biodiversity hotspot Archives - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
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Lisa S. French

Community Conservation: Love and Hope in Action

2.5-minute read

And just like that, it’s December…

Before we give Wild & Wondrous a holiday rest, we’d like to dedicate one of the last posts of the year to one of our favorite topics: community conservation—local communities working together to restore nature and protect wildlife. This rights-based, bottom-up approach to preserving global biodiversity is one of the most effective strategies for healing our planet. What makes it work? It’s low cost, it’s flexible, and it benefits both people and endangered species. What’s not to love?

From the Florida Keys to the Amazon rainforest to the savannahs of East Africa, innovative conservation organizations are empowering local communities to protect the land and seascapes that sustain them and native wildlife and support the healthy functioning of ecosystems.

One of the most impactful community-based conservation organizations operating today and an all-around, results-oriented top pick that inspires us throughout the year is Big Life Foundation. Whether you’re new to their work or already a fan and can spare a moment to be re-enthused, we’d like to share some highlights about how they do what they do so well.

Big Life’s team of 500-plus rangers protects and secures wildlife and critical habitat across 1.6 million acres across the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem in East Africa. Home to an amazing variety of wildlife like African bush elephants, impalas, lions, cheetahs, Masai giraffes, Grant’s zebras, and eastern black rhinos, Big Life’s area of operation is one of the most important habitats left in Africa.

The secret to Big Life’s effectiveness is they understand that the only way to protect wildlife and wildlands is to win the hearts and minds of local communities and provide a mutual benefit through conservation—win-win. By including people in the decision-making processes that affect their livelihoods and offering income-generating opportunities, healthcare, education, school lunches, sustainable farming projects, land leases, and other critical community support, Big Life has been incredibly successful in helping to protect one of the world’s few remaining natural treasures.

One of their most important initiatives is preserving corridors for migrating wildlife—like Africa’s last tusker elephants. You can read about the challenges of saving space for these giants and other endangered wildlife here. And if you’d like to join us in supporting Big Life’s holistic, community-based conservation programs, you can put your love and hope into action here. Because when people come together to heal the Earth, amazing things can happen!

ICYMI Nature News: Resilience, Beauty and Brilliance.

These Penguins Take a Thousand Naps a Day
When it comes to power napping, it’s hard to beat the micro-sleeping skills of chinstrap penguins. To keep a watchful eye on nests and chicks while also managing to snooze, the Antarctic birds only sleep for seconds up to a thousand times a day. Talk about dedicated parenting!

Redwoods Recovering from Fire Sprout 1000-Year-Old Buds
In an amazing testament to the resilience of nature, scientists have discovered that northern California redwoods affected by a 2020 wildfire mobilized sugar energy to sprout centuries-old buds. Who’s a clever ancient tree!

Starfish Arms Are Actually Head Extensions
They might look like arms, but according to new research, the five appendages forming the star of a starfish are not arms but a part of the creature’s head. That explains why the sea animals have eyes on the ends of their arms—because their arms are not arms but head. Okay.

Preventing Sea Life Entanglement in Advance
What if we could plan to avoid sea animal entanglement a year in advance? Well, thanks to the brilliant work of marine ecologists in Australia, it’s now possible to forecast when whales and turtles are most likely to get caught in fishing gear and keep them out of harm’s way. That’s what we’re talking about.

Has the Time Come for Flatworm Emojis?
If you feel that the current library of animal emojis doesn’t quite represent your full spectrum of emotions or the natural world, scientists agree. To help increase awareness and enthusiasm for all the amazing biodiversity on the planet, they’re calling for an expanded collection of creatures, including invertebrates. Perfect for when a text leaves you feeling… flatworm.

The Beauty of Northern Lights
The travel and photography blog Capture the Atlas has announced the winning photographers of northern lights for 2023. You can enjoy the splendor of nature as captured by artists around the world here.

A Murmuration in Italy
You can read about the mechanics of a starling murmuration here, and you can watch the sheer magnificence of the sound-shapes of birds in flight here, courtesy of everyone’s favorite positive Twitter (X) purveyor, Buitengebieden.

A Celebrity Owl in Central Park
If you’ve not seen news of zoo escapee Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle Owl who has graced NYC’s Central Park with his magnificent presence for the past year, you can read about his fan club here and follow his escapades here. He’s a FWP neighborhood regular, and there is no more hauntingly beautiful sound in this city than listening to Flaco speak at night.

And A Brilliant Podcast on Animal Perception
Science writer Ed Yong’s book, An Immense World, winner of the 2023 Royal Society book prize, is one of the best books we’ve read on the functioning of creature features this year. You can listen to Ed talk about the fascinating world of animal senses right here.

And that’s our final nature news picks for 2023. Thank you so much for reading!

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Lisa S. French December 16, 2023

Re-Habitat That

2.5-minute read

Loss of habitat resulting from deforestation is one of the greatest threats to wildlife on the planet. In tropical forests alone, home to red pandas, lemurs, and pangolins—Bengal tigers, Asian elephants, and orangutans, researchers estimate that some 75,000 species have already been wiped out or doomed to extinction.

According to a study by the United Nations, we are losing approximately 10 million hectares of forest per year to land use change, and since 2001, an additional 3 million annually and counting to wildfires. The same forests that benefit humanity by cooling the atmosphere, capturing carbon pollution, filtering water, and supporting livelihoods provide habitat for 68 percent of the world’s mammals, 75 percent of bird species, and 80 percent of amphibians.

Beyond the lovely-to-look-at value of iconic creatures, each of the one million species now at risk represents a thread in the web of life that helps to keep ecosystems that we depend on functioning as nature intended. Half of the 85% of at-risk species threatened by loss of habitat live in rainforests, and that’s why restoring and protecting tropical landscapes is critical to their survival and to the health of the planet.

We Plant Trees Where the Wild Things Are
Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, we’re grateful to have the opportunity to support forest conservation with organizations like the Eden Restoration Project, planting trees in some of the world’s most remote locations that not only restore habitat for endangered wildlife but help to improve the living conditions of local communities. Places like Madagascar, home to nine species of lemurs, with only 10% of native forests remaining, and Nepal, where Bengal tigers, Asian elephants, and red pandas roam and forests have been diminished by 70%.

By educating rural populations on the benefits of maintaining the environment they live in, Eden is helping to preserve wildlife habitat through community-based tree-planting projects that generate long-term, social, economic, and biodiversity benefits. Empowering people to care for nature by restoring and protecting forests will help to ensure that the last places on Earth where the wild things are will continue to exist. Thank you for helping us help them re-habitat.

ICYMI Nature News

Jellyfish Learn Without Brains
According to new research, jellyfish don’t need grey matter to acquire knowledge. The gelatinous sea creatures can learn from past experiences through neurons in their eye structures. Read about it here.

Silkworms Can Out-Spider Spiders
Through the process of gene editing, scientists have enabled silkworms to replicate the bulletproof silk of spiders. No copyrights for spiders, apparently.

Rhinos are on the Rebound
On the conservation yay front, finally, some good news for rhinos. According to the IUCN, global numbers of the critically endangered animals have reached 27,000. More work to be done to reach the 20th-century pinnacle of 500,000, but it’s an encouraging milestone.

Maui Banyan Tree Keeps on Treeing
After the devastating August wildfires, the iconic 150-year-old Maui Banyan tree is sprouting new leaves—a hopeful testament to the resilience of nature.

Thank an Earthworm for Your Loaf
Never underestimate the importance of earthworms. A new study has revealed that the little wrigglers going about their earthworm business significantly boost wheat yields, adding one slice to every loaf—that’s 140 million tons a year to the global food supply.

Behold the Dumbo Octopus
The rare ghostly deep-sea creature was spotted in an expedition off the coast of Hawaii, and you can see it here. Beautiful!

Who’s the Fattest Bear of All?
Fire up your chooser, Fat Bear Week is from October 4 through October 10. You can cast your vote for the most proficient salmon scarfer in Katmai National Park right here. We’re liking the looks of Chunk—now that’s a power eater if ever we’ve seen one.

Dolphin Drones in NYC
Climate Week NYC may be over, but you can still see 1,000 drones light up the skyline in support of the Amazon rainforest, courtesy of Avaaz.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
For people and for wildlife, here’s the Favorite World Press carbon capture update from April 2022 through August 2023. From April 2022 through September 2023, the trees that we’ve planted across 13 projects in 12 countries bring our carbon capture to 4076 tons of CO2. That’s the equivalent of 4,566,261 pounds of coal burned, 10,450,204 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle, and 458,699 gallons of gasoline consumed.

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Lisa S. French September 27, 2023

Desert Elephants’ Quest for Clean Water

1.5-minute read

You can lead an elephant to water, but you can’t make it drink.

The desert-dwelling elephants of Namibia live in one of the harshest, driest landscapes on Earth. The average annual rainfall in the Namib Desert, where the mega-mammals make their home, is just 2mm, and permanent bodies of water are few and very far between.

Conservation researchers studying the survival strategies of the water-dependent herbivores were surprised to learn that despite having traveled hundreds of miles across inhospitable drylands, the intrepid trekkers weren’t overwhelmingly slurp-happy to quench their thirst at human-made drinking pools. Rather than rehydrate with readily available water, the elephants would use their feet and trunks to dig their own wells in adjacent dry riverbeds.

You Don’t Expect Us to Drink This, Do You?
So, what compelled the parched pachyderms to take a pass on the life-sustaining fluid from pre-dug pools? A quest for clean water. After comparing samples from the two water sources, researchers discovered that the multi-user boreholes were contaminated with bacteria that made drinking from them a non-starter for the discerning animals.

Although elephants have an extraordinarily sensitive olfactory system, it’s unclear whether the bacteria were detected through taste or scent, or both. One thing is certain, continuing to study how megafauna adapt to changes in water availability in a warming world will be critical to their survival.

ICYMI Nature News

Easy Ways to Stop Extinction
As scientists scramble to conserve our planet’s remaining biodiversity, FWP’s favorite cartoonist, First Dog on the Moon, recommends three easy steps to stop extinction. Most importantly, we have to want to. Count us in!

Want to Live Longer? Plant Trees
Good news for city dwellers. According to new research from the U.S. Forest Service, planting trees in urban neighborhoods can increase longevity. Another great reason to dig in and green your block!

New Designs for Robo-Planting
Speaking of planting, scientists are developing new solutions for planting trees and crops and fertilizing soil that mimic natural seed dispersal. Good to know. Until further notice, we’re still planting the old-fashioned way.

Meet the DIY Cockatoos
These brainy handy-birds know just what tools to use to solve a puzzle box. Ooh, can they unclog a sink?

Nat Geo’s Photos of the Year
Don’t forget to feast your eyes on National Geographic’s award-winning photographs of the natural world. Enjoy the splendor!

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Lisa S. French February 20, 2023

Trees: What are they Good for?

1.5-minute read

Before we get down to tree business, wherever you are in the world, we hope that your new year is off to a promising start. Beaming you a gargantuan dose of good fortune in the months ahead.

If you’re a regular reader, you know we often write about how forests help support life on Earth: combating climate change, purifying air and water, enhancing well-being, providing habitat for wildlife, and food, energy, and economic security for rural communities.

Every month we share updates on the carbon capture potential of the trees that we plant in reforestation projects around the world. Because what we plant is as important as where we plant, we’d like to introduce you to some of the leafy green, multi-purpose marvels that help keep the planet in good working order:

Nile Tulip
Markhamia lutea

Fast-growing
Provides shade for crops
Prevents soil erosion
Bark and leaves used for traditional medicine

Red Silk Cotton Tree
Bombax ceiba

Ornamental
Restores native woodland
Provides habitat for birds and bees
Edible seeds, flowers, and leaves

Horse Tamarind
Leucaena leucocephala

Drought tolerant
Restores native woodland
Provides human and animal nutrition
Edible seeds, flowers, and leaves

Teak
Tectona grandis

Fast-growing hardwood
Used for carpentry and construction
Provides human and animal nutrition
Used for traditional and modern medicine

Pombeiro
Tapirira guianensis

Big-canopied shade tree
Provides habitat for birds and bees
Provides human and animal nutrition
Used for traditional medicine

Croton
Croton megalocarpus

Fast-growing, 94% survival rate
Provides animal nutrition
Serves as fencing and windbreak
Used for traditional medicine

As you can see, in addition to cooling the planet, trees are good for all manner of important, life-sustaining things. Wherever the trees we plant put down roots, they don’t just stand around looking pretty; they get to work providing local and global benefits. With your kind support, we’re glad to continue to offer them job opportunities through the Tree-Nation platform in 2023.

2022 FWP Carbon Capture Report:

The 16 species of trees we planted across 12 projects from April through December of 2022 bring our total CO2 capture to 2,365 tons. That’s equivalent to 102,360 trash bags of waste recycled instead of landfilled, 2,616,392 pounds of coal burned, or 266,092 gallons of gasoline consumed.

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Lisa S. French January 15, 2023

Big Love for Big Life

1.5-minute read

Coexistence is about care, not control. It is about reciprocity, not retribution.

Peter S. Algona from The Accidental Ecosystem.

Over the course of the past year, we’ve written about creature life, the beauty, benefits, and science of nature, and some of the people and organizations working tirelessly to protect and preserve the living world that we love. In the spirit of the giving season, we dedicate this year-end blog to one of our favorite conservation non-profits in the hope that they will become one of yours.

Big Life Foundation: Conservation Supports People. People Support Conservation.
Protecting 1.6 million acres of wilderness in the Amboseli ecosystem in East Africa, Big Life has partnered with local communities for over a decade to safeguard nature, benefiting both people and wildlife.

Across alpine meadows, mountain forests, savannas, and wetlands, the holistic conservation organization secures habitat and migratory corridors for elephants, giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, gazelles, hartebeests, and other native species by creating economic opportunities for native people to participate in protecting the ecosystem they depend on to survive.

And that collaborative approach to preserving nature has been incredibly effective. Thanks to Big Life’s community-based conservation and anti-poaching campaign, wildlife numbers in the Amboseli are on the rebound—giraffes have quadrupled, and there are ten times more lions and more elephants roaming the ecosystem in the past year than any time in the last half-century—much-needed hopeful news as global wildlife numbers continue to plummet.

Devastating Drought: A Call to Action
Following years of success implementing strategic interventions to sustain East Africa’s wildlife and wildlands, Big Life and their conservation partners are now facing a heart-wrenching climate-based crisis. The fourth year of the worst drought in decades across the Horn of Africa has devastated the region.

Prioritizing vulnerable communities and children, Big Life is providing school lunches across the Amboseli ecosystem and environmental work for women to help feed their families. Until the rains return, they are also pumping water into remote areas for migrating wildlife and providing hay and food pellets to prevent starvation. The effects of this environmental crisis will likely last for months. Right now, the conservation organization is in critical need of assistance. If you would like to pitch in to help save Africa’s iconic animal species and provide relief for drought-impacted communities, please visit BigLife.org to learn more about their life-sustaining work—for the love of the living world.

ICYMI Nature News

A Big Plan for the Entire Planet
This week’s really big news is that international negotiations are underway in Montreal to develop a roadmap to protect biodiversity and keep our home planet’s ecosystems chugging along, providing life essentials and soul-soothing extras. What’s at stake? Oceans, rivers, lakes, wetlands, forests, prairies, woodlands, the climate, all creatures great and small—life on Earth. Here’s an explainer. And here are the biodiversity numbers. And here is a visual tour of nature in crisis.

Glow-in-the-Dark Crustaceans
Described as “the most spectacular natural wonder most people will never see”, tiny Caribbean male crustaceans light up their underwater world. Actually, you lucky people can see it here.

Honeybee Half-Life
According to scientists at the University of Maryland, the life span of honeybees is 50% shorter than it was 50 years ago. Fifty percent! We need to bee better.

City Cougar Quadruplets
The world’s largest wildlife crossing is about to get more big cat traffic. A cougar in the Santa Monica mountains near Los Angeles has delivered four healthy cubs, and the mother and adorable babies are doing fine. You can have a peek at the new arrivals here.

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Lisa S. French December 12, 2022

Planet-Protecting Pachyderms

2-minute read

Could protecting Earth’s largest mammals help tackle the two most critical items on our planetary to-do list: reducing the impacts of both climate change and biodiversity loss? According to new research from Oxford University, by virtue of their size, the most mega of megafauna may have a role to play in maintaining the healthy functioning of ecosystems negatively impacted by global heating.

One of the greatest hazards we face in a warming world is more frequent and intense wildfires. Between 2002 and 2016, 10.45 million acres a year were destroyed by fire globally—67% of the loss was in Africa. As the planet becomes hotter, drier, and more fire-prone, scientists are examining how protecting and increasing populations of endangered species of megafauna like elephants might help lower the temperature and limit the damage.

Beloved for their oversized ears, twisty trunks, keen intelligence, and exceptional empathy, elephants are also prolific stompers, chompers, and seed dispersers; those daily activities can reduce both CO2 in the atmosphere and the threat of wildfires. How so? It’s complicated, but the short story is that by consuming potentially flammable vegetation (and lots of it, up to 375 pounds a day), creating natural fire breaks by trampling soil, and dispersing seeds of trees with high capacity to store CO2, elephants, and other large herbivores, could limit the spread of fires and reduce the conditions that create them.

Elephants aren’t alone in their ability to influence the health of wild places. Conservation projects aimed at protecting ecosystem-engineering wildlife like whales, bison, sea otters, and wolves can help increase the resilience of natural environments under intense pressure from global heating. By continuing to examine the interdependence of wildlife and Earth systems and by creating conditions that allow nature to heal and flourish, amazing things can happen—like this.

ICYMI Nature News

Mighty Forest Mice
Even mini mammals can have a mega impact on the health of ecosystems. According to The New York Times, mice scurrying around forest floors are also important seed dispersers that help ensure the survival of trees exposed to environmental stressors.

Remember the Manatees
Pollution and habitat loss continue to take their toll on the Florida megafauna–over 2,000 manatees have perished in the last two years. It’s well past time to re-classify the charismatic creatures as endangered before they disappear.

NYC’s New Old Tree
In the spring of 2023, visitors to NYC’s High Line Park will be seeing red. A new rosy-hued sculpture installation, Old Tree, by Swiss artist Pamela Rosenkranz, will explore the indivisible connection between human and plant life. Have a look at the preview and swing by in the spring!

Christmas Bird Count
Okay, citizen scientists, if you need a good reason to tear yourself away from the fireplace and holiday cookie pile, Audubon’s 123rd annual Christmas Bird Count runs from December 14th through January 5th. Grab your binoculars and get those cookies to go. You can sign up here.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
We believe trees make a big difference in the health and well-being of people, wildlife, and the planet, and that’s why we keep planting them with the help of our partners at Tree-Nation. The trees that we’ve planted from April through November bring our carbon capture to 2,200 tons of CO2. That is equivalent to 2,235,456 pounds of coal burned, 247,604 gallons of gasoline consumed, and 267,669,777 smartphones charged. Oh, yeah, treeing is believing!

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Lisa S. French December 2, 2022

The Gesture Life of Gorillas

1-minute read

Somersaults, pirouettes, and disco-arms shake.

Body drumming, water splashing, and ice skating.

What may sound like new-fangled cross-training combos are actually some of the dozens of body movements that gorillas use to make themselves understood.

According to researchers at the University of St. Andrews, although gorillas are only capable of a fixed number of vocalizations, when it comes to communicating through gestures, they have a flexible and extensive repertoire of voluntary moves. And those gestures aren’t random; they’re intentional acts of communication aimed at achieving gorilla life goals.

Does This Gorilla Get Me?
Studying three groups of the primates in captivity and one group in the wild, researchers recorded 102 different gestures. Which gestures these movers and shakers used as invitations to travel, play, and cuddle, or requests to calm down, or back off depended on who they were communicating with and how they were responded to. If it was clear that a message was understood, a gorilla would continue the same gestures with the same partner for the same purpose; if not, the persistent primate would switch to a different combination of communication signals to get a point across. They don’t call the clever creatures great apes for nothing!

ICYMI Nature News

A Universal Language
Speaking of creature communications: this chimp mama’s loving gestures towards her newborn are universally understood.

Primates Share Cool Things
And scientists can add another great ape gesture to the list. A wild chimpanzee in Uganda was filmed by Universities of York and Warwick researchers showing an interesting leaf to her mother for no other reason than sharing something cool. Look, mom, beauty!

Rats Get Their Groove On
University of Tokyo researchers have discovered that rats have an innate ability to bop their heads to a good beat. And what’s on these rhythmic rodents’ playlist? Queen, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and Mozart. Eclectic!

Octopuses Are Mad Flingers
Australian researchers have discovered another way that octopuses put those plentiful arms to good use: throwing objects—at each other. Whether they’re playing or fighting, only the octopuses know for sure. Either way—”Take that, balloon head!”

Have a lovely weekend, everyone. Stay safe and warm, Upstate New Yorkers.

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Lisa S. French November 18, 2022

A Big Win for a Little Bird

2-minute read

Wren you’ve got it, you’ve got it!

The pīwauwau rock wren, the little songbird with the really big feet, has hopped and bopped past its competitors to be crowned 2022 New Zealand Bird of the Year. And what makes the diminutive mountain dweller a winner? For starters, the feathered rock climber is New Zealand’s only true alpine bird, spending its entire life flitting around the unforgiving, rugged terrain of the island country’s mountain regions. Despite weighing less than a double-A battery and lacking an insulating layer of down, the rock wren manages to endure months of bitter cold temperatures that can drop below -10℃ at elevations as high as 3,000 meters.

You might think that an ancient bird species robust enough to survive 62 million years in such a harsh environment could handle just about anything nature throws its way, but the rock wren is in serious trouble. Unfortunately, human-introduced predators have pushed the intrepid avian mountaineers to the brink of extinction.

Even though our Bird of the Year pick, the rockhopper penguin, failed to capture the crown, we’re happy to congratulate this little endangered underbird on its much-deserved big win. With 49% of bird species globally in decline, drawing attention to the plight of rare and at-risk fliers like the New Zealand rock wren can promote conservation strategies that ensure they stick around to prettify the planet for another few million years.

You can find out more about the rock wren and other amazing New Zealand bird species from Forest & Bird. And if you’d like to offer your support to all of the winged wonders of our world, Birdlife International has lots of ways you can lend a hand. Faced with the triple threats of climate change, habitat loss, and invasive species, our beloved birds might just survive with a little help and TLC from their fwrens.

ICYMI Nature News

Prescription Bird Benefits
We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again, being around birds is good for you. In case you need another great reason to spend time in nature with the feathered songsters, researchers at King’s College have concluded that seeing and hearing birds improves overall mental well-being. So, if you’ve got a stubborn case of the blues, you may benefit from a daily dose of prescribed birdsong.

Bees Just Want to Have Fun
Apparently, all work and no play makes for very dull pollinators. We knew the brainy, little insects were hard workers, but according to scientists at Queen Mary University, bees are also fun seekers that like to play with toys given the opportunity. Note to self: add teeny-tiny toy chest to garden.

Mapping Pachyderm Facial Feels
Have you ever wondered how elephants maintain such effortless control of their trunks? According to Science Advances, it’s because they have tens of thousands of nerve cells in the grape-sized brain region that controls their facial muscles—63,000 cells for African elephants and 54,000 for Asians. We humans, by comparison, have only 8-9000 nerve cells in our facial control center. Now you know why you can’t pull out tree trunks with your nose.

Nose-Picking Primates
It’s long been accepted that Mother Nature provides each unique species on the planet with the essential tools and abilities needed to survive. In the case of the Madagascar aye-aye, it seems the primate needs to pick its nose, so is equipped with an 8 cm extra-long middle finger to do the job. Researchers believe that the nose-picking habit (hobby?), also common in other primates, is likely a form of self-cleaning. Tissue, little fellow?

FWP Carbon Capture Report
We’ve got another month of tree planting and carbon capture updates to report. But before we get to the number crunching, we’d like to provide a bit of info about why we plant where we plant.

Almost every region on Earth can get a boost from tree planting, but picking spots that provide the optimal social, biodiversity, and environmental benefits is critical to our mission. Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, we plant the majority of our trees in the tropical zone, where they receive the most sunlight to expedite growth and CO2 capture.

Tropical regions also host about 85% of all terrestrial species. Planting trees in the tropics helps combat deforestation and habitat loss that threaten many species with extinction. The Tree-Nation platform also enables us to plant drought-resistant crop trees that support communities most at risk from famine and malnutrition. Our goal is to plant the right trees in the right places for the greatest all-around benefit.

From April through October, the trees we’ve planted across 11 projects bring our carbon capture total to 2020 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 2,235,456 pounds of coal burned, 227,350 gallons of gasoline consumed, or 5,015,197 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.

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Lisa S. French November 1, 2022

Hudson Marine Canyon – You Won’t Believe What’s Down There

2-minute read

Octopuses, dolphins, and whales. Oh, my!

It’s fair to say that wall-to-wall, bumper-to-bumper modern-day Manhattan would never be mistaken for a wild kingdom. Although the city island that is notoriously short on elbow room once had enough roaming room to accommodate the same number of animal species that occupy the 3,741 square miles of Yellowstone National Park, Gothamites now think of nature with a capital “N” as just about anywhere but here.

While we don’t have the spare acreage to recreate a wilderness area on Wall Street or a savanna in Central Park, there’s still enough space offshore for some of the planet’s most charismatic creatures. Just 100 miles southeast of the Statue of Liberty, extending out 350 miles, is one of the largest deep-sea canyons in the world.

Rivaling the scale of the Grand Canyon, everyone’s favorite massive gorge, and 10,500 feet below sea level at its deepest point, the Hudson Canyon is home to hundreds of species of magnificent marine animals—octopuses, squid, sharks, corals, endangered sea turtles, whales, and dolphins to name a precious few. An ecological hotspot a boat ride away from the most densely populated urban area in the United States—who knew?

Now, thanks to the efforts of the good people at the Wildlife Conservation Society and planet-appreciating citizens across the country, the 10,000-year-old canyon is in the final stages of NOAA designation as a National Marine Sanctuary. At a time when both humans and wildlife struggle to adapt to rapid environmental change, the sanctuary designation will create another much needed permanent haven for marine animals that also supports the livelihoods of local communities.

There are currently 15 National Marine Sanctuaries in the NOAA network dedicated to conserving unique and valuable marine ecosystems as well as economic, cultural, and historical resources. You can read all about them and find out how to help here.

ICYMI Nature News

Your Ant Allotment
Scientists have finished tallying the number of ants on Earth—ant, ant—ant, ant, ant—and the estimated number is… 20 quadrillion. That’s 2.5 million ants for every person on the planet. Whoa, we are seriously outnumbered. Sleep with one eye open.

Sneezing Sponges
Did you know that sea sponges can sneeze? Did you even know that sea sponges have the equivalent of a nose—or should we say noses? Well, they can, and they do. Behold a sneezing sponge. Gesundheit!

Spiders Go Electric
Researchers have finally discovered the secret to long-distance spider travel. It seems that our multi-legged friends can harness the energy of Earth’s electric field to get where they need to go without the benefit of wings or charging stations.

Avian Art, Awe, and Action
The Audubon has invited artists to reimagine the artwork of John James Audubon in their own unique style. You can awe-scroll the aviary here.

Walk the Walk for Wildlife
Would you like to make a commitment to conservation that’s also good for your health? Throughout October, you can contribute to the protection of the world’s amazing animals and wild places by joining the World Wildlife Fund Species Step Challenge. Take on either 5,000 or 10,000 steps a day to help secure a future for people, wildlife, and the planet. Sign up to walk the walk with WWF here.

Road Trip Reminder
It’s officially autumn—the time of year when many of our national parks reach peak splendor. If you’re tempted to hit the highway for a dose of leaf peeping, it just so happens that Saturday, September 24, every park in the U.S. is free. Check this list for a beauty spot near you and go, go, go!

Happy trails!

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Lisa S. French September 22, 2022

What’s Good For Lemurs is Good for the Planet

2-minute read

One of our favorite things to do here at FWP is to help restore forests that cool the planet, support the lives and livelihoods of people, and provide food and habitat for endangered wildlife. Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, every month, we have new opportunities to contribute to planting projects that minimize biodiversity loss and protect and restore some of the most threatened wild places on Earth—known in science speak as biodiversity hotspots. There are currently 36 recognized hotspots, home to 2 billion people and teeming with plants, animals and other living organisms that support the functioning of ecosystems that we all depend upon for survival.

About 8,716 miles from where we sit in NYC, give or take a few blocks, is the island country of Madagascar, one of the most biodiverse of all hotspots and a critical priority for nature conservation. Approximately 92% of Madagascar’s mammals, 89% of its plant life, and 95% of reptiles don’t exist anywhere else in the natural world.

In addition to some extraordinary creatures you may have never heard of, like tomato frogs, aye-ayes, and fossas, one of the island’s most familiar and iconic animals is the lemur. Of 101 lemur species, 96% are currently at risk of extinction. Not only do lemurs depend on forests, but forests also benefit from lemurs’ seed dispersal that helps to maintain habitats that other rare species rely on for food, cover, and toing and froing. Like other keystone species globally, including bees, sea otters, and manatees, lemurs are the canaries in the coal mine, their presence or absence is a sign of the health of their native ecosystem.

With only 10% of their natural habitat remaining due to deforestation, overharvesting, and climate change impacts, even the most dedicated lemurs would have a hard time dispersing enough seeds to keep rapidly dwindling forests intact. To give the pop-eyed primates a helping hand, we’re contributing to Madagascar’s reforestation with the Eden Projects. Since 2019, Eden has successfully planted over 10 million mangrove and flowering trees with Tree-Nation in northwest Madagascar, benefiting both people and wildlife.

Although you may be surprised to learn that what’s good for lemurs is good for the planet, to quote Madagascar’s native peoples, “the forest has been present since the dawn of time and always will be, because if it disappears, life will also disappear.” We couldn’t agree more. That’s why we pitch in with planet cooling, habitat restoring, and community-supporting tree planting projects in biodiversity hotspots around the globe. Here’s the July update:

FWP Monthly Carbon Capture Report
Our total YTD carbon capture across six projects is 1,332 tons. That’s equivalent to greenhouse gas emissions avoided by 57,936 trash bags of waste recycled instead of landfilled, 50,729 lamps switched to LEDs, or 1,480,884 pounds of coal burned.

Rolling on… doesn’t it seem like it’s about time for a playlist? We think so. Happy high summer!

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Lisa S. French August 9, 2022