Editor’s Note: After exploiting almost every land on Earth, the industrial economy has now moved on to exploit the sea. Exploiters do not view the sea as many of us do: a deep body of water that is home to unimaginably large number of creatures. They see the sea as they view any other place on Earth: a huge reservoir of resources that might profit them. These profits come in many forms: greater wealth, which in turn is control over even more resources, and an ability to surround oneself with and have power over more people to do their bidding. It is for this that they are destroying life on Earth.
But, of course, that is not something they could publicly acknowledge. They have to create a more “righteous” justification for their not-so-righteous action. This is why they, in a cruel twist of words, claim to exploit the sea to protect the environment. In the following piece, Julia Barnes explains how the blue economy is just another form of greenwashing. Julia Barnes is the director of the award-winning documentaries Sea of Life and Bright Green Lies. She is a co-founder of Deep Sea Defenders, a campaign dedicated to protecting the marine environment from seabed mining. deepseadefenders.org
The Blue Economy and Greenwashing
By Julia Barnes
The term “blue economy” was first introduced in 2012, at the United Nations climate change conference in Qatar, COP18.
It has become a buzzword used by ocean conservationists and industry alike. But what does this term actually mean? And more importantly, what are the implications for the ocean?
Definitions vary. For some, the term simply describes economic activities taking place at sea. However, most interpretations include language around sustainability, conservation, or better stewardship.
According to Google/Oxford Languages, the blue economy is defined as:
blue economy
noun
an economic system or sector that seeks to conserve marine and freshwater environments while using them in a sustainable way to develop economic growth and produce resources such as energy and food.
Embedded in this definition are the values and assumptions of the dominant culture: the idea that economic growth is desirable, that the ocean consists of resources to be exploited, and that these resources can be “developed” in a sustainable way.
Sustainable has become perhaps the most meaningless word in the English language. It has been pasted in front of nearly every destructive activity imaginable; used as a rhetorical shield to deflect criticism. We now have sustainable mining, sustainable forestry, sustainable fisheries, and sustainable energy. Yet, the real world effects of these activities remain the same: they are destroying the planet.
Some examples of sectors within the blue economy include: industrial fishing, aquaculture, shipping, coastal and marine tourism, energy (wind, waves, tidal, biofuel, offshore oil and gas), ocean-based carbon credits, mineral resources (deep sea mining, dredging, sand mining), and biotechnology (marine genetic resources, industrial enzymes) – all of which the ocean would be better off without.
The problem isn’t that these industries are being done in an unsustainable way and can somehow be tweaked to become sustainable; unsustainability is inherent to what they are, and to the economic model under which they operate – a model that demands infinite extractive growth despite the fact that our planet is finite and has already been largely denuded of life, a model that objectifies the ocean and values it only for the profit humans can extract from it.
The notion of a sustainable blue economy provides the illusion of protection. Meanwhile, industry and corporations are doubling down on their efforts to exploit the sea, extracting living organisms faster than the rate at which they can reproduce, destroying habitat, wiping out vulnerable species, and pushing new frontiers of extraction. Carbon capture schemes are popping up, abusing the sea in a shell game that legitimises continued emissions through supposed carbon “offsets”. Genetic prospecting threatens to privatize and commodify the very DNA of our nonhuman kin. Deep sea mining threatens to disrupt the ocean on a scale not previously seen. Offshore energy projects (for fossil fuels and so-called renewables) impose damage on the sea while providing power to the system that is at the root of the problem.
At a time when we should be pulling back, reducing our impact, and allowing the ocean to regenerate, the blue economy offers instead to continue business as usual, only rebranded.
As with so many of the things that have been marketed to us as “green”, the blue economy is primarily about sustaining a gluttonous way of life at the expense of life on the planet.
What if instead of defining the ocean as a resource, we valued it for what it really is? A living community vital to the functioning of our planet. The foundation of life on Earth. An entity with volition of its own. A force much older, larger, and wiser than we are. Something so powerful, beautiful, and magical, it cannot be described in words but can certainly be felt. Something sacred and deserving of respect.
The ocean is already collapsing under the many assaults of the global industrial economy. Further commodifying it under a vague claim of sustainability will not solve the problem.
WHO Abstains From “Transgender” Guidelines For Minors
This is a quick update about WHO’s plan for creating a “transgender” health guidelines. It was announced in late December and the consultations were supposed to begin on February. We outlined some major problems about the plan in an editorial early January. We thank all of our readers who took action either by signing petitions or by sending emails to WHO highlighting those problems.
As a result of actions from people across the world, WHO published a FAQ regarding the “transgender” health guideline. WHO has now announced that the guideline is only for adults who suffer from gender dysphoria. They have completely excluded children and adolescents because of a lack of research findings of the effect of gender affirmative care on children and adolescents. You can find the full document here.
While exclusion of children and adolescents from the guidelines is definitely progress, it was by far not the only problem with WHO’s stance on the issue. In this article, we’ll highlight how the WHO has attempted to change its conceptualization of gender dysphoria from a mental illness to a condition that is not so serious to be classified as a mental disorder, yet serious enough to absolutely require a specialized form of treatment: gender affirmative care, lack of which would be terribly hurtful to them. This piece is a short critique of this step. This article does not deal with many other problems on this proposition, which we have already discussed in our original editorial.
ICD Classification
The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) is an official taxonomy of disorders published by the WHO. It consists of a list of physical and mental disorders along with systemized sets of criteria for classification into any of the disorders. ICD is widely used by physicians across the world for diagnosis. One chapter of ICD is dedicated for mental disorders, and serves as the primary system of classification outside US (which uses DSM system prepared by American Psychiatric Organizaiton).
The WHO periodically updates ICD to keep up to date with the latest research findings. The ICD is currently in its 11th edition, which was recently published in 2022. In the 10th edition, the “transgender” behavior was categorized as “transsexualism” and “gender identity disorder of children”. They have now been replaced by “gender incongruence of adolescence and adulthood” and “gender incongruence of childhood” respectively. They have also been moved from “Mental and behavioral disorders” into the new “Conditions related to sexual health” category. In other words, it has been removed from the chapter that deals with mental disorders, indicating that WHO does not believe gender incongruence to be a mental illness.
There are some obvious flaws in this reasoning. The obvious one being that if gender dysphoria is not a mental illness, why place it in ICD at all? Why not remove it altogether just like homosexuality was completely removed? Other “conditions” that fall under the same heading include sexual dysfunctions, sexual pain disorders, changes in female/male genital anatomy, paraphilic disorders, adrenogenital disorders and predominantly sexually transmitted infections. With an exception of paraphilic disorders, all other disorders are primarily physical in nature. Even if they are psychogenic (i.e. have psychological causes), the physical symptoms are way more intense than psychological ones. The same cannot be said for gender “incongruence” or paraphilia. A discussion of why paraphilia is listed under the same heading would be out of scope of this article.
Gender dysphoria has primarily psychological manifestations with little or no physical symptoms. The psychological distress a dysphoric suffers from is not merely rooted in stigma and lack of acceptance of their condition by the society, as the WHO FAQ document would have you believe. Their distress is rooted in their own personal dissatisfaction with their bodies. That is something that no amount of gender affirmative services can cure. High rates of comorbidity with other mental disorders (e.g. childhood trauma, depression, autism spectrum disorder, personality disorders) and high suicide rates even after sex reassignment surgeries further strengthens this point.
Another interesting point is that all of the other disorders listed in the category of “conditions related to sexual health” are related to sexual behavior. “Transgender”, on the other hand, is not related to sexual behavior at all. Even by the definition put forward in ICD;
[g]ender incongruence is characterised by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex.
It is merely a dissatisfaction one feels with one’s biological sex, or the gender roles assigned with one’s sex. It does not have anything to do with sexual behavior at all. So, why was it included in this particular chapter at all?
Why is WHO pushing for a reconceptualization and gender affirming care?
The renaming and shifting of categories begs the questions of why WHO, despite no reliable empirical support, is so inclined to recreate the entire concept of “transgenderism”: and a contradictory concept at that. According to WHO, “transgenderism” is not a serious issue, therefore it was removed from the list of “Mental and behavioral disorders.” Yet, it is so serious that it should still be included in ICD, albeit in a category that does not make sense at all. Also, it should be dealt with a very specialized form of treatment, lacking which the person suffers with all sort of consequences: stigma, inability to access health care, etc.
The FAQ document makes it perfectly clear that WHO is pushing only for gender-affirming care (with no substantial evidence and flawed logic). They have made this clear before the actual consultations. Consultations are supposed to guide conclusions. Yet, it seems that WHO already has its conclusion ready. All they had to do was to direct the consultations accordingly. Now, it seems less confusing why the panel was filled with people who have been vocally pushing for gender-affirming care.
Editor’s note: DGR believes that it is necessary for organizers to be strategic and efficient in organizing against ecocide. This also includes using technology as a tool for organizing. Therefore, we do not engage in “virtue signalling” and individual lifestyle choices by avoiding the use of technology. However, we are also aware of the harmful effects of these technologies. The following piece is a delving into the impacts of all actions we take and asks “what will be left to carry forward?”
Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) writes, small press publishes, and is the author of 17 books. He travels a holistic mystic Kaballah-rooted pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island and the cycles of the Seasons. His website: www.allbook-books.com
On a day when i am out and about carrying something that has taken a lot of effort to produce, a chunk of notes and written bits for the next book in the works, yet they haven’t been typed into the computer file yet, carrying that little stack of papers, i suddenly become extra cautious, telling myself: Don’t spill coffee, remember where you put it, don’t lose it!… And later on i realize that every day is truly like this, if you think about it and put it into practice, but not ‘practice’ rather deep appreciation and caring for everything and everyone that has brought ‘the item’ to this moment, your own efforts and all those who have helped you along the way, as well as all the experiences and stories of your life thus far written in your heart and feet and hands and organs and mind and soul . . . creating a kind of humanuscript or living story that you are virtually forever editing.
All those who have helped along the way includes, to name a few, the Sun and Earth that have been there and will continue being every day. How much is pre-scripted and how much you write your story is up for discussion . . . i think it’s a bit of both.
Yet the script cuts both ways, literally: “script” from “skrībh-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to cut, separate, sift;” an extended form of root sker- (1) “to cut”, also sker- (2) ker-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to turn, bend”, Latin scribere “to write” (to carve marks in wood, stone, clay, etc.); Lettish, skripat “scratch, write;” Old Norse, hrifa “scratch.”” (etymonline.net)
On the one hand we can’t help making our marks, leaving footprints, scratching books and such like, yet on the other hand why are we so obsessed with making marks, scratching books, carving into wood and stone, too-often literally defacing the Earth, blowing up mountains, and we’ve all seen the photos of scars due to extractive mining, the faded-brown swaths of deforested Amazon reflecting a scorched Earth policy, not simply a military policy, while the Amazon delivery trucks grow in numbers in the neighborhood.
No matter whether you are carrying your new-born child, a crystal vase, your magnum opus or simply a loaf of bread from the store, every living thing carries within it and emanating from it an immense amount of history and effort and hopefully joy to get it there to you where you are now holding it or perhaps ingesting it. In the long haul, seems to this scratcher that we are here so as to simply carry it forward, whatever “it” is — and that includes water and land.
i have no idea who planted the forsythia and azalea in the backyard of the house before i started living here but i thank them b/c every year like clockwork, just as the forsythia’s bright yellow is mostly turned to green is when the azalea begins opening up its neon red.
Aside from a literary manuscript, etymologically a manuscript is a mark/scratch/cut you make with your hands. Literally it cuts both ways: You could cut up the forest (destroy), or you could carve a piece of art, scratch some letters into a book (create). Then again, even by writing a book, you’re cutting into the forests for more paper. Is there such thing as a win-win situation anymore?
The Kogi (Original People of the Sierra Nevada mountains of Colombia) have no famous authors because they have no books. However, they can ‘read’ water. Think about that! . . . And from what i know, they are in the category of Peoples least likely to cut up the Earth, rather carry Her forward.
To further follow the word-roots, “to turn, bend” suggests another flavor of “script” accentuating the need for adaptability rather than cutting, and, like a Taoist, unassumingly going with the flow . . . “A skillful woodsman leaves neither tracks nor traces.” Now that’s something that would have archaeologists declaring ‘No Taoists lived here’; and they’d be inaccurate.
Everyone experiences cuts in life, some of them heal and some scar. Yet the continued scarring of our consciousnesses and of the Earth reflects the regurgitating of outdated “scripts” and taglines such as “progress” “faster downloading speeds” “you gotta upgrade” “trust the science” “the bottom line” “best seller” “the customer is always right” “education is the key to success” “and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
If the humanuscript continues to cut up the Earth at the current pace and subdue or lord it over others it considers inferior, what will be left to carry forward?
Truck photo by renaissancegal/Getty Images Signature/Canva
Editor’s Note: On Tuesday I logged into Chat GPT for the first time, a chatbot driven by artificial intelligence technology. With search engines like Google showing mostly affiliate marketing links, it seems as there’s less and less non-commercial information to utilize for researching. I asked Chat GPT and voilá; got a valuable answer, which of course I still had to verify as any editor needs to with information found on the internet. And it – the AI machine – was even friendly to me. It is spooky how delighted I was as if I’d been chatting to a real person.
When it comes to AI it’s not all chatty though. There are many dangers with AI, that we will deal with in a series of articles starting today.
The one that concerns us the most is its relation with deepfake intimate images, particularly how AI is impacting child pornography (CP). Here, we bring to you a few articles on this topic, along with our commentary. We have only published small parts of the articles, obliging to fair share policy. You can click on the link to get to the original article.
Despite it’s much confusing name, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not, in fact, intelligence. As a matter of fact, it is a series of highly complex amalgation of data. The individual data are intricately related to each other through an equally complex set of algorithms. In other words, whatever output AI produces, it is actually based on those complex links that is stored in a large set of data that it can quickly and easily access to.
Therefore, the greater the dataset that any AI program can access, the more “intelligent” it appears. In other words, for AI to appear intelligent, there needs to be a constant expansion of dataset. (Un)fortunately, there are different datasets committed to just that.
LAION is one such dataset that creates the dataset of images, linking it to the titles and alternative texts that the uploaders give. About two months ago, Stanford Internet Observatory discovered over thousand of AI-generated child pornography images on LAION. What it means is that AI is now getting trained to create child pornographic images, resulting in an increased likelihood to present similar images in the future.
Stanford Internet Observatory has made a distressing discovery: over 1,000 fake child sexual abuse images in LAION-5B, a dataset used for training AI image generators. This finding, made public in April, has raised serious concerns about the sources and methods used for compiling AI training materials.
The Stanford researchers, in their quest to identify these images, did not view the abusive content directly. Instead, they utilized Microsoft’s PhotoDNA technology, a tool designed to detect child abuse imagery by matching hashed images with known abusive content from various databases. Read more…
Two cases of using AI to create child pornography has urged AI and child experts to warn parents about the harms of AI-generated child pornography. They have warned parents against posting children’s images online, as they can be used to create new images of child pornography.
By Naomi Kowles/WBTV
New AI technology is being used to turn normal pictures into pornography, including child pornography. It’s a phenomenon that has touched at least two recent criminal cases in Charlotte.The FBI said agents found hundreds of AI-generated child pornography images on the digital devices for a former American Airlines flight attendant, arrested in Charlotte last month for secretly recording young girls on planes. Read more…
AI opens a Pandora’s box related to child pornography. While it can help detect CSAM (child sex abuse materials) through Microsoft’s PhotoDNA technology, it gives criminals an easy yet exploitative tool with which they can flood the web with fake AI-generated child pornography images. This makes prosecuting real crimes more complex and diverts the already understaffed police away from genuine cases.
Law enforcement is continuing to warn that a “flood” of AI generated fake child sex images is making it harder to investigate real crimes against abused children, The New York Times reported.
“Creating sexually explicit images of children through the use of artificial intelligence is a particularly heinous form of online exploitation,” Steve Grocki, the chief of the Justice Department’s child exploitation and obscenity section, told The Times. Experts told The Washington Post in 2023 that risks of realistic but fake images spreading included normalizing child sexual exploitation, luring more children into harm’s way and making it harder for law enforcement to find actual children being harmed.
Currently, there aren’t many cases involving AI-generated child sex abuse materials (CSAM), The NYT reported, but experts expect that number will “grow exponentially,” raising “novel and complex questions of whether existing federal and state laws are adequate to prosecute these crimes.” Read more…
While child pornography is an abhorrent crime that is being sidelined by AI generated flooding of CP images, even AI use of CP should be a crime. Child safety experts are increasingly worried about the “explosion” of “AI-generated child sex images” which pedophiles share easily through their dark web forums. After all, it would be naive to assume that the person creating and distributing AI-generated CP would not engage in CP if given the chance.
However, creating and sharing these violent images is not a definite crime. It takes time for the legal system to recognize any new crime as a crime. The same is true for AI-generated CP.
In addition common people cannot control what the future of technology holds, AI is in a constant development by self-declared specialists whose knowledge is kept under wraps. There will be technological conditions under which perpetrators could hide anonymously and keep on doing more children harm.
The Senate advanced two bills to the House on Tuesday, both aimed at combating AI era child pornography.
SB 740 criminalizes altering a photograph, image, video clip, movie, or recording containing sexually explicit conduct by inserting the image of an actual minor so it appears that the minor is engaged in the sexually explicit conduct.
The vote was 34-0. SB 741 also passed unanimously.
Where SB 740 involves using real victims in artificially generated porn, this bill concerns entirely digitally or AI-generated porn where the image appears to be a minor. Read more…
Editor’s Note: Deep Green Resistance promotes a biocentric worldview. We believe in the dignity of the lives of every creature of the world, and nature herself. Human and nonhuman alike are a part of nature, and should live in harmony with her, not against her.
That’s why we invite you to come to the We Are All In This Together Symposium, a series of live-events where friends of nature can learn more about how to get active in resistance and bring the natural world to the center of their lives in a practical and intertwined way.
This is not an event organized by DGR. Therefore, we may not agree with everything in the event. For example, we believe that climate change is only the symptom of a wider problem, which is the destruction of nature. We do not believe it is possible to tackle climate change without tackling ecocide or biodiversity loss in the first place.
We appreciate the organizers for talking about colonization and commodification of the natural world. Human civilization has de-personified the natural world and nonhumans, stripping them of their inherent dignity and rights. Historically, it have treated indigenous people in the same way. Therefore, we understand the need for decolonization of indigenous people, nonhumans and natural world.
Yet, decolonization is not a simple issue anymore, as is exemplified by an increasing number of indigenous peoples opting to lease their ancestral land for mining companies. This has created a blurring of lines between colonizers and colonized. It is not enough to just return the captured land back to its original custodians. It is also important for the formerly colonized to remove the colonizing mentality of civilization, to return to a lifestyle in harmony with the land, and to restore their status as custodians of the land, rather than to replace the settlers as the “owners” of the land. Only then can we claim to have finally decolonized.
We Are All In This Together Symposium
We Are all in this Together Symposium seeks to reposition environmental stewardship and humanities disciplines within an eco-centric framework. Through a series of three virtual events, we are planning to explore the concepts of land “ownership,” and the importance of honoring nature’s more-than-human guardians. The events will first address the settler colonial history, which has brought us to this point of crisis. Then, we will invite the speakers to explore alternatives that honor the needs and interests of all ecosystems. Together, the speakers will join with audiences to consider how to shift the exploitative paradigm that currently dominates and build a future that protects and respects the life of all ecosystems and communities.
The Symposium is guided under the mission and vision of:
Standing up for the Guardians of the Natural World
In a series of three virtual events, we will join to discuss how we can expand the conception of environmental stewardship beyond the human, and unravel the historical roots of the climate crisis. Here you get access to three free live-webinars.
This event will grapple with the history of colonization and commodification of the more-than-human world, drawing the connection between settler colonial conception of private property, and the current climate crisis. We will also delve into how we can all shift away from this destructive paradigm and acknowledge the “Rights,” spirit and agency of Land.
The event will address how communities have, since time immemorial, honored and protected the spirits of the natural world. From communities standing up to defend the guardians of mountains to water guardians that advocate for the spirits of rivers, humans have long acknowledged the existence of the beings who don’t fit into the western empirical conception of nature. These beliefs were and are the foundation of humans’ relationship with the ecosystems they inhabit. In these times of crisis, the event will delve into the historical roots of these relationships, and the importance of celebrating these ancestral worldviews.
This event will focus on how more-than-human beings (such as Trees, Wolves and Eels) are fulfilling their roles and responsibilities towards the ecosystems they call home, while playing their part in maintaining an ecosystem balance that keeps all life flourishing. While the program will delve into the historical nature of these relationships, it will also address how we, humans, can act reciprocally and honor/protect these guardians of water and life.
Editor’s note: We all know the word mammal, but not many people may have heard about tetrapod species. This group of wild animals includes amphibians, birds and reptiles in addition to mammals. Most people love jaguars and monkeys, but an ecosystem is thriving with all kinds of particular species, also with the ones that are green and greasy or look like little dinosaurs.
Because of their importance researchers want to find out how many tetrapod species have gone extinct in comparison to how many can be rediscovered; just because nobody saw them in between a few years, doesn’t mean that they’re gone. With this “lost and found” method scientists can prove how bad the extinction rate really is, and, in a case of rediscovery, get funding for protection measures.
In our so called civilization there’s no real protection for other than humans, wildlife has to make way when human needs appear. In a natural world where nonhumans needs were also considered we wouldn’t need to count for lost and found species. We would give them their own space and let them be. Yet it seems nowadays the only way to get funding for nature conservancy projects is by research, a method that only speaks to the mind.
But the mind is limited, human brains cannot grasp wholeness, beauty and true meaning of a healthy environment with only thoughts. Often it hinders us to connect to the special beings surrounding us. So in addition to science we as a society need a culture of connection and heartfelt unity to not lose more.
Lost species are those that have not been observed in the wild for over ten years, despite searches to find them. Lost tetrapod species (four-limbed vertebrate animals including amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles) are a global phenomenon – there are more than 800 of them, and they are broadly distributed worldwide.
Our research, published today in the journal Global Change Biology, attempts to pin down why certain tetrapod species are rediscovered but others not. It also reveals that the number of lost tetrapod species is increasing decade-on-decade. This means that despite many searches, we are losing tetrapod species at a faster rate than we are rediscovering them. In particular, rates of rediscovery for lost amphibian, bird and mammal species have slowed in recent years, while rates of loss for reptile species have increased.
This is not good news. Species are often lost because their populations have shrunk to a very small size due to human threats like hunting and pollution. Consequently, many lost species are in danger of becoming extinct (in fact, some probably are extinct). However, it is difficult to protect lost species from extinction because we don’t know where they are.
Rediscoveries lead to conservation action
In 2018, researchers in Colombia successfully searched for the Antioquia brush-finch (Atlapetes blancae), a bird species unrecorded since 1971. This rediscovery led to the establishment of a reserve to protect the remaining population of the brush-finch, which is tiny and threatened by habitat loss caused by agricultural expansion and climate change.
The Antioquia brush-finch, which was rediscovered in Colombia in 2018, and protected through the establishment of a new reserve.Victor Manuel Arboleda/iNaturalist
The Victorian grassland earless dragon (Tympanocryptis pinguicolla) was rediscovered in Australia last year. It hadn’t been recorded for 54 years, and was presumed to be extinct, due to the loss of its grassland habitat and predation by invasive alien species including feral cats. Its rediscovery resulted in government funding to trial new survey techniques to find further populations of the species, a breeding program, and the preparation of a species recovery plan.
The Victorian grassland earless dragon was rediscovered in Australia last year.CSIRO/Wikimedia
Thus, rediscoveries are important: they provide evidence of the continued existence of highly threatened species, prompting funding for conservation action. The results of our study may help to prioritise searches for lost species. In the image below, we mapped their global distribution, identifying regions with many lost and few rediscovered species.
The global distribution of lost and rediscovered tetrapod species. Grey shading and text = the number of species within a region (a country or an island) that are currently lost (globally). Orange text: the number of rediscovered species with a range incorporating this region. White regions without orange numbers: no data on lost or rediscovered species. White regions with orange numbers: regions where lost species have been rediscovered and no (known) lost species remain.Thomas Evans, Global Change Biology, 2024
What factors influence rediscovery?
Sadly, many quests to find lost species are unsuccessful. In 1993, searches in Ghana and the Ivory Coast over seven years failed to rediscover a lost primate, Miss Waldron’s red colobus (Piliocolobus waldronae). The research team concluded that this noisy and conspicuous monkey, unrecorded since 1978, may well be extinct. Its demise has been caused by hunting and the destruction of its forest habitat. Further searches in 2005, 2006 and 2019 were also unsuccessful, although calls that were possibly by this species were heard in 2008.
Searches for the Sinú parakeet in the Upper Sinú Valley recorded the presence of ten other parrot species including the great green macaw (Ara ambiguus) (pictured) which is critically endangered.Grigory Heaton/iNaturalist
So why is it that some species are rediscovered while others remain lost? Are there specific factors that influence rediscovery? We aimed to answer these questions in our study, in order to improve our ability to distinguish between the types of lost species we can rediscover, from those that we cannot, because they are extinct.
We compiled a database of 856 lost and 424 rediscovered tetrapod species (amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles). We then proposed three broad hypotheses about factors that might influence rediscovery: characteristics of (i) tetrapod species, and (ii) the environment influence rediscovery, and (iii) human activities influence rediscovery.
For example, body mass (a species characteristic) may positively influence rediscovery, as larger lost species should be easier to find. Lost species occupying dense forests (a characteristic of the environment) may not be rediscovered as searching for them is difficult. Lost species affected by threats associated with human activities (e.g., invasive alien species, which are being spread to new locations by global trade) may not be rediscovered, as they may be extinct.
Based on these hypotheses, we collected data on a series of variables associated with each lost and rediscovered species (for example, their body mass), which we then analysed for their influence on rediscovery.
Hard to find + neglected = rediscovered
On the upside, our results suggest that while many lost species are difficult to find, with some effort and the use of new techniques, they are likely to be rediscovered. These species include those that are very small (including many lost reptile species), those that live underground, those that are nocturnal, and those living in areas that are difficult to survey.
In fact, since the completion of our study, De Winton’s Golden Mole (Cryptochloris wintoni) has been rediscovered in South Africa. This species hadn’t been recorded in the wild since 1937. It lives underground much of the time, so searches were conducted using techniques including environmental DNA and thermal imaging.
Our results also suggest some species are neglected by conservation scientists, particularly those that are not considered to be charismatic, such as reptiles, small species and rodents. Searches for these species may also be rewarded with success. Voeltzkow’s chameleon (Furcifer voeltzkowi), a small reptile species, was rediscovered in Madagascar in 2018.
The Bramble Cay melomys – once considered to be a lost species, but now declared extinct.State of Queensland/Wikimedia
Lost or extinct?
Unfortunately, our results also suggest that some lost species are unlikely to be found no matter how hard we look, because they are extinct. For example, remaining lost mammal species are, on average, three times larger than rediscovered mammal species. Some of these large, charismatic, conspicuous species should have been rediscovered by now.
Furthermore, one third of remaining lost mammal species are endemic to islands, where tetrapod species are particularly vulnerable to extinction. The Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola), which was once considered to be a lost species, has recently been declared extinct by the Australian Government. It occupied a small island that has been extensively surveyed – if it still existed it should have been rediscovered by now.
Lost bird species have, on average, been missing for longer than those that have been rediscovered (28% have been missing for more than 100 years), and many have been searched for on several occasions – perhaps some of these species should also have been rediscovered by now.
Nevertheless, unexpected rediscoveries of long-lost species like the Cebu flowerpecker (Dicaeum quadricolor) do occur, so we shouldn’t lose hope, and we should definitely keep searching. However, some searches are being carried out for long-lost species that are considered to be extinct, such as the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus). Perhaps the limited resources available for biodiversity conservation would be better used to search for lost species likely to still exist.
Thomas Evans is a Research scientist at Freie Universität Berlin and Université Paris-Saclay
