NEWSROOM
Helicopters drop 10mn mosquitoes to save rare Hawaiian birds
Hawaii’s colourful Honeycreeper bird species has been decimated by avian malaria spread by invasive mosquitoes. Of 50 distinct species, today only 17 remain. But conservationists are fighting back by releasing millions of bacteria-ridden mosquitoes in a method called Incompatible Insect Technique. Male mosquitoes are given a strain of bacteria called Wolbachia, which prevents them from successfully breeding with wild mosquitoes, which possess a different, incompatible strain of Wolbachia. This acts as mosquito birth control, reducing the population and therefore the risk of malaria spreading. The technique has reduced mosquito populations in China and Mexico, and the results in Hawaii should become apparent over the summer, when mosquito populations usually boom.
South African rhinos receive radioactive defence against poachers
Researchers from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand have installed radioactive pellets in rhino horns in a drive to end poaching, which has killed over 10,000 rhinos since 2008. The project aims to make the horns unattractive to poachers, as well as making smuggled horns detectable in scanners at ports. Despite conservation efforts, 499 rhinos were poached in South Africa in 2023, the highest number in four years. The horns are often shipped to East Asia to be given as gifts or used in traditional medicine.
Pope Francis orders solar farm to meet Vatican energy needs
Pope Francis has issued an edict for the construction of a solar farm to meet 100% of the energy needs of the Vatican, the world’s smallest country, which sits within the centre of Rome. The Pope has been an active campaigner for sustainability throughout his papacy, issuing two teaching documents (known as encyclicals) on the subject. In his last encyclical, Laudate Deum, he called on politicians to listen to the Earth’s “cries of protest” as extreme weather events become more common. The announcement does not clarify a size or timeline for the project but is being planned on Vatican-owned land to the north of the Italian capital.
Landfills leak ‘forever chemicals’ into British ecosystems
A report in the British Medical Journal has warned of the long-term effects of closed “historic” landfill sites, as buried waste causes chemical pollution across the country. At present, over 80% of the UK population lives within two kilometres of a landfill site, with deprived areas five times more likely to contain historic dumps. Most sites are left as open space, with high levels of methane. Data has shown that many closed sites are leeching carcinogenic ‘forever chemicals’ into the ground, meaning that they enter the wider environment over time. Concern over forever chemicals has risen sharply in recent years, but only after decades of use in products and industrial processes of all kinds.
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