil and gas company Petrobras, Bank Mandiri in Indonesia, and the Indian tobacco company ITC.

    SGA backed Danaher, the US industrial group, Intuit, which provides do-it-yourself accounting software for small businesses, and HDFC Bank in India. Jennison highlighted Reddit, the online social media platform.

    “Reddit is targeting 49% growth in the third quarter of 2024 and consensus is at 41% in Q4, but then market estimates are fading down to around 20% in 2025, which we think is overly conservative and creates an opportunity for investment today.”

    Veritas’s nominations for underappreciated businesses were Amadeus, the Spanish software company focusing on air travel, The Cooper Companies, which makes contact lenses, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world’s largest scientific equipment provider.

    Japan specialist Dalton’s best stocks included Bandai Namco, a multinational that publishes video games and makes toys, Shimano, the bicycle equipment manufacturer, and Rinnai, one of the global leaders in water heaters. Metropolis highlighted Andritz, the Austrian headquartered business supplying industrial equipment to the pulp and paper, metals and hydropower industries, Crown Holdings, which makes aluminium drinks cans, and Admiral, the UK insurer.

    Finally, EdgePoint, the newest addition to our Manager line-up, pointed to Dayforce, a global human resources software company, Nippon Paints Holdings in Japan, Franco-Nevada, a gold-focused royalty company in Canada, and Qualcomm, which invented significant pieces of the underlying technology required for mobile phones.

    “The market looks at Qualcomm as a handset supplier and the stock moves in relation to expected handset sales over the following quarters,” says EdgePoint. “We consider Qualcomm to be one of the world’s leading designers of energy-efficient processors at a point in time when demand for energy-efficient processing is growing rapidly across a wide range of industries. Some of the major opportunities for Qualcomm over the next 5 years include artificial intelligence, automobiles, personal computers and smartphones.”

    Altogether, these fundamentally strong businesses combine with others to create a robust, multi-manager portfolio that offers attractive long-term growth with lower risk than a single manager strategy, and therefore a more comfortable ride through the ups and downs of the market. Such companies may have remained below the radar in 2024, when investors became giddy with the stellar returns from the US technology shares, but we look forward to their attributes receiving the recognition from the market that they deserve.

    Craig Baker, Stuart Gray, Mark Davis
    Willis Towers Watson
    Investment Manager

    The securities referred to above represent the views of the underlying managers and are not stock recommendations.

    Summary of Portfolio
    As at 31 December 2024

    A full list of the Company’s Investment Portfolio can be found on the Company’s website, www.alliancewitan.com

    Top 20 holdings

    Name £m %
    Microsoft 236.3 4.3
    Amazon 197.4 3.6
    Visa 156.2 2.8
    UnitedHealth Group 116.4 2.1
    Alphabet 107.7 1.9
    Diageo 92.4 1.7
    Meta 88.6 1.6
    NVIDIA 82.7 1.5
    Aon 75.1 1.4
    Novo Nordisk 73.1 1.3
    Netflix 70.9 1.3
    Mastercard 70.7 1.3
    Eli Lilly 69.9 1.3
    Salesforce 61.5 1.1
    HDFC Bank 58.2 1.1
    Safran 53.3 1.0
    Taiwan Semiconductor 49.9 0.9
    Petrobras 48.1 0.9
    State Street 48.0 0.9
    Philip Morris 47.6 0.9

    The 20 largest stock positions, given as a percentage of the total assets. Each Stock Picker selects up to 20 stocks.*
    Top 20 holdings 32.9%
    Top 10 holdings 22.2%

    * Apart from GQG Partners, which also manages a dedicated emerging markets mandate with up to 60 stocks.

    Dividend

    We have paid our shareholders a rising dividend for 58 consecutive years. Providing that level of reliability is something of which we are extremely proud. We carefully manage the Company’s dividend. For instance, should there be a year in which income is unexpectedly high, we may retain some of that income to help fund future dividends. Due to our steady approach, the Company has received a ‘Dividend Hero’ investment company award from the Association of Investment Companies (‘AIC’).

    Our dividend policy

    Subject to market conditions and the Company’s performance, financial position and outlook, the Board will seek to pay a dividend that increases year on year. The Company expects to pay four interim dividends per year, on or around the last day of June, September, December and March, and will not, generally, pay a final dividend for a particular financial year.

    While shareholders are not asked to approve a final dividend, given the timing of the payment of the quarterly payments, each year they are given the opportunity to share their views when they are asked to approve the Company’s Dividend Policy.

    Fourth interim dividend

    As previously announced, a fourth interim dividend of 6.73p per ordinary share will be paid on 31 March 2025 to those shareholders who were on the register at close of business on 28 February 2025.

    Increased dividend

    The Company has increased its total dividend for the year ended 31 December 2024 to 26.7p per ordinary share (2023: 25.2p), a 6.0% increase on the previous year.

    Dividend 2024 (p) 2023 (p) % increase
    1st Interim 6.62 6.18 7.1
    2nd Interim 6.62 6.34 4.4
    3rd Interim 6.73 6.34 6.2
    4th Interim 6.73 6.34 6.2

    Reserves

    It is the Board’s intention to utilise distributable reserves as well as portfolio income to fund dividend payments. Further details of the dividend payments for the year to 31 December 2024 and information on distributable reserves can be found in notes 7 and 2(b)(x) of the Financial Statements, respectively.

    Ongoing Charges and Discount

    Ongoing charges1

    The Company’s ongoing charges ratio (‘OCR’) decreased to 0.56% (including the impact of the investment management fee waiver) (2023: 0.62%). Total administrative expenses were £3.9m (2023: £2.9m) and investment management expenses were £18.4m (2023: £16.3m). Further details of the Company’s expenses are provided in note 4 of the Financial Statements on page 90 of the Annual Report. The Company’s costs remain competitive for an actively managed multi-manager global equity strategy.

    Maintaining a stable discount1

    One of the Company’s strategic objectives is to maintain a stable share price discount to NAV. The Company has the authority to buy back its own shares in the market if the discount is widening and to hold these shares in Treasury.

    During the year under review, the Company’s share price traded at an average discount of 4.7% (2023: 6.0%). As at 31 December 2024, the Company’s share price discount was 4.7% (2023: 5.4%). The average discount (unweighted) for the AIC Global Sector was 7.9%.

    Share issuance and buybacks

    As a result of the combination with Witan, 120,949,382 new ordinary shares were issued for assets valued at £1.5bn implying an effective issue price of £12.7459246 per share.

    The Company bought back 1.2%* (2023: 3.0%) of its issued share capital during the year, purchasing 4,722,000 shares which were placed in Treasury. The total cost of the share buybacks was £57.0m (2023: £86.6m). The weighted average discount of shares bought back in the year was 5.7%. Share buybacks contributed a total of 0.1% to the Company’s NAV performance in the year.

    1. Alternative Performance Measure – see page 116 of the Annual Report for details.
    * Percentage based on the Company’s issued share capital (excluding shares held in Treasury) as at 31 December 2024.

    What We Do

    How WTW manages the portfolio

    WTW as Investment Manager has overall responsibility for managing the Company’s portfolio. It is the Investment Manager’s job to select a diverse team of expert Stock Pickers, each of whom invest in a customised selection of 10-20 of their ‘best ideas’. WTW then allocates capital to them, relative to the risks the Stock Picker represents. For example, small-cap stocks are typically more risky than large-cap stocks, so on average a small-cap specialist would tend to receive less capital than a Stock Picker who focuses on large-cap stocks. However, the allocations do not remain static; WTW keeps them under constant review and varies them over time according to market conditions, with the goal of keeping our exposures to different parts of global stocks markets well balanced.

    Stock Pickers are encouraged to ignore the benchmark and only buy a small number of stocks in which they have strong conviction, while WTW manages risk through the Stock Picker allocations. On their own, each of the Stock Picker’s high-conviction mandates has the potential to perform well. This is supported by WTW’s experience of managing high-conviction portfolios and academic evidence1. But concentrated selections of stocks can be volatile and risky, so WTW mitigates these dangers by blending Stock Pickers with complementary investment approaches or styles, which can be expected to perform differently in different market conditions. This smooths out the peaks and troughs of performance associated with concentrated single-manager strategies.

    Several of the Stock Pickers in the current portfolio have been with the Investment Manager since inception of the multi-manager strategy, though it does actively monitor and rearrange the line-up where necessary.

    WTW invests a lot of time and effort on identifying skilled Stock Pickers for the Company’s portfolio, undertaking extensive qualitative and quantitative analysis. This due diligence process focuses on:

    • The investment processes, resources and decision-making that make up the Stock Picker’s competitive advantage;
    • The culture and alignment of the organisation that leads to sustainability of that competitive advantage;
    • Their approach to responsible investment. WTW aims to appoint Stock Pickers who actively engage with the companies in which they invest and have an effective voting policy. When necessary, they challenge the Stock Pickers and guide them towards better practices; and
    • The operational infrastructure that minimises risk from a compliance, regulatory and operational perspective.

    1. Sebastian & Attaluri, Conviction in Equity Investing, The Journal of Portfolio Management, Summer 2014.

    The Investment Manager’s views are formed over extended periods from multiple interactions with the Managers, including regular meetings. They look beyond past performance numbers to try to understand the ‘competitive edge’. This involves examining and interrogating processes for selecting stocks, adherence to this process through different market conditions, team dynamics, training and experience. Performance track records are just a single data point, and, without the context of the additional information, they are unlikely to persuade WTW that a Stock Picker is skilled.

    Once selected, the Investment Manager tends to form long-term partnerships with the Stock Pickers, generally only taking them out of the portfolio if something fundamental changes, such as the departure of a key individual from the business or a change in business strategy or fortunes. With highly active, concentrated portfolios, periods of short-term underperformance are to be expected and are not a reason to doubt a Stock Picker if they are adhering to their philosophy and process. WTW does, however, keep a constant eye out for talent and may bring new Managers into the portfolio at the expense of an incumbent if they are a better fit.

    Responsible investment

    WTW believes that Environmental, Social and Governance (‘ESG’) factors have the potential to impact financial risk and return. As long-term investors, WTW aims to incorporate these factors into its investment process.

    As stewards of the Company’s assets, WTW seeks to integrate responsible investment into its process for managing the portfolio. ESG factors can influence returns, so these risk factors are taken into account in WTW’s investment processes, including assessing how Managers evaluate ESG risk in their decisions over what stocks to purchase. Climate change poses potential significant risks to investment returns from many companies, which is why both WTW and the Company have stated an intention to manage the assets with a goal of achieving Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions from the portfolio by 2050, with an interim intention of reducing portfolio emissions by approximately 50% by 2030, relative to 2019.

    In 2024, we saw an increase in the portfolio’s weighted average carbon intensity (which measures carbon emissions as a proportion of revenue) from 71.9tCO2e/$M sales to 117. 9tCO2e/$M sales. Over the year, some higher-emitting stocks came into the portfolio including, industrial company Alaska Air and materials company Alcoa Ord, and our allocation to the higher-emitting Utilities sector went up slightly with purchases of companies such as Southern Ord and American Electric Power. We are monitoring our progress against our Net Zero goal, and our Managers and EOS at Federated Hermes (‘EOS’) continue to engage with the companies in the portfolio on climate related issues.

    Progress towards Net Zero will not be linear. Emissions from the portfolio are dependent on holdings, which can change from year to year as WTW’s Stock Pickers seek value for investors. If companies are perceived as being at higher financial risk by being slow to adapt to a Net Zero world, we expect to use stewardship, such as voting and engagement, to encourage positive changes to business practices. WTW believes this is preferable to excluding companies from the portfolio, since exclusion merely passes the responsibility of ownership to other investors who may be less scrupulous about adherence to ESG standards or regulation.

    As well as engaging with companies on climate change, WTW’s Stock Pickers, together with stewardship provider EOS, focused on a wide range of other issues last year.

    Overall, EOS engaged with 97 companies in the portfolio on 515 issues and objectives throughout the year. Key areas of engagement included board effectiveness, climate change, human and labour rights and human capital, biodiversity, digital rights and AI. Of these engagements, the environmental category accounted for 29% of the total number of engagements, with 63% of environmental engagements relating to climate change. Meanwhile the Stock Pickers cast votes at 3,346 resolutions in 2024. Of these resolutions, they voted against company management on 386 and abstained from voting on 38 occasions.

    How We Manage Our Risks

    In order to monitor and manage risks facing the Company, the Board maintains and regularly reviews a risk register and heat map. The risk register details all principal and emerging risks thought to face the Company at any given time. The principal risks facing the Company, as determined by the Board, are Investment, Operational and Legal and Regulatory Non-Compliance.

    As part of its review process, the Board considers input on the principal and emerging risks facing the Company from its key service providers WTW and Juniper. Any risks and their associated risk ratings are then discussed, and the risk register and heat map updated accordingly, with additional measures put in place to monitor, manage and mitigate risks as required. During the period the Board carefully reviewed the risks associated with the implementation of the combination and the post transaction integration risks.

    Principal risks

    The principal risks facing the Company, how they have changed during the year and how the Board aims to monitor and manage these risks are detailed below.

    Risk and potential impact Risk rating How we monitor and manage the risk
    Market risk: loss on the portfolio in absolute terms, caused by economic and political events, interest rate movements and fluctuation in foreign exchange rates. Increased due to geopolitical and macro-economic uncertainty
    • The Board sets investment guidelines and the Investment Manager selects Stock Pickers and styles to provide diversification within the portfolio.
    • The Board receives regular updates from the Investment Manager and monitors adverse movements and impacts on the portfolio.
    • An explanation of the different components of market risk and how they are individually managed is contained in note 18 to the Financial Statements.
    Investment performance: relative underperformance makes the Company an unattractive investment proposition. Stable
    • The Company’s investment performance against its investment objective, relevant benchmark and closed and open ended peer group are reviewed and challenged where appropriate by the Board at every Board meeting.
    • The Board receives regular reporting from the Investment Manager to allow it to review the approach to ESG and climate risk factors embedded within the investment process from the Company’s perspective.
    Strategy and market rating: demand for the Company’s shares decreases due to changes in demand for the Company’s strategy or secular changes in investor demand. Stable
    • The Board regularly reviews the share register and receives feedback from the Investment Manager and broker on all marketing and investor relations and shareholder meetings, to keep informed of investor sentiment and how the Company is perceived in the market.
    • The Board monitors the Company’s share price discount and, working with the broker undertakes periodic share buybacks as appropriate to meet its strategic objective of maintaining a stable discount.
    • The proposed combination with Witan and the benefits to ongoing investors in terms of scale and investor proposition were reviewed and thoroughly considered to ensure the enlarged Company would be an attractive proposition for both current and prospective shareholders.
    Capital structure and financial risk: inappropriate capital or gearing structure may result in losses for the Company. Stable
    • The Board receives regular updates on the capital structure of the Company including share capital, borrowings, structure of reserves, compliance with ongoing covenants and shareholder authorities, to allow ongoing monitoring of the appropriate structure.
    • The Board reviews and manages the borrowing limits under which the Investment Manager operates. As part of the Witan combination, additional borrowing was novated to the Company. These additional facilities provide an increased blend of interest rates and maturity dates.
    • Shareholder authority is sought annually in relation to share issuance and buybacks to facilitate ongoing management of the share capital.
    Operational
    All of the Company’s operations are outsourced to third party service providers. Any failure in the operational controls of the Company’s service providers could result in financial, legal or regulatory and reputational damage for the Company.
    Operational risks include cyber security, IT systems failure, inadequacy of oversight and control, climate risk and ineffective disaster recovery planning.    		 Stable
    • The Board monitors the services provided by the key services suppliers and formally reviews the performance of each on an annual basis, including the review of audited internal control reports where appropriate. No material issues were raised as part of the evaluation process in 2024.
    • Cyber security continues to be a key focus for the Board. Reports on the cyber security, IT testing environment and disaster recovery testing of each key service provider are reviewed by the Board annually.
    • Any breaches in controls which have resulted in errors or incidents are required to be immediately notified to the Board along with proposed remediation actions.
    Legal and regulatory
    Failure to adhere to all legal and regulatory requirements could lead to financial and legal penalties, reputational damage and potential loss of investment trust status. Stable
    • The Board has contracted with its key service suppliers, including the Investment Manager and Juniper, in relation to its ongoing legal and regulatory compliance. The Board receives quarterly reports from each supplier to monitor ongoing compliance. The Company has complied with all legal and regulatory requirements in 2024.
    • Any breaches in controls which have resulted in errors or incidents are required to be immediately notified to the Board, along with proposed remediation actions.
    • The review of the Annual Report by the independent auditors provides additional assurance that the Company has met all legal and regulatory requirements in respect of those disclosures.

    Emerging risks

    Emerging risks are typified by having a high degree of uncertainty and may result from sudden events, new potential trends or changing specific risks where the impact and probable effect is hard to assess. As the assessment becomes clearer, the risk may be added to the risk matrix of ‘known’ risks.

    The Board is currently monitoring a number of emerging risks: geopolitical tension continues to be an emerging risk for the Company due to ongoing conflicts across the world. Along with increased populism and nationalism, these risks may impact individual economies and global markets. Although covered in the operational risk section above, the Board recognises the increased risk that cybercrime and the misuse of AI poses to the Company.

    Geopolitical events such as the conflicts in the Middle East region, coupled with the potential breakdown of post war alliances and potential new trade tariffs and changes to US economic and international policies introduced by President Trump, could bring uncertainty and fragility to capital markets in 2025, including persistent or reacceleration of inflationary pressures.

    Stakeholder Engagement – Section 172 Statement

    The Directors have a number of obligations including those under section 172 of the Companies Act 2006. These obligations relate to how the Board takes account of various factors in making its decisions – including the impact of its decisions on key stakeholders. The Board is focused on the Company’s performance and its responsibilities to stakeholders, corporate culture and diversity, as well as its contributions to wider society, and it takes account of stakeholder interests when making decisions on behalf of the Company.

    As an externally-managed investment trust, the Board considers the Company’s key stakeholders to be existing and potential new shareholders and its service providers.

    Full details on the primary ways in which the Board engaged with the Company’s key stakeholders can be found on pages 30 to 35 of the Annual Report.

    Dean Buckley
    Chair
    6 March 2025

    Viability and Going Concern Statements

    Viability Statement

    The Board has assessed the prospects and viability of the Company beyond the 12 months required by the Going Concern accounting provisions.

    The Board considered the current position of the Company and its prospects, strategy and planning process as well as its principal and emerging risks in the current, medium and long term, as set out on pages 27 to 29 of the Annual Report. After the year-end but prior to approval of these Accounts, the Board reviewed its performance against its strategic objectives and its management of the principal and emerging risks facing the Company.

    The Board received regular updates on performance and other factors that could impact on the viability of the Company.

    The Board has concluded that there is a reasonable expectation that the Company will be able to continue in operation and meet its liabilities as they fall due for at least the next five years; the Board expects this position to continue over many more years to come. The Company’s Investment Objective, which was approved by shareholders in April 2019, is to deliver a real return over the long term, through a combination of capital growth and a rising dividend, and the Board regards the Company’s shares as a long-term investment. The Board believes that a period of five years is considered a reasonable period for investment in equities and is appropriate for the composition of the Company’s portfolio.

    In arriving at this conclusion, the Board considered:

    • Financial strength: As at 31 December 2024 the Company had total assets of £5.6bn, with net gearing of 4.9% and gross gearing of 8.4%. At the year-end the Company had £182.7m of cash or cash equivalents.
    • Investment: The portfolio is invested in listed equities across the globe. The portfolio is structured for long-term performance; the Board considers five years as being an appropriate period over which to measure performance.
    • Liquidity: The Company is closed-ended, which means that there is no requirement to realise investments to allow shareholders to sell their shares. The Directors consider this structure supports the long-term viability and sustainability of the Company, and have assumed that shareholders will continue to be attracted to the closed-ended structure due to its liquidity benefit. During the year, WTW carried out a liquidity analysis and stress test which indicated that around 93% of the Company’s portfolio could be sold within a single day and a further 6% within 10 days, without materially influencing market pricing. WTW performs liquidity analysis and stress testing on the Company’s portfolio of investments on an ongoing basis under both current and stressed conditions. WTW remains comfortable with the liquidity of the portfolio under both of these market conditions. The Board would not expect this position to materially alter in the future.
    • Dividends: The Company has significant accumulated distributable reserves which together with investment income can be used to support payment of the Company’s dividend. The Board regularly reviews revenue forecasts and considers the long-term sustainability of dividends under a variety of different scenarios. The Company has sufficient funds to meet its Dividend Policy commitments.
    • Reserves: The Company has large reserves (at 31 December 2024 it had £3.7bn of distributable reserves and £1.5bn of other reserves).
    • Discount: The Company has no fixed discount control policy. The Company will continue to buy back shares when the Board considers it appropriate, to take advantage of any significant widening of the discount and to produce NAV accretion for shareholders.
    • Significant Risks: The Company has a risk and control framework which includes a number of triggers which, if breached, would alert the Board to any potential adverse scenarios. The Board has developed and reviewed various scenarios based on potentially adverse events as set out in note 18 on pages 100 to 107 of the Annual Report.
    • Borrowing: In consideration of the combination with Witan, the Company’s borrowing facilities were reviewed to ensure they remained appropriate. The Company’s available bank borrowing facilities were consequently increased by £50m; and £155m of fixed rate loan notes were novated from Witan as part of the combination. The Company’s weighted average borrowings costs have reduced by 0.3%. All borrowings are secured by floating charges over the assets of the Company. The Company comfortably meets its banking covenants.
    • Security: The Company retains title to all assets held by the Custodian which are subject to further safeguards imposed on the Depositary.
    • Operations: Throughout the year under review, the Company’s key service providers continued to operate in line with service level agreements with no significant errors or breaches having been recorded.

    Going Concern Statement

    In view of the conclusions drawn in the foregoing Viability Statements, which considered the resources of the Company over the next 12 months and beyond, the Directors believe that the Company has adequate financial resources to continue in existence for at least the period to 31 March 2026. Therefore, the Directors believe that it is appropriate to continue to adopt the Going Concern basis in preparing the financial statements.

    Directors’ Responsibilities

    The Directors are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the Financial Statements in accordance with UK-adopted international accounting standards and applicable law and regulations.

    Company law requires the Directors to prepare Financial Statements for each financial year. Under that law the Directors are required to prepare the Financial Statements in accordance with UK-adopted international accounting standards. Under company law the Directors must not approve the Financial Statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Company and of the profit or loss for that period.

    In preparing these Financial Statements, the Directors are required to:

    • Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
    • Make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
    • State whether they have been prepared in accordance with UK-adopted International Accounting Standards, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the Financial Statements;
    • Prepare the Financial Statements on the Going Concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Company will continue in business; and
    • Prepare a Directors’ Report, a Strategic Report and Directors’ Remuneration Report which comply with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

    The Directors are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the Company’s transactions, and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Company and enable them to ensure that the Financial Statements comply with the Companies Act 2006.

    They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities. The Directors are responsible for ensuring that the Annual Report and Financial Statements, taken as a whole, are fair, balanced and understandable and provides the information necessary for shareholders to assess the Company’s position, performance, business model and strategy.

    Website publication

    The Directors are responsible for ensuring the Annual Report and the Financial Statements are made available on a website. Financial Statements are published on the Company’s website in accordance with legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of Financial Statements, which may vary from legislation in other jurisdictions. The maintenance and integrity of the Company’s website is the responsibility of the Directors. The Directors’ responsibility also extends to the ongoing integrity of the Financial Statements contained therein.

    Report of Directors and Responsibility Statement

    The Report of the Directors on pages 36 to 69 of the Annual Report (other than pages 61 to 63 which form part of the Strategic Report) of the Annual Report and Accounts has been approved by the Board. The Directors have chosen to include information relating to future development of the Company and relationships with suppliers, customers and others, and their impact on the Board’s decisions on pages 30 to 35 of the Annual Report.

    Each of the Directors, who are listed on pages 37 to 40 of the Annual Report, confirm to the best of their knowledge that:

    • The Financial Statements, prepared in accordance with the applicable set of UK adopted International Accounting Standards, give a true and fair view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and profit or loss of the Company;
    • The Annual Report includes a fair view of the development and performance of the business and the position of the Company, together with a description of the principal risks and uncertainties that the Company faces; and
    • In the opinion of the Board, the Annual Report and Financial Statements taken as a whole, are fair, balanced and understandable and provides the information necessary to assess the Company’s position, performance, business model and strategy.

    On behalf of the Board

    Dean Buckley
    Chair
    6 March 2025
    Statement of Comprehensive Income for the year ended 31 December 2024
      Year to 31 December 2024 Year to 31 December 2023
      Revenue Capital Total Revenue Capital Total
    £000            
    Income         72,463 354 72,817 69,591 1,678 71,269
    Gains on investments held at fair value through profit or loss – 449,551 449,551 – 578,715 578,715
    Losses on derivatives – (206) (206) – – –
    Gains/(losses) on fair value of debt – 16,708 16,708 – (11,371) (11,371)
    Total 72,463 466,407 538,870 69,591 569,022 638,613
    Investment management fees (5,381) (13,058) (18,439) (5,074) (11,228) (16,302)
    Administrative expenses (3,661) (281) (3,942) (2,558) (344) (2,902)
    Finance costs (3,221) (9,662) (12,883) (2,380) (7,141) (9,521)
    Foreign exchange losses – (1,010) (1,010) – (3,737) (3,737)
    Profit before tax 60,200 442,396 502,596 59,579 546,572 606,151
    Taxation (6,545) (5,348) (11,893) (6,231) (251) (6,482)
    Profit for the year 53,655 437,048 490,703 53,348 546,321 599,669

    All profit for the year is attributable to equity holders.

    		        
             
    Earnings per share (pence per share) 17.30 140.95 158.25 18.55 189.98 208.53

    All revenue and capital items in the above statement derive from continuing operations.

    The ‘Total’ column of this statement is the profit and loss account of the Company and the ‘Revenue’ and ‘Capital’ columns represent supplementary information prepared under guidance issued by the Association of Investment Companies. The Company does not have any other comprehensive income and hence profit for the year, as disclosed above, is the same as the Company’s total comprehensive income.

    Statement of Changes in Equity for the year ended 31 December 2024
            Distributable reserves  
    £000 Share
    capital    		 Share premium account Capital redemption reserve Realised capital reserve Unrealised capital reserve Revenue reserve Total distributable reserves Total equity
                     
    At 1 January 2023 7,314 – 11,684 2,669,933 103,754 102,334 2,876,021 2,895,019
    Total comprehensive income:                
    Profit for the year – – – 75,430 470,891 53,348 599,669 599,669
    Transactions with owners, recorded directly to equity:                
    Ordinary dividends paid – – – – – (71,378) (71,378) (71,378)
    Unclaimed dividends returned – – – – – 14 14 14
    Own shares purchased (208) – 208 (86,636) – – (86,636) (86,636)
    Balance at 31 December 2023 7,106 – 11,892 2,658,727 574,645 84,318 3,317,690 3,336,688

    Total comprehensive income:

    		                
    Profit for the year – – – 458,122 (21,074) 53,655 490,703 490,703
    Transactions with owners, recorded directly to equity:                
    Issue of ordinary shares in respect of the combination with Witan 3,024 1,535,877 – – – – – 1,538,901
    Costs in relation to the combination – (4,947) – – – – – (4,947)
    Ordinary dividends paid – – – – – (82,414) (82,414) (82,414)
    Unclaimed dividends returned – – – – – 9 9 9
    Own shares purchased – – – (56,987) – – (56,987) (56,987)
    Balance at 31 December 2024 10,130 1,530,930 11,892 3,059,862 553,571 55,568 3,669,001 5,221,953

    The £553.6m (2023: £574.6m) of unrealised capital reserve arising on the revaluation of investments is subject to fair value movements and may not be readily realisable at short notice, as such it may not be entirely distributable. The unrealised capital reserve includes unrealised gains on borrowings of £22.8m (2023: £5.5m) and gains on unquoted investments of £3.5m (2023: £nil) which are not distributable.

    Balance Sheet as at 31 December 2024
      2024 2023
    £000    
    Non-current assets            
    Investments held at fair value through profit or loss 5,402,381 3,482,329
      5,402,381 3,482,329
    Current assets    
    Outstanding settlements and other receivables 11,282 9,321
    Cash and cash equivalents 182,725 84,974
      194,007 94,295
    Total assets 5,596,388 3,576,624
    Current liabilities    
    Outstanding settlements and other payables (13,057) (9,792)
    Bank loans (45,245) –
      (58,302) (9,792)
         
    Total assets less current liabilities 5,538,086 3,566,832
         
    Non-current liabilities    
    Fixed rate loan notes held at fair value (299,276) (215,144)
    Bank loans (15,000) (15,000)
    Deferred tax provision (1,857) –
      (316,133) (230,144)
    Net assets 5,221,953 3,336,688
         
    Equity    
    Share capital 10,130 7,106
    Share premium account 1,530,930 –
    Capital redemption reserve 11,892 11,892
    Capital reserve 3,613,433 3,233,372
    Revenue reserve 55,568 84,318
    Total equity 5,221,953 3,336,688
    All net assets are attributable to equity holders.
     
    Net asset value per ordinary share attributable to equity holders (£) £13.05 £11.75

    The Financial Statements were approved by the Board of Directors and authorised for issue on 6 March 2025.

    They were signed on its behalf by:

    Jo Dixon
    Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee

    Cash Flow Statement for the year ended 31 December 2024
      2024 2023
    £000    
    Cash flows from operating activities    
    Profit before tax 502,596 606,151
         
    Adjustments for:    
    Gains on investments (449,551) (578,715)
    Losses on derivatives 206 –
    (Gains)/losses on fair value of debt (16,708) 11,371
    Foreign exchange losses 1,010 3,737
    Finance costs 12,883 9,521
    Operating cash flows before movements in working capital 50,436 52,065
    (Increase)/decrease in receivables (2,274) 1,599
    Decrease in payables (43) (36)
    Net cash inflow from operating activities before tax 48,119 53,628
    Taxes paid (10,701) (6,654)
    Net cash inflow from operating activities 37,418 46,974
         
    Cash flows from investing activities    
    Proceeds on disposal of investments 4,697,547 1,600,165
    Purchases of investments (4,702,449) (1,489,643)
    Settlement of derivative financial instruments (206) –
    Net cash (outflow)/inflow from investing activities (5,108) 110,522
    Net cash inflow before financing 32,310 157,496
         
    Cash flows from financing activities    
    Dividends paid – equity (82,414) (71,378)
    Unclaimed dividends returned 9 14
    Net cash acquired following the combination with Witan 177,581 –
    Costs paid in relation to the combination with Witan (4,947) –
    Purchase of own shares (56,987) (88,060)
    Repayment of bank debt (59,000) (63,500)
    Drawdown of bank debt 104,874 15,000
    Issue of loan notes – 60,632
    Finance costs paid (12,033) (10,357)
    Net cash inflow/(outflow) from financing activities 67,083 (157,649)
         
    Net increase/(decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 99,393 (153)
    Cash and cash equivalents at the start of the year 84,974 88,864
    Effect of foreign exchange rate changes (1,642) (3,737)
    Cash and cash equivalents at end of the year 182,725 84,974

    The financial information set out above does not constitute the Company’s statutory Financial Statements for the years ended 31 December 2024 or 2023, but is derived from those Financial Statements. Statutory accounts for 2023 have been delivered to the Registrar of Companies and those for 2024 will be delivered following the Company’s Annual General Meeting. The auditors have reported on those accounts; their reports were unqualified, did not draw attention to any matters by way of emphasis without qualifying their report and did not contain statements under s498(2) or (3) Companies Act 2006.

    The same accounting policies, presentations and methods of computation are followed in these Financial Statements as were applied in the Company’s last annual audited Financial Statements, other than those stated in the Annual Report.

    Basis of accounting

    The Financial Statements have been prepared in accordance with UK-adopted international accounting standards (‘IASs’).

    The Financial Statements have been prepared on the historical cost basis, except that investments and fixed rate notes are stated at fair value through the profit and loss. The Association of Investment Companies (‘AIC’) issued a Statement of Recommended Practice: Financial Statements of Investment Companies (‘AIC SORP’) in July 2022. The Directors have sought to prepare the Financial Statements in accordance with the AIC SORP where the recommendations are consistent with International Financial Reporting Standards (‘IFRS’). The Company qualifies as an investment entity.

    1. Income    
    An analysis of the Company’s revenue is as follows:    
         
    £000 2024 2023
    Revenue:    
    Income from investments    
    Listed dividends – UK 10,125 12,836
    Listed dividends – Overseas 60,838 55,761
      70,963 68,597
    Other income    
    Bank interest 1,475 987
    Other income 25 7
      1,500 994
    Total allocated to revenue 72,463 69,591
         
    Capital:    
    Income from investments    
    Listed dividends – UK 23 –
    Listed dividends – Overseas 331 1,678
    Total allocated to capital 354 1,678
    Total income 72,817 71,269
    2. Dividends    
    Dividends paid during the year    
         
    £000 2024 2023
    2022 fourth interim dividend 6.00p per share – 17,498
    2023 first interim dividend 6.18p per share – 17,849
    2023 second interim dividend 6.34p per share – 18,028
    2023 third interim dividend 6.34p per share – 18,003
    2023 fourth interim dividend 6.34p per share 18,003 –
    2024 first interim dividend 6.62p per share 18,799 –
    2024 second interim dividend 6.62p per share 18,676 –
    2024 third interim dividend 6.73p per share 26,936 –
      82,414 71,378
         
    Dividends payable for the year

    We also set out below the total dividend payable in respect of the financial year, which is the basis on which the requirements of Section 1158/1159 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 are considered.
    £000 2024 2023
    2023 first interim dividend 6.18p per share – 17,849
    2023 second interim dividend 6.34p per share – 18,028
    2023 third interim dividend 6.34p per share – 18,003
    2023 fourth interim dividend 6.34p per share – 18,003
    2024 first interim dividend 6.62p per share 18,799 –
    2024 second interim dividend 6.62p per share 18,676 –
    2024 third interim dividend 6.73p per share 26,936 –
    2024 fourth interim dividend 6.73p per share, payable 31 March 2025 26,933 –
      91,344 71,883
    3. Earnings per share
    The calculation of earnings per share is based on the following data:
     
      2024 2023
    £000 Revenue Capital Total Revenue Capital Total
    Ordinary shares            
    Earnings for the purpose of earnings per share being net profit attributable to equity holders 53,655 437,048 490,703 53,348 546,321 599,669
                 
    Number of shares            
    Weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue during the year   310,079,630   287,573,436

    The Company has no securities in issue that could dilute the return per ordinary share. Therefore the basic and diluted earnings per ordinary share are the same.

    4. Related party transactions

    There are amounts of £1,222 (2023: £1,222) and £34,225 (2023: £34,225) owed to AT2006 and The Second Alliance Trust Limited, respectively, at year-end.

    There are no other related parties other than those noted below.

    Transactions with key management personnel

    Details of the Non-Executive Directors are disclosed on pages 37 to 40 of the Annual Report.

    For the purpose of IAS 24 ‘Related Party Disclosures’, key management personnel comprised the Non-Executive Directors of the Company.

    Details of remuneration are disclosed in the Remuneration Report on pages 55 to 60 of the Annual Report.

    £000 2024 2023
    Total emoluments 337 350
         

    ANNUAL REPORT

    The Annual Report will be available in due course on the Company’s website www.alliancewitan.com. It will also be made available to the public at the Company’s registered office, River Court, 5 West Victoria Dock Road, Dundee DD1 3JT and at the offices of the Company’s Registrar, Computershare Investor Services PLC, Edinburgh House, 4 North St Andrew Street, Edinburgh EH2 1HJ after publication.

    In addition to the full Annual Report, up-to-date performance data, details of new initiatives and other information about the Company can be found on the Company’s website.

    ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

    This year’s AGM will be held on 1 May 2025 at 11.00 a.m. at the Apex City Quay Hotel & Spa, 1 West Victoria Dock Road, Dundee DD1 3JP.

    The Board remains committed to maintaining a physical AGM, with shareholders and Directors present in person. However, the AGM will also be streamed live to shareholders. A web link will be provided for those shareholders wishing to join the AGM via the live stream. Information on how to obtain the link will be published on the Company’s website in due course.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Senators Urge NRC to Improve Environmental Review Requirements

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito
    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, joined U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the EPW Committee, Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Chairman of the EPW Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Innovation and Safety Subcommittee, and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Ranking Member of the EPW Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Innovation and Safety Subcommittee, in sending a letter to David Wright, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
    In the letter, the Senators encourage the NRC to prioritize voting on the implementation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 National Environmental Policy Act Amendments, and to do so in accordance with the congressional intent of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act. Additionally, the Senators urge the NRC to support an ambitious schedule for the completion of the associated rulemaking to update the Commission’s regulations.
    “The NRC’s current environmental review process was established to review legacy nuclear reactor designs and needs to be modernized to allow for the Agency to efficiently carry out its licensing duties to meet today’s urgent energy and environmental needs. The Agency’s current process results in needless delays and additional costs and resources for both the Agency and the applicants. The NRC staff’s recommended actions in the SECY are predominantly productive regulatory updates that would enable the Agency to more efficiently license the safe use of nuclear power – improving predictability, saving time and money, and providing major benefits to the Agency’s licensing process as a whole,” the Senators wrote. 
    Read the full letter here and below: 
    Dear Chairman Wright,
    We request the Commission prioritize voting on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC” or “the Agency”) staff proposal, “Implementation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 National Environmental Policy Act Amendments” (SECY-24-0046 or “SECY”). We encourage the Commission to vote in a manner that fully reflects congressional intent to streamline the NRC’s licensing process, as directed in the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act. As part of your vote, we urge you to support an ambitious schedule for the NRC to complete the associated rulemaking to update the NRC’s regulations.
    Section 506 of the ADVANCE Act required the NRC to report on the efforts of the Commission to “facilitate efficient, timely, and predictable environmental reviews of power reactor applications under section 103 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, including through expanded use of categorical exclusions, environmental assessments, and generic environmental impact statements.” The Commission was also required to report on actions taken to implement the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The Commission submitted that report to Congress on January 6, 2025. The report noted that many of the actions to implement the FRA NEPA amendments are currently awaiting Commission approval as part of the SECY.
    The NRC’s current environmental review process was established to review legacy nuclear reactor designs and needs to be modernized to allow for the Agency to efficiently carry out its licensing duties to meet today’s urgent energy and environmental needs. The Agency’s current process results in needless delays and additional costs and resources for both the Agency and the applicants. The NRC staff’s recommended actions in the SECY are predominantly productive regulatory updates that would enable the Agency to more efficiently license the safe use of nuclear power – improving predictability, saving time and money, and providing major benefits to the Agency’s licensing process as a whole. 
    In addition to the Commission voting on the SECY, we support additional actions to improve the NRC’s environmental review requirements. The ADVANCE Act section 506 report noted the staff can immediately implement a number of efficiencies in the NEPA review without amending NRC’s Part 51 regulations. The NRC should proceed with those actions.
    Further, the NRC recently published the “Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Licensing of New Nuclear Reactors” (or “New Reactor GEIS”) for public comment. The proposed New Reactor GEIS would streamline the environmental review of new reactor license applications by allowing the NRC to focus the review on the significant environmental issues specific to an application’s site and reactor design. The public comment period for the New Reactor GEIS concluded on December 18, 2024. The NRC staff should prioritize updating the proposed GEIS and send the draft final GEIS to the Commission for final approval. The Commission should then expeditiously vote on that proposed final rule.
    We hope that the Commission will strongly take our expectations and the congressional intent embodied in the ADVANCE Act into account for this vote and for future votes on important licensing and regulatory issues. These actions to prioritize updating the NRC’s environmental review process now will result in substantial efficiencies in future licensing actions for both the NRC, licensees, and applicants.
    We thank you for your consideration of our request. We look forward to continuing to work with the Commission to enable the safe and secure use of nuclear power.
    Sincerely,

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Injured crocodile under investigation

    Source: Government of Queensland

    Issued: 7 Mar 2025

    A brutal attack on a crocodile which left it with an arrow or spear protruding from its head at Cape Tribulation is being investigated.

    Wildlife rangers from the Department of the Environment, Science, Tourism and Innovation received a report about the injured crocodile on 20 February 2025.

    The crocodile was not seen during a subsequent site inspection, but wildlife rangers reviewed a social media video showing the animal swimming with an arrow or spear protruding from the right side of its head.

    Under the Nature Conservation Act 1992, it is an offence to deliberately harm or kill an estuarine crocodile, with a maximum penalty of $36,292.

    DETSI Program Coordinator Simon Booth said anyone with information about the attack on the crocodile is urged to contact DETSI on 1300 130 372.

    “The crocodile would be in extreme pain and if not captured and assessed, will most likely die a slow and agonising death,” Mr Booth said.

    “Unfortunately, if we are successful in locating and capturing the animal, it may have to be euthanised due to the extent of its injuries.

    “We are disgusted by this shocking incident, and it is disheartening to know that people can be so cruel.

    “Queenslanders do not tolerate animal cruelty and targeting and deliberately shooting an arrow at a crocodile or any native animal is unacceptable.

    “Crocodile sightings need to be reported to the department, and people should not deliberately harm them.”

    Crocodile sightings can be reported by using the QWildlife app, completing a crocodile sighting report on the DETSI website, or by calling 1300 130 372. The department investigates every crocodile sighting report received.

    Crocwise tips for people in Croc Country:

    • Expect crocodiles in ALL northern and far northern Queensland waterways even if there is no warning sign
    • Obey all warning signs – they are there to keep you safe
    • Be aware crocs also swim in the ocean and be extra cautious around water at night
    • Stay well away from croc traps – that includes fishing and boating
    • The smaller the vessel the greater the risk, so avoid using canoes and kayaks
    • Stand back from the water’s edge when fishing and don’t wade in to retrieve a lure
    • Camp as far back from the water’s edge as possible
    • Never leave food, fish scraps or bait near the water, camp sites or boat ramps
    • Never provoke, harass or feed crocs
    • Always supervise children near the water and keep pets on a lead.

    View further information on being Crocwise.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Hawai‘i Congressional Delegation Introduces Legislation To Protect State’s Native Species

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Hawaii Brian Schatz

    WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawai‘i), along with U.S. Representatives Ed Case (D-Hawai‘i) and Jill Tokuda (D-Hawai‘i), introduced legislation to protect more than 10,000 plant and animal species native to the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawai‘i Native Species Conservation and Recovery Act would fund conservation and recovery projects addressing invasive species, the ecological consequences of climate change, native species’ habitats, and population recovery. Schatz met with The Nature Conservancy, Hawai‘i today to discuss the bill and other priorities.

    “Native species foster a healthy ecosystem, with cleaner air, purer water, and a more resilient environment,” said Senator Schatz. “By funding new conservation measures and recovery projects, including for Native Hawaiian organizations and local non-profits, our bill will help save our native species for years to come.”

    The 10,000 species native to Hawai‘i represent the highest degree of endemism in the world, but hundreds of these species are listed as endangered. The state’s unique biodiversity is in the midst of an extinction crisis, with more than half of native birds and more than 100 unique plant species already extinct.

    The Hawai‘i Native Species Conservation and Recovery Act would:

    • Provide funding through cooperative agreements and grants to the State of Hawai‘i, local governments, Native Hawaiian organizations, non-profit organizations, businesses, and institutions of higher education to protect native species;
    • Support coordinated, evidence-based conservation and recovery projects addressing invasive species, the ecological consequences of climate change, native species’ habitats, and population recovery, as well as data collection and public outreach and education measures;
    • Require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to coordinate with other federal and state agencies to develop annual funding priorities and criteria for ranking project proposals;
    • Require a 25 percent non-federal match for most projects;
    • Encourage applications for high impact, small dollar value projects, projects carried out by Native Hawaiian organizations, and projects promoting youth workforce readiness by waiving the non-federal match requirement for such projects; and
    • Authorize $30 million annually, subject to appropriations, to protect native species for ten years.

    “Unique to our islands, Hawai‘i’s native species are critical to maintaining the health, balance, and biodiversity of our ecosystem,” said Senator Hirono. “Through initiatives such as funding conservation and recovery projects that address topics including invasive species, scientific research, and data collection, this legislation will help to preserve Hawai‘i’s ecosystems and safeguard the environment for future generations.”

    “In Hawai‘i, invasives have caused significant ecological damage, threatening the survival of our unique plant and animal species,” said Representative Case. “Protecting Hawai‘i’s unique biodiversity is not just an environmental necessity, but a cultural imperative that embraces our Native Hawaiian heritage. Unfortunately, these native species often lack the defenses to compete with or resist the pressures of invasive plants and animals, which can rapidly alter ecosystems and displace local species and requires intervention to prevent and reverse.”

    “From ?ohi?a to kiwikiu, Hawai?i is home to some of the most stunning native biodiversity in the world, and we need to work collaboratively to protect and preserve our unique and fragile ecosystem,” said Representative Tokuda. “I am proud to support the Hawai‘i Native Species Conservation and Recovery Act to provide much-needed support for coordinated conservation projects across our state, protect our cultural assets, and ensure our native species can thrive for generations to come.”

    The bill is endorsed by The Nature Conservancy, Hawai‘i Conservation Council, Friends of Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, National Tropical Botanical Garden, American Bird Conservancy, and National Wildlife Federation.

    “Our community in Hawai‘i continues to rise to the challenge protecting our most vulnerable species. I want to thank Senator Schatz, Congressman Case and the rest of our Hawai‘i delegation for enabling the vision of our local communities to become a reality,” said Ulalia Woodside Lee, Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy Hawai‘i and Palmyra. “If enacted, this bill would add much needed support to ensure we can protect our treasured biodiversity and help build capacity in our local communities to malama ‘aina.”

    Senator Schatz met with representatives from TNC Hawai‘i and Palmyra to discuss the bill.

    “This groundbreaking legislation, would ensure protections against invasive species and ensures the viability of Hawai‘i’s endemic species and ecosystems that supports them from extinction. These species are found nowhere else on our planet. If implemented, this legislation will be a win for Hawai‘i, the U.S., and the world in being at the helm of protecting endangered species from becoming extinct. This will also set a course of action to help reverse the current situation of Hawai‘i being the extinction species capitol of the world by eradicating invasive species, foster and the restore biodiversity and help to stabilize our climate. Additionally, this measure will help to protect food sources and the community from harmful invasive pests, as well as, increase employment opportunities. There is no time to lose; we urge Congress to swiftly pass the Native Species Conservation and Recovery Act,” said Jonee Peters, Executive Director for the Conservation Council for Hawai‘i.

    “Hawai‘i is home to some of the most unique and threatened plants and animals found anywhere in the world. The Hawai‘i Native Species Conservation and Recovery Act would be a significant step toward addressing the many challenges of protecting and recovering these irreplaceable natural and cultural resources. Many of Hawai‘i’s exceptional native species are quite literally on the brink of extinction; we urge Congress to pass this Act as soon as possible,” said Debbie Anderson, President of the Friends of Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge.

    “The National Tropical Botanical Garden strongly supports the proposed Hawai‘i Native Species Conservation and Recovery Act of 2025 because it aligns perfectly with NTBG’s mission to preserve and protect native plant species, restore ecosystems, and advance scientific research and education. By providing funding for community involvement and youth workforce training, the act would help ensure that future generations of conservationists and scientists are equipped to protect Hawai‘i’s fragile ecosystems. Supporting the Hawai‘i Native Species Conservation and Recovery Act of 2025 is not just beneficial for NTBG — it is essential for the future of Hawai‘i’s native ecosystems,” said Tami Rollins, Interim CEO of the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

    “Birds such as the ‘I’iwi represent Hawai‘i’s extraordinary biodiversity. However, ‘I’iwi and countless other species are facing unprecedented challenges from threats like avian malaria. Thanks to Sen. Schatz for introducing the Hawai‘i Native Species Conservation and Recovery Act, which would address threats to native species by supporting community-led projects, ensuring native Hawaiian ecosystems are present for our keiki,” said Chris Farmer, Hawai‘i Program Director at American Bird Conservancy.

    The full text of the bill is available here.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Padilla, Schiff, Whitehouse Blast Trump and Zeldin’s Weaponization of EPA as GAO Determines Clean Air Act Waivers Not Subject to Congressional Review Act

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)

    Padilla, Schiff, Whitehouse Blast Trump and Zeldin’s Weaponization of EPA as GAO Determines Clean Air Act Waivers Not Subject to Congressional Review Act

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, in response to the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) finding that Clean Air Act waivers to California are not subject to the Congressional Review Act, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, issued the following joint statement:

    “By ignoring decades of precedent and the plain text of the Congressional Review Act, the Trump EPA is attempting to sell out our nation’s public health and environmental protections to the same polluting industries that bankrolled much of Trump’s campaign. Congress put in place California’s ability to set vehicle emissions standards in the Clean Air Act, and California emission standards have protected generations of Americans against fossil fuel emissions that poison our air and heat our planet. President Trump and Administrator Zeldin’s weaponization of the EPA in service of the polluters the agency is tasked with policing directly attacks our nation’s ability to breathe clean air and reduce the planet-warming carbon pollution that is fueling extreme weather. 

    “GAO’s views on what agency actions are subject to the Congressional Review Act have historically carried great weight, and we thank the agency for its attention to this matter.” 

    Yesterday, Senator Padilla questioned nominees for senior posts at the Environmental Protection Agency on California’s Clean Air Act waivers, stressing that they do not fall under the purview of the Congressional Review Act.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Padilla, Schiff Urge Interior Department to Halt Further Workforce Cuts at Bureau of Reclamation

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)

    Padilla, Schiff Urge Interior Department to Halt Further Workforce Cuts at Bureau of Reclamation

    Senators to DOI: “Rather than decimating the agency and its dedicated staff, Interior should work with Congress to bolster Reclamation’s workforce to meet the growing demands of extreme weather, population growth, and increasing pressures on our water supply systems.”

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.), members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, pushed the Department of the Interior to ensure there are no further federal workforce cuts to the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation). The letter comes after the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo last week requiring agency heads to submit guidance on large-scale reductions in force and their reorganization plans by March 15. Due to the chaos of the Trump Administration’s reckless cuts, Reclamation is already set to lose about 100 employees in California, which is 10 percent of its regional staff.

    Despite its tradition of operating as a lean agency, Reclamation supports and operates many critical California water management projects and delivers water to more than 31 million Americans and 10 million acres of farmland. This farmland managed by Reclamation produces over 60 percent of the nation’s vegetables and more than 25 percent of its fruits and nuts.

    “Any federal dollars ‘saved’ from a reduction in staffing will ultimately cost taxpayers more through disrupted supply chains, increased burdens on state taxpayers, and emergency response due to the instability created by these reductions,” wrote the Senators. “Aging dams, reservoirs, and conveyance systems require continuous monitoring and maintenance, and without adequate staffing, the risk of infrastructure failures increases. Such failures could have catastrophic consequences, including flooding, water contamination, and severe disruptions to California’s agricultural and urban economies.”

    “We strongly urge you to reconsider the termination of these critical Reclamation employees and halt further workforce reductions at Reclamation,” continued the Senators. “Rather than decimating the agency and its dedicated staff, Interior should work with Congress to bolster Reclamation’s workforce to meet the growing demands of extreme weather, population growth, and increasing pressures on our water supply systems.”

    Padilla and Schiff highlighted three essential water projects that depend on the expertise of Reclamation staff for managing water in the West, where water systems are extremely complex and are closely coordinated with state, tribal, and local authorities:

    • The Klamath Project provides critical water supplies to farms, wildlife refuges, and tribal communities in Oregon and California. Reclamation staff are essential to balancing competing demands for tribal cultural protection, agricultural water deliveries, and ecological health.
    • The Central Valley Project (CVP) operates in tandem with the State Water Project (SWP) to supply water to farms, businesses, and residents. The two systems are deeply interconnected, and CVP staff is essential to SWP operations and water deliveries. The CVP is a federal responsibility, and maintaining full Reclamation staffing is essential to protect California’s water supply and agricultural economy.
    • The Lower Colorado Regional Office operates Hoover Dam — one of the federal government’s most critical infrastructure assets. Its staff provide real-time data and operational oversight that is vital for Colorado River management, and for ensuring reliable water deliveries to three Western states, millions of people, and some of the nation’s most productive farmland.

    The Senators also highlighted concerns from many California water contractors who have warned Interior Secretary Burgum against eliminating essential Reclamation staff with the knowledge necessary to safely and reliably deliver water throughout California. Many of these contractors have emphasized that Reclamation is a service organization, not funded by taxpayers but rather water and power customers.

    Last week, Senators Padilla and Schiff urged the Department of the Interior to immediately stop its freeze of Inflation Reduction Act funding for the Lower Colorado River System Conservation and Efficiency Program, which is managed by the Bureau of Reclamation.

    Full text of the letter is available here and below:

    Dear Secretary Burgum, Acting Commissioner Palumbo, Director Stock, and Director Johnson:

    We write to express serious concerns regarding (i) alleged staff terminations at the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) in California and (ii) the recent Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memo calling for significant federal workforce reductions. On March 3, 2025, it was reported that Reclamation is set to lose about 100 employees in California, which is 10 percent of its regional staff. In the strongest terms, we ask that you provide further information and justification about these reductions and ensure that any additional cuts at the Department of the Interior (Interior) do not further impact Reclamation, an already lean agency that delivers water to more than 31 million Americans and 10 million acres of farmland that produce 60% of the nation’s vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts.

    Reclamation staff are indispensable to managing water in the West, where water systems are highly technical, complex, and closely coordinated with state, tribal, and local authorities. For example:

    The Klamath Project provides critical water supplies to farms, wildlife refuges, and tribal communities in Oregon and California. Reclamation staff are essential to balancing competing demands for Tribal cultural protection, agricultural water deliveries, and ecological health.

    The Central Valley Project (CVP) operates in tandem with the State Water Project (SWP) to supply water to farms, businesses, and residents. The two systems are deeply interconnected, making CVP staffing essential to SWP operations and water deliveries. As the CVP is a federal responsibility, Interior must ensure it remains fully staffed to protect California’s water supply and agricultural economy.

    The Lower Colorado Regional Office operates Hoover Dam – one of the federal government’s most critical infrastructure assets. Its staff provide real-time data and operational oversight essential for managing the Colorado River, ensuring reliable water deliveries to three western states, millions of people, and some of the nation’s most productive farmland.

    As a large coalition of California federal water contractors wrote to you in the attached letter, “In our experience, the vast majority of staff throughout Reclamation’s California-Great Basin region is comprised of dedicated, talented federal employees, possessing specialized skills, knowledge, and the relevant and specific experience necessary to safely and efficiently manage, operate and maintain one of the largest, most complex water projects in the world… This knowledge is absolutely essential to assuring the continued safe and reliable delivery of water throughout the state.” The staffing cuts previously made by and deferred resignations conducted through this Administration have already led to the loss of many experienced employees. As the water contractors point out, additional losses will threaten public health and safety and negatively impact the water delivery system for the nation’s largest state economy.

    Any federal dollars “saved” from a reduction in staffing will ultimately cost taxpayers more through disrupted supply chains, increased burdens on state taxpayers, and emergency response due to the instability created by these reductions. Aging dams, reservoirs, and conveyance systems require continuous monitoring and maintenance, and without adequate staffing, the risk of infrastructure failures increases. Such failures could have catastrophic consequences, including flooding, water contamination, and severe disruptions to California’s agricultural and urban economies.

    In light of these challenges, please answer the following questions by March 13, 2025.

    1. What analyses, if any, have been completed to determine the budgetary and broader economic impacts of losing Reclamation employees that have already been or will be lost?

    2. How does Interior plan to make up for the current and anticipated loss of specialized knowledge about California’s water systems, including the CVP, given these terminations?

    3. How will Interior and Reclamation continue to manage, operate, and maintain California’s aging infrastructure in light of these staffing losses?

    4. According to OPM’s FedScope, there were 5,739 employees at Reclamation as of September 2024. How many Reclamation employees are there as of March 6, 2025?

    5. What are the job functions and employment locations of Reclamation employees in California who have been terminated and accepted deferred resignation?

    6. Please describe in detail, the degree to which Mr. Elon Musk and/or representatives from the “Department of Government Efficiency” or “United States DOGE Service” have been involved in any part of these firings within Interior and Reclamation.

    We strongly urge you to reconsider the termination of these critical Reclamation employees and halt further workforce reductions at Reclamation. Rather than decimating the agency and its dedicated staff, Interior should work with Congress to bolster Reclamation’s workforce to meet the growing demands of extreme weather, population growth, and increasing pressures on our water supply systems.

    We welcome the opportunity to further discuss these concerns and would be happy to host you for a visit at any time to give you a tour of California’s vital water infrastructure and introduce you to the outstanding Reclamation staff in California.

    Sincerely,

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Sullivan, Murkowski Seek to Extend Alaska Native Vietnam-Era Veterans Allotment Program

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Alaska Dan Sullivan
    03.06.25
    WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski (both R-Alaska) have re-introduced legislation to extend the Alaska Native Vietnam-Era Veterans Land Allotment Program for five additional years. Without such an extension, the program will expire in December 2025 and potentially leave well over a thousand eligible Alaska Native Vietnam veterans and their heirs without their rightful land allotments.
    “While serving their country during the Vietnam War era, many Alaska Native veterans missed the deadline to apply for their legally entitled land allotment—an injustice that we are still working to fix nearly 70 years later,” said Senator Sullivan. “I’ve been working on this issue since I came into office. In 2019, President Trump signed into law a major lands package led by Senator Murkowski that included an allotment program I authored with a five-year window to apply. Unfortunately, throughout the implementation of this program, the Biden administration callously threw up endless regulatory hurdles and delays, dramatically limited the lands available for selection, and ended up delivering allotments to about 40 Alaskans out of more than 2,000 eligible veterans. We are reintroducing this legislation to extend this program and finally secure these land allotments for our courageous veterans who sacrificed greatly on behalf of our country. I look forward to working with the Trump administration to see this legislation signed into law and successfully implemented to fix this historic injustice and honor our Vietnam veterans’ heroic service.”
    “As thousands of Alaska Natives served our nation during the Vietnam War, they missed their opportunity to select the land allotments they are rightfully owed,” Senator Murkowski said. “With roughly 150 veterans remaining to be notified, and the pace of allotment certifications slower than we hoped it would be, an extension has become necessary—especially as we push to open additional lands closer to where many of these veterans and their families actually live.”
    The Alaska Native Vietnam-Era Veterans Land Allotment Program was established through a Sullivan-Murkowski provision in Murkowski’s 2019 lands package. The program has enabled thousands of Alaska Native veterans to apply for their congressionally-pledged land allotments, which can range from 2.5 to 160 acres, on certain Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in Alaska.
    As of February 13, 2025, BLM Alaska reported that it has received 453 applications for allotments and completed certifications for 41 of them. Hundreds of eligible veterans and their heirs—especially those who live in southeast, western, and northern Alaska—have not submitted applications because no lands are available within hundreds of miles of their place of residence or ancestral homelands.   
    Timeline:
    In 1906, Congress passed a law allowing Alaska Native individuals to acquire 160-acre parcels of land.
    In 1971, at a time when many Alaska Native men were serving in the military during the Vietnam War, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) extinguished the 1906 allotment rights.
    In 1998, the Alaska congressional delegation secured legislation to partially fix the injustice of Alaska Native veterans who missed the chance to apply for an allotment. However, due to certain restrictions, only about 500 veterans ultimately applied out more than 3,000 who were eligible.
    On February 12, 2019, the Senate passed Sen. Murkowski’s S.47, the National Resources Management Act, including a Sen. Sullivan provision to establish the Alaska Native Vietnam Veteran Land Allotment Program. The late Congressman Don Young (R-Alaska) shepherded the legislation through the House.
    On March 12, 2019, President Donald Trump signed S.47, and the Trump administration began working on its implementation.
    In January 2021, then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed the revocation of 11 outdated public land orders (PLOs) issued in 1972 and 1973 that were put in place to allow Alaska Native Corporations to select lands promised to them by Congress 50 years ago. This important step allowed for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to revoke the PLOs.
    In 2021, Senator Sullivan met twice with Secretary Haaland prior to her confirmation vote to be the Secretary of Interior. In both meetings, she committed to rapidly implement the Alaska Native Vietnam Veteran Land Allotment Program. She subsequently refused to follow through on this commitment.
    In February 2021, members of the Alaska congressional delegation condemned the Biden administration Department of the Interior’s (DOI) action to postpone the revocation of PLOs signed by former Interior Secretary Bernhardt.
    In April 2021, in a unilateral and unnecessary action, the BLM postponed the PLO revocations, requiring further environmental analysis on five public land orders with a two-year stay on the implementation of the PLO revocations.
    On May 7, 2021, Sen. Sullivan and Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-Alaska) penned an op-ed in the Juneau Empire outlining the State of Alaska’s legislative effort to make state lands available to eligible Alaska Native veterans.
    In June 2021, Sens. Sullivan and Murkowski introduced legislation to amend the Alaska Native Vietnam Veteran Land Allotment Program and make an additional 3.7 million acres of federal land in the National Wildlife Refuge System available for selection.
    On April 18, 2022, Sens. Sullivan and Murkowski sent a letter to Secretary Haaland urging her to lift the PLOs that would make over 28 million acres of federal land available for selection by eligible veterans or their heirs.
    On April 21, 2022, Sen. Sullivan disputed Secretary Haaland’s claim that she is “[moving] expeditiously to deliver on [her] promise” to Alaska Native Vietnam-era veterans as she accepted a “Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) from the acting Alaska BLM director on the Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Alaska Native Vietnam Veteran Land Allotment Program.
    In February 2023, Sens. Sullivan and Murkowski reintroduced S.175, legislation to codify the revocation of the five PLOs signed during the Trump administration and undoing the Biden administration’s efforts to unfairly halt access to federal public lands in Alaska.
    In April 2023, Sen. Sullivan condemned Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s decision to order a new full environmental impact statement (EIS), which delays the implementation of the allotment program even further.
    On August 10, 2023, Sen. Sullivan criticized Secretary Haaland’s announcement of a PLO to open about 812,000 additional acres of public lands managed by BLM Alaska for selection, noting that the “new” land has already been spoken for by the state, and the decision will result in more delays and legal hurdles for eligible veterans.
    In February 2024, Sens. Sullivan and Murkowski introduced S.3790, which would extend the program for another five years before its expiration in December 2025. The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent on the final day of the 118th Congress, but did not clear the House of Representatives.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Denman Marine Voyage update: 7 March, 2025

    Source: Australian Government – Antarctic Division

    This is the first of our weekly updates on the science and shipboard activities happening on the Denman Marine Voyage, a 60-day collaborative science voyage to the Denman Glacier region. There are about 60 scientists on board, and they’re already hard at work.

    RSV Nuyina has been at sea for almost a week and is expected to reach the target area in the next few days. It’s been rough at times but the crew and science groups have managed to get a fair bit done, deploying argo and BGC floats, the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) and Moving Vessel Profiler (MVP).
    The eDNA team has been sampling the moon pool for invasive species and phytoplankton, wet well operations have begun and radiosonde air chemistry and modelling are being done by the atmospheric team, with twice daily balloon releases. 
    Daily science talks are being held on subjects like biogeochemistry (BGC), seal tagging, physical oceanography and sediments. Over the next few days there will be more talks on krill and their diets, benthic trawling and atmospherics.
    Some of the teams have switched to their shifts as they prepare for 24-hour operations. There’s now a meal at midnight and plenty of food options, including curry at breakfast and eggs and bacon ready for lunch.
    In a surprise turn, unofficial Antarctic mascot, Stay – the Guide Dog’s Tasmania collection dog – has turned up! (She was last spotted at Mawson research station). As usual, she came from nowhere and took a star turn on the bridge before disappearing again. You can find out more about Stay, the Antarctic enigma, here. 
    Air temp: 2°C, Sea temp: 3°C, Wind speed: 5.8kts, Significant wave height: 2.43m, Distance to Hobart: 1518nm 

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    RSV Nuyina

    Voyage track of the RSV Nuyina over the last 10 weeks, from 28 December 2024 to 7 March 2025

    To find out more, visit our website. 
    The Denman Marine Voyage is a collaboration between the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Research (ACEAS), the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP), Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF) and the Australian Antarctic Division.
    This content was last updated 12 hours ago on 7 March 2025.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Government releases new strategy and work plan to deal with New Zealand’s waste

    Source: New Zealand Government

    Environment Minister Penny Simmonds today launched the Government’s strategy to reduce waste and improve how it’s managed in New Zealand.  
    The strategy sets out the Government’s approach to reducing the environmental and economic harm caused by waste, Ms Simmonds says. 
    “The Government is committed to working with the sector, business, iwi/Māori, local government and communities to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, increase reuse and recycling, and ensure we have the right tools in place to better manage our country’s waste,” Ms Simmonds says.  
    Ms Simmonds says the Government has also confirmed its waste work programme to help achieve the strategy’s goals. 
    “One of our main priorities is to make sure New Zealand has waste legislation that gives us more options and flexibility to reduce and manage waste effectively and efficiently.
    “As well as modernising our legislation, we’ll also make sure we’re investing the waste disposal levy to have the greatest impact. 
    “Reducing waste emissions is another big goal, as well as making sure New Zealand has well-managed resource recovery and disposal facilities, and limiting the environmental harm caused by contaminated sites, including historic contamination. 
    “Following the launch of New Zealand’s first regulated product stewardship scheme, Tyrewise, we’ll continue work to bring in new industry-led schemes, enabling supply chains to take responsibility for the full life cycle of their products. Farm plastics and agrichemicals are our next focus, with support from key stakeholders in the agricultural sector.”
    Ms Simmonds says changes to existing waste policies will support the strategy while minimising impacts on the cost of living. 
    “We’re reducing costs to ratepayers by leaving it up to councils to decide what kerbside waste collections they bring in and when. We’ll continue to support councils to introduce kerbside collections through the Waste Minimisation Fund.
    “We’ve also removed the 2025 deadline for phasing out all PVC and polystyrene food and drink packaging, and will work with industry to make sure any further regulations are workable and provide enough time to switch to alternative packaging.”
    Ms Simmonds says everyone has a role to play in reducing waste and waste emissions.

    Find out more information:

    Waste and resource efficiency strategy | Ministry for the Environment
    Government waste work programme | Ministry for the Environment

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ‘No-one wants to go through this again’: how disaster-stricken residents in northern NSW are preparing for Cyclone Alfred

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca McNaught, Research Fellow, University of Sydney

    It’s been three years since floods pummelled the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Now, Cyclone Alfred is heading for the region, threatening devastation once more.

    On Thursday night and Friday morning, the NSW State Emergency Service asked residents in parts of the Northern Rivers to evacuate. Rain associated with Cyclone Alfred was expected to cause rapid river rises and extensive flooding.

    As you’d expect, many Northern Rivers residents feel very apprehensive right now. No-one wants to go through this again.

    I know of a woman who, just last week, had painters doing final repairs to her home after it flooded in 2022. Other people can’t afford to repair their homes at all.

    Damage from the last floods extends beyond the material. Many people in the Northern Rivers are still dealing with mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and PTSD after the last disaster.

    Still, people are preparing for Cyclone Alfred’s arrival – and drawing lessons from the 2022 floods in the hope of a better outcome this time.

    Memories of Lismore floods

    I have 20 years’ experience working on climate change adaptation and disaster risk management. My research focus includes the Northern Rivers, where I live. Last year, a study I led examined community collaboration across the region in response to disasters.

    The Northern Rivers is located in the NSW northeast and is drained by three major rivers: the Richmond, Tweed and Clarence. The city of Lismore is one of the most flood-prone urban centres in Australia.

    As my colleagues and I have previously written, the 2022 flood in Lismore and surrounds surprised even the most prepared residents.

    Floodwaters in Lismore reached more than two metres higher than the previous record. Shocked residents were left clinging to their roofs. Businesses moved their stock to higher ground, but it was still destroyed. Houses above the so-called “flood line” were inundated.

    Warning systems proved inadequate, and emergency agencies were overwhelmed. More than 10,800 homes were damaged.

    Landslides and boulders fell on homes and roads, leaving people trapped and isolated for up to six weeks. Others could not access cash, petrol, communications, food, schools, carer services and medical assistance for long periods.

    The 2022 floods were by no means the first disaster to befall the Northern Rivers. The region also flooded in 2017. In 2019 the region, like much of Australia, was deep in drought. The Black Summer bushfires hit in 2019-20, and Covid-19 struck in 2020. Parts of the region suffered bushfires in 2023.

    Now, we are facing Cyclone Alfred.

    The scale of the 2022 floods forced many residents to confront a harsh reality: in a disaster, emergency services cannot always help. Sometimes, people must fend for themselves.

    That realisation prompted a growing community-led resilience movement. As Cyclone Alfred approaches, that network has swung into action.



    Read more:
    When disaster strikes, emergency responders can’t respond to every call. Communities must be helped to help themselves

    A community coming together

    Since 2022, community-resilience groups have emerged in each local government area across the region. The groups comprise, and are led by, community volunteers.

    In my local government area, Byron Shire, there are 13 community resilience groups. I co-lead my local group.

    We work with local organisations, government agencies and emergency services to help the community before, during and after a disaster. The local council convenes regular meetings between all these organisations.

    My research shows strong information flows are crucial in disaster preparedness and recovery.

    Since the Cyclone Alfred threat began, my community group has received regular updates from the SES on matters such as locations of sandbags and sand, the latest weather information advice, and when evacuation centres will open.

    We also have an established a network of contacts who live on streets vulnerable to flooding. We pass on relevant information to other residents via Facebook and a WhatsApp group. In the past day we have been exchanging information such as whether flood pumps are working and the extent of beach erosion.

    The flow of information is two-way. Byron Shire’s community resilience network is chaired by the local council, and has links to emergency management – the “lights and sirens” people. In this way, community knowledge and contributions are recognised and valued by decision-makers and other officials.

    In recent days our group has fed advice up the chain to emergency services, such as the location of elderly and vulnerable people who may need help to evacuate.

    A man holding a portable emergency satellite provided to a community resilience group in the Northern Rivers.
    Facebook

    Byron Shire Council has also loaned portable Starlink satellite dishes to some community-resilience groups. These devices provide essential and communication if phone and internet services fail in a disaster.

    On a broader level, the Bureau of Meteorology is producing regular video updates about Cyclone Alfred in clear, plain language. This is helping to communicate the risks widely and give people the information they need.

    Community resilience groups also seek to adopt a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to disasters – such as helping residents prepare for the next flood event.

    This can be challenging. Many people and organisations in the region have understandably been focused on recovery after the 2022 floods. It can be hard to do this while also preparing for the next disaster.

    And sometimes, people don’t want constant reminders of the potential for flooding. Some people just want to move on and think about something other than disaster.

    If Cyclone Alfred brings destruction to the Northern Rivers, community resilience groups will play a big role in supporting health and wellbeing. Not everyone accesses formal mental health support after disasters. Communities and neighbours looking out for each other is crucial.

    Tough times ahead

    As I write, the Northern Rivers is starting to lose power and internet access. Winds are wild and rain lashed the region all night.

    As climate change worsens, all communities must consider how they will cope with more intense disasters. The model of community-led resilience in the Northern Rivers shows a way forward.

    There is still much work to do in the region. However, our experience of compounding disasters means we are well along the path to finding new ways to support each other through extreme events.



    Read more:
    Lismore faced monster floods all but alone. We must get better at climate adaptation, and fast

    Rebecca McNaught is a Research Fellow at the University Centre for Rural Health (University of Sydney) in Lismore. She has received scholarship funding from the Australian Government’s Research Training Program Stipend. She is affiliated with the South Golden Beach, New Brighton and Ocean Shores Community Resilience Team. She has also conducted paid and voluntary work for the Northern Rivers not-for-profit registered charity Plan C.

    – ref. ‘No-one wants to go through this again’: how disaster-stricken residents in northern NSW are preparing for Cyclone Alfred – https://theconversation.com/no-one-wants-to-go-through-this-again-how-disaster-stricken-residents-in-northern-nsw-are-preparing-for-cyclone-alfred-251650

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Asia Pacific – Hidden challenges in paradise: report addresses threats to Palawan’s marine life and community – University of Sydney

    Source: University of Sydney

    Palawan archipelago in the Philippines: State of the Marine Environment

    A joint study for the Philippines and Australian governments led by researchers at the University of Sydney has highlighted threats to the outstanding marine environment of the Palawan Province, an archipelago of 1700 islands adjacent to the South China Sea.

    The Palawan State of the Marine Environment 2024 report – a collaboration between the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, Geoscience Australia and the University of Sydney – was launched on Wednesday at an event in Puerto Princesa, Philippines.

    The Australian Ambassador to the Philippines, Her Excellency HK Yu, welcomed the report and thanked the University of Sydney for its academic leadership in providing the research into this ecologically important region. She said: “As strategic partners, Australia is committed to supporting the Philippines to manage its marine resources and uphold international law. We are pleased to provide this report to the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), funded through Australia’s Southeast Asia Maritime Partnerships. We are proud of our strong cooperation with PCSD, and will continue to respond to their needs.”

    The report focuses on the marine ecosystems of Palawan, Philippines – a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve renowned for its stunning biodiversity and natural beauty. It highlights concerning developments regarding the health of its marine environment and the urgent need for sustainable management strategies, outlining 10 recommendations for action (summarised below).

    Dr Billy Haworth and Professor Elaine Baker, researchers from the School of Geosciences, played a pivotal role in the study. They coordinated expert assessments involving 59 local and regional marine environmental specialists to evaluate more than 165 indicators across six thematic areas. Their findings underscore that, despite advancements in understanding marine ecosystems, the degradation of these environments continues to rise, driven predominantly by climate change, pollution and human activities.

    “Palawan is home to over 1000 species of marine fish, as well as turtles, sea cucumbers and iconic marine mammals like dugongs, dolphins and whale sharks. However, many of these species and their habitats are in decline due to multiple stressors, including climate change, overfishing, tourism, urbanisation, pollution and microplastics,” Dr Haworth said.

    “Our report highlights the fragility of these ecosystems that are vital not only to the region’s biodiversity but also to the livelihoods of local communities that depend on them.”

    The report examines the alarming impacts of climate change, which are having profound effects on Palawan’s marine ecosystems. Issues such as rising sea levels, warming ocean temperatures, and increased frequency of extreme weather events are especially concerning. The study revealed that 58 percent of species examined are experiencing significant decline.

    “As home to two UNESCO World Heritage areas, Palawan holds not only ecological but also cultural significance,” Professor Baker said. “It is crucial that we understand the challenges facing its marine life. By implementing our recommendations, we can work towards a sustainable future that preserves this unique environment.”

    The report emphasises that the health of Palawan’s ecosystems is inextricably linked to the wellbeing of local communities. Immediate actions must be taken to reverse the ongoing trends of deterioration to protect not only this breathtaking archipelago but also the livelihoods of those who call it home.

    Tools and datasets developed during preparation of the report were handed over to the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development to enhance its marine spatial data infrastructure capability, empowering its ability to publish authoritative information in the marine environment and make informed marine planning and management decisions.

    The following 10 recommendations emerged from the report to improve management and conservation efforts in Palawan’s marine environments:

    Prioritise Understudied Parameters: Focus on the least understood factors affecting marine health, especially deep-sea areas.
    Enhance Data Collection: Complement existing data with innovative techniques such as citizen science and remote sensing to track changes over time.

    Align with Existing Research Priorities: 
    • Future research should connect with established sustainable development goals in the region.
    • Conduct Multidisciplinary Research: Collaboration with various stakeholders is necessary for balanced conservation and economic development.
    • Incorporate Ecosystem Interconnectedness: Address the interrelations between ecosystems and livelihoods rather than viewing environmental factors in isolation.
    • Make Information Available: Improve access to research products to aid in broad-based marine environmental management.
    • Develop New Partnerships: Foster collaborative relationships among government, academic institutions and NGOs to enhance environmental governance.
    • Increase Education Campaigns: Launch initiatives to raise awareness about marine degradation and promote responsible practices within the community.
    • Emphasise Monitoring: Establish consistent monitoring mechanisms to facilitate timely responses to environmental changes.
    • Support Local Livelihoods: Create programs to support communities affected by environmental changes, ensuring that livelihood diversification is part of the strategy.

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: March 6th, 2025 N.M. Delegation Oppose Plans to Use Kirtland & Fort Bliss for Immigration-Related Operations

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for New Mexico Martin Heinrich
    VIDEO
    Heinrich heard from fired public lands employees and a New Mexico small business owner about the impacts of Trump and Musk’s mass firings
    WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, along with U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ranking Member of the Senate Interior Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, and U.S. Senator Angus Kaine (I-Maine), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources National Parks Subcommittee, hosted a virtual roundtable with public lands employees fired President Trump and Elon Musk.
    The senators heard from professionals from the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service, as well as small business owner, Nick Streit, who owns the Taos Fly Shop near the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument in northern New Mexico.
    VIDEO: U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich Hosts Virtual Roundtable with Fired Public Lands Employees, March 5, 2025.
    “President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE illegal firings have targeted our Park Rangers, Refuge Managers, Forest Rangers, and BLM land managers,” said Heinrich. “This included many employees who were ‘red carded,’ meaning that they were trained for wildland firefighting. Not only have these DOGE firings made Western communities much less safe going into fire season. Staffing shortages in our public lands will also lead to reduced recreation opportunities and public access. This is a disaster for our local economies as we head into Spring Break, normally a peak season for visitation.”
    Heinrich continued, “We also need to be clear-eyed that this is just the start. Trump, Musk, and Republicans are defunding management of our public lands to make Americans think that they are being poorly managed. This is all part of their scheme to transfer our public lands to states so they can sell them to the highest bidder. I won’t stand for it.
    Heinrich is leading Senate Democrats in sounding the alarm on Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s destructive actions that are wreaking havoc on Americans, weakening our economy, and threatening the livelihoods of New Mexicans.
    Last month, Heinrich demanded that President Trump immediately halt his unlawful mass firings of federal employees on probationary status.
    In New Mexico, there are approximately 2,200 federal employees in their probationary period – including individuals who serve in critical roles across key agencies, including the Veterans Health Administration, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among others.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: ICYMI: Senator Marshall Delivers Opening Statement as Chairman of Conservation, Forestry, Natural Resources, and Biotechnology Subcommittee

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Kansas Roger Marshall
    Washington – U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), Chairman of the Conservation, Forestry, Natural Resources, and Biotechnology Subcommittee, today delivered opening remarks for the hearing regarding the Fix Our Forests Act.
    This legislation is especially important in the wake of several catastrophic fires in Southern California and the Hawaiian island of Maui. Senator Marshall also highlighted the importance of grassland management and the need to address wildfires in Kansas. The Fix Our Forests Act will provide common-sense deregulation that streamlines fire prevention – both reactively and proactively.
    Agriculture Committee Hearings to examine options to reduce catastrophic wildfire, including H.R.471, to expedite under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and improve forest management activities on National Forest System lands, on public lands under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, and on Tribal lands to return resilience to overgrown, fire-prone forested lands, in Washington, DC on March 6, 2025. (Official U.S. Senate photo by Renee Bouchard)
    Click here or on the image above to watch the opening statement, or read Senator Marshall’s full remarks below:
    “Good morning and welcome everybody.
    “It is my privilege to call this hearing to order. I would like to thank our witnesses for taking time out of your busy schedules to come share your expertise and perspectives on the Fix Our Forests Act (H.R. 471), which the House passed – for the second time – by an overwhelming vote of 279-141 in January 2025. Just a month or so ago.
    “We know wildfires are indifferent to federal, state, tribal, and private property jurisdictions, and we have all seen the destruction catastrophic wildfire can cause on our rural and urban communities. 
    “Just this week we are witnessing fires threatening lives and property in the Carolinas, and unfortunately, recent history is replete with incidents illustrating the devastating impacts fires have on our communities from the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California to the 2023 Lahaina fires in Maui, Hawaii, to the 2025 Southern California fires as well.
    “In order to treat an issue, first we must identify the symptoms, diagnose the root cause of the problem, and implement scientifically sound treatments. The loss of human life and property from these fires is an acute and painful symptom of a system that is not working. The causes come from misguided policies one could argue goes all the way back to the Forest Service’s 1930’s so-called “10 AM Policy,” which required all fires to be extinguished by 10 AM the day after they were discovered. 
    “These causes have been compounded by the federal government’s inability or unwillingness to treat the right acres at the right time at the right scale over numerous administrations. Treating this problem comes in the form of an all-of-the-above approach to modernizing the federal technological toolbox for assessing and identifying wildfire risk, facilitating early response and suppression, and updating the public-private partnership model for federal, state, tribal, county, and private landowners to address fire risk rather than jurisdictional or political subdivision boundaries.
    “Every fire is unique – my dad was chief of a fire department for years before becoming Chief of Police, and indeed, he would tell me that every fire was very unique. But the most catastrophic fires all have similarities. Proper management of our nation’s forest lands can help prevent a small spark from turning into a raging fire with devastating consequences.
    “My own state of Kansas is not immune to wildfire. In 2021, strong winds and dry air combined to create ideal conditions for wildfires in the grasslands of Western and Central Kansas in the Four Counties Fire. That fire was clocked at over 180 miles per hour on the wind turbines as it sailed through those prairies.
    “Not all management methods for the grasslands of Kansas mirror what the science tells us should be conducted on forested acres, but the important role of proper management on our landscapes rings true for both.
    “The Fix our Forests Act (FOFA) is a rare bipartisan opportunity for Congress to provide the United States Forest Service, the Department of the Interior, states, tribes, counties, and private partners with a modernized and streamlined toolbox to fight fire. 
    Regardless of our respective views on the appropriate use of federal lands and resources, we all need to help mitigate the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfires while ensuring the scientifically sound and sustainable stewardship of our federal lands.
    “The Fix our Forest Act provides agencies with critically needed and appropriately calibrated increases in the acreage limitations for Categorial Exclusions available to forest managers and increases which agency analysis has shown will help provide the flexibility to better address forest management.
    “To be clear, Categorical Exclusions are not a free pass for an agency to go in and clear-cut forests as some are lead to believe. They are one way for federal agencies to comply with NEPA based upon extensive uses of prior Environmental Assessments that show no significant effect and are still subject to scoping before moving forward.
    “FOFA instructs the federal government to identify at the fireshed scale, the top 20 percent of firesheds that are at risk of fire exposure over the next five years in order to better focus limited resources. FOFA permanently fixes, in statute, the disastrous Ninth Circuit’s “Cottonwood” decision, which the Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn, has led to delays in management projects through unnecessary and duplicative scoping in an attempt to avoid frivolous litigation. 
    “FOFA also adopts litigation reforms used by past Republican and Democratic administrations in statute to limit litigation delays to essential projects, and FOFA strengthens Good Neighbor Authority, a critical and overwhelmingly successful program that has allowed local and state partners the ability to supplement the work the Forest Service is not able to do on their lands.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: With Yemen Poised for Renewed Conflict, Insufficient Aid and Environmental Crisis, Security Council Hears Political Process, Humanitarian Funding Urgently Needed

    Source: United Nations General Assembly and Security Council

    “Numbers in My Next Briefings Will Be Worse,” Says Emergency Relief Coordinator

    Fear of Yemen plunging back into widespread conflict is “palpable”, the United Nations’ top official in that country told the Security Council today, calling on the parties to refrain from military posturing and instead agree on a nationwide ceasefire.

    “I see and hear the deep frustration of the Yemeni people who continue to bear the heavy burden of a decade of war” and whose grinding hardship “only deepens”, said Hans Grundberg, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen.  He added that gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has more than halved, the Yemeni rial in Government-controlled areas has fallen by 50 per cent in the last year and poverty has surged across the country.

    Even though large-scale ground operations have not resumed since the UN-mediated truce was implemented in April 2022, he reported that military activity continues.  On that, he voiced concern over recent reports of shelling, drone attacks, infiltration attempts and mobilization campaigns recently witnessed in Ma’rib, Al Jawf, Shabwa and Ta’iz.  Relatedly, he warned against a rise in rhetoric from the parties, who are pre-positioning themselves publicly for military confrontation.  Words, intent and signals matter, and “escalatory discourse can have real consequences”, he added.

    Stressing that his team remains “undeterred” amid enormous challenges, he highlighted its recent, relentless engagement with both Yemeni and international stakeholders.  To settle the conflict, the parties must agree on a nationwide ceasefire and a mechanism to implement it.  Furthermore, he underlined the need for a political process that includes “a broad spectrum of Yemenis that will allow this conflict to settle once and for all”.

    While welcoming the continued cessation of attacks by Ansar Allah on vessels in the Red Sea and targets in Israel during the last month, he emphasized that “enabling environments for peace can be fragile and fleeting” and “positive developments must be put on a more-permanent footing”.  Reiterating his determination to convene the parties at any opportunity to end this decade-long conflict, he stated:  “We owe it to the millions of Yemenis not to waver or falter in our determination on this.”

    “I am not here to defend programmes, spreadsheets and institutions, but people,” said Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.  Severe funding cuts are a “body blow”, he stressed.  Humanitarian coordinators are analysing where to make dramatic cuts, as well as “the implications of the tough choices we are making on which lives not to save”, he added.  On the United States’ designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, he said that it is vital to ensure civilians in Yemen have access to essential food and medicine — whether through commercial or humanitarian channels.

    Continuing, he observed that 9.6 million women and girls in Yemen are in severe need of life-saving humanitarian assistance, while 1.5 million girls remain out of school — preventing them from breaking cycles of discrimination.  “As your funding for Yemen evaporates, the numbers in my next briefings will be worse,” he warned, adding that more women will die and more will be forced into survival sex, begging, coerced prostitution, human trafficking and selling their children.  And yet, he noted, women remain on the frontlines of survival and recovery — 40 per cent of the Yemen Humanitarian Fund goes to women-led organizations, most of which are local.

    Also briefing the Council today was Nesmah M. Ali, civil-society representative from the Peace Track Initiative, who said that Yemen’s myriad crises have weakened State institutions, collapsed social protection systems and created multidimensional insecurities.  Recalling that she was forced to leave her hometown in 2020, she stated:  “I am a migrant of conflict and climate change.”  The war has devastated Yemen’s environment, she said, adding that attacks on oil refineries and ports, landmines in fields and coastal areas and destruction of power stations and water systems have left that country in ruins.

    And climate change is deepening Yemen’s crisis, she stressed, as floods displace landmines, complicate demining actions and exacerbate pre-war intertribal conflicts over scarce resources.  While women are disproportionately affected by climate change and more vulnerable to natural disasters, their stories of determination — “amid vanishing fish, ruined crops and deferred dreams” — highlight their unwavering strength, and she urged the Council to prioritize the impact of climate change and conflict on gender equality.

    Council Members Condemn Detentions

    In the ensuing discussion, many Council members condemned the ongoing detention by the Houthis — officially known as Ansar Allah — of UN personnel and the tragic death of a World Food Programme (WFP) staff member in their captivity.

    Among them was Panama’s delegate, who called for the immediate and unconditional release of all humanitarian and diplomatic personnel, as well as respect for their fundamental human rights.  The representative of France urged the Houthis to end all threats and disinformation campaigns against humanitarian actors.  Picking up that thread, the United Kingdom’s delegate expressed support for the UN’s decision to pause humanitarian operations in Saada, describing this pause as “a direct consequence” of the Houthi threat undermining the security and safety of aid workers.

    United States Designates Houthis as Terrorist Organization, Others Urge Dialogue

    The representative of the United States said that her country is taking concrete steps to eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities by designating them as a foreign terrorist organization and using targeted sanctions to deprive them of illicit revenues.  “Our sanctions seek to preserve space for legitimate activities that support Yemenis living in Houthi-controlled territory who bear no responsibility for the Houthis’ malign actions,” she stressed.  Washington, D.C., will also take steps to stop Iran’s support for Houthi terrorism, and she added:  “We will take action against the Houthis should they resume their reckless attacks in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways and on Israel.”

    However, her counterpart from the Russian Federation called on the United States Government to reconsider its decision to designate Ansar Allah as a terrorist organization, stressing that “openly antagonising one of the key sides to the conflict will do no good”.  The voices of all political forces must be considered, and the ineffective logic of maximum pressure abandoned, he stressed, drawing attention to Moscow’s proposal to create a framework for collective security in the Persian Gulf.

    Pakistan’s delegate also emphasized the critical role of dialogue, highlighting regional initiatives led by Saudi Arabia and Oman.  He also noted that there have been no new attacks on commercial shipping since the onset of the ceasefire in Gaza.  “While we unequivocally condemn such attacks,” he added that it is crucial to acknowledge that “the absence of the attacks coincides with the maintenance of the ceasefire in Gaza”. 

    While also welcoming the pause in attacks in the Red Sea and on Israel, the representative of the Republic of Korea voiced concern over the Houthis’ “repeatedly declared” readiness to resume such attacks if the hard-won ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza breaks down.  “This is simply unacceptable,” he asserted.

    Speakers Underline Nexus between Conflict and Environment

    On the fragile situation on the ground, the speaker for Greece said that “the risk of military escalation has not eclipsed”.  As a historic seafaring nation, Greece supports the freedom of navigation and is committed to safeguarding maritime security in the region.  Highlighting the interconnectedness of climate, peace and security, he said that the FSO Safer and the Greek-flagged MV Sounion cases demonstrated the conflict’s environmental and humanitarian consequences.

    The convergence of prolonged conflict, environmental degradation and climate change has created a perfect storm of crises in Yemen, echoed Denmark’s delegate, Council President for March, speaking in her national capacity.  As the world’s third-most vulnerable country to climate change, Yemen is highly affected by climate-induced disasters, she observed, urging the Council to ensure that climate considerations are integrated into peacebuilding strategies, local mediation efforts and a future peace settlement process.

    Also highlighting the impact of climate change and conflict on food and water insecurity, the representative of Slovenia — whose country is a founding member of the Global Alliance to Spare Water from Armed Conflicts — called for the protection and development of water resources and infrastructure in Yemen.  “We strongly believe that water issues can be an entry point for grassroots dialogue and mutual understanding between parties, as well as empowering women,” he added. 

    Painting a grim picture of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, Sierra Leone’s delegate — who also spoke for Algeria, Guyana and Somalia — called for increased support for the 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan. “Despite shrinking aid budgets, we recognize the tireless efforts of humanitarian organizations and their personnel to meet the urgent needs of the Yemeni people,” he said.  China’s representative also urged States to increase humanitarian assistance and prioritize food security, emphasizing that “a political solution is a fundamental way out of the Yemeni issue”.

    Yemen’s Speaker Urges Aid Organizations Relocate to Aden

    As the conflict enters its eleventh year, the Yemeni people aspire to peace, said that country’s representative. However, these aspirations could not materialize due to the destructive approach of Iran-backed Houthi militias who rejected all efforts to that end, he said, welcoming the United States’ designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization.  He underscored the importance of strategic partnerships to support the Government’s efforts to end the coup, restore State institutions and extend State authority over all Yemeni soil. 

    He further stressed that, despite the economic, humanitarian, social and institutional challenges caused by the war, the Government is making “tremendous efforts” to address currency depreciation and unemployment.  Condemning the ongoing detention of international personnel, he cautioned that the militias “will not stop their blackmailing of the international community”.  Accordingly, he urged the UN and other international organizations to transfer their headquarters to Aden, the temporary capital.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Greenpeace seamounts expedition sets off to uncover secrets of the deep

    Source: Greenpeace

    A Greenpeace expedition to survey seamounts and other deep sea habitats has set off this week.
    With two specialist marine scientists on board, Greenpeace is aiming to use remotely operated deep sea cameras to survey seamounts and other features in both New Zealand waters and the high seas of the South Pacific.
    Speaking from on board the vessel, the Greenpeace expedition leader Ellie Hooper said many of these deep sea areas have not been studied before.
    “We know that seamounts and other underwater hills, knolls and ridges are critical habitats for coral and sponges, as well as feeding and spawning grounds for other creatures further up the food chain. But we have big gaps in our knowledge,” says Hooper.
    “We’re heading out to the deep ocean to try and survey these vital habitats, some of which are threatened by bottom trawl fishing.”
    One of the sites the team plans to visit is the location where the New Zealand bottom trawler the Tasman Viking pulled up 37kg of deep sea coral in the Lord Howe Rise area, renowned for diverse marine life. The aim is to record the species at the site and document any damage.
    Requests from Greenpeace for the coordinates of the coral encounter area were declined by the New Zealand Government due to ‘commercial sensitivity,’ with the location eventually released to the Expedition’s Lead Researcher by Australian officials.
    Hooper has called the New Zealand government’s refusal to share the coordinates “ludicrous” and “a blatant example of the Luxon led government running interference for the fishing industry.”
    “We need more ocean research, not less. So often we have to rely on the bycatch that comes up in trawl nets to understand what lives in the deep sea, that’s why we’ve decided to conduct this work so we can better understand what’s out there.
    “We want to add to our collective understanding of these deep sea ecosystems, about which so little is known, and to shine a light in the dark.
    “This is a challenging mission, and like all deep sea work we’re at the mercy of the weather and the waves, but we’re committed to giving it a shot as part of our mission to protect the oceans better for the future.” 

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Environment – Have your say on biological controls to combat noxious weed – EPA

    Source: Environmental Protection Authority

    The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) wants people’s views on an application to release two biological control agents to combat Darwin’s barberry, an invasive weed.
    Environment Canterbury has applied to introduce Darwin’s barberry flower weevil ( Anthonomus kuscheli) and Darwin’s barberry rust fungus ( Puccinia berberidis-darwinii) to target this unwanted shrub. If approved, these agents could also be used to target Darwin’s barberry elsewhere in Aotearoa New Zealand.
    All organisms new to New Zealand must receive approval from the EPA as the national environmental regulator.
    Darwin’s barberry is a resilient noxious weed found in disturbed forests, pastures, shrubland and short tussock-land. It is a threat to indigenous ecosystems throughout the country, as well as to pastures where livestock graze.
    It is native to Chile and Argentina and was introduced to Aotearoa New Zealand as a garden plant in the 1940s. Fruit-eating birds deposit seeds far from the parent bush, increasing its spread.
    The plant can be found throughout New Zealand – particularly in the Canterbury, Otago, and Wellington regions.
    Both the flower weevil and the rust fungus proposed for introduction are native to South America.
    Dr Chris Hill, the EPA’s General Manager of Hazardous Substances and New Organisms, says the applicant’s risk assessment demonstrates these organisms are highly unlikely to harm native plants or animals.
    “The weevil doesn’t bite or sting, so there is no health risk to people. The rust fungus is similarly benign.
    “New Zealand has a track record of using biological control agents to reduce the environmental impact of invasive plants, with little to no adverse impact on the native ecology,” says Dr Hill.
    The consultation enables people in relevant industries, iwi and the public to provide additional information on the risks and benefits of introducing organisms to control the spread of Darwin’s barberry.
    “We really want to encourage anyone with an interest in combatting this weed, and the methods proposed to do so, to make a submission. Good decision-making on this proposal will be underpinned, in part, by diverse and considered feedback,” says Dr Hill.
    Submitters can provide information, make comments, and raise issues to contribute to the EPA decision-making process.
    Submissions close at 5.00pm on 22 April 2025.
    Read more about this application and how to submit here:

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Judge freezes company bank accounts in lawsuit over “probates for profit” scheme at AG Brown’s request

    Source: Washington State News

    Millions of dollars unaccounted for, ringleader currently at-large

    SEATTLE — In a consumer protection lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court, the Attorney General’s office asserts that seven Washingtonians and their five companies manipulated the probate system to gain control over hundreds of deceased strangers’ estates. They walked away with millions of dollars that should have gone to heirs. The complaint asserts that the defendants violated Washington’s Consumer Protection Act as well as state probate, estate and escrow laws.

    “Probate is a solemn legal process that ensures heirs receive their share of an estate after a loved one dies,” said Nick Brown, Washington State Attorney General. “These defendants exploited loopholes, and our consumer protection team will hold them accountable for the harms caused to multiple families.”

    At the Attorney General’s request, a judge froze dozens of the defendant’s bank accounts to prevent additional losses.

    The Attorney General’s investigation determined that the defendants filed more than 200 probates across the state over the last five years, selling at least 90 homes collectively worth more than $28 million. Large sums of money have gone missing, and the defendants have refused to say where the money is.

    The lawsuit seeks penalties for each violation of the Consumer Protection Act for the group’s deceptive and unfair acts, and full restitution for heirs affected by the “probates for profit” scheme. The lawsuit also asks the court to permanently stop the individuals and the companies from breaking the law in the future.

    The Consumer Protection Division is largely funded through money recovered from businesses who have violated Washington’s Consumer Protection Act and similar laws, not by taxpayers. Specifically, a portion of Consumer Protection recoveries go into the Attorney General’s Civil Justice Operating Fund, which supports the Consumer Protection, Antitrust, Wing Luke Civil Rights, and Environmental Protection divisions. It also directly funds Medicaid Fraud Control and the Complex Litigation divisions.

    Assistant Attorneys General Matt Geyman, Ben Carr and Lauren Holzer and Paralegals Miranda Marti and Christopher Kiefer are handling the case for the Attorney General’s Office.

    -30-

     

    Washington’s Attorney General serves the people and the State of Washington. As the state’s largest law firm, the Attorney General’s Office provides legal representation to every state agency, board, and commission in Washington. Additionally, the Office serves the people directly by enforcing consumer protection, civil rights, and environmental protection laws. The Office also prosecutes elder abuse, Medicaid fraud, and handles sexually violent predator cases in 38 of Washington’s 39 counties. Visit www.atg.wa.gov to learn more.

    Media Contact:

    Email: press@atg.wa.gov

    Phone: (360) 753-2727

    General contacts: Click here

    Media Resource Guide & Attorney General’s Office FAQ

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Senators Markey, Whitehouse, Alsobrooks, EPW Democrats Rip Zeldin’s Scheme to Cripple EPA

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts Ed Markey
    Zeldin’s illegal plan to gut the federal agency is poised to torpedo environmental safeguards while undermining the Constitution
    Washington (March 5, 2025) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) joined Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), Committee member Senator Angela Alsobrooks (D-M.D), who represents nearly 150,000 federal workers, and all EPW Democrats in demanding answers from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin about his illegal scheme to gut the agency. President Trump recently announced that Administrator Zeldin planned to fire 65 percent of staff at EPA, but Administrator Zeldin subsequently clarified that he actually plans to slash EPA spending by at least 65 percent. 
    Either would be devastating.  Firing more than 10,000 EPA workers or making deep budget cuts would make it impossible for the agency to protect the American public’s clean air and water and to prevent toxic pollution, and any of Administrator Zeldin’s efforts to manipulate agency spending levels would violate congressional authority.
    “Your intention to do either of these things—fire large numbers of EPA staff or proceed with deep budget cuts—raises serious concerns.  EPA could not fulfill its mission of protecting our air and water and preventing toxic pollution if its staff or budget were cut by 65 percent.  Moreover, you do not have legal authority to set EPA’s spending levels; that power is reserved under Article I of the Constitution to Congress,” wrote Senators Markey, Whitehouse, Alsobrooks, Sanders, Merkley, Kelly, Padilla, Schiff, and Blunt Rochester. 
    “[A]ny decision to fire large numbers of EPA staff calls into question the probity of the statements you made on this subject at your confirmation hearing not even two months ago.  Each time you were asked about your plans for agency staffing, you assured Committee members that you looked forward to working ‘collaboratively’ with EPA’s dedicated staff …. During your confirmation hearing, you also told members of the Committee on eight separate occasions that you would ‘not prejudge[e] outcomes’ or made substantially identical statements.  It is difficult to understand how a decision to cut two-thirds of a federal agency’s staff or budget when Trump-affiliated groups had been urging a similar course of action since before President Trump even took office is anything other than a ‘prejudged outcome,’” the Senators continued.  “Please describe how you believe that any largescale firing of EPA employees will ‘support career staff who have dedicated’ themselves to EPA’s mission and ‘foster a collaborative culture within the agency,’ as you pledged under oath to do during your confirmation hearing.”
    In accordance with the President’s directives to gut the civil service, agency heads are required to submit their plans for cutting staff to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) by March 13, 2025. EPW Democrats are demanding answers from Administrator Zeldin by March 11, 2025.
    The text of the letter is below, and a full version (with footnotes) is available HERE.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Senator Markey, Leader Schumer, Senators Whitehouse and Van Hollen Call for Answers from Citibank on Climate Bank Funding Freeze

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts Ed Markey
       Letter Text (PDF)
    Washington (March 6, 2025) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and co-author of the original National Climate Bank Act with Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, together with Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, today called for answers from Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup, and Sunil Garg, CEO of Citibank North America (N.A.), on the reported freeze of federal investments made under the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) and Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA)—programs that are part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) and held in Citibank N.A accounts. The affected accounts contain legally obligated federal funds appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act aimed at powering domestic investment in low-cost clean energy and energy efficiency. The freeze appears to relate to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin’s desire to claw back these grants. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, also signed the letter.
    In the letter the lawmakers write, “If public reporting and information obtained by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Democrats is accurate, the federal funds in these accounts have been frozen for more than two weeks without explanation from either Citibank or the EPA. Without access to these funds, grantees will be hard pressed to cover basic operating expenses, such as payroll or rent, much less satisfy their mission of delivering cost-saving investments in underserved communities across the country. According to recent reporting, a prolonged account freeze may drive many of the nonprofit grantees to bankruptcy or default.”
    The lawmakers continued, “These reports suggest that Trump DOJ and EPA officials are trying to rescind the legally obligated funding at issue by fabricating claims of financial mismanagement and launching sham investigations.”
    The lawmakers request responses by March 15, 2025, to questions that include:
    What NCIF, CCIA, or GGRF grantee accounts have been paused, frozen, or closed by Citibank? When did Citibank pause, freeze, or close these accounts?
    Why did Citibank pause, freeze, or close grantee accounts? 
    If Citibank has paused, frozen, closed, or otherwise limited access to grantee accounts, what is the legal authority for doing so?
    Does Citibank have plans to resume grantees’ access to, or use of, their accounts and to the federal monies contained therein? 
    On February 24, 2025, Senator Markey joined Senator Whitehouse and all Democratic members of the Environment and Public Works Committee in a letter to EPA demanding answers about Administrator Lee Zeldin’s illegal efforts to claw back these federal investments in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. On February 19, 2025, Senator Markey led a letter with Senators Van Hollen, Whitehouse, and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to the Department of Justice regarding the forced resignation of the head of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia, Denise Cheung, after she declined to pursue an unwarranted criminal investigation that would have frozen accounts with federal funds held at Citibank.
    Senator Markey secured numerous provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, including the creation of a $27 billion national climate financing network based on his National Climate Bank Act. Following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, Senators Markey and Van Hollen and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-06), the House lead on the climate financing legislation, welcomed the launch of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund in April 2023.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Gov. Kemp Signs AFY25 Budget – Delivering Hurricane Relief, Tax Refunds, and Major One-Time Investments

    Source: US State of Georgia

    ATLANTA – Governor Brian P. Kemp, joined by First Lady Marty Kemp, Lt. Governor Burt Jones, Speaker Jon Burns, House and Senate Appropriations Chairmen Tillery and Hatchett, constitutional officers, and members of the Georgia General Assembly, today signed the Amended Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. 

    Excerpt of Governor Kemp’s Remarks

    …

    I want to start by thanking the great legislative partners you see behind us and those next to me, including Lt. Governor Burt Jones, Speaker Jon Burns, Chairman Blake Tillery, Chairman Matt Hatchett, and the members of the General Assembly from both chambers and parties who overwhelmingly voted for this budget.

    We’re also glad to be joined by the Constitutional Officers here with us today and the nation’s best First Lady, Marty Kemp!

    I also want to thank OPB Director Rick Dunn and his team for all the time and hard work they put into the budget process each year alongside our partners in the House and Senate Budget Offices and all the time and effort they still have left to give as we work on the big budget. Let’s give his team a round of applause.

    Today, I’ll sign the amended budget for Fiscal Year 2025… a budget that gives relief to Georgians devastated by Hurricane Helene… makes our schools and communities safer through strategic investments… and yet again returns hard-earned money to the taxpayers. 

    …

    All of this investment is designed to benefit our local communities but it’s also going to keep Georgians working in all parts of the state during these uncertain economic times.

    As we all know too well, inflation may have come down, but high prices haven’t. And that’s why this budget includes 1 billion dollars for another one-time refund for hardworking taxpayers!

    And as just a reminder to you all behind me, we still need the General Assembly to pass the enabling legislation.

    I’m sure some of these men and women up here will help us out with that later today!

    And as soon as we pass the second tax cut acceleration measure, we’ll be able to keep even more of Georgians’ money in their pockets… because they know how to spend it better than the government does!

    My goal working with the members of the General Assembly who have been such strong supporters in these measures has been to help Georgians fighting through 40-year-high inflation. 

    To give them a chance during these challenging times to keep their businesses going and provide for their families by putting more money in their pockets. And to help them and their children have good-paying jobs by developing an environment that attracts business and opportunity.

    That’s what people voted for in November of 2024; that’s what we’ve all been doing; and that’s what we’re going to keep doing!

    So, thank you, legislators, for helping us keep Georgia the best place to live, work, and raise a family through budgets like this.

    …

    You can watch Governor Kemp’s full remarks and the signing of the budget here.

    “This budget includes critical midyear adjustments for Georgia’s education system, economic development projects, transportation infrastructure and public safety,” said Lt. Governor Burt Jones. “Additionally, over $250 million is included for Georgia’s agriculture and timber communities impacted by Hurricane Helene, along with relief for our fellow Georgians and local communities for recovery and cleanup efforts. I want to thank Governor Kemp, Speaker Burns, Chairman Tillery, and all members of the Senate Appropriations Committee for their hard work to ensure we passed a balanced and fiscally conservative budget, as we prepare for fiscal year 2026. Georgia is a shining example of how to budget efficiently and effectively, while putting Georgian’s hard earned dollars back in their pockets. I look forward to our continued work to appropriate taxpayer dollars in a fiscally, conservative manner.”

    “This budget reaffirms Georgia’s commitment to making strategic investments that strengthen and uplift every community, family, and citizen across our great state—all while putting money back in the pockets of taxpayers,” said Speaker Jon Burns. “As we look ahead, the House is looking forward to working alongside Governor Kemp to continue prioritizing fiscally responsible and measured investments that secure the future success of our state for generations to come.”

    In addition to investments in healthcare, public safety, education, and returning $1 billion to taxpayers through a third one-time special tax refund, the amended budget includes investments and allocations for:

    • Hurricane Helene Relief: More then $867 million for response costs and relief, including but not limited to, one-time grants to public rural and critical access hospitals included in the major disaster declaration area to assist in financial stabilization and recovery efforts, disaster relief assistance to impacted farmers and timber producers, and grants to non-profits for Hurricane Helene rebuilding and recovery efforts.
    • Education and Workforce Development: $140 million in additional allocations to fully fund QBE and support our local school systems to help us build an unrivaled workforce as we work to make Georgia the Top State for Talent.
    • Public Safety and Corrections: More than $434 million in new funding for the Department of Corrections to fortify state facilities, invest in Corrections Officers, and equip them with the tools they need to be effective and efficient.
    • Fighting Human Trafficking: $3.5 million to design a recovery center for victims of human trafficking – an effort championed by First Lady Marty Kemp – and over $187,000 to expand the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit to the Macon and Augusta regions.
    • School Security: An additional $50 million in one-time funds for another round of security grants to all K-12 public schools.
    • Coastal Water Infrastructure: $501.7 million in funding for the development and construction of water infrastructure in Georgia’s coastal region to meet the growing demand due to historic economic development.
    • Local Water and Sewer Infrastructure: Over $266 million in funding for the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority to support water and sewer infrastructure development projects across Georgia.
    • Local Road Infrastructure: $265 million into the local maintenance and improvement grant program and $46 million to the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank’s grant and loan program. 
    • Combating Wildfires: $4.7 million for the Forestry Commission to purchase a new fire suppression helicopter

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: FormFactor Partners with Delft Circuits to Revolutionize Quantum Computing Interfacing

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    LIVERMORE, Calif., March 06, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — FormFactor, Inc. (NASDAQ: FORM), a leader in precision test and measurement solutions, and Delft Circuits, an innovator in high-density cryogenic cabling solutions, have teamed up to integrate Delft Circuits’ Cri/oFlex® product portfolio into FormFactor’s cryogenic test systems. This partnership addresses the growing demand for scalable, high-density interconnect solutions in quantum computing, enabling the industry to meet growing demands for computation power and efficient system interfacing.

    As quantum technology continues to evolve, systems must support higher channel densities to meet increasing computational requirements. FormFactor’s systems, currently equipped with 12 ISO-100 ports supporting up to 300 channels, will now integrate Delft Circuits’ high-density Cri/oFlex® cabling. This partnership enables up to 160 channels per port, with a total of 1920 channels, improving the overall performance and scalability of quantum systems, especially in environments where space and efficiency are critical.

    “Delft Circuits’ technology perfectly complements our systems, allowing us to offer our customers some of the highest channel densities in the industry while maintaining the precision and reliability FormFactor is known for,” said Thomas Fries, VP and GM, Emerging Growth Business Unit, FormFactor.

    Key Benefits of the Partnership:

    • Increased Channel Density: Delft Circuit’s Cri/oFlex® cabling provides up to 160 channels per port, enabling 1920 channels in total—driving the scalability needed for next-generation quantum computers.
    • Tailored for Space-Constrained Environments: Designed specifically for high-density interfacing in compact quantum computing fridges, facilitating seamless integration in limited spaces.
    • Scalable Pathway for Growth: Initial support for 80-160 channels with mK node and SMP-SMP jumpers, with future scalability to meet accelerating roadmaps.

    “Our partnership with FormFactor underscores the value of Cri/oFlex® technology in addressing the critical needs of quantum computing infrastructures. We are excited to bring our expertise to their robust portfolio and help advance the industry’s progress,” said Daan Kuitenbrouwer, Chief Commercial Officer and Founder at Delft Circuits.

    The collaboration is ideally positioned to transform quantum computing interfacing by offering a comprehensive solution that combines precision measurement with cutting-edge cabling technology—accelerating the scalability and reliability of next-generation quantum systems for researchers, developers, manufacturers, and infrastructure providers alike.

    About FormFactor
    FormFactor, Inc. (NASDAQ: FORM), is a leading provider of essential test and measurement technologies along the full IC life cycle – from characterization, modeling, reliability, and design debug, to qualification and production test. Semiconductor companies rely upon FormFactor’s products and services to accelerate profitability by optimizing device performance and advancing yield knowledge. The Company serves customers through its network of facilities in Asia, Europe, and North America. For more information, visit the Company’s website at www.formfactor.com.

    About Delft Circuits
    Delft Circuits is a leading provider of dedicated quantum hardware, dedicated to supplying the best hardware for the quantum engineer and industry. With a focus on designing and developing i/o cabling solutions, the company has established itself as a trusted partner for leading national laboratories, blue-chip corporations, and ambitious professors. With a beachhead market in the quantum industry, Delft Circuits has already realized hundreds of i/o modules for almost a hundred customers. As an independent, dedicated quantum hardware supplier, the company is committed to pioneering i/o for advanced technologies. Delft Circuits proprietary cabling solutions were referenced by DARPA as the world’s state of the art. Investors in Delft Circuits include QuVest Capital, Scholt Group and High Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). For more information, please visit: https://www.delft-circuits.com. 

    Forward-Looking Statements:

    This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the federal securities laws. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs as of the date of this release, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company’s control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the impact of this new partnership. Forward-looking statements may contain words such as “may,” “might,” “will,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “forecast,” and “continue,” the negative or plural of these words and similar expressions, and include the assumptions that underlie such statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: changes in demand for the Company’s products; customer-specific demand; market opportunity; anticipated industry trends; the availability, benefits, and speed of customer acceptance or implementation of new products and technologies; and other factors, including those set forth in the Company’s most current annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other filings by the Company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, there are varying barriers to international trade, including restrictive trade and export regulations such as the US-China restrictions, dynamic tariffs, trade disputes between the U.S. and other countries, and national security developments or tensions, that may substantially restrict or condition our sales to or in certain countries, increase the cost of doing business internationally, and disrupt our supply chain. No assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements within this press release will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on the results of operations or financial condition of the Company. Unless required by law, the Company is under no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation) to update or revise its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

    FormFactor Investor Contact
    Stan Finkelstein
    Investor Relations
    (925) 290-4273
    ir@formfactor.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Banking: Members share experiences on going beyond tariff codes to implement environmental measures

    Source: WTO

    Headline: Members share experiences on going beyond tariff codes to implement environmental measures

    Organized and moderated by Luis Oña-Garcés of Ecuador, the session featured experience-sharing by members implementing environmental measures which are controlled at the border based on tariff classification categories beyond the Harmonized System codes.
    A series of key questions guided delegations in addressing environmental measures implemented through tariff classification, exploring the use of specific codes and additional categories designed for this purpose. Other mechanisms used at the border, such as certifications or licences, were also analysed. Good practices identified in the implementation and monitoring of these measures were shared. The objective was to understand the challenges and results of these strategies.
    The European Union shared its process used to track trade in products covered by regulations of fluorinated greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting substances, and deforestation. This included the EU TARIC databases which identify specific products beyond 6-digit HS codes. This more exact definition helped customs operations by enhancing traceability and smoothing the cross-border process.
    The EU suggested that the World Customs Organization (WCO) put in place a project aimed at improving the classification of green technology and environmentally friendly products by refining definitions and collaborating with international organizations. The EU noted that updating the current HS system to recognize products under green initiatives and the circular economy will streamline processes, enhance policy enforcement, and improve trade efficiency and traceability.
    The United Kingdom indicated that collaboration between trade and customs is essential to understand limitations posed by the HS and to apply solutions that can be implemented at the border. The UK emphasized that differentiation of production processes or end-use, especially for environmental products, is challenging. It noted that national tariff lines and harmonized definitions/standards are alternatives to HS amendments.
    The UK presented a case study showing that HS codes have no precise categories for recycling, reuse and waste of textiles, which hamper monitoring trade. Discrepancies in customs classification and contamination cause trade barriers due to HS code definitions not conforming with industry procedures. To avoid this, the UK said greater WTO member cooperation can enhance knowledge of trade restrictions due to unclear HS nomenclature.
    The Dominican Republic reported on the successful implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and their integration into the country’s customs tariff system. It has introduced further subdivisions in its tariff structure, beyond the HS standard codes, to monitor environmentally sensitive products and institutionalised interagency planning and coordination through the creation of a Green Customs Department.
    Addressing challenges and opportunities, the Dominican Republic noted the obstacles encountered, particularly on outdated law frameworks, and emphasized the significance of effective technology-driven customs regulation and staff training to improve understanding and implementation of environmental policies while maintaining trade efficiency.
    Jamaica also highlighted its efforts in enforcing environmental policies on plastics pollution, hazardous waste treatment and disposal, and the development of renewable energy through customs policy. However, Jamaica noted the numerous challenges that hinder effective enforcement both at the national level and regionally within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). These include insufficient stakeholder knowledge of MEAs and lack of coordination among regulatory and customs institutions. Jamaica said that enforcement continues to be difficult despite advancement because of a shortage of resources and the need for additional interagency coordination. The country continues to modernize customs practices and simplify policies according to international environmental commitments, with the aim of striking a balance between trade facilitation and sustainability goals.
    The HS is a multipurpose international product nomenclature developed by the WCO. It comprises more than 5,000 commodity groups or categories, each of them identified by a six-digit code. See here for the current HS 2022 nomenclature.
    The system is used by 212 economies as a basis for their customs tariffs and for the collection of international trade statistics. Over 98% of the merchandise in international trade is classified in terms of the HS.
    A first thematic session on Greening the HS was held in June 2024. It provided a detailed presentation of the HS role and structure, including its potential and limitations in identifying goods of policy interest. The challenge of defining environmental goods and making them visible in the HS were discussed, as were proposed HS amendments by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions.
    The Chair of the Committee on Market Access, Nicola Waterfield of Canada, said that the presentations gave members an opportunity to learn about a very wide range of challenges and solutions beyond the HS to implement their environmental policies. They also highlighted the crossovers between greening efforts and the work of the Committee on transparency in import and export restrictions and prohibitions which would be notified as quantitative restrictions.
    As with past thematic sessions in the Committee, and to respond to a demand by members, the WTO Secretariat will prepare a factual summary report based on information shared.

    Share

    MIL OSI Global Banks –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Dr. Jitendra Singh Flags Off CSIR’s E-Tractor roadshow from Jammu, to ahead for Kanyakumari , Covering the entire country:

    Source: Government of India

    Dr. Jitendra Singh Flags Off CSIR’s E-Tractor roadshow from Jammu, to ahead for Kanyakumari , Covering the entire country:

    The Minister Highlights India’s Push for Sustainable Farming, inaugurates E-Tiller of CSIR-CMERI at CSIR-IIIM Chatha Farm

    Ease of Agriculture, Cost Savings, Green Energy—Dr. Jitendra Singh on CSIR’s Agriculture Innovations

    Posted On: 06 MAR 2025 7:44PM by PIB Delhi

     

    JAMMU, March 6 : Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology; Earth Sciences and Minister of State for PMO, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr. Jitendra Singh today flagged off the CSIR-developed e-Tractor roadshow from Jammu, which will ahead for Kanyakumari, covering the entire country.

    This marks a significant milestone in India’s journey towards sustainable and technology-driven agriculture. The e-tractor, which was initially launched in Delhi, has been put on a nationwide roadshow to raise awareness about eco-friendly and cost-effective solutions in farming. After its stop in Jammu, the e-tractor will travel across various regions before reaching its final destination in Kanyakumari.The Minister has also inaugurated and E-Tiller developed by CSIR-Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), Durgapur, a constituent lab.

    Speaking at the flag-off ceremony, Dr. Jitendra Singh underscored the importance of innovation in agriculture and how CSIR’s technology will contribute to the ease of farming, reducing operational costs and promoting sustainability. “This e-tractor is not just an advanced technological intervention but a step towards ensuring affordable and environment-friendly farming solutions. It reflects our commitment to integrating innovation with agriculture, benefiting both farmers and agri-startups,” he stated.

    Dr. Jitendra Singh highlighted that the e-tractor aligns with the government’s broader vision of promoting green energy and self-reliance in agriculture. He pointed out that while traditional farming practices rely on expensive fossil fuels, the electric tractor offers a viable alternative that significantly reduces carbon emissions and operating expenses. “By adopting this technology, farmers will not only reduce their fuel costs but also contribute to environmental conservation. The roadshow will allow farmers across the country to witness firsthand how this new technology can transform agriculture,” he added.

    The Minister further emphasized that CSIR’s initiatives are aimed at bridging the technological divide in Indian farming by bringing scientific innovations directly to the grassroots. “CSIR has been actively working on technologies that enhance efficiency and productivity in the agricultural sector. The e-tractor is an example of how research-driven innovations can be commercialized for widespread adoption,” he said.

    In his address, Dr. Jitendra Singh also spoke about the government’s concerted efforts to promote agricultural entrepreneurship through policies that support agri-startups, rural youth, and women entrepreneurs. He reiterated that the government’s Bio-E3 policy—Biotechnology for Environment, Economy, and Employment—is ensuring that scientific advancements translate into economic opportunities for farmers. “The government is providing comprehensive support, from technological assistance to financial aid, to ensure that our farmers and startups can seamlessly adopt modern solutions. The Mudra loan scheme, for example, has empowered thousands of entrepreneurs, including women-led businesses in agriculture,” he added.

    The e-tractor roadshow is expected to generate significant interest among farmers, agri-startups, and policymakers as it moves from Jammu to Kanyakumari. Through this initiative, CSIR aims to showcase how clean-energy solutions can revolutionize Indian agriculture, making it more sustainable, cost-effective, and accessible to a larger segment of the farming community.

    The Minister also stressed that with increasing awareness and government support, India is witnessing a transformation in its agricultural landscape. He cited examples of successful agritech interventions such as drone-assisted farming, soil health cards, and high-value crops like lavender, which are creating new income avenues for farmers.

    On the occasion, Dr. Jitendra Singh also inaugurated the Agro-Soil Research Laboratory at CSIR-IIIM Chatha Farm in which a group of Scientists and researchers would work on Soil testing, agrotechnology development and plant testing.

    As the e-tractor makes its journey across the country, the roadshow will serve as an opportunity for direct farmer engagement, demonstrating the tangible benefits of adopting sustainable farming practices. “The roadshow is not just a demonstration—it is an invitation for farmers to be part of India’s agricultural revolution. By embracing new technologies, they can enhance productivity while also protecting the environment,” Dr. Jitendra Singh concluded.

    Director CSIR-IIIM Dr Zabeer Ahmed and Director CSIR Durgapur Dr Murmu were present on the occasion.

    ****

    NKR/PSM

    (Release ID: 2108906) Visitor Counter : 17

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Butterflies declined by 22% in just 2 decades across the US – there are ways you can help save them

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eliza Grames, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Binghamton University, State University of New York

    The endangered Karner blue butterfly has struggled with habitat loss. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

    If the joy of seeing butterflies seems increasingly rare these days, it isn’t your imagination.

    From 2000 to 2020, the number of butterflies fell by 22% across the continental United States. That’s 1 in 5 butterflies lost. The findings are from an analysis just published in the journal Science by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Powell Center Status of Butterflies of the United States Working Group, which I am involved in.

    We found declines in just about every region of the continental U.S. and across almost all butterfly species.

    Overall, nearly one-third of the 342 butterfly species we were able to study declined by more than half. Twenty-two species fell by more than 90%. Only nine actually increased in numbers.

    West Coast lady butterflies range across the western U.S., but their numbers have dropped by 80% in two decades.
    Renee Las Vegas/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

    Some species’ numbers are dropping faster than others. The West Coast lady, a fairly widespread species across the western U.S., dropped by 80% in 20 years. Given everything we know about its biology, it should be doing fine – it has a wide range and feeds on a variety of plants. Yet, its numbers are absolutely tanking across its range.

    Why care about butterflies?

    Butterflies are beautiful. They inspire people, from art to literature and poetry. They deserve to exist simply for the sake of existing. They are also important for ecosystem function.

    Butterflies are pollinators, picking up pollen on their legs and bodies as they feed on nectar from one flower and carrying it to the next. In their caterpillar stage, they also play an important role as herbivores, keeping plant growth in check.

    A pipevine swallowtail caterpillar munches on leaves at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Md. Herbivores help keep plant growth in check.
    Judy Gallagher/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

    Butterflies can also serve as an indicator species that can warn of threats and trends in other insects. Because humans are fond of butterflies, it’s easy to get volunteers to participate in surveys to count them.

    The annual North American Butterfly Association Fourth of July Count is an example and one we used in the analysis. The same kind of nationwide monitoring by amateur naturalists doesn’t exist for less charismatic insects such as walking sticks.

    What’s causing butterflies to decline?

    Butterfly populations can decline for a number of reasons. Habitat loss, insecticides, rising temperatures and drying landscapes can all harm these fragile insects.

    A study published in 2024 found that a change in insecticide use was a major factor in driving butterfly declines in the Midwest over 17 years. The authors, many of whom were also part of the current study, noted that the drop coincided with a shift to using seeds with prophylactic insecticides, rather than only spraying crops after an infestation.

    The Southwest saw the greatest drops in butterfly abundance of any region. As that region heats up and dries out, the changing climate may be driving some of the butterfly decline there. Butterflies have a high surface-to-volume ratio – they don’t hold much moisture – so they can easily become desiccated in dry conditions. Drought can also harm the plants that butterflies rely on.

    Only the Pacific Northwest didn’t lose butterfly population on average. This trend was largely driven by an irruptive species, meaning one with extremely high abundance in some years – the California tortoiseshell. When this species was excluded from the analyses, trends in the Pacific Northwest were similar to other regions.

    The California tortoiseshell butterfly can look like wood when its wings are closed, but they’re a soft orange on the other side.
    Walter Siegmund/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    When we looked at each species by its historical range, we found something else interesting.

    Many species suffered their highest losses at the southern ends of their ranges, while the northern losses generally weren’t as severe. While we could not link drivers to trends directly, the reason for this pattern might involve climate change, or greater exposure to agriculture with insecticides in southern areas, or it may be a combination of many stressors.

    There is hope for populations to recover

    Some butterfly species can have multiple generations per year, and depending on the environmental conditions, the number of generations can vary between years.

    This gives me a bit of hope when it comes to butterfly conservation. Because they have such short generation times, even small conservation steps can make a big difference and we can see populations bounce back.

    The Karner blue is an example. It’s a small, endangered butterfly that depends on oak savannas and pine barren ecosystems. These habitats are uncommon and require management, especially prescribed burning, to maintain. With restoration efforts, one Karner blue population in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve in New York rebounded from a few hundred individuals in the early 1990s to thousands of butterflies.

    Similar management and restoration efforts could help other rare and declining butterflies to recover.

    What you can do to help butterflies recover

    The magnitude and rate of biodiversity loss in the world right now can make one feel helpless. But while national and international efforts are needed to address the crisis, you can also take small actions that can have quick benefits, starting in your own backyard.

    Butterflies love wildflowers, and planting native wildflowers can benefit many butterfly species. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has guides recommending which native species are best to plant in which parts of the country. Letting grass grow can help, even if it’s just a strip of grass and wildflowers a couple of feet wide at the back of the yard.

    A patch of wildflowers and grasses can become a butterfly garden, like this one in Townsend, Tenn.
    Chris Light, CC BY-SA

    Supporting policies that benefit conservation can also help. In some states, insects aren’t considered wildlife, so state wildlife agencies have their hands tied when it comes to working on butterfly conservation. But those laws could be changed.

    The federal Endangered Species Act can also help. The law mandates that the government maintain habitat for listed species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2024 recommended listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened species. With the new study, we now have population trends for more than half of all U.S. butterfly species, including many that likely should be considered for listing.

    With so many species needing help, it can be difficult to know where to start. But the new data can help concentrate conservation efforts on those species at the highest risk.

    I believe this study should be a wake-up call about the need to better protect butterflies and other insects – “the little things that run the world.”

    Eliza Grames receives funding from the National Science Foundation (DEB 2225092).

    – ref. Butterflies declined by 22% in just 2 decades across the US – there are ways you can help save them – https://theconversation.com/butterflies-declined-by-22-in-just-2-decades-across-the-us-there-are-ways-you-can-help-save-them-251468

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Ricketts, Klobuchar Introduce Renewable Fuel for Ocean-Going Vessels Act

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Pete Ricketts (Nebraska)
    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the Renewable Fuel for Ocean-Going Vessels Act. The bipartisan bill would allow companies to preserve Renewable Identification Number credits (RINs) under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, when the fuel for use is in ocean-going vessels.
    “Expanding the use of biofuels like renewable diesel strengthens American energy independence, supports Nebraska agriculture, and reduces emissions,” said Senator Ricketts.“This bipartisan bill will deliver new market opportunities for Nebraska farmers who have played a crucial role creating a strong renewable diesel economy.”
    “Domestically produced biofuel strengthens our energy independence, supports our farmers, and boosts rural economies,” said Senator Klobuchar. “This common sense legislation will expand markets for farmers and fuel producers by providing ocean-going vessels a lower carbon fuel.”
    “Ocean-going cargo ships, tankers, and passenger vessels have a need for low-carbon, low-sulfur biodiesel and renewable diesel which provides an additional market for biofuels,” said Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02), the bill’s lead in the U.S. House of Representatives. “This legislation allows for RINs to be generated for renewable marine fuel without requiring an obligation on any parties. I thank my colleagues for supporting this legislation which opens the door for communities, like farmers in Iowa, to engage, and be involved, in the marine fuel industry and conversation.”
    Bill text can be found here.
    “This bill is a win for everyone who values stronger markets, cleaner energy, and a stronger, safer America,” said Dawn Caldwell, Executive Director of Renewable Fuels Nebraska. “It’s a commonsense step to put renewable energy to work on the high seas, which will support our country’s farmers and producers while moving us one step closer to energy independence. We’re grateful to Senator Ricketts for leading on this issue that is so crucial to Nebraskans. And we call on his colleagues in Congress to pass it quickly and look forward to President Trump signing it into law.”
    “Soybean farmers are constantly looking for new and innovative markets for our crop, including new opportunities for soy-based biofuels,” said Caleb Ragland, President of the American Soybean Association and soybean farmer from Kentucky. “The Renewable Fuels for Ocean-Going Vessels Act seeks to allow biofuels to truly tap into the marine transportation market through the RFS, and we appreciate the work of Senator Rickets, Senator Klobuchar, Congresswoman Miller-Meeks, and Congressman Garamendi as they continue to advocate for soy-based biofuels.”
    “Global shipping companies are looking to U.S. farmers and fuel producers to take the lead in providing clean fuels,” said Kurt Kovarik, Vice President of Federal Affairs for Clean Fuels. “This commonsense legislation will remove a regulatory roadblock and enable U.S. biodiesel and renewable diesel producers in partnership with soy and canola growers to meet the needs of shipping companies at a competitive price. It will allow refiners and blenders to keep RFS credits for fuel used in ocean-going vessels that are currently being sacrificed.”
    “Biofuels are an important pathway for future fuels for the maritime industry. And the United States with its vast biofuel feedstocks and resources creates an enormous economic opportunity for the nation’s farmers to produce fuels to meet the growing global demand for alternative fuels,” said Jennifer Garson, Executive Director of the Sustainable Maritime Coalition. “However, in order to match this enormous supply with the maritime sector, the biofuels industry needs the Renewable Fuels for Oceangoing Vessels Act. This Act is critical for compliance, as RINS are the currency of the RFS program and we applaud its reintroduction in this Congress.”
    BACKGROUND:
    The RFS excludes “fuel used in ocean-going vessels” from the definition of transportation fuels and from refiners’ and blenders’ obligations. Refiners and blenders are currently required to retire RINs from any biodiesel and renewable diesel used in vessels with Class 3 engines operating in international waters, including the Great Lakes. In the first ten months of 2023, more than 5 million D4 RINs were retired under this rule.
    The Environmental Protection Agency, however, allows companies to generate and use RINs for “additional renewable fuel,” which includes heating oil and jet fuel. The Renewable Fuel for Ocean-Going Vessels Act would expand the RFS definition of additional renewable fuel and allow companies to use or sell the RINs associated with biodiesel and renewable diesel used in ocean-going vessels.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Federal Jury Finds Owner and Captain of Southern Comfort Guilty of Seaman’s Manslaughter and Fraud

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    MIAMI – This week, a federal jury in Fort Pierce found Dustin Sean McCabe, 49, of Ocala, Florida, guilty of seaman’s manslaughter (both in his capacity as boat owner and boat captain of the vessel named Southern Comfort), lying to the Coast Guard, and committing Covid-19 pandemic relief fraud.

    South Florida Assistant U.S. Attorneys presented the following evidence at trial: In early March 2020, McCabe purchased a 48-foot boat, named it Southern Comfort, and falsely claimed on Coast Guard forms that he intended to use the boat recreationally. The truth was that McCabe planned to use the Southern Comfort to run paid scuba charters. He refitted the boat for that purpose by removing the vessel’s main deck engine controls, among other things. 

    On March 28, 2020, McCabe took paying passengers on a scuba trip aboard the Southern Comfort, but things did not go well. During the day’s two scuba dives, the Southern Comfort experienced significant mechanical malfunctions that included one of the vessel’s propellers activating unexpectedly, the loss of steering, and the vessel running aground. One of the incidents involved the port side propeller engaging when the vessel was in neutral during the pickup of a diver, which led to the diver being sucked toward the propeller and narrowly escaping.     

    Despite the close calls, McCabe took more paying divers out the next day, on March 29, 2020, without reporting the prior day’s incidents to the Coast Guard, warning his passengers of what had occurred, or fixing the boat. Again, the port side propeller engaged while the boat was sitting in neutral over a dive spot. As the victim diver and her spouse boarded the vessel, the propeller sucked the victim towards it – as it had done to a diver the day before. This time, unfortunately, there was no narrow escape, only tragedy: The propeller sucked the victim into it, mangling and cutting her. It twisted her leg up in its shaft, holding her under water. A medical examiner testified that while the victim’s many deep chop wounds and leg fractures were not fatal on their own, they caused serious pain that contributed to the victim’s death by drowning.

    As a result of the March 29 death, McCabe was prohibited from operating the Southern Comfort. He was never again seen working at the marina. As federal prosecutors proved during trial, this did not stop McCabe from applying for two loans from the Covid-19 era Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) – a federal relief program meant to help small businesses financially survive the pandemic. To secure the loans (and later their forgiveness), McCabe falsely claimed in the applications that his business was operational and submitted fraudulent payroll information and fake tax documents to support the lie.

    Sentencing is scheduled for June 12 at 10 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon. McCabe faces up to 10 years in prison for seaman’s manslaughter, up to five years for making false statements, and up to 20 years for wire fraud.

    United States Attorney Hayden P. O’Byrne for the Southern District of Florida and Special Agent in Charge Josh W. Packer of the Coast Guard Investigative Service (“CGIS”) Southeast Field Office made the announcement.

    CGIS Southeast Field Office investigated the case, with assistance from U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Lake Worth and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Office of Law Enforcement.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Keller, Coast Guard Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanner Stiehl, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Koffsky are prosecuting this case.

    You may find a copy of this press release (and any updates) on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl.

    Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov under case number 24-cr-80103.

    ###

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Butterflies declined by 22% in just 2 decades across the US

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eliza Grames, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Binghamton University, State University of New York

    The endangered Karner blue butterfly has struggled with habitat loss. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

    If the joy of seeing butterflies seems increasingly rare these days, it isn’t your imagination.

    From 2000 to 2020, the number of butterflies fell by 22% across the continental United States. That’s 1 in 5 butterflies lost. The findings are from an analysis just published in the journal Science by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Powell Center Status of Butterflies of the United States Working Group, which I am involved in.

    We found declines in just about every region of the continental U.S. and across almost all butterfly species.

    Overall, nearly one-third of the 342 butterfly species we were able to study declined by more than half. Twenty-two species fell by more than 90%. Only nine actually increased in numbers.

    West Coast lady butterflies range across the western U.S., but their numbers have dropped by 80% in two decades.
    Renee Las Vegas/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

    Some species’ numbers are dropping faster than others. The West Coast lady, a fairly widespread species across the western U.S., dropped by 80% in 20 years. Given everything we know about its biology, it should be doing fine – it has a wide range and feeds on a variety of plants. Yet, its numbers are absolutely tanking across its range.

    Why care about butterflies?

    Butterflies are beautiful. They inspire people, from art to literature and poetry. They deserve to exist simply for the sake of existing. They are also important for ecosystem function.

    They’re pollinators, picking up pollen on their legs and bodies as they feed on nectar from one flower and carrying it to the next. In their caterpillar stage, they also play an important role as herbivores, keeping plant growth in check.

    A pipevine swallowtail caterpillar munches on leaves at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Md. Herbivores help keep plant growth in check.
    Judy Gallagher/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

    Butterflies can also serve as an indicator species that can warn of threats and trends in other insects. Because humans are fond of butterflies, it’s easy to get volunteers to participate in surveys to count them.
    ck
    The annual North American Butterfly Association Fourth of July Count is an example and one we used in the analysis. The same kind of nationwide monitoring by amateur naturalists doesn’t exist for less charismatic insects such as walking sticks.

    What’s causing butterflies to decline?

    Butterfly populations can decline for a number of reasons. Habitat loss, insecticides, rising temperatures and drying landscapes can all harm these fragile insects.

    A study published in 2024 found that a change in insecticide use was a major factor in driving butterfly declines in the Midwest over 17 years. The authors, many of whom were also part of the current study, noted that the drop coincided with a shift to using seeds with prophylactic insecticides, rather than only spraying crops after an infestation.

    The Southwest saw the greatest drops in butterfly abundance of any region. As that region heats up and dries out, the changing climate may be driving some of the butterfly decline there. Butterflies have a high surface-to-volume ratio – they don’t hold much moisture – so they can easily become desiccated in dry conditions. Drought can also harm the plants that butterflies rely on.

    Only the Pacific Northwest didn’t lose butterfly population on average. This trend was largely driven by an irruptive species, meaning one with extremely high abundance in some years – the California tortoiseshell. When this species was excluded from the analyses, trends in the Pacific Northwest were similar to other regions.

    The California tortoiseshell butterfly can look like wood when its wings are closed, but they’re a soft orange on the other side.
    Walter Siegmund/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    When we looked at each species by its historical range, we found something else interesting.

    Many species suffered their highest losses at the southern ends of their ranges, while the northern losses generally weren’t as severe. While we could not link drivers to trends directly, the reason for this pattern might involve climate change, or greater exposure to agriculture with insecticides in southern areas, or it may be a combination of many stressors.

    There is hope for populations to recover

    Some butterfly species can have multiple generations per year, and depending on the environmental conditions, the number of generations can vary between years.

    This gives me a bit of hope when it comes to butterfly conservation. Because they have such short generation times, even small conservation steps can make a big difference and we can see populations bounce back.

    The Karner blue is an example. It’s a small, endangered butterfly that depends on oak savannas and pine barren ecosystems. These habitats are uncommon and require management, especially prescribed burning, to maintain. With restoration efforts, one Karner blue population in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve in New York rebounded from a few hundred individuals in the early 1990s to thousands of butterflies.

    Similar management and restoration efforts could help other rare and declining butterflies to recover.

    What you can do to help butterflies recover

    The magnitude and rate of biodiversity loss in the world right now can make one feel helpless. But while national and international efforts are needed to address the crisis, you can also take small actions that can have quick benefits, starting in your own backyard.

    Butterflies love wildflowers, and planting native wildflowers can benefit many butterfly species. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has guides recommending which native species are best to plant in which parts of the country. Letting grass grow can help, even if it’s just a strip of grass and wildflowers a couple of feet wide at the back of the yard.

    A patch of wildflowers and grasses can become a butterfly garden, like this one in Townsend, Tenn.
    Chris Light, CC BY-SA

    Supporting policies that benefit conservation can also help. In some states, insects aren’t considered wildlife, so state wildlife agencies have their hands tied when it comes to working on butterfly conservation. But those laws could be changed.

    The federal Endangered Species Act can also help. The law mandates that the government maintain habitat for listed species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2024 recommended listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened species. With the new study, we now have population trends for more than half of all U.S. butterfly species, including many that likely should be considered for listing.

    With so many species needing help, it can be difficult to know where to start. But the new data can help concentrate conservation efforts on those species at the highest risk.

    I believe this study should be a wake-up call about the need to better protect butterflies and other insects – “the little things that run the world.”

    Eliza Grames receives funding from the National Science Foundation (DEB 2225092).

    – ref. Butterflies declined by 22% in just 2 decades across the US – https://theconversation.com/butterflies-declined-by-22-in-just-2-decades-across-the-us-251468

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –