Eco Report – June 21, 2024

In this week’s feature report,  WFHB News Correspondents Noelle Herhusky-Schneider, Kade Young and Madison Stratton investigate Indiana’s efforts to rollback protections for wetlands. This is Part One of a four-part series that previously aired on Deep Dive: WFHB and Limestone Post Investigate.

As Eco Report has cited many times, and Inside Climate Change now reports, new research finds most of the world’s largest marine protected areas have inadequate protections. In a setback to efforts to conserve 30 percent of the ocean by 2030, a third of the world’s largest protected areas allow destructive practices like mining and commercial fishing, while others are “paper parks” with no formal conservation measures. The study, conducted by an international group of researchers spearheaded by the Marine Conservation Institute in Seattle, Washington, focused on the largest 100 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the world, which together encompass over 7 percent of the world’s ocean area.

“There are 18,000 MPAs, but a hundred of them make up 90 percent of the area,” said Beth Pike, director of the Marine Protection Atlas and the study’s lead author. “These are the big needle movers.” Pike and her colleagues found only a third of these MPAs’ total expanse to be under high or full protection—just 2.6 percent of the global ocean footprint. They found another third of these MPAs’ territories allowed for destructive activities, such as mining and industrial fishing, making them inherently incompatible with conservation.

Additionally, another quarter of the protected area they analyzed were deemed “paper parks,” meaning that while these ocean spaces had been officially proposed or designated as MPAs, they had yet to implement any subsequent conservation measures.Having fully protected marine areas is the most important and lowest cost approach to saving life in the oceans. The simple way of protecting these areas is to monitor the position of all commercial fishing boats in the same way that all aircraft are monitored. If a boat enters a protected area, the boat is seized when it goes to port. So why isn’t this done? Fishermen want to cheat, and government officials are interested in taking a bribe to allow illegal boats to fish their territorial waters.

Over the past few legislative sessions, the amount of protected wetlands has been reduced by half. The legislation was crafted by contractors in the legislature seeking cheap land. The story about the most recent effort to seize wetland comes from Mirror Indy, written by Enrique Saenz, familiar to our listeners from his days working for the Resilience Institute. A controversial plan to build a 200-acre retail development along the Indianapolis border with Greenwood is on hold after a state agency denied the developer’s permit application.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management denied Indianapolis-based Gershman Partners’ application to destroy a quarter acre of Class III wetlands, categorized as being the highest quality wetlands by state law, in order to build a $174-million development that would include several warehouses and a hotel. Mirror Indy first reported how the plan — which also would destroy dozens of acres of other wetlands — drew opposition from many Franklin Township residents due to the effect wetland destruction would have on flooding and wildlife.

The agency said it denied the permit for multiple reasons, including that the developers failed to demonstrate that there were no reasonable alternatives to destroying the wetlands and that there were plenty of already-built warehouses the company could buy instead of building new ones. Gershman Partners, which did not immediately respond to Mirror Indy’s request for comment, could appeal the decision by June 12 or submit a new plan. For now, some Franklin Township residents are cautiously cheering the agency’s decision.

The development plan, proposed by Gershman and Citimark Management, included the destruction of 45 acres of wetland in all, but the quarter acre of high quality wetlands appeared to be the sticking point. Class III wetlands have unique protections in the state that are not given to any other type of wetland. As a result, developers must apply for a permit to disturb or destroy them. Gershman had proposed to purchase roughly $49,000 in mitigation credits, which would pay the state to replant the wetlands somewher in the Upper White River Service Area, a 2,700 square-mile are stretching across 16 counties.

According to the nonprofit Hoosier Environment Council, there would be “almost no chance” that the replacement would be build in the watershed where the wetlands currently are, the Pleasant Run Creek watershed.The Indiana Department of Environmental Management also said it based its decision on Greshman Partners’ submission of two sets of plans for the warehouses which differed on the number of warehouses that would be built and the effect they would have on the wetlands.

And, according to IDEM’s permit denial, the agency drew key information it sued for its decision from a public hearing held April 9, which the developers did not attend. Heldman with IDEM, said the developer’s absence from the hearing made her believe they had no intention of altering their plans and is glad the agency denied their application. “I was elated that the community’s voice was heard,” Heldman said. “I think that the number of people that showed up and expressed concern and legitimate reasoning and facts is exactly what was needed. I think that was pivotal to this decision.”

According to the New York Times, Polar bears in the southern Hudson Bay could go extinct as early as the 2030s because the sea ice that helps them hunt for food is thinning, a new study suggests. “We’ve known that the loss of Arctic sea ice would spell disaster for polar bears, so this might be the first subpopulation that disappears,” said Julienne Stroeve, the lead author of the study, which was published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Last month, the eastern half of Hudson Bay, home to the world’s most-studied polar bears, went ice free a month earlier than usual. Polar bears are used to an ice-free season of about four months when they rely on fat reserves until ice reforms and they can hunt blubber-rich seals from the floes. But the presence of sea ice doesn’t guarantee the bears will be able to hunt; it needs to be thick enough to support them. The minimum thickness of ice to support a polar bear is about 4 inches. However, when chasing a seal, 4 inches is not enough.

The ice-free season is now about a month longer than what polar bears are habituated to. Studies show that when the ice-free period extends to six months, even the hardiest Hudson Bay bears, generally healthy adult males, will struggle to survive. Polar bears are what is known as an indicator species, meaning they predict the health and viability of the broader Arctic ecosystem. The concurrent loss of sea ice with depletion in snow cover significantly affects their preferred diet of ringed seals, which have a hard time keeping pups alive in their birthing dens if snow levels drop below 12 inches.

Given that little is being done to halt climate change, our present course will likely mean open water in Hudson Bay for most of the year. If the carbon dioxide level reaches 500 ppm, there will be almost no ice in the Arctic. It would seem that polar bears will have little chance of surviving outside of zoos.

CBS News reports that 2023 was an exceptional year for forest fires, marking a turning point in the history of forest fires in Quebec and Canada. The fires numbered well above the annual average of 480 fires over the last ten years. The 2023 wildfire season in Canada was the worst on record, with 6,551 fires scorching nearly 46 million acres, from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces and the far north. The impact on the environment, particularly air quality, in both Canada and the United States was profound. As predicted, 2024 is shaping up to be another devastating wildfire season, and disaster and climate experts have a pretty good idea of why.

Most of the fires now ravaging Canada have actually been burning since last fire season, having smoldered slowly during the winter under the snowpack. Scientists say these blazes, sometimes called zombie fires, are a stark reminder of the impact of climate change. Studies have linked the overwinter fires to ongoing drought conditions amid the increasingly hot, dry springs Canada has experienced in recent years. Scientists say less precipitation and warmer winter temperatures mean fires can keep burning in the dense layers of vegetation under the snowpack.

Sonja Leverkus, an ecosystem scientist in British Columbia who also works as a firefighter, told CBS News that the northeast of the Canadian province has so many wildfires at the moment “because we are in a severe drought for a third year in a row.” She said the parched conditions were likely to make things worse before they get any better. Another factor for Canadian forests is predation by the pine beetle. The “findings”, published in the journal Global Change Biology, show the beetle’s typical 40-day brooding period accelerated to 30 days when they were exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide, the driving force behind human-caused climate change.

Rashaduz Zaman, lead author and a PhD candidate in forest biology and management at the University of Alberta, said the results show that as the climate changes, insects like the mountain pine beetle are adapting at a time trees are becoming more vulnerable to things like drought. Since the early 1990s, the mountain pine beetle has attacked about 40 million acres of forest, including half of the total volume of commercial lodgepole pine in British Columbia, according to Natural Resources Canada. Warmer winters and drier summers allowed the beetle to extend well beyond its traditional range in the boreal forests of B.C.

In this weeks feature, WFHB News Correspondents Noelle Herhusky-Schneider, Kade Young and Madison Stratton investigate Indiana’s efforts to rollback protections for wetlands. This is Part One of a four-part series that previously aired on Deep Dive: WFHB and Limestone Post Investigate.

• Cave River Valley Day will take place at Cave River Valley Natural Area which is part of Spring Mill State Park, on Saturday, June 22nd, from 10 am to 4 pm. Multiple hikes will take place all day. There are no restrooms, so plan accordingly. Please wear waterproof shoes, bring water and bug spray. You must pre-register at [email protected].
•  A Nocturnal Pollinator Party at McCormick’s Creek State Park is planned for Saturday, June, 22nd, from 10 to 10:45 pm. Meet at the Nature Center Ampitheater to learn the many ways you can attract nocturnal pollinators like moths and bats to your home.
• Learn about Fireflies at McCormick’s Creek State Park on Sunday, June 23rd, from 10 to 10:45 pm. Hike to the Fire Tower to catch fireflies and learn about their communication. Meet at the Canyon Inn.
• Meet the Mustelids at Brown County State Park on Wednesday, June 26th, from 3 to 3:45 pm. Learn interesting facts and information about this mischievous group of mammals. So what is a Mustelid? Come and find out. Meet at the Nature Center.
• A program on boater safety, Canoe Find It? is scheduled for Saturday, June 29th, at Griffy Lake Nature Preserve from 4 to 6 pm. After discussing boater safety, you will head to the water to practice paddling techniques. A scavenger hunt will allow you to practice as well as have fun. There is a prize! Register at bloomington.IN.gov/parks.

Credits:

On Air………………………………….Julianna Dailey
On Air…………………………………….Robert Schull
Headlines……………………………………Norm Holy
Feature Report………….Noelle Herhusky-Schneider
Feature Report…………………………….Kade Young
Feature Report……………………..Madison Stratton
Feature Report……………………………….Zyro Roze
Script……………………………………Julianna Dailey
Events Calendar……………………….Julianna Dailey
Engineer……………………………..Branden Blewett

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