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biodiversity
An Entire Forest Born Of Just 20 Seedlings: The Forest Man of India’s Legacy
The story of how a teenager transformed an abandoned government forestry project into a lifelong obsession, creating what is arguably the largest single-handed man-made forest of the world, over the course of four decades.
Jul 28, 2026
Long before global environmental summits sensationalized terms like sustainability and ecological restoration, a young teenager in an almost forgotten corner of the world stood on a barren, sun-baked sandbar with just 20 bamboo seedlings in his hands.
He was oblivious to the future his hands would sow, a future that would etch his name in textbooks around the world. Today, observances like World Nature Conservation Day exist to remind us how crucial such grassroots action is.
In 1997, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared July 28 as the World Nature Conservation Day. Since then, it has evolved into a global movement, galvanizing governments, institutions, civil society, and individuals to advance collective action for environmental stewardship.
This World Nature Conservation Day, the story of this boy who came to be known as the "Forest Man of India" stands as a testament to the power of individual environmental stewardship.
Jadav 'Molai' Payeng
A wall carving of Jadav Payeng is displayed at Goalpara college. (Photo by Medhi Jyoti / CC BY-SA 4.0)
Popularly known as "The Forest Man of India," Payeng earned this title through years of dedication and his childhood passion for change. Change is something that many hope for, but few have the perseverance and groundwork to realize.
Starting with just 20 bamboo seedlings on a sandbar of the river Brahmaputra, he has continued to nurture the plants to this day. Despite the odds, he stood firm with limited resources and determination to keep planting, never giving up on his mission.
This article traces the evolution of his extraordinary journey, examining not only the scale of his environmental contribution but also the quiet determination that sustained it.
The Genesis: How it Started
The origin of the Molai Forest dates back to 1979. Jadav Payeng, who was then employed as a labourer under a development project of the social forestry division, was assigned the stewardship of a 200-hectare patch of land in Arunachapori (an island). The project, which was intended to last for five years, ended in three.
Payeng, who had nowhere else to go, decided to keep planting trees and taking care of the flora he had already planted. In the same year, he found many dead snakes that had died from excessive heat after floods washed them onto the treeless sandbar. It was then that he planted 20 bamboo saplings on the sandbar.
The tale of Jadav Payeng shows that an environmental transformation does not always begin with huge policy changes or major funding. At times, it starts with a single individual who plants a seed and cultivates a dream which never fades away.
It was not just that he took care of the saplings; he also planted additional trees on his own, aiming to convert the area into a forest. What Jadav Payeng has created is arguably the world’s largest man-made forest.
Marked by the recurring devastation of floods on the island of Majuli, Payeng’s childhood was profoundly shaped by the disaster that forced his parents to abandon their native village. Reflecting on his childhood, he recalls that his village provided everything—from thatch to cane needed to sustain a comfortable life in their elevated dwellings, colloquially known as “Chang Ghar.”
Molai Kathoni (Molai Forest)
The Brahmaputra River is shown. (Photo by Dipayan Choudhury / CC BY-SA 4.0)
Molai Kathoni, or the Molai Forest, is the sprawling forest reserve created by Jadav Payeng, named after him as a token of appreciation for his decades of hard work. Now this wonderful forest houses more than 100 varieties of native flora, including hydrophytic, medicinal and aromatic, orchid, fruit-bearing, and timber trees.
The story of Molai Kathoni gained widespread attention in 2008, when a herd of elephants migrated into the forest reserve from the north bank of the Brahmaputra River, moving further south. This unique and flourishing patch of greenery soon caught the eye of the media, who aptly dubbed it “Molai Kathoni,” meaning “Molai’s woods.”
Payeng’s initial efforts evolved into a self-sustaining forest from bamboo to various trees. The net area covered by this forest is a staggering 1,360 acres and shelters threatened species such as Asian elephants, Bengal tigers, and one-horned rhinoceroses. A herd of around 100 elephants regularly visits the forest every year and generally stays for around six months.
In addition, Molai Kathoni provides shelter to 250 families living in about 10 to 12 huts in different groups. Notable flora species from his forest include Arjun (Terminalia arjuna), Pride of India (Lagerstroemia speciosa), Silk trees (Albizia procera), and Cotton trees (Bombax ceiba). Bamboo alone spans over 300 hectares.
Initially, in order to irrigate the large stretch of saplings, Payeng constructed bamboo structures above the saplings and put earthen pots with very small holes in them for drip irrigation. Water was allowed to seep out gradually over several days, nourishing the delicate saplings as he went about other chores.
To transform the infertile sandbar into nutrient-rich soil, Payeng physically transported red ants, earthworms, and organic biomass from his village to the island. The insects served as biological plows, altering the soil's composition and preparing the ground for deciduous trees.
Payeng’s Recognitions
For over three decades, his creation largely remained in the dark, away from public recognition and media sensationalization. When his story finally emerged, the world stood in awe of a man who, despite not having completed his secondary education, had ignited a quiet revolution painted in countless shades of green.
Jadav Payeng went on to win the third-highest civilian award of India: "The Padma Shri" in 2015. He was awarded the "Commonwealth Point of Light" award by the government of the United Kingdom. Payeng was named the "Forest Man of India" by Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2012. In 2025, the Jyoti Prasad Trust instituted the "Jadav Payeng International Award" in his honor.
The innovative solutions he developed, utilizing coconut tree planting to control soil erosion in Majuli, have garnered recognition for helping fight climate change. His inspirational story transcended borders, inspiring a children’s book, Jadav and the Tree Place. Moreover, his story has been integrated into school curricula across the United States and beyond as a compelling lesson in ecology.
Despite international acclaim, numerous awards, and appearances in award-winning documentaries (such as William D. McMaster's Forest Man), Payeng lives a remarkably simple life. He continues to wake up before dawn, taking a boat across the river to care for his forest and earn his living from the sale of milk from his livestock.
Creating a Better World
Payeng's contribution is not just about creating a green forest. The trees that Payeng planted act as carbon sinks, absorbing carbon dioxide while enhancing ecosystem health by supporting biodiversity, regulating water cycles, and sustaining diverse habitats.
Now his focus is on spreading his forest to another sandbar of the Brahmaputra and completely turning Majuli Island into a tropical paradise. In an interview with The Better India, he said that education systems should mandate every child to plant two trees. Payeng reiterated the need to integrate planting trees in school curricula in a TED talk he was invited to in 2015.
The tale of Jadav Payeng shows that an environmental transformation does not always begin with huge policy changes or major funding. At times, it starts with a single individual who plants a seed and cultivates a dream which never fades away.
For those seeking inspiration amid the mayhem of the climate crisis, the Molai island forest is a living testimony to what one dedicated soul can achieve.
As we celebrate World Nature Conservation Day, Payeng’s towering forest whispers a powerful message: Healing our planet doesn’t require an army; it can begin with one person planting the first seed.
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Remembering Richard Heinberg, Who Challenged Us to Live Well and Love the Earth
What Richard would want is for each of us to redouble our efforts toward his vision of people and nature thriving within ecological limits. One full of bird song, music, and laughter.
Jul 27, 2026
This is the hardest article I’ve ever had to write.
On Sunday July 19th we lost our kind, brilliant friend and colleague, Richard Heinberg.
The world has lost a voice of clear, truth-telling wisdom—a man whose work reached millions of people and fundamentally changed the lives of thousands. Perhaps that includes you. It certainly does me.
Richard died after a short, brutal illness. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just two weeks before his passing. As you can imagine, we’re reeling and gutted.
In ways big and small, Richard displayed humility, gentleness, and joy—especially for someone grappling with such complex and difficult subject matter.
If Richard’s contributions impacted you in any way, we’d love to hear your reflections. Please visit his memorial site to share your own stories or learn more about Richard.
Countless people came to know Richard only through his books, articles, lectures, and interviews. Yet many felt as though they knew him personally. That was one of his remarkable gifts. He challenged people to face difficult truths without giving up on beauty, community, or the possibility of living well within Earth’s limits.
There’s so much I can and simply cannot say about Richard as a person and as a writer and teacher. Working alongside Richard for the last 18 years has been one of the biggest gifts in my life. In ways big and small, Richard displayed humility, gentleness, and joy—especially for someone grappling with such complex and difficult subject matter. An inveterate introvert, Richard was often quiet in groups but when he spoke it was additive, given with generosity, kindness, and humor, and always with a focus on the greater good.
When he wrote, on the other hand, it was with such powerful clarity, unflinching truth telling, and a talent for presenting complex issues in a brilliantly accessible way. He could weave together ecology, thermodynamics, history, anthropology, behavioral psychology, politics, and more into expansive explorations, as he did with his 14th and final book, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival, or into succinct storytelling, as he did when narrating the award-winning animation, “300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Seconds.” He could jump from writing about the collapse of industrial civilization to writing about what he learned from chickens. Perhaps the best example of Richard’s breadth is this recording of him playing the violin and giving a talk on “Post-Carbon Music” at the New England Conservatory of Music.
I’ll miss Richard’s smile, his laugh. I’ll miss the few times when I got to see him get mad at the stupidity or cowardice of those in power. I’ll miss hearing him talk about trying to conquer an early jazz tune or the simple joy he got from his afternoon chocolate or shot of espresso. I’ll desperately miss the way he could take my meandering ideas for topics to explore and turn them into brilliantly cogent essays in a matter of hours or days. I simply loved our collaborations.
While grieving and in shock, and frankly a little lost about how Post Carbon Institute will find its voice without him, I think what Richard would want is for each of us to redouble our efforts toward his vision of people and nature thriving within ecological limits. One full of bird song, music, and laughter.
We would love to hear from you. Please share your remembrances of Richard here.
With a heavy heart,
Asher Miller
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In an Era of Hardening Borders, Wildlife Corridors Bridge Peoples and Species
From Costa Rica to Colorado, wildlife corridors have been about the connections people make when they care about animal mobility.
Jun 14, 2026
Driving on the Interamerican Highway from Monteverde Biological Reserve to Rincón de la Vieja National Park, I couldn’t help but notice a series of rope bridges that crossed the six lanes of traffic. Each crossing structure featured traffic warning signs with silhouette images of monkeys or sloths as nonstop flows of diesel semitrucks and electric cars zoomed by.
Costa Rica is known for its protected areas, which cover one-third of the country and function as core zones for conservation, but the “green republic” should also be recognized for its corridors. What started as an NGO effort in the 2000s when organizations like Kids Saving The Rainforest started installing aerial bridges to improve habitat connectivity later became national policy with a 2024 presidential decree requiring electrical companies to build crossing structures so that animals like howler monkeys and kinkajous avoided electrocution from using power lines. These monkey bridges also keep tropical rainforest more intact for mobile creatures.
Beyond Central America, wildlife corridors are popular in the western United States. According to recent surveys from the Environment America Research and Policy Center and the Pew Charitable Trust, respondents approve creating more wildlife crossings at rates of 85-90%. And that support spans the political spectrum. In March 2026, the Idaho State Legislature passed Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 124, officially supporting the development of wildlife crossing infrastructure, such as highway overpasses and underpasses, to reduce animal-vehicle collisions. In December 2026, California’s Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is set to be completed across 10 lanes of Los Angeles freeway, making it the largest structure in the world.
Wildlife corridors could receive a financial boost by the bipartisan BUILD America 250 bill, considered by US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this week. If passed, it would increase funding for the Federal Highway Administration’s very popular Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program (WCPP) to $80 million annually ($400 million total). The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $350 million to 35 projects across 30 states, but demand far exceeded with $500 million in requests.
Today, the benefits of conserving wildlife corridors might be just as much about the social as the biological.
If we’re living in a worldwide golden age for wildlife corridors, where did this idea come from? I trace the origins of this dominant conservation strategy in my new book, Borders of Biodiversity: How Gray Wolves, Monarch Butterflies, and Giant Sequoia Transformed Large Landscape Conservation, published by University of North Carolina Press.
In the 1970s and 1980s, new technologies provided windows into animal mobility. For wolves, radio- and satellite- telemetry allowed US biologist Diane Boyd and Canadian biologist Paul Paquet to track the interchange of dispersing juveniles along the Rockies. For example, Boyd collared wolf #8551, named Kay, west of Glacier National Park; the wolf turned up six months later dead after it was legally shot near Pouce Coupe, British Columbia. The 600-mile movement northward was interesting scientifically because it was two-thirds of the way to the Yukon Territory, but Kay’s movement also had major conservation implications. Wildlife corridors facilitated wolf dispersals; transborder dispersals could facilitate wolf recovery under the Endangered Species Act.
In the 1990s, wildlife corridors were thought of as proactive tools against habitat fragmentation. Responding to Boyd and Paquet’s work, conservationists in Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming created the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative in 1993 to keep core areas—like Yellowstone National Park or Banff National Park—connected. Projects included lobbying the Canadian government to build wildlife overpasses and underpasses along the Trans-Canada Highway, which Y2Y founder Harvey Locke called the “Berlin Wall of Biodiversity” for its high rate of wolf and elk fatalities. Or investing in predator-deterrence tools like range riding and electrified fladry fencing for ranching communities so wolves and grizzlies could use rural spaces as biological passageways.
By the 2000s, however, wildlife corridors were also understood to help with climate adaptation in a warming world. A scientific meta-analysis documented that of 4,000 animals recently tracked, almost three-quarters of them shifted their ranges to cooler lands or waters. Terrestrial species, on average, were moving 12 miles (or 20 kilometers) every decade toward the poles. Animals relocate to adapt.
Today, the benefits of conserving wildlife corridors might be just as much about the social as the biological. In 2012, Ben Bobowski of Rocky Mountain National Park and Yaxine María Arias Núñez of Santa Elena Biological Reserve created a series of personnel exchanges between the two protected areas called the Naturalmente Juntos-Naturally Together Project. Their connection was based on bird banding studies that revealed 150 bird species, like yellow warblers, migrated along the Continental Divide between Colorado and Costa Rica. In 2015, Rocky and Santa Elena entered a formal sistering agreement.
From Costa Rica to Colorado, wildlife corridors have been about the connections people make when they care about animal mobility. In an era of border-hardening nationalism, corridors can help people of different nationalities facilitate solidarities among shared species.
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Thousands March in Albania After PM Says Pristine Land 'Belongs' to Kushner-Backed Group
"One week later, we are still here, stronger than yesterday," said one group opposing a proposed luxury resort project supported by Jared Kushner.
Jun 08, 2026
Albanians took to the streets in droves for the eighth consecutive day on Sunday to protest a proposed $1.6 billion luxury resort complex backed by US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, one of several investors in the project, which opponents say is both corrupt and disastrous for wetlands and wildlife.
"One week later, we are still here, stronger than yesterday," said the Albanian Ornithological Society, a leading critic of the proposed development. "Millions around the world are united in one voice for nature, for justice, and for the protection of what belongs to everyone, standing for every protected area in Albania."
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has vocally defended the project amid mounting public backlash, saying in a recent interview that the land marked for development "belongs to the investors," not the Albanian people.
Rama also criticized the thousands of people who have turned out to protest the luxury hotel project as well as international media coverage of the demonstrations, saying that "there is no chance" that "the projects in Albania will be defined by street protests."
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama admits Jared Kushner’s new private island will be exclusively for the elite.
He says the land no longer belongs to the Albanian people and is now under the control of Jared Kushner and his investors.
"The aim is to build the most exclusive."… pic.twitter.com/95IM0YX6xI
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) June 7, 2026
Demonstrators, many raising pink flamingo cutouts to decry the project's expected impacts on the vulnerable bird and other wildlife, have demanded cancellation of the resort project and Rama's resignation, accusing him of steamrolling environmental concerns to bolster the country's tourism industry and curry favor with the Trump administration. Kushner currently works for the administration as a "special peace envoy."
"We are stronger than your bulldozers," chanted demonstrators over the weekend.
Thousands of Albanians took to the streets of Tirana in the largest protest this week against a plan by a company linked to Trump's son-in-law to build a luxury resort in an environmentally sensitive area pic.twitter.com/aJaKz3ju0A
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 7, 2026
As The New York Times reported last year, Rama heads the government committee that gave "Kushner and his business partners the right to move ahead with accelerated negotiations to build the luxury resort on a 111-acre section of the 2.2-square-mile island of Sazan that will be connected by ferry to the mainland."
"Mr. Kushner’s Affinity Partners, a private equity company backed with about $4.6 billion in money mostly from Saudi Arabia and other Middle East sovereign wealth funds, is pursuing the Albania project along with Asher Abehsera, a real estate executive that Mr. Kushner has previously teamed up with to build projects in Brooklyn, New York," the Times added.
Lea Ypi, an Albanian academic, wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian on Monday that "Albanians know that real-estate speculation without state support means ordinary citizens will struggle to buy a flat or pay the rent."
"They know that luxury tourism means holidays in your own country become a privilege for the few," Ypi added. "With no unions to speak of and a labor movement that only appears in communist-era footage of May Day parades, work conditions are so exploitative that only those from countries even more desperate are willing to take the jobs that arise."
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Trump's Border Wall Is a Destructive Monument to Greed and Fear
As it devastates borderland communities and wildlife, the wall stands for shutting out complex things, possibly complexity itself. It represents Trump’s promise to his base that their worldview will be fulfilled.
May 03, 2026
A leading preoccupation of the first Trump administration has all but slipped from view. Except when ostensible conservatives speak out against it, the major media have scarcely breathed a word on the subject. But it’s still there, 30 feet tall, aspirationally 1,952 miles long, obliterating habitats, dividing families, and sucking down public funds faster than a carrier-based air squadron.
The media’s lack of attention is understandable. All-too-real wars of choice and metaphorical wars against science, universities, and the environment have dominated our airtime and the headlines. The rise of a new medievalism in medicine and the abrogation of international trade and security agreements have also won attention. Add to all of that a federal paramilitary kidnapping people, even from what still passes for the halls of justice, while murdering the occasional protester, and one’s journalistic cup runneth over.
The meta story of the US government’s comprehensive abandonment of its Enlightenment heritage needs telling, too. Goodbye to empiricism and the troublesome scientific discourse it produces. Goodbye as well to empiricism’s political collaterals, including the “created equal” credo of the Declaration of Independence, which the current regime finds distinctly irritating. There is simply too much to report on as the new monarchy, as if in a sped-up nature film, blossoms flowerlike, its palace under renovation, the king’s signature being prepared to grace the currency, and myriad kickback mechanisms whirring like gold-plated turbines to enrich an aristocracy of tech bros and oil emirs.
So, dear reader, it’s not just logical but inevitable that Donald Trump’s border wall, a major story during his first administration, has essentially fallen out of the news. Rest assured, though, that the world’s least pragmatic and most performative construction project continues to prosper.
Spend Now, Think Later
Modern border management relies on three tools: human patrols, remote detection backed by quick response teams, and the construction of physical obstacles. Smart gatekeepers coordinate those tools to maximize effectiveness and minimize cost. But there’s no need for thrift in Trumpworld. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA, which Trump signed into law last July 4, negated all need for fiscal restraint. Among other things, it appropriated $46.55 billion for border wall construction, $7.8 billion for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and their vehicles, $6.2 billion for high-tech border surveillance, and a hefty $10 billion for anything else border-related. The total: $70.55 billion. Those funds will be available through Fiscal Year 2029. By comparison, the government will spend about $10 billion less over that same period to fund the entire Department of the Interior, which manages half a billion acres of surface land as well as the continental shelf and vast subsurface mineral deposits.
Such border largesse means that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can go all out on all three tactical approaches at the US-Mexico border—patrol, surveillance, and a wall—simultaneously, without troubling to eliminate redundancies, tailor tactics to the environment, or streamline coordination. Daddy has proudly given DHS his credit card.
In addition to bifurcating the wildlife habitat and scarring a gemlike landscape, the wall builders will extract large amounts of groundwater to make concrete for the wall’s foundation, almost certainly desiccating wetlands that are hotspots of biodiversity.
In a victory-lap cabinet meeting four days after enacting the OBBBA, Trump told Kristi Noem, then still his DHS secretary, “You’re loaded up on the border.” He essentially admitted that the bill’s munificence demonstrated power, not budgetary acumen, simultaneously adding, “We had zero [migrants] come in last month, so I am not sure how much of it we want to spend. You may actually think about saving a lot of money because the wall is largely built.” The president then continued with fact-free claims that the migrant population abounded with murderers and mental defectives.
Notwithstanding Trump’s comments, DHS administrators and the contractors who are their most immediate constituents show no sign of leaving money on the table. At the border, their blank-check funding meets a matching regulatory void—the most extensive waiver of laws and regulations in American history. In addition to suspending laws intended to protect the environment, wildlife, national parks, national wildlife refuges, lands sacred to Native Americans, and historic and cultural sites, the Trump administration has also waived more than 60 contracting and procurement regulations. In the name of a national emergency, which is no emergency at all—illegal border crossings (as measured by apprehensions) have indeed plunged—the president has stripped the playing field of all boundaries and opened the door to cronyism and corruption.
Under showers of money and in the absence of restraint, a single border wall is no longer viewed as adequate. Double-walling has become the norm and certain select areas now boast triple walls. With no cap on costs, whole mountaintops, rugged and unvisited, have been sheared apart to make way for the standard 30-foot-tall, steel-bollard wall, even at costs exceeding $41 million per mile, or almost $8,000 per foot. Meanwhile, the Border Patrol’s terminally bored agents (giving new meaning to bored-er) sit behind the wall in white trucks, looking at their phones and incubating their hemorrhoids.
The Non-Monetary Costs Are No Less Astronomical
It’s easy to think of the mostly arid US-Mexico border zone as empty, but biologically it’s a busy place. The grasslands of the San Rafael Valley in Arizona, for instance, are home to 17 threatened and endangered species. For years, existing vehicle barriers, bolstered by remote detection technology, have allowed jaguars, ocelots, mountain lions, mule deer, and other wildlife to move back and forth across the valley’s 30 miles of border and disperse according to their ancient ways. A network of 60 remote cameras along that stretch, monitored by the Sky Island Alliance, recorded just one possible migrant per camera every 20 months. Besides being easily patrolled, the valley is also heart-stoppingly beautiful. Nonetheless, DHS intends to double wall all of it. In addition to bifurcating the wildlife habitat and scarring a gemlike landscape, the wall builders will extract large amounts of groundwater to make concrete for the wall’s foundation, almost certainly desiccating wetlands that are hotspots of biodiversity. And for nothing, save symbolism, bragging rights, and contractor profits.
No detail illuminates the mentality behind border enforcement better than this: In cooperation with US Customs and Border Protection, military elements at Fort Huachuca, Arizona are now engaged in “the largest Concertina wire (C-wire) emplacement in US territorial history.” “C-wire,” or “razor wire,” is designed to lacerate any flesh, human or animal, that comes in contact with it. Fort Huachuca soldiers are deploying 43,000 rolls of it, the largest single purchase ever.
Usually C-wire is used atop a wall or fence to prevent people from climbing over. Ominously, it’s now being spread on the ground, sometimes in areas where there is no wall, but also in front of the wall and between double walls—a policy of pure viciousness, not necessity. Someone should explain this deployment to the bighorn sheep of California’s Jacumba Mountains, which are now separated from their key Mexican waterhole by thickets of the nasty stuff, which will become ever more camouflaged and treacherous as grass and brush grow through it.
Buoy, Oh, Buoy, What a Wall!
For treachery, however, it’s hard to top CBP’s plans to “secure” 536 miles of the border in Texas by mooring a chain of cylindrical buoys, linked end to end, down the middle of the Rio Grande. Once in place, the array will look like an orange sausage, five feet in diameter, floating on the river. The anchors and mooring lines, of course, will be invisible. What could possibly go wrong?
This ill-conceived plan offers a retro-snapshot of American life before the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) became law in 1970, back when strip mines and other land-wrecking ventures could be launched with no evaluation of their impact, no public involvement, and no second opinions as to their necessity. The waiver of NEPA and every other environmental constraint means that no modeling of the “Buoy Wall’s” hydrodynamics (that is, its reaction to flooding), if any exists, has been made public.
The Rio Grande International Study Center in Laredo, Texas, however, commissioned its own study. The results are unequivocal. The Buoy Wall will be a debris trap during floods, as when a hurricane lodges over the region. It will redirect flows of water and raise water levels, especially in places where it’s paired with river-crowding segments of the wall. And if a section of buoys should break loose from the sandy, unstable riverbed, the likelihood of disaster will soar.
Geomorphologist Mark Tompkins, who authored the report, concludes, “Failures will cause catastrophic flooding, damage, and destruction to property, and risks to the health and safety of people near the river corridor.” Thousands of people living adjacent to the river in Laredo and other communities in both Mexico and the US will be put at risk.
Conflicts Brewed and Brewing
Walls have their place. They can be effective in urban areas. But DHS startled more than a few onlookers with plans to build a wall among the cliffs and arid wildlands of Big Bend National Park. Even the sheriffs of West Texas, one of the reddest regions in the country, got riled up. Although DHS may yet fall back to a more sensible “detection technology” alternative for the national park, it has failed to communicate a clear decision, while nearby private lands and Big Bend Ranch State Park remain at risk.
Even worse uncertainty may be brewing in Arizona, where the lands of the Tohono O’odham people, whose presence predates the border by many centuries, are spread on either side of the line. The tribe’s exemplary cooperation with border authorities includes tribal enforcement teams that have helped keep illegal crossings at a historic low. But the rigid minds and hungry contractors of the “CBP industrial complex” remain unsatisfied. The agency’s “smart wall map” indicates that it aims to build a double wall across the Tohono O’odham reservation, splitting apart families, clans, and longstanding webs of relationship.
And then there’s the unhappy Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces, which serves Sunland Park, New Mexico. Walls have long separated El Paso and Sunland Park from the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez. However, there is an unwalled gap at Monte Cristo Rey, a steep-sided peak long considered impractical for barrier construction. Not now, though. Blasting for the Border Wall began on Cristo Rey in March, in time to appall the thousands of Holy Week pilgrims who visit the statue of Christ the King on the mountain’s summit.
The land available to CBP, however, is not sufficient to finish the job on Cristo Rey, and the adjacent landowner, the Catholic Church, refuses to sell. CBP claims it may assert the right of eminent domain, while the church has said it will fight, although its best tool for resistance, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, has predictably been among the many laws waived by DHS.
Orgasms for Birders
On a recent trip to the border, I visited one of the most exquisite places in the entire Southwest. To get to it, I drove 40 miles on dirt roads across broken, arroyo-carved desert. The Border Wall was almost always in sight.
Apart from the roadway itself, the commonest evidence of a human presence were signs at the approach to each arroyo: DO NOT ENTER WHEN FLOODED, which is good advice in an area where flash floods from local thunderstorms can sweep away a heavy truck. All the arroyos that the road crosses are also crossed by the Border Wall. Floods pile tons of debris against the wall, and sometimes the accumulated weight is enough to push the structure down. CBP continues to experiment with designs for swinging water gates, but a durable solution remains unproven.
Between a pair of “lay-bys”—bulldozed flats where the wall contractor has assembled fleets of eighteen-wheelers, excavators, scrapers, dumpers, pickups, bulldozers, loaders, and cement trucks—I veered down a rough track to a steel gate and let myself in. A little way beyond that, I stopped my car beside a lazy creek at the bottom of a canyon. White-barked sycamores and cottonwoods, just coming into leaf, towered overhead. Amid their shadows, the air smelled of duff and wet sand. The birds were not just singing, they were yelling. When I opened a birding app on my phone, the bird-call IDs scrolled by like movie credits.
From concertina wire to counter-functional buoys, from mountain blasting to free-wheeling billion-dollar contracts, the mindset behind the wall is the same as that which spawned the Iran war. Both are exercises in unchecked power.
The canyon has a perfectly good name, but I’ll call it Paradox Canyon in recognition of the contrast between the vigorous life it contains and the brutalist-walled horizon looming above it. During the first Trump administration, the nearest mountain peak was cleaved open like a watermelon, leaving the landscape not just scarred but grotesquely amputated.
The current contractor, Fisher Industries, is no stranger to disassembling and rearranging mountains. Besides installing the standard bollard wall, Fisher is pouring a concrete patrol road at the foot of the wall, portions of which, rising above Paradox Canyon, are so steep that, absent the paving, no wheeled vehicle can climb it.
The next mountain, however, is too steep even for a patrol road. The previous contractor’s employees dubbed the peak “Widow Maker,” and the zigzag scars of switchbacks and ledges by which they gained access to the path of the wall make it easy to understand why.
Fisher is the largest player in the wall-building business. Based in North Dakota, it was the contractor for “We Build the Wall,” a crowd-funded enterprise that got its promoters, including Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, convicted for fraud. “We Build the Wall” funded Fisher to build 3.5 miles of wall on private land beside the Rio Grande near Mission, Texas. The Department of Justice and the International Boundary Waters Commission subsequently sued Fisher for shoddy work and violation of the boundary treaty with Mexico. The suit has since been settled, with Fisher having agreed to make immediate repairs and carry out future repairs subject to the forfeit of a $3-million bond.
The Paradox Canyon rancher whom I came to visit is philosophical about the wall. The assault on his land began at the end of Trump I and, after a Biden-era pause, has resumed at full strength. The “shock and awe” accompanying Trump’s resumption of office, he says, left no room for negotiating a more sensible path forward. He believes that the symbolism of the wall is its real power, as it channels the fears of the MAGA faithful. The wall, he says, stands for more than shutting out migrants and narcos. It stands for shutting out other complex things, possibly complexity itself. It represents Trump’s promise to his base that their worldview will be fulfilled.
Making War at Home and Abroad
My rancher friend feels that his present task is to weather the storm of wall building and await a time when wiser heads prevail, when the rush to spend and build might yield to thoughtful redesign, when gaps for wildlife might be installed and properly monitored, and when the wall’s proponents and its enemies might find a “third path.”
Meanwhile, the excavators, scrapers, bulldozers, and haulers carry on. From concertina wire to counter-functional buoys, from mountain blasting to free-wheeling billion-dollar contracts, the mindset behind the wall is the same as that which spawned the Iran war. Both are exercises in unchecked power. Both were conceived with disdain for the complexities of the real world. Both serve rhetorical as much as tangible purposes.
The war with Iran has confounded Trump’s expectation of a quick victory. Thousands of gravestones will be its monument. The Border Wall, in its own slow way, will provide another sort of monument. It won’t be the graves of those who died crossing it or flanking it by sea, for they will rarely be marked at all. And it won’t be the local extinctions of plants or animals, for they will simply vanish. It will instead be a tottering, linear, soulless version of Stonehenge—think of it as America’s Steelhenge—built on sand and made of haste, fear, and avarice.
It will memorialize Trump’s success in making America less and less great.
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In 'Major Earth Day Win,' House GOP Cancels Vote on Gutting Endangered Species Act
"At a time when we should be strengthening protections for species," said one advocate, "not weakening them, it’s clear there is growing opposition to efforts that put special interests ahead of science and conservation."
Apr 22, 2026
Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives planned to mark Earth Day with a "catastrophic" attack on the Endangered Species Act, but ultimately canceled Wednesday's vote at the last minute, a development celebrated by conservationists nationwide.
After reports of "problems" getting some Republicans to back the ESA Amendments Act and a procedural vote that "showed shaky support from party members," as The New York Times put it, the House adjourned without a final vote on the bill—which the newspaper called "an embarrassing setback" for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
While the lead sponsor, House Committee on Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), claimed that "we just have a few provisions we've got to work through on it, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we'll be able to vote on it," Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that "this should be a wake-up call to Rep. Westerman that not even his own colleagues support his extreme attacks on wildlife."
"It's time for him to drop this failed crusade," Kurose declared. "Good riddance."
Other wildlife defenders joined Kurose in enthusiastically welcoming the blow to what Bradley Williams, the Sierra Club's deputy legislative director for wildlife and lands protection, called "extremely harmful legislation."
"We are encouraged to see that the House of Representatives has pulled this bill after outcry from Republicans and Democrats," Williams said in a statement. "By rejecting a bill that would have gutted protections for endangered and threatened species across the country, Congress is sending a clear message that protecting wildlife is a shared American value, not a partisan issue."
Jewel Tomasula, policy director for the Endangered Species Coalition, which has hundreds of member organizations, said that "given the more than 58,000 emails sent to elected officials, along with hundreds—if not thousands—of calls made in just the past few days, it is clear that the American people support the Endangered Species Act, understand its value, and want its protections for threatened and endangered wildlife to remain in place."
"This is a welcome sign that efforts to gut protections for imperiled species are not moving forward on Earth Day," Tomasula continued. "We're glad Congress is hearing their constituents' concerns about Westerman's harmful bill and taking pause to listen. For now, the important work to protect endangered species can continue. This Congress should leave the ESA alone."
Major #EarthDay win 🎉: H.R. 1897, aka the Endangered Species Act Amendments Act was just pulled from house floor consideration following outcry from both Republicans and Democrats who oppose the bill.
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— Center for Biological Diversity (@biologicaldiversity.org) April 22, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Sara Amundson, president of Humane World for Animals Action Fund, similarly said that "on Earth Day, pulling the House vote on the deeply flawed Endangered Species Act bill is a clarion call that legislators need to stop heeding their own leadership and start doing the will of their constituents."
"At a time when we should be strengthening protections for species like grizzly bears and sea turtles, not weakening them, it’s clear there is growing opposition to efforts that put special interests ahead of science and conservation," Amundson said. "We urge Congress to abandon this harmful proposal altogether and instead focus on upholding and strengthening the Endangered Species Act for future generations."
Defenders of Wildlife legislative director Mary Beth Beetham proclaimed that "now we can really celebrate Earth Day!"
"The public defeat of the Westerman bill is a direct result of sustained constituent pressure," she stressed. "Congress is finally listening to the majority of Americans who support the Endangered Species Act, rather than centering politics and money in its policy decisions."
"The decision to not advance the vote keeps current safeguards in place, which have protected 99% of species from extinction," Beetham added. "While there is still much more work to secure lasting protections for wildlife, today's outcome is a meaningful victory for conservation."
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Mike Johnson to Unleash 'Catastrophic' Attack on Endangered Species Act
"When wildlife is already under immense pressure from habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, and industrial development, Congress should be strengthening the Endangered Species Act," said one advocate.
Apr 20, 2026
Conservationists warned Monday that "Earth Day could become Extinction Day" if Republican leaders in the US House of Representatives get their way.
Elected Republicans have long set their sights on the historic Endangered Species Act of 1973—and wildfire defenders sounded the alarm in December, when the Republican-led House Natural Resources Committee advanced Chair Bruce Westerman's (R-Ark.) ESA Amendments Act.
"If this bill passes, protections for species like the Florida manatee, monarch butterfly, and California spotted owl would immediately decrease," Earthjustice legislative director for lands, wildlife, and oceans Addie Haughey warned at the time.
Since then, President Donald Trump has continued his war on endangered species with his budget request for the 2027 fiscal year, and his administration's so-called "God Squad" unanimously approved an "unprecedented" exemption allowing fossil fuel operations in the Gulf of Mexico to ignore ESA protections.
Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) plans to take up Westerman's bill this week—potentially on Wednesday, Earth Day.
"At a time when wildlife is already under immense pressure from habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, and industrial development, Congress should be strengthening the Endangered Species Act, not tearing it apart," said Jewel Tomasula, policy director of the Endangered Species Coalition, which has hundreds of member organizations.
"If Rep. Bruce Westerman and Speaker Johnson have their way, Earth Day will become Extinction Day," Tomasula warned. "The urgency is real. This bill is catastrophic for threatened and endangered species."
Susan Holmes, the coalition's executive director, emphasized that "the Endangered Species Act works because it is rooted in science and because it recognizes a simple truth: Once a species is gone, it is gone forever."
"We should not allow politicians to dismantle protections that have saved bald eagles, gray whales, peregrine falcons, and so many other species from disappearing forever," she declared.
Holmes also noted that "the American people overwhelmingly support the Endangered Species Act" and "understand that protecting wildlife is not a partisan issue. It is about responsibility, stewardship, and ensuring that future generations inherit a world still rich with wild species and wild places."
Polling commissioned by IFAW and conducted online last year by Beekeeper Group found that over three-quarters of Americans say they are concerned about the environment, the welfare of animals, and conserving nature, and specifically support the goals of the ESA. That aligns with figures from surveys conducted over the past three decades, according to a 2025 analysis.
The U.S. House is scheduled to vote on the so-called "ESA Amendments Act" (H.R. 1897) on Earth Day, April 22. H.R. 1897 would drastically weaken the Endangered Species Act and decrease protections for threatened and endangered species.TAKE ACTION >>> wildernesswatch.substack.com/p/the-extinc...
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— Wilderness Watch (@wildernesswatch.bsky.social) April 20, 2026 at 3:23 PM
"Protecting the nation's wildlife and habitats has never been an issue of right or left—it is a shared value and a commitment to future generations," said Cassie Ferri, legislative analyst at Defenders of Wildlife, in a Monday statement. "Instead of honoring Earth Day, Congress is turning it into 'Destroy Earth Day' by attempting to dismantle one of our nation's most foundational conservation laws. We all depend on healthy ecosystems to thrive, and the vast majority of Americans want to preserve wildlife through a strong Endangered Species Act—yet time and again Congress blatantly disregards their voices."
The advocacy group director of legislative affairs, Mary Beth Beetham, said that "shameless attempts by some members of Congress to dismantle the Endangered Species Act demonstrate a profound disregard for how valuable this law is to wildlife conservation."
"The Endangered Species Act isn't just rhetoric—it's proven effective and has safeguarded imperiled species for more than 50 years," Beetham stressed. "This bill could be the driving force behind future extinctions and would set a dangerous precedent for wildlife legislation moving forward."
The U.S. House is expected to vote on H.R. 1897 next week—the most dangerous bill facing endangered species right now! It prioritizes profits over science-based safeguards and blocks judicial review. ACT NOW and tell your lawmakers #NOHR1897!ACT NOW at TeamWolf.Org!
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— Team Wolf (@team-wolf.bsky.social) April 17, 2026 at 4:01 PM
Defenders of Wildlife is among nearly 300 groups that have signed on to a Monday letter—shared with Common Dreams by another signatory, Humane World for Animals—urging US House members to "vote NO on HR 1897, which is a damaging bill that would dramatically weaken the ESA and make it harder, if not impossible, to achieve the progress we must make to address the alarming rate of extinction our planet now faces."
Westerman's bill, the letter says, "would significantly rewrite key portions of the ESA to prioritize politics over science and inappropriately shift responsibility for key implementation decisions from the federal government to the states, many of which do not have sufficient resources or legal mechanisms in place to take the lead in conserving listed species."
"It would place significant new administrative burdens on already overburdened agencies," the letter continues. "It would turn the current process for listing and recovering threatened and endangered species into a far lengthier process that precludes judicial review of key decisions."
While Republicans can pass legislation along party lines in the House, they usually need at least some Democratic support in the Senate—due to chamber rules, which can be changed—to send a bill to Trump's desk.
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'David-and-Goliath': Ocean Defenders Collide With Industrial Krill Trawler in Antarctica
"The Bandero delivered a gentle but deliberate nudge to the stern of the Antarctic Sea, accompanied by a message: Stop despoiling the ecological integrity of the Southern Ocean," said activists aboard the ship.
Apr 01, 2026
An ocean conservation ship operated by anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson collided Tuesday with a commercial krill trawler off Antarctica in what the fishing vessel's owner described as a "deliberate attack," but activists called "a David-and-Goliath battle against an industrial giant."
The Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) said on Facebook that, as part of its Operation Krill Wars campaign, the Bandero is currently targeting "two of the largest Norwegian trawlers operating in Antarctic waters, the Antarctic Endurance and the Antarctic Sea,"—both of which are owned by Aker QRILL Company of Lysaker, Norway.
"Earlier today, both trawlers released lines into the water to move the Bandero, a dangerous maneuver that could have disabled our ship," the foundation alleged. "In response, the Bandero delivered a gentle but deliberate nudge to the stern of the Antarctic Sea, accompanied by a message: Stop despoiling the ecological integrity of the Southern Ocean."
Aker QRILL is owned by New York City-based American Industrial Partners and Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke, and calls itself "the world's leading krill company."
Company CEO Webjørn Barstad responded to the incident by claiming in an interview with Reuters that "our crew were put at risk in some of the most remote waters on Earth, and only luck avoided potential environmental damage."
"If the steel plates... had ruptured, it could have caused a spill," Barstad added. "It was probably just luck that it didn't cause more damage."
CPWF scoffed at the company's claims of danger, saying on Facebook that "I understand your need to play the victim while you scoop life from the sea."
As the Operation Krill Wars campaign explains:
Krill is the keystone species of the ecosystem in Antarctica. The majority of Antarctic species are reliant on krill as their primary food source or krilI is the the food source of their prey. From the great whales down to the penguins, seals, and seabirds, all rely on an abundance of krill to survive.
Currently the quota set by the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is 620,000 tons which is said to represent 1% of the total biomass of krill. However the fishing of krill is in concentrated areas, meaning that the likelihood of ecological collapse in those areas is far more likely.
After the near extinction of several large whale species in the 19th and 20th centuries, conservation efforts in the later half of the 20th century and 21st century have seen whale populations recovering. Though not back to their pre-commercial whaling numbers, this increase in whale populations obviously requires a greater amount of krill for food. Yet what we are seeing is a greater extraction of krill by human commercial enterprises.
“If the ocean dies, we die,” Paul Watson said in a statement. “Krill are the blood of the sea. Without them, the whales, penguins, fish, and birds will starve, and the ocean will fall silent.”
Watson is best known as the co-founder of Greenpeace and, later, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He has dedicated his life to defending marine wildlife—especially mammals like whales—from harm. A controversial figure, Watson was arrested and jailed in Greenland in 2024 on an international warrant issued by Japan over his anti-whaling activism. However, he was freed after Denmark—which controls Greenland's foreign affairs—refused Japan's extradition request.
CPWF said that the issue of ocean exploitation must be "confronted legally and brought to global attention."
"We are here in the Southern Ocean to oppose a crime against nature and humanity—aggressively, but nonviolently," the group said Wednesday. "We welcome the opportunity to defend our actions in court and expose the true cost of krill fishing to the world."
The Bob Brown Foundation, an Australian green group, defended CPWF in a statement Wednesday calling "for the complete end to krill fishing in Antarctica."
"The krill fishing industry is fully aware of the damage they cause, such as killing whales in their nets, yet they do all they can to greenwash krill products," said Bob Brown Foundation Antarctic and marine campaigner Alistair Allan. "We applaud the brave actions of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, who are ensuring that the plunder of krill does not go unchallenged.”
“Krill is violently sucked out of Antarctica’s fragile wilderness all for products we don’t need, such as fish farm feed, pet food, and supposed health products," Allan added. "It’s time for the world to boycott all products with krill in them."
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Forests, Not Data Centers: A Better Plan for Rural Prosperity
Local and state governments should invest in protecting natural landscapes as the foundation of rural prosperity—not funnel more public dollars into yet another dirty and destructive industry.
Mar 25, 2026
Nature is our lifeline. Technology cannot replace it.
That truth is the heart of a growing conflict in rural America. As data centers and AI infrastructure are sold to communities as “innovation,” “jobs,” and “the future,” we’re being asked to trade away the natural systems that have always sustained us: forests, clean water, a stable climate, and the human need for connection with each other and the natural world.
It’s not a fair trade. It’s not a winning economic strategy. And no matter what Big Tech claims, it’s not good for us.
Like many Americans, my most treasured memories come from time spent outdoors. I grew up exploring the forests of coastal South Carolina—climbing trees, watching birds fly across the sunset, picking wildflowers. Those experiences led me to co‑found Dogwood Alliance, an organization dedicated to protecting Southeastern forests, in 1996.
We still have a choice: Allow hollow promises to lead us into a dead planet, or look to nature for survival and joy.
Our Southern forests are among the most biodiverse in the nation—and are the least protected. Industrial logging has presented the greatest threat to forests I’ve seen in my lifetime. The South is logged at a rate estimated to be four times higher than South American rainforests. I’ve seen how decades of expansion in wood production—from paper to biomass wood pellets—have fouled air and water while degrading millions of acres. I’ve seen how clear-cutting and the conversion of wild forests into single‑species plantations have devastated biodiversity, water quality, natural flood control, and carbon storage. I’ve seen entire communities become sacrifice zones, with low‑income, Black, and Indigenous residents bearing the brunt of pollution and forest destruction.
What I have never seen is a corporation’s promises of clean operations and economic prosperity actually materialize. That’s why I am more convinced than ever that our future depends on protecting standing forests
Today, we stand at a crossroads. After years of community organizing, public pressure, and scientific pushback, paper and wood‑pellet mills are shuttering. For those of us in rural and forest communities, this presents a rare opportunity to rethink what we want our economy to be. Do we continue down a path of destruction, or do we accelerate the protection of nature?
Into this moment steps a new pitch: data centers and AI as the next economic “miracle.” But their enormous appetite for electricity and water accelerates resource extraction, pollution, and climate impacts. The declining forestry industry is now trying to hitch itself to this swindle, promoting the burning of trees to power data centers as a way to prop up its obsolete business model—and calling it “progress.”
Progress toward what? Much of what these AI data centers produce is inflammatory content that fuels political outrage and deepens social division. No wonder people across the country are pushing back—and winning.
In so many ways, forests are the most advanced technology the world has ever known. They regulate temperature, store carbon, support food systems, and offer psychological grounding no device can replicate. When left intact, forests are self‑maintaining, self‑renewing, and infinitely more productive than any data center.
Study after study shows that time in nature improves cognitive function and a wide range of mental and physical health markers. Research also links depression, anxiety, and attention disorders to tech overload and reduced time outdoors. Science shows what we instinctively know to be true—nature brings people together. Protecting it is one of the few remaining ways to restore health and rebuild unity in a divided time.
Equally important, forest protection is a proven economic strategy for rural communities. The outdoor recreation economy generates far more revenue and jobs than the timber industry. Conservation and recreation jobs, ecological restoration, and community‑led development create long‑term prosperity without sacrificing land, water, or health. These sectors keep wealth local, strengthen small businesses, and attract people who want to live in places defined by beauty and belonging—not destruction and noise.
At Dogwood Alliance, we’ve seen what happens when communities reject extractive industry and shift to people power. Last year, we partnered with New Alpha Community Development Corporation to purchase Freedom Land, a 305‑acre property that will become a community‑led hub for forest conservation, ecotourism, and outdoor recreation. We also helped the Pee Dee Indian Tribe purchase 77 acres of wetlands to create an environmental education center celebrating Native American culture and heritage.
These projects offer a blueprint for a community‑led movement to save our forests and our towns. And they come at a critical moment, as rural communities face new threats from Big Tech’s land‑hungry, resource‑intensive infrastructure
We still have a choice: Allow hollow promises to lead us into a dead planet, or look to nature for survival and joy. Local and state governments should invest in protecting natural landscapes as the foundation of rural prosperity—not funnel more public dollars into yet another dirty and destructive industry.
We can and must build a future rooted in nature, not in the false god of AI technology. Nature is not just the original technology—it’s still the best.
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Don't Let the EU-Mercosur Agreement Be a Loss for Animal Welfare
The EU talks a good game, but rhetoric alone is not enough. The ratification delay is a golden opportunity for reflection and to strengthen standards.
Mar 01, 2026
Gestation crates are metal cages, typically no bigger than 7 feet by 2 feet, used to contain female pigs—known as sows—for most of their breeding lives. The crates are so small that their inhabitants cannot walk or even turn around. Natural behaviors such as rummaging, fetching food, nesting, and grazing are all denied to them.
Without question they are among the cruelest fixtures in the meat industry. Many countries in the Western world, including the European Union, have either banned or significantly restricted their use. The European Commission plans to phase them out entirely by 2027. A recent landmark piece of legislation, however, threatens to undo this critical progress.
The EU-Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) Agreement, signed to great fanfare on January 17, 2026, has been heralded as both historic and ambitious. Less discussed, however, is what the agreement could mean for animal welfare protections in both hemispheres.
The EU may be home to some of the highest animal welfare standards of any government in the world, but the same cannot be said for Mercosur, where millions of sows are still confined to gestation crates for long periods of time.
Unless safeguards are put in place, this trade agreement risks reversing the EU's progress on deforestation altogether.
Sinergia Animal, the international animal protection organisation whose Brazilian operations I lead, publishes a yearly report called Pigs in Focus, which ranks major Brazilian producers on their animal welfare standards. Despite being the country’s fourth-largest pork processor and a major dairy company, Frimesa has still not committed to ban crates for sows. Farrowing cages and battery cages for chickens remain widespread too. We have been negotiating with them for years, and despite their competitors making meaningful progress, they are still dragging their heels on making even basic improvements.
The problem does not stop with Frimesa. Minerva Foods, one of the leading meat producers in South America and a major supplier of pork products globally, continues to cause immense suffering. Ear notching, teeth clipping, and tail docking, as well as the routine misuse of antimicrobials, are all common. Again, while commitments to phase out these techniques have been made, our research exposes the use of excessively long deadlines that serve to prolong animal suffering.
These are not exceptional, isolated cases. They represent a wider system across Mercosur countries—one that may end up supplying significantly more of the meat consumed in the EU.
This raises serious questions about the EU’s commitment to animal welfare standards, which is why the European Parliament’s decision in late January to request a legal opinion from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the agreement’s conformity with the EU treaties, thereby halting the ratification process, is a welcome one.
The review could take up to two years, which gives EU policymakers more than enough time to revisit the issue of animal welfare and mitigate against the new incentive structures now in place for Mercosur producers.
It would, however, be a mistake to assume that greater attention should be paid to animal welfare protections alone. After all, lower standards mean higher yields. In Argentina and Uruguay, 89% and 88% of eggs come from hens kept in battery or enriched cages. In Brazil the figure is 95%. In the EU, by comparison, 38% of hens are still kept in cages—something seen as too high but will nonetheless put European producers at a significant competitive disadvantage.
An increase in demand for meat will also magnify pressure on vital ecosystems. As demand for land and animal feed goes up, so too will the rate of deforestation. The resultant loss of habitat will accelerate biodiversity decline, threatening ecosystems that are a key natural defense against climate change.
These developments cannot be divorced from the geopolitics of the climate crisis. With the US having reneged on its international climate commitments, the pressure is on the EU to at least partially fill the leadership void. So far they are failing, with initiatives such as the Deforestation Regulation and electric vehicle mandate either abandoned or reduced in ambition. Unless safeguards are put in place, this trade agreement risks reversing the EU's progress on deforestation altogether.
So what can the EU do? At a minimum, Brussels must demand that meat produced under unacceptably low standards is not imported to the EU. However, equally important is that Mercosur countries are still able to benefit economically from the agreement by retaining access to the EU market. This means pushing for Mercosur countries to eliminate battery cages and sow stalls, ban mutilations without pain relief, enrich spaces, and meaningfully improve handling standards.
The EU talks a good game, but rhetoric alone is not enough. The ratification delay is a golden opportunity for reflection and to strengthen standards. Political leaders have been right to label the agreement as historic, but unless robust protections are put in place, it may well be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
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