Parks Canada Indigenous Stewardship Circle will adopt the co-developed Indigenous Stewardship Policy for Parks Canada during an official ceremony.
October 11, 2024 Mallorytown Landing, Ontario Parks Canada
The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada will make an announcement regarding the implementation of the Parks Canada Indigenous Stewardship Policy during an Indigenous-led ceremony.
Please note that this advisory is subject to change without notice.
The details are as follows:
Date: October 15, 2024
Time: 1:00 p.m. EDT
Location: Mallorytown Landing, Thousand Islands National Park 1121 Thousand Islands Pkwy, Mallorytown, ON K0E 1R0
10 October 2024/Press Release/Apia, Samoa – The Marine Pollution Advisory Committee (MPAC) findings has confirmed that the HMNZS Manawanui is leaking oil from three separate locations.
Observations by the Committee via the New Zealand Defense Force in collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) shows that whilst the leak continues, it is reducing each day. The residual oil leakage is from the service tanks of the vessel where the engine room is and where the fire had broken out. It is believed that the majority of the fuel was burnt out, and it is the residual oil that is emanating from the sunken vessel.
The oil sheens observed on the surface of the ocean has been observed to naturally evaporate and dissipate quickly due to the strong winds in the area. It is important to note that there continues to be no trace of oil contamination that has washed up onshore, as of 8AM today, October 10. It is imperative to contain the persisting leakages; whilst it is reducing, the goal is to stop it as soon as possible.
There will be a community engagement programme at Tafitoala today, led by the MNRE, to ensure our local communities are given the right information about this matter.
The removal of the ships anchor and three washed up shipping containers from the HMNZS Manawanui caught on the reef off the coast of Tafitoala was also discussed in today’s meeting with focus on how to do so without causing more damage to the reef.
Leading the New Zealand delegation at the MPAC briefing today was New Zealand Deputy Chief of Navy, Commodore Andrew Brown. He conveyed sincere appreciation to the Samoan people for the emergency response provided to the crew of Manawanui and the hospitality that was extended to them up until they were farewelled.
The MPAC Chairman continues to thank the village of Tafitoala and members of the public for the support and cooperation.
09 October 2024/Press Release/Apia, Samoa – The Marine Pollution Advisory Committee (MPAC) continues to assess the situation relating to the run aground HMNZS Manawanui at Tafitoala. On Wednesday, October 9, 2024, the Chairman, Afioga Fui Tupai Mau Simanu, Chief Executive Officer of Ministry of Works, Transport and Infrastructure conducted a meeting with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) DMO Division, Samoa Fire Emergency Services Authority, NZ Defense Force, Maritime New Zealand as well as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Samoa, Her Excellency, Sialei Van Toor.
The meeting discussed initial findings as well as continued efforts from all parties involved since the occurrence in the early hours of Sunday October 6, 2024. Divers from the NZ Defense Force and Samoa Response team have been deployed since Monday, October 7 to carry out an assessment of the wreck and possible risks to the marine environment.
It was during this meeting the NZ Defense Force confirmed that there are no explosives onboard.
As of 8AM on Wednesday, coastal assessment carried out from Safata to Matafa’a by the Committee confirms that there continues to be no oil contamination on the Coast, although diesel sheens have been observed near the wreck, it has drifted out to the high seas. Initial assessments suspected fuel leakage and further information of this will be provided today as the weather continues to improve, aiding in the diving teams’ operation this evening. For now, water samples have been collected for chemical analysis to confirm contaminations in the water.
It is confirmed that there is damage to the reef from the NZ Navy shipwreck and anchor chain. Assessments show that physical destruction to the reef Is approximately 5000 square meters.
The MPAC Chairman thanks the village of Tafitoala and members of the public for the support and cooperation while the operation is in place.
Environmental Health staff from Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council have welcomed the steps taken by local businesses to stop persons aged under 18 from using sunbeds at their premises.
Over recent months, council staff carried out test purchases in ten businesses which provide sunbeds and found one sale to a person aged under 18.
It is illegal for under-18s to use a sunbed on commercial premises, and it is the responsibility of the local council to enforce these laws.
A spokesperson for ABC Council said their Environmental Health staff remain committed to enforcing the legislation as well as highlighting the potential health risks of tanning beds, to both young people and parents.
“The risks of using sunbeds are very real and very serious. Using a sunbed, even once at any stage during your life increases your risk of developing melanoma by 20% compared to someone who has never used a sunbed. And this risk increases by 1.8% with each additional time you use a sunbed,” said the council spokesperson.
“We remain committed to the inspection of sunbed premises in our borough and welcome the fact that the vast majority of our local businesses are compliant, but we don’t want to see any sales at all to people aged under 18 and we will continue to work towards that.
“Businesses that don’t follow the law on sunbeds are issued with a fixed penalty notice of £250 and non-payment can result in a court case, and if convicted, this can result in a fine up to £5,000.”
For further information on sunbed safety legislation – please visit http://www.armaghbanbridgecraigavon.gov.uk/business/sunbed-safety/ If you have any concerns about a sunbed business in your area, please contact the Environmental Health Department at the Council on 0330 056 1011.
Landlords who have paid for a Rented Dwelling Licence, but held a 3*, 4* or 5* rating on the former Rent Safe scheme, are being reminded that they can still apply for a refund before 30 November 2024.
The Rented Dwelling Licence Scheme launched in May this year, and the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Steve Luce, pledged to not leave out of pocket, those who had already achieved Rent Safe accreditation.
The refund scheme is for the full licence fee (£60), and applies only to these first licences, not in perpetuity. While the law did not allow for the original licence fee to be waived, a system was swiftly set up to provide refunds to eligible landlords on applicable properties.
Those who have not yet applied for a refund, but are eligible to do so, should email renteddwellings@gov.je, with copies of their Rented Dwellings Licence certificate for properties which were inspected under the Rent Safe scheme, for which they would like a refund.
MILES AXLE Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Sergey Chisty
From September 30 to October 4, SPbGASU hosted Accessibility Week. The program included lectures by experts and other events aimed at developing students’ professional competencies.
Sergey Chisty, Chairman of the Board of the Charitable Foundation “City for All”, gave a lecture on October 1, “Reasonable adaptation as a tool for designing a barrier-free environment”. According to Sergey Vladimirovich, regulatory documentation is constantly “catching up” with life. There are more and more codes of rules, which slows down business and creativity. Therefore, there is now a transition from directive regulation to more effective parametric regulation.
The lecture by Sergey Sokhranskiy, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Accessible Environment” and a member of the author’s teams for the development of a number of codes of practice, took place on October 2 and began with a short interactive session. As he was climbing the podium, Sergey Serafimovich tripped over a ledge in the floor and exclaimed: “This is also a barrier!” In this way, he clearly demonstrated that the issues of creating a barrier-free environment concern everyone and are relevant in all spheres of life. During the lecture, Sergey Sokhranskiy drew the attention of the audience to the problems that arise in the course of developing regulatory documents for the creation of a barrier-free environment.
Kirill Morozov, head of the KMK Landscape Workshop, discussed with students on October 3 what means can be used to achieve barrier-free and convenient conditions for everyone. In particular, what width should doorways and open openings in the wall of a building be, how parking lots should be arranged, what tactile surfaces exist, etc. Dmitry Potaralov, head of a personal architectural workshop, shared information about his projects, including those related to solving inclusive problems, during a lecture on October 4.
The final event of the week was a discussion of the projects of SPbGASU student teams, which were presented at the All-Russian competition of student works in the field of universal design and design of barrier-free urban environments for people with limited mobility. The final of the competition was held in Moscow on May 15–17.
As Oleg Fedorov, leading specialist of the Educational Center for Project-Based Learning at SPbGASU, explained, our university planned to send eight projects to the competition. However, the organizers limited the number of works from one university. The university competition committee selected four projects, and three works made it to the final. All of them won awards, including the Grand Prix.
“We decided to hold this informal meeting so that all the guys could get feedback. Including those who did not get into the competition and did not make it to the finals. The second reason was the desire to introduce other students to these wonderful competition projects,” said Oleg Fyodorov.
The contestants focused on the urban environment of Azov in the Rostov Region. They had to create four tablets: the first was dedicated to the conceptual development of the city, the second presented the results of a comprehensive analysis of one of its sections, the third was to formulate proposals for the improvement of the selected section, and the fourth was to consider a separate building, proposing a reconstruction option for an existing facility or new construction.
The team consisting of Sofia Malysheva (captain), Maxim Shemetillo, Dmitry Erofeev, Daniil Medvedev and Yulia Makhneva failed to take part in the competition. However, the students developed solutions worthy of prizes. Among them are an inclusive playground and a pavilion for canister therapy (a type of therapy with animals, when specially selected and trained dogs are used for rehabilitation and treatment). The students emphasized that the equipment they chose was from catalogs, it can be easily ordered and purchased. The team was led by Oleg Fyodorov and Elena Bobrova, senior lecturer of the Department of Urban Development.
The multifunctional bench designed by the LINKK team consisting of Inga Khafizova (captain), Elizaveta Abdullina, Anastasia Fedorova, Ksenia Saifullina and Kristina Nosovaya cannot be found in any catalog yet. This bench can be made with armrests, with a backrest or without a backrest. It has built-in trash containers, it can be placed both in the center and along the road. It can be used for flowerbed arrangement classes. And it has an unlimited length.
According to the competition committee of our university, the LINKK team did not make it to the final only because the students did not limit themselves and complicated the task by choosing several areas at once. And all these areas were developed in detail. The team’s work was supervised by Oleg Fedorov, Alexey Perov, senior lecturer of the Department of Architectural Environment Design, and Alesya Boyko, assistant of this department.
The team consisting of Daria Krasnova (captain), Arina Bezzubenkova, Anastasia Glukhova, Polina Fait and Ekaterina Kholshchigina, under the leadership of Oleg Fedorov, spoke about their competition project at the meeting. The competitors focused on the area next to the city hospital and proposed adding landscaping, new driveways, parking spaces and pedestrian paths.
The winners of the competition also presented their projects: the Delta team, which included Varvara Dericheva (captain), Alina Lagkueva, Angelina Savitskaya and Mikhail Rakhimov, and the Faces of the City team, consisting of captain Alisa Mikhailova, Sofia Nikolaeva and Vladislava Savelyeva.
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.
Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Simon Black, Ian W.H. Parry, and Karlygash Zhunussova. “Sleepwalking to the Cliff Edge?: A Wake-up Call for Global Climate Action”, Staff Climate Notes 2024, 006 (2024), accessed October 10, 2024, https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400289644.066
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Summary
Urgent action to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is needed now. Early next year, all countries will set new emissions targets for 2035 while revising their 2030 targets. Global GHGs must be cut by 25 and 50 percent below 2019 levels by 2030 to limit global warming to 2°C and 1.5°C respectively. But current targets would only cut emissions by 12 percent, meaning global ambition needs to be doubled to quadrupled. Further delay will lead to an ‘emissions cliff edge’, implying implausible cuts in GHGs and putting put 1.5°C beyond reach. This Note provides IMF staff’s annual assessment of global climate mitigation policy. It illustrates options for equitably aligning country targets with the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals. It also provides guidance on modelling needed to set emissions targets and quantify climate mitigation policy impacts.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Heather Ewart, Postdoctoral Researcher, Evolutionary Biology, University of Manchester
Conservation biologist Rebecca Cliffe fits an accelerometer backpack to a wild three-fingered sloth to measure its movement.The Sloth Conservation Foundation, CC BY-NC-ND
Sloths are more vulnerable to the rising temperatures associated with climate change than other mammals, due to their unique physiology.
In a new study, my colleagues and I found that sloths’ ability to adapt to warming temperatures varies between the cooler, high-altitude and warmer, low-altitude forests of Costa Rica.
Unlike most mammals, sloths do not actively regulate their body temperature. Like reptiles, they rely heavily on ambient temperature to do so. This affects all aspects of their survival, including digestion, metabolism and movement. Combined with their extremely low-calorie, relatively inflexible leaf-based diet, these traits mean sloths have much less energy at their disposal than most other mammals.
As sloth body temperatures become hotter with rising temperatures, their metabolic rate increases. But those with sharply increasing metabolic rates are at risk of lower survival rates when temperatures rise, compared with other sloths.
The author, Heather Ewart, returns a wild three-fingered sloth back to its point of capture following the application of a GPS tracking collar and accelerometer. Heather Ewart, CC BY-NC-ND
Together with colleagues, including the founder of UK-based Sloth Conservation Foundation Rebecca Cliffe, I found that their degree of vulnerability depends on the altitude of the forests where each sloth originates from.
We calculated the metabolic rates of high- and low-altitude sloths across a range of temperatures using a method called respirometery. This involves putting a sloth in a large, closed box (comfortably) to measure how much oxygen it consumes at each temperature within an allotted time period.
Lowland sloths were able to slow their metabolic rate when temperatures became too hot. This is an important survival mechanism that may benefit these populations as climate change continues.
Highland sloths were unable to slow their metabolic rate, which increased with temperature and became critical above 32°C. Highland sloths are at another disadvantage – cooler, high-altitude forests tend to be smaller due to the slower growth rate of trees at higher elevations coupled with habitat loss. Highland sloths are therefore much less able to migrate and are more restricted than lowland sloths.
Sloths can’t adapt their metabolism quickly so are at risk from rising temperatures. Rebecca Cliffe, CC BY-NC-ND
Sloths with higher metabolic rates use more energy, so they need to eat more food to produce more energy. However, due to their extremely slow rates of food intake and digestion, sloths take much longer to process food into energy than other mammals. Essentially, sloths cannot simply eat more food to match their energy requirements or achieve “energy balance” – the state where calories consumed equals calories burnt through physical activity.
Combined with inflexible migration options, the restricted metabolism of highland sloths makes them especially vulnerable to climate change. However, while lowland sloths appear to have more flexible metabolic responses to warming temperatures, they won’t be able to escape the effects of climate change if temperature increases are too extreme, putting their survival at risk as well.
There is a considerable lack of data on the current status and abundance of sloths. No comprehensive, long-term population monitoring has been conducted at a scale that reflects the true challenges sloths face.
Conserving cooler microclimates
My team of ecologists, who have been studying sloth behaviour and abundance across Costa Rica for 15 years, are concerned about how sloths are being affected by climate change. Areas once highly populated are now devoid of sloths, driven primarily by habitat loss and fragmentation resulting from extensive destruction of rainforests.
Costa Rica has transformed into a predominantly urban society over the past 40 years, with its urban footprint increasing by 112%. In the Talamanca province, where our team currently tracks wild sloths, urban sprawl has increased substantially with an estimated 3,000 sloths lost annually. Electrocution is one of the leading causes of admissions to wild animal sanctuaries in Costa Rica, partly because sloths use power lines to cross between fragmented forests in certain places.
A two-fingered sloth uses power lines over a busy road to move between trees. Heather Ewart, CC BY-NC-ND
Both native sloth species of Costa Rica are now listed as conservation concerns. Globally, an estimated 40% of all sloth species are threatened with extinction. Climate change poses a serious threat – and sloth conservation efforts need to take this into account. We predict that rising temperatures will have devastating consequences for sloths’ ability to maintain their energy balance and survive.
Sloth conservation is crucial, as they play a vital role in keeping the rainforest ecosystem healthy. Sloths are herbivores (plant eaters) that help regulate plant growth and recycle nutrients. They are an integral part of the food web, hosting a diverse ecosystem of unique organisms in their fur and serving as prey for other animals, such as ocelots and jaguars.
Protecting sloths is an incredibly complex challenge. Right now, natural habitats must be preserved and restored to support cooler microclimates. Particularly in vulnerable high-altitude regions, remaining forest fragments should be reconnected by building wildlife corridors – strips of natural habitat that connect fragmented areas and allow animals to move more easily.
Sloth conservation can only be achieved by addressing the root issue: climate change. A global, coordinated effort is required, with strict adherence to international climate accords such as the Paris agreement to limit global warming to below 1.5°C and prevent irreversible damage to rainforests.
If climate change continues unchecked, sloths won’t be able to migrate like other species. Once their environment becomes too hot, their survival is unlikely. Sloth conservation is directly linked to the actions humanity now takes to preserve our planet.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Heather Ewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
On the margins of the G7 Ministerial Meeting on Industry and Technological Innovation, chaired by Minister Urso and attended virtually by Minister Champagne, Canada and Italy released the following Statement of Intent for Canada and Italy to deepen collaboration on critical minerals and critical raw materials:
On the margins of the G7 Ministerial Meeting on Industry and Technological Innovation, chaired by Minister Urso and attended virtually by Minister Champagne, Canada and Italy released the following Statement of Intent for Canada and Italy to deepen collaboration on critical minerals and critical raw materials:
With the adoption of the Italy-Canada Roadmap for Enhanced Cooperation on the margins of the G7 Summit in June and Canada’s ongoing work under the 2022 Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy, Italy and Canada agreed to strengthen collaboration on energy security and sustainability. We have committed to regular engagement on these issues in the form of an Energy Dialogue, focused on critical minerals, the energy transition, sustainable fuels, energy storage solutions and enabling technologies, and advanced nuclear reactors and fusion research.
Canada and Italy recognize the importance of international partnerships to make critical minerals and critical raw materials supply chains more diversified, transparent, resilient, responsible, circular, resource efficient, and sustainable. Canada and Italy seek to enhance cooperation in this domain through the promotion of trade and investment, exchanges of policies, regulations, best practices, technical and ESG standards.
Canada and Italy will advance this cooperation through the following areas of work:
Strengthening Supply Chains: Promote critical mineral value chain trade and investment opportunities in Canada and Italy through government efforts to facilitate B2B matchmaking and Canada-Italy co-investments in projects.
International Collaboration & Multilateral Engagement: Coordinate participation through leading international fora addressing critical mineral supply chains security and resiliency, including but not limited to the Minerals Security Partnership, the International Energy Agency, the G7, the Conference on Critical Materials and Minerals and through the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance.
Research and Innovation: Discuss opportunities for joint research through Horizon Europe, which Canada joined in July 2024. Italy and Canada will work jointly to improve recycling of critical minerals and critical raw materials.
Mapping and exploration: Share best practices on respective exploration plans and explore opportunities for collaboration between the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) and the Geological Survey of Canada.
We have committed to regular engagement on these issues through the Energy Dialogue, to be launched by Canada’s Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson and Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin in the coming months. Our Statement of Intent today demonstrates Canada and Italy’s strong partnership, and we hope that it will bring many opportunities to continue building on our longstanding bilateral relationship.
Parks Canada’s Hometown Heroes program honours Floyd H. Prosser
October 10, 2024 Halifax, Nova Scotia Parks Canada
A Parks Canada ceremony is being held to honour Floyd H. Prosser as a Hometown Hero for his exceptional achievements and outstanding contributions during his time with the Canadian Army overseas during the Second World War and in civilian life. In sharing his story with Canadians, we acknowledge how his loyalty and continued commitment to his community made him an inspirational hero in Canada.
Darren Fisher, Member of Parliament for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, will be in attendance on behalf of the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada.
Alannah Phillips, Field Unit Superintendent of Mainland Nova Scotia, will also be present to help honour and celebrate this Hometown Hero inductee.
Please note that this advisory is subject to change without notice.
The details are as follows:
Date: October 12, 2024 Time: 1:00 p.m. ADT Location: Halifax Citadel 5425 Sackville St. Halifax NS B3J3Y3
-30-
France Faucher Manager, Commemorations and Engagement france.faucher@pc.gc.ca Tel.: 819-210-7266
Source: United States Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore)
October 10, 2024
In the last two decades, Supreme Court justices have accepted hundreds of gifts valued at nearly $5 million
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said today he is cosponsoring legislation that would ban Supreme Court justices from receiving gifts valued at more than $50, aimed at strengthening the ethical standards of the Court.
Senators Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., led the introduction of the High Court Gift Ban Act. In addition to Wyden, Senators Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., cosponsored the bill. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., introduced companion legislation in the House.
“American democracy can only work if the public has trust in its institutions,” said Wyden, who recently introduced sweeping reforms to restore public trust in the Supreme Court. “With more and more Supreme Court ethics violations being uncovered, the public’s trust in the Court has been shaken to its core. It’s not just unacceptable but morally wrong that those sitting on our nation’s highest court can get away with accepting lavish gifts from just about anybody. Supreme Court justices should be held to the same standards as other federal officials so that faith can begin to be restored in one of America’s most powerful institutions.”
Under current law, Supreme Court justices are not held to the same restrictions on accepting gifts that apply to members of Congress, federal judges, and other federal officials. A recent analysis by Fix the Court estimated that in the last two decades, Supreme Court justices have accepted hundreds of gifts valued at nearly $5 million.
The High Court Gift Ban Act does the following:
Bans Supreme Court justices and all 2,300 lower court judges from receiving gifts valued at more than $50 in a single instance or more than $100 in aggregate in a year;
Caps gifts of personal hospitality, which are currently unregulated, at a value equal to the tax threshold for personal gifts, currently about $18,000;
Contains exemptions in line with those for members of Congress;
Enforces prohibitions by requiring referrals to the attorney general for investigation;
Aligns civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance with the government-wide financial disclosure law, the Ethics in Government Act:
Up to $50,000 for civil violations;
Fines and up to one year in prison for criminal penalties.
The High Court Gift Ban Act is endorsed by Accountable.US, AFT, Alliance for Justice, American Humanist Association, Center for American Progress, Clean Elections Texas, Common Cause, Courage California, Court Accountability, Courts Matter Illinois, Demand Justice, DemCast USA, Demos Action, End Citizens United/Let America Vote Action Fund, Enough of Gun Violence, Faithful Democracy, Fix the Court, Free Speech For People, FRFF Action Fund, Get Money Out – Maryland, Greenpeace USA, Indivisible, League of Conservation Voters, Michiganders for Fair & Transparent Elections, MoveOn, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Association of Social Workers, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Ohio Fair Courts Alliance, P Street, People For the American Way, People Power United, Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen, Reproductive Freedom for All, Secular Coalition for America, Secure Elections Network, Stand Up America, Supreme Court Integrity Project, Take Back the Court Action Fund, True North Research, United Church of Christ, Voices for Progress, and Walking To Fix Our Democracy.
The text of the bill is here.
MILES AXLE Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Dmitry Chernyshenko held a meeting of the board of directors of JSC Corporation “Tourism.RF”
October 10, 2024
Dmitry Chernyshenko held a meeting of the board of directors of JSC Corporation “Tourism.RF”
October 10, 2024
Dmitry Chernyshenko held a meeting of the board of directors of JSC Corporation “Tourism.RF”
October 10, 2024
Dmitry Chernyshenko held a meeting of the board of directors of JSC Corporation “Tourism.RF”
October 10, 2024
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Dmitry Chernyshenko held a meeting of the board of directors of JSC Corporation “Tourism.RF”
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko held a meeting of the board of directors of JSC Corporation Tourism.RF. At the meeting, the participants reviewed and adopted a master plan for the development of the tourist territory Novaya Anapa in Krasnodar Krai. The launch of the first stage of infrastructure facilities is scheduled for 2030.
The meeting was attended by the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov, the Minister of Construction and Housing and Public Utilities Irek Faizullin, the Deputy Minister of Economic Development Dmitry Vakhrukov, the Deputy Minister of Finance Pavel Kadochnikov, the General Director of Tourism.RF Sergey Sukhanov, the General Director of the ANO Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects Svetlana Chupsheva, the Deputy Governor of Krasnodar Krai Alexander Ruppel and others.
Dmitry Chernyshenko recalled that in March of this year the project of the resort “New Anapa” was presented to the President by the Governor of Krasnodar Krai Veniamin Kondratyev and the head of state supported it.
“The project will be implemented on the instructions of President Vladimir Putin and will become part of the federal project “Five Seas and Lake Baikal” of the new national project “Tourism and Hospitality”. In November last year, an open all-Russian architectural competition with international participation for the development of the tourist territory “New Anapa” was held. The competition became a platform for joint work of experts, government representatives and potential investors. More than 60 applications from 11 countries were submitted. The original architectural solutions of the winner and finalists of the competition became the basis for the formation of the external appearance of the resort and were taken into account when developing the master plan,” said Dmitry Chernyshenko.
The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that the master plan for “New Anapa” was developed by the corporation over the course of a year and was approved by the coordinating council, which included leading Russian experts in urban development, architecture, ecology, representatives of interested federal and regional authorities, including the administration of Krasnodar Krai and the resort city of Anapa.
“The project of the family resort “New Anapa” provides for the construction of more than 15 thousand rooms of categories from three to five stars. 100 investment lots have been formed for investors: 69 lots of collective accommodation facilities, 31 lots of tourist and service infrastructure. The facilities will be introduced in stages until 2034,” said Sergey Sukhanov, General Director of “Tourism.RF”.
The investment volume is estimated at 457.9 billion rubles, of which 148.9 billion rubles is provisional infrastructure, 309 billion rubles is tourist infrastructure created by private investors.
The master plan provides for the creation of a thematic aqua complex and amusement park, health and balneological centers, schools of water and wind sports, a congress and exhibition center, a phygital center and other modern infrastructure facilities on the resort territory. It also provides for the construction of a multi-level embankment, the arrangement of a large number of recreational areas, squares and parks.
The master plan includes solutions to issues of supporting and transport infrastructure, such as the reconstruction and expansion of the flat structures of the Vityazevo airport, the construction of access and internal roads to the resort, electricity, gas, water supply and sanitation networks, the creation of sports, recreational, health, educational and event centers.
In implementing the project, it is planned to use government support measures from the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Construction with the assistance of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
The next stage of work on the project should be the joint development with the region of documentation on the planning of the territory of the future resort.
The all-Russian beach family resort “New Anapa” will be located near the village of Blagoveshchenskaya, 36 km from Anapa and 24 km from the international airport Anapa (Vityazevo) named after V.K. The resort will be built on an area of 940 hectares, along the sand spit between the Black Sea and picturesque estuaries.
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.
Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
OVERVIEW The NASA chief technologist’s team, within the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS), is hosting a Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder (LAMP) workshop on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, to provide a community forum to discuss modeling and simulation testbeds in this domain. The workshop is in coordination with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. With the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. Technologies like trusted autonomy are necessary to support these types of sustained operations. Trusted autonomy is a more robust level of autonomy designed for long-term operational use. The LAMP workshop will be held on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Black Fire Innovation Facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Black Fire Innovation Center Building is located at 8400 W. Sunset Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89113, approximately 20 minutes from the UNLV main campus. This workshop has been designed to coincide with the 2024 Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium fall meeting (also taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada). The OTPS solver-in-residence is the main organizer and facilitator for this workshop. PROGRAM The LAMP workshop will provide a forum for a discussion on topics that include:
A modeling and simulation (M&S) pathfinder to explore an integrated sim environment for lunar stakeholders from commercial industry, other U.S. government agencies, international partners and academia, to simulate their systems that would eventually operate in the lunar environment and to test interoperability between systems. How to leverage the planned rover missions to 1) calibrate and improve this M&S environment over time, and 2) potentially use them as autonomy testbeds to safely mature algorithms in a relevant environment.
Please RSVP for in-person or virtual attendance by registering at the following site: https://nasaevents.webex.com/weblink/register/rdf4dd38bc3bf176dc32d147513f7b77c *Please note registration is on an individual basis. If attending with multiple guests, each guest must register for the event separately. LAMP Workshop Agenda (All times listed are in PST and subject to change)
10:00 a.m. – 12:00p.m. Modeling and Simulation (M&S) showcase (In-person only & optional)This is an opportunity for interested participants to show their lunar simulation capabilities inside of UNLV’s Blackfire Innovation esports arena. Space is limited. Please indicate if you are interested in participating when you register, and we will reach out with additional information.
1:00 –2:00p.m. Challenges to Developing Trusted Autonomy NASA will discuss the challenges of maturing autonomy that can be trusted to operate over long periods of time and how we can work together to overcome those challenges.
2:00 –3:00p.m. Pre-Formulation Discussion of a Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder Modeling and Simulation EnvironmentSubject matter experts (SMEs) from NASA will layout thoughts on what a digital transformation pathfinder would look like that benefits lunar autonomy efforts across the globe.
3:00 – 3:15p.m. Break
3:15 – 4:15p.m. Lunar Testbeds DiscussionThis will be a discussion focused on how assets on the moon could be used as testbeds to generate truth data for Earth-based simulations and to validate that autonomy can be trusted in the lunar environment.
4:15 – 5:00p.m. Polling and DiscussionsAudience feedback will be solicited on various topics. This will include a pre-formulated series of questions and real time polls.
CONTACT For questions, please email:
Dr. Adam Yingling2024 OTPS Solver-in-ResidenceOffice of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) NASA Headquarters Email: adam.j.yingling@nasa.gov The Solver-in-Residence (SiR) program is a one-year detail position with the chief technologist in NASA’s Office of Technology Policy and Strategy. The program enables a NASA civil servant to propose a one-year investigation on a specific technology challenge and then work to identify solutions to address those challenges.
Kelly Huang, a Kalsi assistant professor at the University of Houston, reflects on her transformative journey from NREL wind energy intern at NREL to educator, inspiring the next generation of engineers with real-world research opportunities. Photo from Kelly Huang
Kelly Huang was on the fence as she wrapped up her junior year as a mechanical engineering major at Cornell University. Senior year was fast approaching, and then graduation, and then the rest of her life. Should she seek a career in industry or academia? Should she pursue a master’s degree? A Ph.D.?
Luckily, Huang had landed an internship with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) Program. For 10 weeks that summer, Huang supported NREL’s research on offshore wind energy, collaborating with leading researchers and gaining experience that shaped her future career.
“I fell in love with atmospheric flows, fluid dynamics, and the hands-on aspects of fieldwork: going out, collecting data, and using instrumentation that we built ourselves,” Huang recalled. “Those 10 weeks showed me what research could really be like.”
During her internship, Huang developed code for optimizing the dimensions of floating offshore wind turbine spar structures, which are long, vertical, floating components that extend deep into the water and allow the turbine to float without being anchored to the seabed. The team’s end goal was to integrate this code into NREL’s Wind Plant Integrated System Design and Engineering Model (WISDEM), which helps analyze how different parts of a wind energy system work together in order to find ways to improve performance and lower costs.
“The coding part was helpful for gaining basic engineering skills,” Huang said. “But more importantly, the whole experience showed me that there’s a whole community of scientists working on similar problems. It gave me the courage to pursue a Ph.D., which had seemed like a very daunting task up to that point.”
A Journey of Growth and Giving Back
During their internship, Huang and fellow interns Caelan Lapointe (middle) and Julian Quick (right) conducted wind energy field research at NREL’s National Wind Technology Center. Photo from Kelly Huang
Ten weeks passed, the internship concluded, and Huang completed her senior year, graduating with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering. During her senior year, she applied and was accepted to Princeton University, where she earned a master of arts and a Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering. Today, Huang is a Kalsi assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston. Huang recently returned to NREL to participate in the Faculty-Applied Clean Energy Sciences (FACES) program—another 10-week program that gave her the opportunity to collaborate with researchers and enhance her research skills.
The FACES program aims to bridge the gap between national laboratories and faculty at minority-serving institutions. Participants work with NREL researchers to enhance their expertise in clean energy science, develop scalable educational modules, and receive mentorship. Huang used field data from NREL’s AWAKEN campaign to build a curriculum for a class she is launching called “Introduction to Environmental Fluid Dynamics.”
“Students will use open-source data, like the data from the AWAKEN campaign, for independent projects on environmental fluid mechanics,” Huang said. “This will expose students to real-world research so that they can gain experience with data analysis and scientific inquiry.”
For Huang, participating in the FACES program brought her full circle in several ways.
“I grew up in Houston and really appreciated the diverse, multicultural community there,” Huang said. “That was one reason why I accepted my position at the University of Houston. It inspired me to give back to that community. I was happy to see NREL also recognize the importance of supporting diverse communities through education and research communities.”
Huang also reconnected with NREL researcher Senu Sirnivas, her supervisor from her SULI internship.
“He told me that my code had been integrated into the WISDEM tool and that researchers still use it, which was really cool to learn,” Huang said. “He was already supportive during the internship, and this time, he was excited to catch up and went out of his way to advise me on navigating my role as a professor and the challenges that come with it.”
Upon visiting the NREL campus again, Huang was pleased to see how the wind energy internship cohort has grown over the years.
“When I started, there were only eight of us at the wind site,” Huang recalled. “Now, there are so many interns, they have to do separate cohorts because onboarding is taking so long. Which is a great problem to have—it means the program is thriving.”
Huang’s internship also fostered lasting connections among its participants.
“I still keep in contact with my internship cohort,” Huang said. “One of them is an assistant professor of mathematics at University of Seattle, one of them is a researcher at the Technical University of Denmark, and a few work in the clean energy industry.”
Huang plans to encourage her colleagues in academia to apply for the FACES program and also to get her students involved with NREL through SULI and other internship programs.
“Working with NREL as a SULI intern and later as a FACES partner were such valuable experiences,” Huang said. “They both changed the course of my career.”
Visit NREL’s internships page to learn more about the wide variety of programs available to undergraduate and graduate students. Check out the FACES program page to learn how you can enhance your research skills with expertise in clean energy science.
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Hourly Electric Grid Monitor Note: Chart shows maximum electricity demand each day based on hourly data converted to Eastern Daylight Time.
Last summer, U.S. electricity demand in the Lower 48 states was greatest at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on July 15, 2024, when it reached about 745 gigawatthours (GWh), based on data in our Hourly Electric Grid Monitor. In our analysis, we calculate each day’s peak according to the hour with the highest electricity demand. This year’s U.S. summer hourly peak (745 GWh) was essentially the same as in 2023 (742 GWh) and in 2022 (743 GWh). On the other hand, U.S. generation from January through July was about 2,500 terawatthours (TWh), 4% more than the 2,397 TWh generated in the same period last year, according to our Electricity Power Monthly.
U.S. electricity demand tends to peak in July or August as air-conditioning use ramps up. Temperatures in July were above average for much of the United States, especially in parts of the West, Northeast, and Southeast, according to the Monthly National Climate Report for July 2024 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information.
Although the peak hourly electric generation in the contiguous United States was mostly flat year on year, certain regions experienced higher year-over-year peak demand based on local weather, power grid conditions, and available electricity supply.
The U.S. electricity system is composed of three major grids: the Eastern Interconnection, Western Interconnection, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Within each power grid are balancing authorities, which include utilities, cooperatives, and other entities, that ensure enough electricity is available to meet customer needs. If electricity supply and demand are imbalanced, local or widespread blackouts can occur.
East Across the Eastern Interconnection, hourly electricity demand peaked on July 15 at about 549 GWh, as temperatures were well above average in several East Coast states that month, according to NOAA. Daily high temperatures stayed above triple digits for several consecutive days in some metropolitan areas. For instance, both Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, DC, experienced high temperatures of 100°F or above from July 14 to 17.
Electricity demand in an hour on August 1 came close to July’s peak, reaching about 540 GWh, but demand was curbed by the rain and power outages due to Hurricane Debby, which moved up the East Coast from August 4 to 10.
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Hourly Electric Grid Monitor Note: Chart shows maximum electricity demand each day based on hourly data converted to Eastern Daylight Time and excludes electricity demand in Canadian provinces.
Texas In Texas, hourly electricity demand peaked on August 20, reaching about 86 GWh, which is virtually the same as the previous all-time daily peak of 85 GWh reached in August 2023.
Although electricity demand reached 81 GWh in an hour on July 1, demand fell by about a third to 55 GWh by July 8, when Hurricane Beryl reached the Texas coastline.
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Hourly Electric Grid Monitor Note: Chart shows maximum electricity demand each day based on hourly data converted to Central Daylight Time. ERCOT=Electric Reliability Council of Texas
West In the Western Interconnection, hourly electricity demand peaked on July 10 at about 141 GWh. This amount excludes British Columbia and Alberta, which are part of the regional grid.
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Hourly Electric Grid Monitor Note: Chart shows maximum electricity demand each day based on hourly data converted to Pacific Daylight Time and excludes electricity demand in Canadian provinces.
The California power grid operator, California Independent System Operator (CAISO), reported similar results for the full Western Interconnection including British Columbia and Alberta. With the two Canadian provinces, electricity demand reached about 168 GWh on July 10, setting a new record.
Although California saw record-breaking temperatures this past summer, CAISO said electricity demand on its system, which also covers part of Nevada, peaked on July 24 at about 45 GWh, which was less than the record of 52 GWh that occurred on September 6, 2022.
Principal contributors: Stephanie Tsao, Mark Morey
As of 8:00 a.m. eastern time on October 9, Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday as a major hurricane on the west coast of Florida with sustained winds of 160 miles per hour, creating the potential for significant disruptions to energy infrastructure.
Utilities in Florida are preparing for high volumes of power outages. High winds, flooding, and storm surge from Hurricane Milton might affect energy infrastructure such as power plants, power transmission and distribution lines, and fuel terminals.
Trade press reports state that some retail gasoline stations in Florida are without fuel as demand increased prior to the hurricane. In a press conference on Tuesday, Florida governor Ron DeSantis indicated that the state was dispatching and staging fuel as needed. However, Florida does not have any refineries or gasoline pipelines that connect it to states with excess supply. Florida’s gasoline and diesel are delivered by truck or ship from domestic and international sources.
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
The U.S. Coast Guard reports several ports in Florida are closed. Inbound and outbound vessel traffic to Port Tampa Bay, where over 17 million tons of petroleum- and natural gas-related products move through in a typical year, has ceased. More than 43% of Florida’s petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel for the state’s major airports, moves through Port Tampa Bay. The duration of the port closures and impacts from Hurricane Milton on trade movements for petroleum and natural gas remain uncertain.
Hurricane Milton follows Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 hurricane that made landfall on the Florida Panhandle on September 26 and caused major power outages and damage to electricity infrastructure on its path from Florida to the Appalachian Mountains. Three other named storms have made landfall so far this hurricane season (Beryl, Debby, and Francine) as either Category 1 or 2 hurricanes.
Much like Hurricane Helene, Milton’s forecasted path toward Florida’s west coast takes it away from the most prolific oil- and natural gas-producing areas near Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
Press reports indicated earlier this week that Chevron closed its Blind Faith oil platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and evacuated all personnel from the facility in preparation for Hurricane Milton. The Blind Faith platform, which has a production capacity of 65,000 barrels per day, is approximately 160 miles southeast of New Orleans. However, as of Wednesday morning, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement had not reported that significant oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico had been shut in due to Hurricane Milton.
To help analysts assess potential energy-related storm effects, EIA maintains energy disruption maps that display energy infrastructure and real-time storm information.
Principal contributors: Matthew French, Paul Merolli
Source: United States Senator for Illinois Dick Durbin
10.10.24
The reimbursed funds would be used to support environmental justice communities in becoming more climate-resilient
CHICAGO – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), along with U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Representatives Jonathan Jackson (D-IL-01), Robin Kelly (D-IL-02), Jesús G. “Chuy” García (D-IL-04), Mike Quigley (D-IL-05), Sean Casten (D-IL-06), Danny Davis (D-IL-07), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL-08), and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09), today sent a letter to Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Michael Connor urging the Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) to include $50 million in construction funds in its Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Work Plan to reimburse the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) of Greater Chicago for the work it has completed on the design and construction of the Thornton Composite Reservoir. As the lawmakers noted in their letter, including funding to reimburse MWRD would allow the agency to focus on supporting environmental justice communities.
“We are writing to request that you include $50 million in Construction funds in the Army Corps of Engineers’ (Army Corps) Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Work Plan to reimburse the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) of Greater Chicago for design and construction work conducted on the Thornton Composite Reservoir,” the lawmakers wrote.
“This funding will allow MWRD to reinvest in the historically underserved and low-income communities of Robbins, Harvey, Glenwood, Ford Heights, South Holland, Dolton, Calumet City, Lansing, Markham, Dixmoor, and Thornton, Illinois,” the lawmakers continued their letter.
In 2009, MWRD executed an amendment to its Project Cooperation Agreement with the Army Corps for the design and construction of the Thornton Composite Reservoir, enabling MWRD to work on the project while being eligible for federal reimbursement. Despite the reservoir being in service since 2015 and providing $40 million per year in flood reduction benefits to 14 communities, the Army Corps still owes MWRD approximately $200 million in reimbursements.
“Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers owes MWRD approximately $200 million in reimbursements for the cost of designing and constructing the Thornton Reservoir, which is needed to support disadvantaged communities struggling with flooding. For example, Cook County experienced extreme flooding during two storms events in 2023 that led to two major disaster declarations,” the lawmakers wrote. “Some of these reimbursement funds would be used to match FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant funding for projects to address flood damages in Chicago’s south suburbs. Including a $50 million reimbursement in the FY2025 Army Corps of Engineers Work Plan will ensure that MWRD can work to protect these communities from the next set of disasters driven by the climate crisis.”
MWRD has preemptively ensured that the reimbursed funds would be used to support environmental justice communities, addressing existing damage and improving climate-resilience.
“MWRD has applied the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool and confirmed that the requested funding will be used to fund stormwater management projects in six Justice40 disadvantaged communities,” the lawmakers wrote. “These communities include areas that meet both the socioeconomic indicators and the CEQ/Justice 40 Initiative Key Categories, including: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, reduction and remediation of legacy pollution, critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure, health burdens, and workforce development. This reimbursement will help these communities create resilient futures.”
The lawmakers concluded their letter by emphasizing the necessity of including the reimbursement funds in the FY25 Work Plan to support environmental justice communities.
“As the Corps determines how to best address its environmental justice obligations, we strongly urge you to include $50 million in Construction funds for reimbursement to MWRD in the FY 2025 Work Plan. The reimbursement to MWRD will help create a better future for the disadvantaged communities of Robbins, Harvey, Glenwood, Ford Heights, South Holland, Dolton, Calumet City, Lansing, Markham, Dixmoor, and Thornton, Illinois,” the lawmakers concluded the letter.
Durbin has previously secured additional reimbursements from the Corps for its work on Thornton Reservoir. In Fiscal Year 2022, Durbin secured $12 million in reimbursement funds in the Army Corps’ FY22 Work Plan. The following year, Durbin secured $7.2 million in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Construction Spend Plan for the project. In Fiscal Year 2024, Durbin also secured $20 million in the Army Corps’ work plan for reimbursement.
A copy of the letter is available here and below:
October 10, 2024
Dear Assistant Secretary Connor:
We are writing to request that you include $50 million in Construction funds in the Army Corps of Engineers’ (Army Corps) Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Work Plan to reimburse the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) of Greater Chicago for design and construction work conducted on the Thornton Composite Reservoir.
This funding will allow MWRD to reinvest in the historically underserved and low- income communities of Robbins, Harvey, Glenwood, Ford Heights, South Holland, Dolton, Calumet City, Lansing, Markham, Dixmoor, and Thornton, Illinois. It will build on this year’s $20 million in the FY2024 Army Corps of Engineers Work Plan; last year’s $7.2 million reimbursement to MWRD inthe Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s Construction Spend Plan, Summer 2023 Addendum; and the $12 million in the FY2022 Army Corps of Engineers Work Plan, allowing MWRD to complete construction of the Robbins Flood Protection Project.
In 2009, MWRD executed an amendment to its Project Cooperation Agreement with the Army Corps for the design and construction of the Thornton Composite Reservoir. This enabledMWRD to design and construct the Thornton Composite Reservoir project and allowed it to be eligible for federal reimbursement. The reservoir was put into service in 2015 and now provides an estimated $40 million per year in flood reduction benefits to 14 communities, protecting more than 35,000 structures from flooding.
Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers owes MWRD approximately $200 million in reimbursements for the cost of designing and constructing the Thornton Reservoir, which is needed to support disadvantaged communities struggling with flooding. For example, Cook County experienced extreme flooding during two storms events in 2023 that led to two major disaster declarations. Some of these reimbursement funds would be used to match FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant funding for projects to address flood damages in Chicago’s south suburbs. Including a $50 million reimbursement in the FY2025 Army Corps of Engineers Work Plan will ensure that MWRD can work to protect these communities from the next set of disasters driven by the climate crisis.
MWRD has applied the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool and confirmed that the requested funding will be used to fund
stormwater management projects in six Justice40 disadvantaged communities. The Thornton Reservoir’s service area also is in a census tract considered to be disadvantaged under CEQ’s
criteria. These communities include areas that meet both the socioeconomic indicators and the CEQ/Justice 40 Initiative Key Categories, including: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, reduction and remediation of legacy pollution, critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure, health burdens, and workforce development. This reimbursement will help these communities create resilient futures.
As the Corps determines how to best address its environmental justice obligations, we strongly urge you to include $50 million in Construction funds for reimbursement to MWRD in the FY 2025 Work Plan. The reimbursement to MWRD will help create a better future for the disadvantaged communities of Robbins, Harvey, Glenwood, Ford Heights, South Holland, Dolton, Calumet City, Lansing, Markham, Dixmoor, and Thornton, Illinois. Thank you for your consideration of our request.
Sincerely,
-30-
Source: United States Senator for Illinois Tammy Duckworth
October 09, 2024
[SPRINGFIELD, IL] – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today joined local and federal leaders in commemorating the designation of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot site as a national monument. Duckworth has worked for years to secure national monument recognition for the site, which the Biden-Harris Administration designated in August. The 1908 Springfield Race Riot was a pivotal event in American history that spurred the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). With less than a quarter of National Parks devoted to recognizing the histories of diverse peoples and cultures, designating this site as a national monument also helps guarantee that public lands reflect the diversity of our country. Photos from today’s event are available on the Senator’s website.
“The 1908 Race Riots and the history that happened here deserve to be commemorated,” said Duckworth. “And now, I’m proud it will be, thanks to President Biden’s action to designate this site as a national monument—an action which not only makes sure the painful lessons learned here will not be lost for generations to come, but also helps ensure our national parks better reflect our nation’s people and stories.”
Duckworth was joined today by local and national leaders including U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), U.S. Representative Nikki Budzinski (D-IL-13), White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory, U.S. Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Julianna Stratton and more.
116 years ago, a violent mob of white residents murdered at least six Black Americans, burned down Black homes and businesses and attacked hundreds of residents for no other reason than the color of their skin. Duckworth began calling for national monument recognition in 2018, first leading the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument Act, with U.S Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), in 2019 and again in 2021. Last year they re-introduced the legislation, which was reported favorably out of committee, with U.S. Representative Nikki Budzinski (D-IL-13) introducing companion legislation in the House.
During an excavation as part of the Springfield High Speed Rail project, foundations and artifacts from homes destroyed during the riot were uncovered. An agreement with community members was reached in 2018 to excavate the remains and designate the uncovered site a memorial.
Duckworth has made elevating disenfranchised communities and their stories one of her main priorities while in Congress. Last year, after continued efforts from Duckworth, the Biden-Harris Administration designated the church that held Emmett Till’s pivotal open-casket wake in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood as a national monument. Duckworth’s leadership was critical in the site designation, originally introducing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley, and Roberts Temple National Historic Site Act in 2021 and again in 2023.
How can a desert burn? Australia’s vast deserts aren’t just sand dunes – they’re often dotted with flammable spinifex grass hummocks. When heavy rains fall, grass grows quickly before drying out. That’s how a desert can burn.
When our Karajarri and Ngurrara ancestors lived nomadic lifestyles in what’s now called the Great Sandy Desert in northwestern Australia, they lit many small fires in spinifex grass as they walked. Fires were used seasonally for ceremonies, signalling to others, flushing out animals, making travel easier (spinifex is painfully sharp), cleaning campsites, and stimulating fresh vegetation growth ready for foraging or luring game when people returned a few months later. The result was a patchwork desert.
After colonisation, this ended. Without management, the spinifex and grassy deserts began to burn in some of the largest fires in Australia.
But now the work of caring for desert country (pirra) with fire (jungku, or warlu) has begun again. We are Karajarri and Ngurrara rangers who care for 110,000 square kilometres of the Great Sandy Desert. Our techniques have changed – we now drop incendiaries from helicopters to cover more distance – but our goals are similar. Guided by our elders, we are combining traditional knowledge with modern technologies and science to refine how we manage fire in a changing world.
In research published today, we and our co-authors paired analysis of historic fire patterns with five years of fauna surveys. Put together, we found mature spinifex was important for creatures of the Great Sandy Desert – and that means we should burn small and often, like our ancestors.
Fire and sand
In the 1940s and ‘50s, the Royal Australian Air Force photographed the Great Sandy Desert from the air. These photos were taken before our people moved to settlements and pastoral stations between the 1960s and ’80s.
That means these aerial photographs capture a time when traditional burns were still happening.
Our ranger teams are studying these photographs to draw out the fire patterns produced by our ancestors.
These photographs tell a story. Our ancestors burned many small areas, creating a complicated patchwork of spinifex at different stages of regrowth after fire.
But they also left a great deal of mature spinifex – large old hummocks that hadn’t burnt for years. This patchwork of burned and unburned areas made it hard for bushfires to spread far and fast. When traditional burning practices stopped, bushfires became common.
The knowledge contained in these old photos is very valuable. The images give us clear goals for our fire management. We combine this with guidance from elders and information on fuel loads across Country gleaned from remote sensing and weather modelling, to plan our fire management.
We could see where our ancestors burnt (white patches) in the Karajarri Indigenous Protected Area in this aerial photo from the late 1940s. National Library of Australia, CC BY-NC-ND
What does fire mean for desert creatures?
Australian deserts are remarkably biodiverse, especially in reptiles. In a single clump of mature spinifex, you might find up to 18 different species of lizard. Then there are snakes and goannas, as well as mammals such as marsupial moles found only in the arid zone.
Spinifex hummocks are crucial to many of these species, offering shelter, food and prey. What does fire do to spinifex-dwellers?
On this topic, scientific knowledge is playing catchup with Indigenous traditional knowledge but we see value in using the scientific method – a universal language – to help us manage Country, and tell other people about what we are doing.
The past few decades have been a time of major change for the Great Sandy Desert. Cultural burns stopped, and feral animals such as camels and cats grew in number. As a result, many native animals are disappearing or already gone.
We think larger, more frequent fires play a part. Our Karajarri and Ngurrara rangers are using science to make sure our patchwork burns – known as right-way fire – are good for native animals.
Between 2018 and 2022, we surveyed reptiles and mammals from 32 sites across the Karajarri and Warlu Jilajaa Jumu (Ngurrara) Indigenous Protected Areas in the desert. We caught almost 3,800 mammals and reptiles from 77 species. Reptiles made up the lion’s share, with 66 species. We also recorded when fire had come through, and how big the burnt patches were.
The data showed reptile species care a lot about where they live. Some prefer recently burned areas, where the spinifex is gone or still very small. Others like old spinifex, huge hummocks going unburned for years. And others still liked mid-sized spinifex.
We found mammals were rare in recently burned areas and more common in mature spinifex. We also found more mammal diversity in areas with fine-scale patchworks of fires.
This shows we must keep our fires small, burning different areas at different times, and protect enough mature spinifex.
This patchwork approach will help spinifex hopping mice, desert mice, planigales, dunnarts, and dozens of small reptile species to survive. But it will also help now-rare game species, the marlu (red kangaroo in Walmajarri language) and pijarta (emu in Karajarri).
Our research tells us returning to the traditional burning techniques of our ancestors is still the right thing to do – even though the desert has changed.
Karajarri Rangers talk about the Pirra Junkgu-Warlu project.
Rare finds
Scientists have rarely surveyed the Great Sandy Desert. As a result, our surveys have turned up important findings.
The kaluta (Dasykaluta rosamondae), for instance, is a feisty little carnivorous marsupial. We found it on the Canning Stock Route, 500km further north than the distribution known to scientists.
Similarly, we found the threatened Dampierland sandslider (Lerista separanda), a vividly coloured skink, in the Karajarri Indigenous Protected Area, expanding its distribution 450km southeast. Karajarri people call sandsliders winkajurta, or “lice eaters”, because in the old days you could use them to hunt lice in your hair.
Our research gives us confidence that bringing back traditional burns helps desert creatures. We want more people to know that right-way fire is part of healthy Country, including our own mob and tourists who pass through, so we can all look after the desert.
In our work, we take our old people out onto Country to get advice on burning and their knowledge of animals. As one told us, seeing the old ways return made him “real happy [and] to come alive” – just like the desert.
We thank Karajarri and Ngurrara Traditional Owners and acknowledge past and present elders. Thanks to the many rangers and coordinators who helped in these surveys, and our partners: Environs Kimberley, Charles Darwin University, Western Australian Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, and Indigenous Desert Alliance. Special thanks to Hamsini Bijlani, our project coordinator.
Braedan Taylor and other rangers in this project were funded by the Australian Government’s Indigenous Protected Area Program, Indigenous Ranger Program, and the National Environmental Science Program via the Threatened Species Recovery Hub; by the Western Australia State Natural Resource Management, Aboriginal Ranger Program, Lotteries West, and via in kind support from the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions; by the Indigenous Desert Alliance/10Deserts; and by the Australian Research Council.
Jacqueline Shovellor receives funding from the same sources as the lead author.
Frankie McCarthy receives funding from the same sources as the lead author.
Sarah Legge receives funding from the Australian Research Council. The work reported here was partly funded by the National Environmental Science Program via the Threatened Species Recovery Hub.
Thomas Narda receives funding from the same sources as the lead author.
International Day of the Girl provides an opportunity to celebrate the leadership of girls around the world and recommit to addressing the barriers that continue to limit their full participation. Today, to commemorate International Day of the Girl, First Lady Jill Biden will host the second “Girls Leading Change” event at the White House to recognize outstanding young women from across the United States who are making a difference in their communities. This year’s event will honor 10 young women leaders, selected by the White House Gender Policy Council, who are leading change and shaping a brighter future for generations to come.
The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring that girls can pursue their dreams free from fear, discrimination, violence, or abuse; and to advancing the safety, education, health, and wellbeing of girls everywhere. Investing in young people means investing in our future; and they should have the opportunity and resources they need to succeed.
That’s why, since day one in office, this Administration has taken action to advance the safety, education, health, and well-being of girls, including:
Accelerating Learning and Improving Student Achievement. The American Rescue Plan, the largest one-time education investment in our history, included $130 billion to help schools address the impact of the pandemic on student well-being and academic achievement. To sustain these efforts, the Biden-Harris Administration increased funding and targeting of federal grants to better support academic recovery—from the Education Innovation and Research program to extended-day and afterschool programming through 21st Century Community Learning Centers. And the Administration’s Improving Student Achievement Agenda for 2024 is helping accelerate academic performance for every child in school.
Canceling Student Debt. President Biden and Vice President Harris vowed to fix the federal student loan program and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class—not a barrier to opportunity. The Biden-Harris Administration has approved nearly $170 billion in loan forgiveness for almost 5 million borrowers through more than two dozen executive actions with the goal of helping these borrowers get more breathing room in their daily lives, access economic mobility, buy homes, start businesses, and pursue their dreams.
Cutting Child Poverty Nearly in Half in 2021. President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that no child should grow up in poverty. Their expansion of the Child Tax Credit helped cut child poverty nearly in half in 2021 to a record low of 5.2%. President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting to restore this expansion, which would lift over a million girls out of poverty and narrow racial disparities. The Biden-Harris Administration has also lifted hundreds of thousands of girls out of poverty by updating the Thrifty Food Plan and creating SunBucks, a new program that helps low-income families afford groceries over the summer when they don’t have access to school meals.
Supporting Youth Mental Health. President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, and that mental health care is health care—period. That’s why they invested almost $1.5 billion to strengthen the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and launched the National Mental Health Strategy, with ongoing investments to strengthen the mental health workforce, ensure parity for mental health and substance use care, connect Americans to care, and better protect youth from the harms of social media. The Biden-Harris Administration is also delivering the largest investments in school-based mental health services ever, bringing 14,000 new mental health professionals into schools across the country and making it easier for schools to leverage Medicaid to deliver care.
Preventing Gun Violence, Including Domestic Violence with Firearms. Gun violence is the leading killer of children and teenagers in the United States. President Biden and Vice President Harris have taken historic executive action to reduce gun violence and violent crime. In 2022, President Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), the most significant new gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years. The intersection between guns and domestic violence can be especially deadly, and BSCA expanded background checks to keep guns out of the hands of more domestic abusers, narrowed the “boyfriend loophole” so an individual convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence against a dating partner is prohibited from purchasing a firearm, and expanded funding for red flag laws that allow for temporary removal of firearms from an individual who is a danger to themselves or others. President Biden established the first-ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention, overseen by Vice President Harris. The Biden-Harris Administration has made historic investments in law enforcement and community-led crime prevention and intervention strategies and has announced more executive actions to reduce gun violence than any other administration. Most recently, building on life-saving actions that the Administration has already taken, President Biden signed a new Executive Order in September 2024 to improve school-based active shooter drills and combat emerging firearms threats. The President and Vice President also announced new actions to support survivors of gun violence, promote safe gun storage, fund community violence intervention, and improve the gun background check system, among other actions.
Launching the American Climate Corps. President Biden launched the American Climate Corps to give a diverse new generation of young people the tools to fight the impacts of climate change today and the skills to join the clean energy and climate-resilience workforce of tomorrow. The American Climate Corps is tackling the climate crisis, including by restoring coastal ecosystems, strengthening urban and rural agriculture, investing in clean energy and energy efficiency, improving disaster and wildfire preparedness, and more. More than 15,000 young Americans have already been put to work in high-quality, good-paying clean energy and climate resilience workforce training and service opportunities through the American Climate Corps—putting the program on track to reach President Biden’s goal of 20,000 members in the program’s first year ahead of schedule.
Providing Children with Healthier, More Sustainable Environments. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program has awarded nearly $3 billion and funded approximately 8,700 electric and low-emission school buses nationwide, protecting children from air pollution by transforming school bus fleets across America. The Biden-Harris Administration also invested $15 billion toward replacing every toxic lead pipe in the country within a decade, protecting children and schools from lead exposure that can cause irreversible harm to cognitive development and hamper children’s learning. And earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency provided $58 million to protect children from lead in drinking water at schools and child care facilities.
Fighting Online Harassment and Abuse. Online harassment and abuse is increasingly widespread in today’s digitally connected world and disproportionately affects women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals. President Biden established the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse to coordinate comprehensive actions from more than a dozen federal agencies, and his Executive Order on artificial intelligence directs federal agencies to address deepfake image-based abuse. The Department of Justice also funded the first-ever national helpline to provide 24/7 support and specialized services for victims of online harassment and abuse, including the non-consensual distribution of intimate images; raised awareness of new legal protections against the non-consensual distribution of intimate images that were included in the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022; and funded a new National Resource Center on Cybercrimes Against Individuals.
Keeping Students Safe and Addressing Campus Sexual Assault. The Department of Education restored and strengthened vital Title IX protections against discrimination on the basis of sex for students and employees. The Department of Justice awarded more than $20 million in FY 2024 to support colleges and universities in preventing and responding to sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. And the Department of Education—in collaboration with the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services—launched a Task Force on Sexual Violence in Education that has released data on sexual violence at educational institutions and is working to improve sexual violence prevention and response on campus.
Supporting Vulnerable Youth. The Biden-Harris Administration has taken action to support the needs of vulnerable and underserved youth—from helping prevent youth homelessness and human trafficking to supporting employment initiatives for youth with disabilities. This includes $800 million in dedicated funding to support students experiencing homelessness through the President’s American Rescue Plan. The Department of Health and Human Services also issued landmark rules to improve the child welfare system, particularly for the most vulnerable children, and to advance the safety and wellbeing of families across the country, including for LGBTQI+ children in foster care. And the Department of Justice has funded programs to help communities develop, enhance, or expand early intervention programs and treatment services for girls who are involved in the juvenile justice system.
The Biden-Harris Administration has also taken action to support girls around the globe by fighting to advance the human rights of women and girls and promote access to education, health, and safety, including:
Promoting Girls’ Education Globally. The United States is investing in girls’ education around the world, which in turn advances health and economic development. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) invested more than $2.5 billion from FY 2021-2023 to increase access to quality basic and higher education, and reached 18.7 million girls and women in 69 countries in FY23 alone to advance gender equality in and through education. The Departments of State and Labor have also supported efforts to promote girls’ education through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs in Kenya and Namibia, as well as technical and vocational education training centers for adolescent girls in Ethiopia. The United States has strongly condemned the restriction of girls’ education in Afghanistan, including by restricting visas for individuals believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, repressing women and girls by limiting or prohibiting access to education.
Closing the Gender Digital Divide. Last year, Vice President Harris launched the Women in the Digital Economy Fund (Wi-DEF) to accelerate progress towards closing the gender digital divide. To date, Wi-DEF has raised over $80 million, including an initial $50 million commitment from USAID. Building on the success of the Fund, the Women in the Digital Economy Initiative includes commitments from governments, private sector companies, foundations, civil society, and multilateral organizations that have pledged more than $1 billion to accelerate gender digital equality. This Initiative supports girls’ access to digital learning opportunities, provides employment and educational skills, and helps fulfill the historic commitment of G20 Leaders to halve the digital gender gap by 2030. Since the launch of Wi-DEF, the United States has invested $102 million in direct and aligned commitments to closing the gender digital divide and accelerating gender digital equality.
Preventing and Responding to Online Harassment and Abuse Globally. To address the scourge of online harassment and abuse against girls and women, the Biden-Harris Administration launched the 15-country Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse, which has advanced international policies to address online safety and supported programs to prevent and respond to technology-facilitated gender-based violence. Since the Global Partnership was launched in 2022, the Department of State has supported projects in every region to prevent, document, and address technology-facilitated gender-based violence, cultivate safe online use, and respond to survivors’ needs.
Championing Girls’ Leadership in Addressing the Climate Crisis. In 2023, Vice President Harris announced the Women in the Sustainable Economy Initiative—an over $2 billion public-private partnership to promote women’s access to jobs in the green and blue industries of the future—including by advancing girls’ access to STEM education. Through WISE, the Department of State is investing more than $12 million in programs to benefit girls, including programs that promote girls’ economic skills and opportunities in STEM and that foster girls’ roles in leading, shaping, and informing equitable and inclusive climate policies and actions.
Strengthening HIV Prevention Services for Girls. To address key factors that make adolescent girls and young women particularly vulnerable to HIV, the United States launched the DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe) public-private partnership as part of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2014. Announced in 2023, PEPFAR’s DREAMS NextGen program is the next phase of DREAMS that will take a more nuanced approach that is responsive to the current context within each of the 15 DREAMS countries. PEPFAR has invested more than $2 billion in comprehensive HIV prevention programming for girls through DREAMS—including $1.3 billion since the start of the Administration—and the program reaches approximately 2.5 to 3 million girls annually.
Increasing Efforts to End Child Marriage Globally. To address the global scourge of child, early, and forced marriage, USAID and the Department of State invested $86 million in 27 countries to support programs that prevent and respond to this harmful practice, including by equipping girls and young women with education and workforce readiness skills; providing education, health, legal, and economic support; and raising awareness. Under the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, the United States also made its first-ever contribution to the UNICEF-UNFPA Global Programme to End Child Marriage, which works in 12 countries in Africa and South Asia to promote the rights of adolescent girls, and is contributing more than $2 million in FY 2024 to UNFPA to help reach refugee adolescent girls and prevent child marriages in humanitarian settings.
Leading Programs to End Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting. To address the harmful practice of female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C), USAID invested in programs to address this issue in Djibouti, Egypt, Mauritania, and Nigeria. The United States is a long-standing donor to the UNICEF-UNFPA Joint Programme on the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation, and invested $20 million from FY 2020-FY 2023 in this partnership, which has succeeded in advocating for legal and policy frameworks banning FGM/C in 14 of 17 countries and supported more than 6.3 million women and girls with FGM/C-related protection and care services.
Promoting Young Women’s Civic and Political Participation. The Biden-Harris Administration has advanced the political and civic participation of women and girls as a pillar of democracy promotion efforts worldwide. The Administration launched Women LEAD, a $900 million public-private partnership focused on building the pipeline of women leaders around the world, including by supporting programs to reach girls and young women. Under this umbrella, the USAID-led Advancing Women’s and Girls’ Civic and Political Leadership Initiative provides more than $25 million to identify and dismantle the individual, structural, and socio-cultural barriers to the political empowerment of women and girls in ten focus countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Kyrgyz Republic, Yemen, and Fiji. Furthermore, the State Department is launching a new $1.25 million program in Africa that will empower and equip young women leaders to take on decision-making roles in democratic transition processes.
Protecting Girls in Humanitarian Emergencies. The United States government has increased its support for girls in humanitarian and fragile contexts. Since 2021, USAID has more than doubled the percentage of its humanitarian budget allocated to the protection sector, which includes child protection and gender-based violence activities serving girls. In FY 2023, USAID provided $163 million specifically towards addressing gender-based violence in humanitarian emergencies. In 2022, USAID and the Department of State launched Safe from the Start: ReVisioned, which seeks to better address the needs of girls and women from the onset of a conflict or crisis.
Combatting Child Trafficking. To combat child trafficking, including trafficking of girls, the Department of State has committed $37.5 million through Child Protection Compacts, building capacity in Jamaica, Peru, and Mongolia, and establishing new partnerships with Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Romania. These partnerships strengthen country responses to child trafficking to more effectively prosecute and convict traffickers, provide comprehensive trauma-informed care for child victims—including girls—and prevent child trafficking in all its forms.
The Biden-Harris Administration has worked to strengthen our ties with ASEAN and deliver on our commitments to the region. Over the past three and a half years, we have pursued an unprecedented expansion in the breadth and depth of U.S.-ASEAN relations, including upgrading our relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and institutionalizing cooperation in five new areas—health, transportation, women’s empowerment, environment and climate, and energy—as well as deepening our cooperation in foreign affairs, economics, technology, and defense. To date, we have made significant progress in fulfilling 98.37 percent of our commitments in the ASEAN-U.S. Plan of Action (2022-2025) and its Annex. The United States will continue working with ASEAN, including through ASEAN-led mechanisms, to build an open, inclusive, transparent, resilient, and rules-based regional architecture in which ASEAN is its center.
DELIVERING ON OUR COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
This year, the United States and ASEAN are celebrating 47 years of U.S.-ASEAN relations. President Biden and Vice President Harris remain committed to ASEAN centrality and supporting the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, which shares fundamental principles with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy. ASEAN is at the heart of the U.S. approach to the Indo-Pacific, as reflected in numerous U.S. initiatives to promote economic prosperity and regional stability. Through the U.S.-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the United States has demonstrated that we are a reliable and enduring partner for our combined one billion people. Key U.S.-ASEAN accomplishments under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership include:
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) extended the U.S.-ASEAN Regional Development Cooperation Agreement to 2029 enabling the launch of the new five-year ASEAN USAID Partnership Program in March 2024.
The United States plans to conduct a second U.S.-ASEAN maritime exercise in 2025, co-hosted by Indonesia. U.S. and ASEAN Member States’ navies will exercise communication, information sharing, and the implementation of maritime security protocols in accordance with international law.
In August 2024, the United States and ASEAN agreed to formalize U.S.-ASEAN health cooperation, elevating our engagement to a biennial U.S.-ASEAN Health Ministers Dialogue. USAID also officially launched the U.S.-ASEAN-Airborne Infection Defense Platform to bolster the region’s tuberculosis response capacity.
The United States is launching a cybersecurity training program for the ASEAN Secretariat that will enhance the cybersecurity awareness, knowledge, and skills of our partners who are the backbone of ASEAN institutions.
At the third U.S.-ASEAN High-Level Dialogue on Environment and Climate this year, the United States unveiled the U.S.-ASEAN Climate Solutions Hub to help ASEAN members states develop and implement their contributions under the Paris Agreement.
In 2023, the United States and ASEAN held the inaugural Dialogue on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to advance human rights for persons with disabilities across Southeast Asia, including working with private sector to find ways to support accessibility across Southeast Asia.
As a reflection of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership reaching its full potential, the United States and ASEAN celebrated the launch of the U.S.-ASEAN Center in Washington, DC in December 2023. The Center has already hosted several high-profile ASEAN-related events and is on track to become the key hub for ASEAN’s engagement with the United States.
In June 2024, the Center hosted the Secretary-General of ASEAN, Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, for his first working visit to the United States, where he launched a speaker series.
In August 2024, the Center hosted an ASEAN Day celebration, showcasing a wide array of cultural activities from ASEAN Member States.
The Center is also partnering with the Antiquities Coalition to host a Cultural Property Agreement workshop.
The U.S.-ASEAN Smart Cities Partnership (USASCP) is a key mechanism for our engagement on innovating sustainable cities of the future. Since it was launched in 2018, USASCP has invested more than $19 million in over 20 projects across urban sectors throughout the region. USASCP tackles the varied challenges of rapid urbanization, including accelerating climate action and promoting sustainable urban services.
In 2024, the USASCP Smart Cities Business Innovation Fund 2.0 will grant $3 million for net-zero urban innovation projects to strengthen private sector investment in sustainability and climate action across the ASEAN region.
In 2022, the Smart Cities Business Innovation Fund 1.0 granted a total of $1 million to six awardees across the region, including a solar panel recycling facility in Da Nang Vietnam and a seaweed/bioplastics manufacturer in Tangerang Indonesia.
The United States paired municipal water and wastewater facility operators from five cities across the United States and the ASEAN Smart Cities Network to share their expertise.
This year marks the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative’s (YSEALI) second decade of building youth leadership capabilities across Southeast Asia to promote cross-border cooperation on regional and global challenges. YSEALI’s 160,000 strong digital network and 6,000 plus alumni community is creating new opportunities for its members to shape YSEALI’s next 10 years of impact. The State Department is well on its way to doubling the number of Southeast Asian youth participating in the YSEALI Academic and Professional Fellowships by 2025, in line with the commitments laid out by President Biden and Vice President Harris during the May 2022 U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit.
The United States has invested over $1.8 million to empower nearly 500 young women as part of the YSEALI Women’s Leadership Academy (WLA). In celebration of the WLA’s 10th anniversary, the U.S. Mission to ASEAN granted $44,000 to alumni groups to foster collaboration and find innovative ways to close the gender leadership gap.
The YSEALI Seeds for the Future Program—a grant program intended to support innovative initiatives in Southeast Asia—has provided nearly $3 million for more than 500 young leaders to carry out projects that improve their communities.
The Department of State’s YSEALI Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund supported 16 YSEALI alumni-led public service projects in 2024.
ENHANCING CONNECTIVITY AND RESILIENCE
The Biden-Harris Administration continues to build greater connectivity with ASEAN and enhancing regional resilience to bolster economic development and integration. The United States is ASEAN’s number one source of foreign direct investment, and U.S. goods and services trade totaled an estimated $500 billion in 2023. Since 2002, the United States has provided more than $14.7 billion in economic, health, and security assistance to Southeast Asian allies and partners. During that same period, the United States provided nearly $1.9 billion in humanitarian assistance, including life-saving disaster assistance, emergency food aid, and support to refugees throughout the region. As a durable and reliable partner of ASEAN, the United States supports the governments and people of Southeast Asia in enhancing the region’s connectivity and resilience. In addition to U.S. companies’ substantial investments, the United States is cooperating with the private sector to equip the region’s workforce with the skills needed to succeed in Southeast Asia’s burgeoning digital economy. Other key U.S. initiatives supporting this effort include:
USAID announces $2 million of new funding to support the sustainable development of critical minerals, supporting ASEAN’s goal of raising environmental, social, and governance standards for mineral sector development.
Through the Japan-U.S.-Mekong Power Partnership (JUMPP), the U.S. Department of State has implemented over 60 technical assistance activities to strengthen national power sectors and regional electricity market, enhancing the clean energy export potential of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam to the ASEAN market.
The U.S. Trade and Development Agency is supporting a feasibility study to develop two cross-border interconnections, further expanding our longstanding support to connect the ASEAN Power Grid.
USAID is expanding cooperation with the ASEAN Center for Energy to support private sector and multilateral development bank investment to operationalize regional connectivity through the ASEAN Power Grid.
Through the ASEAN Digital Ministers’ Meeting and Digital Senior Officials’ Meeting, we are intensifying our cooperation on trusted information and communications technology infrastructure – including undersea cables, cloud computing, and wireless networks, artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and combatting online scams.
The United States supported development of the ASEAN Responsible AI Roadmap and provided AI technical assistance for the Digital Economy Framework Agreement. Our collective effort ensures ASEAN can foster an inclusive environment where affirmative, safe, secure, and trustworthy AI innovation can flourish.
Under the U.S.-ASEAN Connect framework, the U.S. Mission to ASEAN is leveraging the U.S. government and private sector expertise to advance economic engagement, including through workshops covering topics such as best practices to strengthen cybersecurity and how to harness digital technologies.
Over the past three and a half years, the Biden-Harris Administration has also spurred investment and economic growth through the advancement of over $1.4 billion in private sector investments in the ASEAN region. This past year alone, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has invested over $341 million in ASEAN markets. To further our cooperation and support, DFC has announced that it will open new offices in Vietnam and the Philippines to source more opportunities and further advance private sector investment. DFC’s key initiatives and investments have included:
Loaning up to $126 million loan to power company PT Medco Cahaya Geothermal to strengthen Indonesia’s energy security.
Initiating DFC’s first investment in Lao PDR with a $4 million loan portfolio guarantee to Phongsavanh Bank, which will work with Village Funds to give farmers financing to scale their businesses, increase their incomes, and improve their livelihoods.
Initiating DFC’s first investment in East Timor with a $3 million loan to microfinance institution Kaebauk Investimentu No Finansas, which will provide financing to small businesses, especially rural and unbanked ones.
We look forward to continue advancing our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with ASEAN in 2025 by formulating a new plan of action to guide the next five years of our enduring partnership as we work to further the prosperity of our combined one billion people.
Source: Switzerland – Federal Administration in English
Paul Scherrer Institut
Villigen, 10.10.2024 – Catalysts belonging to the zeolite family help to remove toxic nitrogen oxides from industrial emissions. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have now discovered that their complex nano porous structure is crucial. Specifically, individual iron atoms sitting in certain neighbouring pores communicate with each other, thereby driving the desired reaction.
Industry produces gases that are harmful to both humans and the environment and therefore must be prevented from escaping. These include nitric oxide and nitrous oxide, the latter also known as laughing gas. Both can be produced simultaneously when manufacturing fertilisers, for example. To remove them from the waste gases, companies use zeolite-based catalysts. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, in collaboration with the Swiss chemical company CASALE SA, have now worked out the details of how these catalysts render the combination of these two nitrogen oxides harmless. The results of their research have been published in the journal Nature Catalysis and provide clues as to how the catalysts could be improved in the future.
An entire zoo of iron species
“The Lugano-based company CASALE contacted us because they wanted to develop a better understanding of how their catalysts used for the abatement of nitrogen oxide actually work,” says Davide Ferri, head of the Applied Catalysis and Spectroscopy research group at the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences. The zeolites used for this are composed of aluminium, oxygen and silicon atoms forming a kind of framework. Zeolites occur naturally – as minerals in rock formations, for example – or they can be manufactured synthetically. Many catalysts used in the chemical industry are based on these compounds, with additional elements added to the basic structure depending on the specific application.
When the zeolite framework also contains iron as an active substance, it enables the conversion of the two nitrogen oxides, nitric oxide (NO) and nitrous oxide(N2O), into harmless molecules. “However, these iron atoms can be located in many different positions of the zeolite framework and can possess various forms,” says Filippo Buttignol, a member of Ferri’s group. He is the principal author of the new study, which he conducted as part of his doctoral thesis. “The iron can lodge in the small spaces of the zeolite in the form of single atoms, or else several iron atoms can bound together and with oxygen atoms in slightly larger spaces in the regular lattice as diatomic, multiatomic or polyatomic clusters.” In short, the catalyst contains an entire zoo of different iron species. “We wanted to know which of these iron species is actually responsible for the catalysis of nitrogen oxides.”
The researchers, who specialise in spectroscopic analyses, knew exactly which three types of experiment they needed to carry out to answer this question. They performed these while the catalytic reaction was taking place in their zeolite sample. First they used the Swiss Light Source SLS at PSI to analyse the process using X-ray absorption spectroscopy. “This allowed us to look at all the iron species simultaneously,” explains Buttignol. Next, in collaboration with ETH Zurich, they used electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy to identify the contribution of each species. And finally – again at PSI – the scientists used infrared spectroscopy to determine the molecular aspect of the different iron species.
Catalysis happens at individual but communicating atoms
Each of these three methods contributed a piece of the puzzle, eventually leading to the following overall picture: Catalysis takes place at single iron atoms which are located in two very specific, neighbouring sites of the zeolite lattice. During the process, these two iron atoms act in concert with each other. One of them, sitting at the centre of four oxygen atoms in the zeolite arranged in the form of a square and responsible specifically to convert nitrous oxide, communicates with a different iron atom, which is surrounded by oxygen atoms arranged in the form of a tetrahedron and at which the nitric oxide reacts.
“Only where this precise arrangement is found do we see iron contributing to the catalysis of the simultaneous abatement of the two gases,” says Buttignol. Each of these iron atoms gave up an electron and took it back again, in other words the typical redox reaction of catalysis took place there over and over again.
Removing hazardous nitrogen oxides more efficiently
Ferri sums up the significance of the new study: “If you know exactly where the chemical reaction takes place, you can start adjusting the manufacture of catalysts accordingly.”
The catalysis of nitric oxide and nitrous oxide and thus their removal from industrial waste gases is important because both are toxic to humans. Beyond this, both gases are also harmful to the environment: nitric oxide is one of the causes of acid rain, while nitrous oxide has such a strong impact on the climate that one molecule of it contributes almost 300 times more to the greenhouse effect than a molecule of carbon dioxide.
Text: Paul Scherrer Institut PSI/Laura Hennemann
Technical terms explained
Catalyst: A material that enables a chemical reaction to take place which would otherwise be much more difficult to achieve. Individual atoms or agglomerates of atoms of the catalytic material can move to and from between different chemical states (see redox reaction), but always return to their original state. This means that a catalyst is neither consumed nor permanently altered during the process.
Spectroscopy: Spectroscopic analyses use visible light or other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum (including ultraviolet and infrared radiation, as well as X-rays, microwaves and other spectral ranges, all of which are invisible to the human eye). Many different techniques exist, which differ in their details. What they all have in common is that the light interacts with the sample and the result reveals information about certain aspects or properties of the sample.
X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS): This particular spectroscopic analysis uses X-rays. The sample absorbs individual parts of the X-ray spectrum, allowing researchers to deduce certain properties of the sample.
Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy: This involves placing the sample in a magnetic field and simultaneously irradiating it with microwaves.
Infrared spectroscopy: The infrared range of the spectrum can be used to excite vibrations or rotations of molecules. This means that infrared spectroscopy can be used to quantitatively characterise known substances or to determine the structure of unknown substances.
Tetrahedron: A tetrahedron is a pyramid whose base is a triangle (as are all its sides).
Redox reaction: The term redox reaction is a portmanteau for “reduction-oxidation” reaction. In a redox reaction, two chemical substances – a reducing agent or reductant and an oxidising agent or oxidant – exchange electrons. The former loses or donates electrons, while the latter gains or accepts them.
About PSI
The Paul Scherrer Institute PSI develops, builds and operates large, complex research facilities and makes them available to the national and international research community. The institute’s own key research priorities are in the fields of future technologies, energy and climate, health innovation and fundamentals of nature. PSI is committed to the training of future generations. Therefore about one quarter of our staff are post-docs, post-graduates or apprentices. Altogether PSI employs 2300 people, thus being the largest research institute in Switzerland. The annual budget amounts to approximately CHF 460 million. PSI is part of the ETH Domain, with the other members being the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne, as well as Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology), Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) and WSL (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research).
Original publication
F. Buttignol, J. W. A. Fischer, A. H. Clark, M. Elsener, A. Garbujo, P. Biasi, I. Czekaj, M. Nachtegaal, G. Jeschke, O. Kröcher and D. Ferri Iron-catalyzed cooperative red-ox mechanism for the simultaneous conversion of nitrous oxide and nitric oxide Nature Catalysis, 10.10.2024 (online) DOI: 10.1038/s41929-024-01231-3
Address for enquiries
Dr Davide Ferri PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences Paul Scherrer Institute PSI +41 56 310 27 81 davide.ferri@psi.ch [German, English, French, Italian]
Dr Filippo Buttignol PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences Paul Scherrer Institute PSI +41 56 310 37 58 filippo.buttignol@psi.ch [English, Italian]
Question for written answer E-001944/2024 to the Commission Rule 144 Isabel Serra Sánchez (The Left)
The European Commission’s recent proposal to lower the level of protection for wolves is a threat to the still pending achievement of the wolf recovery objective, as set out in both the Bern Convention and the Habitats Directive. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, six out of nine transboundary wolf populations in the EU are ‘vulnerable’ or ‘near threatened’. Reducing their level of protection at this point would compromise the objective of achieving viable and stable wolf populations.
In addition to the fact that the proposal to lower protection has no scientific basis, the Commission itself confirmed in its analysis that hunting does not reduce predation on domestic livestock.
In light of the above:
1.How does the Commission assess the risk posed to the future of the wolf by reducing the level of protection accorded to the species?
2.How will the Commission ensure that wolves cannot be hunted in countries where they are not in a favourable conservation status?
3.How will the Commission ensure that any future changes to species included in the Habitats Directive will be based on science and not on political interests?
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman John Garamendi – Representing California’s 3rd Congressional District
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Representative John Garamendi (D-CA-08), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, joined Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro in addressing senior military leaders, industry experts, and international allies during the San Francisco Fleet Week Senior Leaders Seminar aboard the USS Tripoli.
In his remarks titled “Reimagining the American Maritime Industry,” Garamendi emphasized workforce development, shipbuilding modernization, infrastructure investment, and the vital role that the Bay Area plays in strengthening the U.S. maritime industry. He also praised Secretary Del Toro’s focus on a whole-of-government approach to enhancing U.S. maritime capabilities. Garamendi outlined his “Congressional Guidance for a National Maritime Strategy,” co-led with Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Representative Waltz (R-FL-06), and discussed ongoing legislative efforts to bolster America’s maritime industries.
“Reinvigorating the American maritime sector is not just a military imperative but an economic one. We must prioritize strategic investments that will drive innovation and keep our industry competitive on the global stage. The future of American shipbuilding and repair lies not only in technology but in the people who bring that technology to life,” said Garamendi.
He also highlighted the Bay Area’s maritime legacy and its potential to lead the nation in green shipbuilding and port modernization. Citing Mare Island—the first U.S. Navy base on the West Coast—as an example, Garamendi highlighted how revitalizing legacy sites like Mare Island Shipyard with modern infrastructure and workforce development, position the San Francisco Bay Area as a cornerstone for revitalizing U.S. maritime strength.
Garamendi stressed the importance of preparing the next generation of maritime workers, underscoring the need for strategic federal investments that will create high-paying jobs, strengthen local communities, and bolster national defense.
Garamendi has been a longtime advocate of reinvigorating the American maritime industry. Garamendi has led bipartisan efforts throughout his career to pass legislation supporting U.S. shipbuilding, maintaining a robust Ready Reserve Fleet, and enhancing ship repair capacity nationwide.
He has supported key provisions in Congress, including:
2023 Federal Ship Financing Improvement Act:
This legislation aims to provide new federal loans and loan guarantees for repairs and retrofits of U.S.-flagged civilian vessels in domestic shipyards, like Mare Island Dry Dock.
Garamendi has advocated for increased funding for MARAD programs that support shipbuilding and repair, including Title XI loan guarantees. In 2021, Garamendi secured a provision in federal law designating the California State University Maritime Academy (Cal Maritime) as national center of excellence for domestic maritime workforce training and education, ensuring closer cooperation and sharing of resources with the Maritime Administration (MARAD).
Sustained Funding for the National Defense Reserve Fleet:
In 2024, Garamendi secured funds to support the National Defense Reserve Fleet and the Maritime Security Program, U.S.-flagged commercial vessels used to transport military personnel, cargo, fuel, and equipment for the U.S. military in the National Defense Authorization Act.
National Maritime Strategy:
Support for the Jones Act:
Garamendi has worked to ensure that domestic maritime commerce is conducted by U.S.-flagged vessels, preserving jobs in the American maritime industry. He reintroduced the “Close Agency Loopholes to the Jones Act,” which would close nearly 50 years of loopholes that disadvantage American workers—known as “letter rulings”—by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Specifically, these loopholes allow federal regulators to circumvent the Jones Act—a federal maritime law that requires transportation and items shipped between U.S. ports to be conducted on ships that are built and operated by American citizens or permanent residents.
Maritime Workforce Development Programs:
In 2022, Garamendi announced a $13 million investment at Mare Island Dry Dock that would double its workforce and help the shipyard prepare to conduct ship repairs for the United States Navy and Coast Guard. In 2023, Garamendi secured $1 million for job training programs at a new Career Technical Education Centers in Contra Costa County. This will help young people throughout the Bay Area receive the highest possible industry-standard certifications to help them earn high-wage jobs in the skilled trades.
Environmental Standards for the Maritime Industry:
In the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, Garamendi secured a provision that will minimize runoff of untreated water and designate a DoD official responsible for coordinating regional stormwater management among military departments.
Garamendi secured funding for portable battery-electric generators, like those manufactured in Richmond, to ensure that installations can continue operations in the event of a blackout or Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS). This builds on Garamendi’s efforts to ensure that the military supports a transition to a clean energy economy.
Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure:
Garamendi has encouraged the use of public-private partnerships (PPPs) to finance port and maritime infrastructure projects, reducing the financial burden on public entities.
Maritime Research and Development Initiatives:
Garamendi authorized more than $58 million for state maritime academies like California State University Maritime Academy (Cal Maritime) in Vallejo. Once enacted into law, this new federal funding will support scholarships for low-income students, funding for shoreside infrastructure, and funding for fuel and maintenance expenses.
On October 7, the Government of Yukon introduced amendments in the Yukon Legislative Assembly to the Forest Resources Act as well as technical amendments to the Environment Act.
Read more about Government of Yukon introduces legislative amendments to enhance environmental protection
Manitoba Government Helping Local Companies Grow in New Markets
Growing Exports will Create Good Jobs for Manitobans: Moses
The Manitoba government is providing $500,000 in export support programming for small and medium-sized Manitoba companies looking to explore, initiate or expand their export activities into new markets, Economic Development, Investment, Trade and Natural Resources Minister Jamie Moses announced today.
“Helping companies start to export or expand their exporting capabilities will boost trade and create good local jobs for Manitobans,” said Moses. “We’re continuing to work with Manitoba companies to develop export opportunities and increase business investments in our province.”
Export support programming helps businesses export their products or services outside of Manitoba. The programming provides funding through two streams:
The Export Development Program provides reimbursement to Manitoba companies participating in a tradeshow or mission outside the province.
The Incoming Buyer Program provides reimbursement to local companies that invite qualified international buyers to the province with the goal of purchasing Manitoba products.
“The Export Development Program has been a vital resource in supporting our expansion into new markets,” said Teaghan Wellman, executive vice president, Cypher Environmental. “Through its additional backing for our participation in international trade shows and missions, we’ve been able to capitalize on key opportunities that have significantly accelerated our growth. This program has not only helped us strengthen our export strategy and broaden our global presence but remains a driving force behind our success, enhancing our competitiveness and resilience in an ever-evolving global market.”
The program has seen strong uptake from Manitoba companies, highlighting the importance of having dedicated provincial export support programming. As of March, programming has supported 45 companies to attend 74 national and international events, trade shows, missions and conventions to form valuable partnerships, noted the minister.
“Manitoba’s new trade strategy will focus on attracting investment to Manitoba, having more domestic companies exporting products or services abroad, and increasing our global presence,” said Moses. “This funding helps companies make exporting a reality and is a crucial part of our trade strategy.”
Industry roundtables are planned in the coming months, building off the work of the Premier’s Business and Jobs Council’s sub-committee on trade with the U.S. and recent trade missions to Washington.
Applications for export support program funding are now being accepted. For more program information, visit www.gov.mb.ca/jec/busdev/financial/export/index.html.
The world is facing multiple — potentially catastrophic — crises, including inequality, poverty, food insecurity, climate change and biodiversity loss. These issues are interconnected and require systemic solutions, as changes in one system affects others.
However, human systems have largely failed to acknowledge their connection to ecological systems. Most modern societies have dominating and exploitative relationships with nature, which are underpinned by imperialist and dualistic thinking that divides living beings into racial, gender, class or species hierarchies.
Our current mindset, with its focus on competition, growth and profit, has been a key contributor to social and ecological crises. Even more alarming is that this mindset has depleted nature to the point that it may soon fail to sustain human and non-human lives entirely.
While current sustainability efforts, such as those outlined in Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity — a collaboration between scientists and economists from around the world — and the United Nations’ Pact for the Future offer pathways for action, they often fall short. These initiatives, though well-intentioned, remain rooted in a business-as-usual approach.
This isn’t enough. What’s needed is a transformative shift in how we interact with the natural world. A reciprocal relationship between humans and nature, where humans give back to the environment as much as we take, is essential. Sustainable and equitable well-being must be placed at the centre of human societies.
Central to this transformation is the need to ensure good lives for all while staying within the Earth’s planetary boundaries. These boundaries are the limits within which humanity can safely operate without causing irreversible environmental harm. This will require a new economic mindset that enables people to live with nature, instead of destroying it.
Change is daunting, but possible
Though the scale of change needed may seem daunting, it’s achievable and already in motion in some places. In many communities around the world, like Puget Sound on the northwestern coast of Washington state, people are already living in ways that allow humans and ecosystems to flourish.
In other regions, like Ecuador and Sumas First Nation, new possibilities are emerging for building human societies that operate within the planetary boundaries. Humans are exceptionally adaptable and have the advantage of foresight and the ability to transform entire systems through ethical collaboration.
Individual action is one necessary element to accelerate this shift. Change often starts small, with individuals and small groups adjusting their lives. But while personal choices do matter, individuals must also push for systemic changes in their communities, organizations, and broader society.
To make nature-connected living more widely accessible, collaborative, equitable and intentional efforts are needed. This involves intercultural communication, collaboration and open dialogue to ensure diverse perspectives are considered in decision-making processes.
Thoughtfully considering the direct and indirect impacts of our action, including the immediate and long-term consequences of any decisions, will create more equitable and sustainable systems.
People looking to create meaningful change should seek to support a range of groups and organizations dedicated to environmental and social justice. This includes Indigenous leaders and treaty protocols, local authorities, environmental advocacy groups, community organizations or labour unions. A good example of this is the work being done by the UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserves.
Creativity — the essence of adaptability — flourishes when different knowledge systems are woven together. However, this must be done ethically and involve consensual and collaborative exchanges to ensure no knowledge system is exploited or undervalued. We must be careful to avoid repeating the mistakes of imperialism and domination that have created our current planetary crises.
In addition to rethinking how we approach knowledge, rebuilding strong, interconnected relationships between humans and nature also means rethinking our technological systems.
Technological innovation has been used to exploit the Earth for short-term gains, but it also holds great potential for positive change. It can either maintain or disrupt the status quo, depending on how we use it.
To build healthier relationships between people and nature, human societies need to adopt a systems thinking approach. This approach looks at the bigger picture, considering the ecological, cultural, political and social aspects of technology in an integrated manner. It ensures that innovation is guided by principles of sustainability and equity.
Climate change, biodiversity loss and resource depletion are not isolated problems — they are part of an interconnected web of crises that demand urgent and comprehensive action.
Incremental approaches are not enough to address the scale of these looming threats. Purposefully co-ordinated actions are needed to shift the current trajectory away from exploitation to one of mutual benefit for humans and the natural world.
What is needed is radical transformation aimed at creating just and flourishing relationships between nature and humanity for the benefit of all current and future life on Earth.
Christie Manning, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Macalester College; Jacqueline Corbett, Professor of Information Systems, Université Laval; and Simone Bignall, Senior Researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, co-authored this article.
Liette Vasseur receives funding from New Frontiers Research Program Exploration program in Canada.
Anders Hayden and Mike Jones do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
An Ohio man was sentenced today to 54 months in prison and three years of supervised release in connection with his involvement with online groups dedicated to creating and distributing videos depicting acts of extreme violence and sexual abuse against monkeys.
According to court documents, Ronald P. Bedra, of Etna, conspired with others to create and distribute videos depicting acts of sadistic violence against baby and adult monkeys. The conspirators used encrypted chat applications to direct money to individuals in Indonesia willing to commit the requested acts of torture on camera. Bedra also mailed a thumb drive containing 64 videos of monkey torture to a co-conspirator in Wisconsin.
According to a statement of facts signed by defendant Bedra, the videos in question included depictions of monkeys having their digits and limbs severed and monkeys being forcibly sodomized with a heated screwdriver. Bedra pleaded guilty in April.
“Defendant Ronald Bedra commissioned grotesque videos of torture of juvenile and baby monkeys,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “Such appalling conduct has no place in our society. The Justice Department stands ready to prosecute individuals engaging in this activity to the fullest extent of the law.”
“We will punish participants of sadistic conspiracies like this one no matter their role in the crime,” said U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker for the Southern District of Ohio. “As this case shows, even if you do not commit the torture firsthand, you will be held accountable for promoting this obscene animal abuse.”
“The torture of animals in this case is disturbing, cruel and illegal,” said Special Agent in Charge Elena Iatarola of FBI’s Cincinnati Field Office. “The FBI and our partners will continue to work to protect defenseless animals and investigate those who intentionally harm them.”
“Today’s sentencing underscores the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s unwavering commitment to combating the exploitation of wildlife in any form,” said Assistant Director Edward Grace of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement. “These monstrous crimes are indefensible. This case serves as a stark reminder that those who harm animals protected under federal and international laws and treaties will face serious consequences. We continue to work diligently with our partners to identify and prosecute individuals engaged in these cruel activities to the fullest extent of the law.”
The FBI and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated the case. Homeland Security Investigations provided critical assistance.
Trial Attorney Mark Romley and Senior Trial Attorney Adam Cullman of the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Pakiz for the Southern District of Ohio are prosecuting the case.
Source: United States Senator for New Hampshire Maggie Hassan
(Washington, DC) – U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), a lead negotiator of the water provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and Maggie Hassan (D-NH), alongside Representatives Annie Kuster (NH-02) and Chris Pappas (NH-01), celebrated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement of $24,898,000 in new funding for New Hampshire for drinking water infrastructure, including to identify and remove lead pipes. The funding comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which was negotiated by Senators Shaheen and Hassan, and which the full New Hampshire Congressional delegation supported. Along with the funding, EPA announced plans to replace lead pipes across the country within a decade.
“Every Granite Stater, regardless of where they live, should have clean water running from their taps,” said Senator Shaheen, “That’s why I was proud to help lead negotiations on the water infrastructure provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—the largest single investment in water ever made by the federal government. I’m glad to see more funding headed to New Hampshire from this historic law to benefit drinking water systems in communities throughout the state.”
“Every Granite Stater deserves access to safe, clean drinking water, and that will be possible for more families now thanks to nearly $25 million in federal funding coming to New Hampshire to replace lead pipes,” said Senator Hassan. “I helped negotiate and pass the bipartisan infrastructure law to enable projects like these, which allow our communities to thrive, and I am glad to see that the bipartisan infrastructure law continues to deliver for New Hampshire.”
“Lead exposure poses a serious threat to the health and well-being of Granite State communities—particularly kids’ growth and development,” said Congresswoman Kuster. “With these resources made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, New Hampshire will be able to remove dangerous lead pipes and ensure more homes, schools, and businesses have access to safe, clean drinking water.”
“Lead pipes are harmful to the health of New Hampshire families and children, and addressing them in a targeted and comprehensive manner will ensure that everyone can access safe, clean drinking water,” said Congressman Chris Pappas. “I helped pass the bipartisan infrastructure law to deliver federal resources to our communities to modernize our infrastructure and safeguard public health, and these funds will do that. I’ll keep fighting to address contaminants in drinking water and protect the well-being of Granite Staters.”
The New Hampshire Congressional delegation has championed work to ensure every Granite Stater has access to clean, safe drinking water no matter where they live. As a lead negotiator of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Shaheen spearheaded the water infrastructure provisions with Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), securing record funding to upgrade drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, address PFAS contamination and replace lead pipes. The nearly $25 million announced this week adds to the more than $265 million that New Hampshire has received for water infrastructure from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law since its enactment in 2021.
Health experts are calling for urgent widespread vaccination to protect our most vulnerable as whooping cough cases in Aotearoa hit their highest levels in five years.
The Asthma and Respiratory Foundation NZ, which is supported by leading respiratory specialists, is urging swift preventative measures, particularly for those with existing respiratory conditions.
Figures from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) show 187 cases reported in September, more than double the previous month’s total of 75.
Foundation Medical Director Professor Bob Hancox says whooping cough poses serious health risks for people with respiratory conditions.
“Whooping cough is a life-threatening illness for young babies, but can also cause serious illness in those already struggling with respiratory issues.
“It can exacerbate symptoms, leading to hospitalisations or even fatalities.”
Even among people without respiratory disease, it can cause a nasty illness with a cough that can last for months, Professor Hancox says.
“So it is crucial that we take this spike in cases seriously – vaccination is our best and strongest defence to protect those who are most vulnerable.”
Whooping cough, or Bordetella pertussis, is a highly contagious illness.
According to Healthify, on average, each person with whooping cough passes the infection on to 12 other people.
Whooping cough causes bouts of intense coughing and trouble breathing. Each bout may last for two or three minutes, and the cough can last three months.
It can cause serious illness and sometimes death in babies, young children and older adults.
Foundation Chief Executive Ms Letitia Harding says the best action we can take to protect each other, including the 1 in 5 Kiwis affected by respiratory disease, is to get vaccinated.
“As we face the risk of a widespread outbreak, it is critical for at-risk individuals to be vaccinated.
“This includes pregnant people, babies, and older adults with pre-existing respiratory conditions,” she says.
“The reality is that whooping cough can be fatal, so we are urging all Kiwis to do their part.”
