A Legacy in Meteorology and Environmental Advocacy

Reinier’s fascination with weather began at a young age, leading him to pursue studies in environmental sciences at Wageningen University. In 1989, he became a familiar face on Dutch television as a weather presenter for RTL4, a role he fulfilled for over three decades. Beyond forecasting, Reinier has been a vocal advocate for climate awareness and sustainable practices. He has participated in tornado research in the United States, organised expeditions to climate change hotspots like Greenland, and explored deforestation issues in the Amazon. Reinier is also managing SpeakOut, a speaker bureau specializing in inspiring talks on climate, sustainability, and innovation. His dedication extends to personal initiatives, such as constructing a climate-neutral, biobased home in 2020, exemplifying his commitment to sustainable living.  

Passion for Nature and Rewilding

Reinier van den Berg’s deep-seated love for nature is evident in his endeavors. He has authored “Bladgoud,” a book highlighting the invaluable role of trees in combating climate change and promoting biodiversity. In his view, rewilding transcends ecosystem restoration; it serves as a potent, nature-based solution to climate challenges. By allowing nature to recover, we bolster resilience against climate impacts, paving the way for a sustainable future for both people and the planet. 

A Shared Vision for a Sustainable Future

Reinier’s alignment with Rewilding Academy stems from a shared vision of harmonizing human existence with the natural world. He emphasizes the urgency of addressing climate change and sees rewilding as a pathway to restoring ecological balance. His advocacy for positive environmental action resonates with our goals of fostering awareness, understanding, and coexistence.  

Looking Ahead: Collaborative Initiatives

As our ambassador, Reinier will collaborate with Rewilding Academy on various initiatives aimed at raising awareness and inspiring action. His extensive experience in communication and education will be instrumental in developing programs that engage communities, policymakers, and businesses in rewilding efforts. Together, we aim to showcase rewilding as a viable strategy for climate mitigation and biodiversity enhancement, ultimately contributing to a healthier planet.

We are honoured to welcome Reinier van den Berg to the Rewilding Academy family and look forward to the impactful work we will accomplish together.

The post Rewilding Academy Welcomes Reinier van den Berg as Ambassador appeared first on Rewilding Academy.

However, these organisms also have the capability to modify their microclimate when it is not favorable to their growth. Mushrooms play important roles in regulating microclimates.

Airconditioning

Have you ever wondered how mushrooms can spread their spores without the help of a breeze? Scientists have uncovered their remarkable secret: they create wind themselves. Through evaporation, mushrooms manipulate their microclimate, leading to an increase in air humidity and a drop in temperature. This creates a dense air zone and small wind currents around the mushroom, allowing it to distribute its spores through the air. This means that mushrooms can effectively disperse their spores even in still conditions.

The research also showed that the air temperatures around different mushrooms were 1-2°C lower than the ambient air, with the mushrooms themselves being around 4°C cooler. This reduction in temperature is due to the energy consumption required for evapotranspiration.

Rainmakers

Mushrooms have a surprising ability to create rain. They release millions of tons of fungal spores into the air, which are among the largest living particles. These spores, along with plant pieces and pollen grains, can serve as the nucleus for water condensation in clouds. When water condenses on the spore surfaces, it forms rain droplets. This means that large populations of fungi can contribute to rainfall in their ecosystems.

This creates a positive feedback loop: the growth of fungi is stimulated by rain, leading to the release of large quantities of spores that further enhance precipitation. By this mechanism, mushrooms play a crucial role in promoting rainfall in the environments they inhabit.

Mycorrhiza

Nearly 90% of plant species, including crops, have symbiotic relationships with fungal networks. These relationships give plants the power to access nutrients in the soil, making fungi critical in soil building. They release nutrients in a form that can be absorbed by plant roots, reduce the risk of nutrient loss through leaching, and improve drought resilience by redistributing water to upper soil layers.

Moreover, fungal networks also play a crucial role in carbon sequestration. Ecosystems with healthy fungal networks store more carbon than those without, improving soil quality and drought tolerance, and increasing overall resilience.

Cascading impact

According to renowned mycologist and author Paul Stamets, a strain of Oyster mushrooms has the ability to clean up crude oil. In a scientific study, Stamets showed that the mushrooms were able to break down over 95% of harmful polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into non-toxic components. Not only were the mushrooms effective in cleaning up oil spills, but they also contributed to the restoration of the surrounding environment.

Once the mushrooms began to rot, they attracted flies, leading to a chain of events where other insects and birds were drawn in, ultimately bringing in seeds to the previously polluted area. Through this process, the mushrooms played a vital role in facilitating habitat remediation and restoring the ecosystem. Stamets’ research highlights the remarkable abilities of fungi in promoting environmental sustainability.

Ecosystem restoration

Mycorrhizal fungi and mushrooms have a vital role in maintaining ecological stability and fostering growth in ecosystems. With their ability to regulate weather and their adaptive mechanisms, they serve as keystone organisms in dynamic environments. As such, they can be leveraged to restore, rejuvenate, and heal ecosystems, local climates and agricultural land. That’s why the Rewilding Academy promotes a symbiotic partnership between fungi, rewilders, and farmers.

For more information, please watch our webinar recording on fungi and rewilding.

Photo: Sasha Panarin / Scop.io

The post Fungi restoring ecosystems and climate: Rewilding from the bottom up appeared first on Rewilding Academy.

In a new article, a scientists warn about the ongoing collapse of global insect populations.

Published in Ecological Monographs, the article delves into potential explanations for the decline of insects, including as habitat loss and fragmentation, lethal new pesticides, climate change and extreme weather events, destructive wildfires, among others. 

The article also assesses the ecological impacts of insect declines – for instance, on the many species of plants that require insects for pollination, or the diversity of animals that feeds on insects.  

Climate change is one of the most important anthropogenic pressures on the environment. The accompanying effects could be very negative, especially in terms of threats to the survival of species and a variety of ecological services that biodiversity provides.

Insects, which are essential parts of many ecosystems, are a group of species most impacted by climate change, with effects ranging from individuals, populations and species to entire insect communities. The researchers discuss the impact of the progressive rise in global surface temperature on insects in terms of physiology, behavior, phenology, distribution, and species relationships in a special scientists’ warning series.

The scientists caution that if steps are not taken to better understand and mitigate the impact of climate change on insects, we will significantly diminish our capacity to create a sustainable future based on healthy, functional ecosystems.

The article examines viewpoints on pertinent approaches to protecting insects from climate change and provide various important recommendations on management practices that might be applied, regulations that should be pursued, and the involvement of the public and restoration and conservation efforts.

Source: Ecological Monographs

Photo credits: Kiran Rawal, Luciano Andres Richino

The post Climate change and collapse of global insect populations appeared first on Rewilding Academy.

Scientists now understand that without biodiversity ecosystems lose their resilience and potential to remove carbon from the atmosphere at the rates required to keep inside the 1.5 °C warming limit, both in the ocean and on land. Whales are crucial allies in the battle against climate change.

It is critical that a market-ready whale credit system and the required policy be developed in order to encourage global whale monitoring and conservation. Data on whales and the ocean, scientific investigation, monitoring technology, and cooperation among ocean stakeholders are all necessary for determining the value of whale ecosystem services and developing a market solution.

The distinctive contribution of Whale Seeker is to develop ethical AI and visual remote sensing technologies that can monitor whale presence and prevent harm from companies that share the whales’ ocean environment. With the help of this technology, business operational procedures and standards will be more accountable and verifiable.

Whale Seeker™ is leading this project in the Canadian Arctic, to develop and test a scalable whale carbon and biodiversity detection methodology and credit system to incentivize all marine actors to monitor marine mammal presence and take meaningful action to avoid conflict with them. By basing our methodology on images, we are both providing an auditable quantitative measure of marine mammals and firm metrics to aid in ESG reporting. The pilot project will focus on narwhals (Monodon monoceros), using existing scientific data collected over 10 years to model and verify whale services, while also bringing in new and existing aerial imagery and satellite technology to measure whale abundance in relation to ocean productivity and health. With these advances in science and technology, along with other test cases around the globe to address other whale threats such as entanglements, we aim to deliver verified carbon/biodiversity credits to marine industries in the next two years.

“Our current economic paradigm values dead whales that are sold for their meat. In contrast, living whales are valued at zero dollars although their ecological services, including carbon sequestration, are incredibly valuable to our own survival and well-being as well as to the health of our ocean. We need a new economic paradigm that recognizes and values the services of a living and thriving nature, both flora and fauna. This new nature-positive economy will lead to sustainable and shared prosperity for all” … says Ralph Chami, Assistant Director at the IMF.

“Increasing the world’s whale populations is a win-win strategy to capture more carbon from the atmosphere and improve ocean health. However, for whale protection measures to be adopted on a global scale, we need to incentivize businesses and other stakeholders by proving the benefits of protecting whales far exceed the cost. By using ethical AI we aim to set not only a high technical standard for whale detection but also an ethical one.”, adds Emily Charry-Tissier, CEO and Co-Founder of Whale Seeker.

“For centuries people have used the latest technologies to hunt down and kill whales,” says Ed Goodall, from project board member WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “It is a measure of just how far we have come from those dark days that we are now using the latest technology to hunt down and save them. Whales play an outsized role in the marine ecosystem and carbon capture, but these ‘services’ have not fully recognised or valued before. We are now in a race against time to build the evidence base, and secure the finance needed to help whale populations recover, and we are delighted to be working with Whale Seeker on this exciting, cutting-edge project.”

This project will develop scalable, replicable methodology and market solutions for marine mammal health and ocean protection on a worldwide scale. The status of the whale populations around the world is a powerful tool for reducing climate change and a clear sign of the health of the oceans.

Source

The post How whales help fight climate change appeared first on Rewilding Academy.

“Animate the Carbon Cycle: Supercharging ecosystem carbon sinks to meet the 1.5C target” is a collaborative research and demonstration project that will confirm the massive positive and highly-undervalued impact that intact and functional nature has on stabilizing the climate, and humanity’s urgent need to protect and restore intact ecosystems. Scientific research shows the essential role that healthy populations of wild animal, plant, and fungal species play in the world’s carbon cycle.

Professor Oswald Schmitz, Yale School for the Environment, is a key originator of the concept of Animating the Carbon Cycle (ACC): “Restoring, rewilding, and conserving the functional role of vertebrate and invertebrate species can be a game changer by magnifying carbon uptake by 1.5 to 12.5 times (in some cases more) across the world’s terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.”

Examples already exist of how different animal species can “supercharge ecosystem carbon sinks”. For example, the restored wildebeest population in the famous Serengeti has almost completely prevented wildfires, and the rejuvenated grasslands now capture carbon up to the equivalent of the annual human-caused CO2 emissions of Kenya and Tanzania combined. Through protecting wolf populations across the North American boreal region, an amount of carbon equivalent to 10% of USA’s CO2 emissions. By restoring the forest elephant population in the Congo Basin to historic levels, an amount of carbon equivalent to France’s annual CO2 emissions would be stored.

The potential for restored wildlife populations in the ocean to help stabilize the climate is staggering. If we restore whale populations to their estimated pre-historic population levels, the annual emissions of Russia – or more than that of all African nations – could be captured. And, although our fish stocks are severely overexploited, they still capture an amount of carbon equivalent to twice the CO2 emissions of the EU-27. Imagine the climate potential if we rebuild the world’s severely depleted fish populations!

Over the next year this new initiative will document the scientific, economic, and practical potential of animating the carbon cycle, and provide concrete measures to achieve this – including field methodology, financial, legal and policy solutions. Leading this is a consortium of organizations facilitated by the Global Rewilding Alliance (GRA) and including One Earth, Yale School of the Environment, Re:wild, GRID-Arendal, Rewilding Argentina, the Wilderness Specialist Group (IUCN) and The WILD Foundation, with input from a diverse group of expert scientists, economists, policymakers, and practitioners.

This new coalition advocates a very simple solution — preserving still-intact nature and restoring and rewilding functional ecosystems at large scale; and with urgency, because only 2.8% of the land surface could be considered functionally intact.” The situation for our seas is hardly any better.

Animating the Carbon Cycle is an extremely cost-efficient, nature-based solution that allows nature, climate, and people to prosper. Carbon is managed, species are saved, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities who steward many of these intact areas are supported and their cultures strengthened. Animating the Carbon Cycle is the critical, missing link between biodiversity and climate change.

The Global Rewilding Alliance is a network of practitioners and messengers of +130 members working on every continent (except Antarctica), restoring and rewilding nature on more than 350,000 ha of land and sea.

“The concept of animating the carbon cycle provides the missing link between biodiversity and climate problems and solutions, and underlines the importance of our rewilding and wildlife reintroduction programmes.” says Arend de Haas, Director at the Rewilding Academy.

Vance Martin, representing the Global Rewilding Alliance (GRA), summarizes the objective of this initiative: “If we’re going to solve the climate crisis and meet the 1.5C target, the Global Rewilding Alliance believes it’s necessary to urgently supercharge ecosystem carbon sinks through animating the carbon cycle. This needs to be recognized by the UNFCCC and other global processes such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and be immediately implemented by all countries and institutions and civil society.”

This initiative is part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration through the Global Rewilding Alliance (www.rewildingglobal.org .

The post Animate the carbon cycle: the critical, missing link between biodiversity and climate change appeared first on Rewilding Academy.

Becoming #GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem Restoration for People, Nature and Climate synthesizes evidence of the state of degradation of the world’s ecosystems and details the economic, environmental and social rewards that restoration can bring. The report shows that, far from being a ‘nice to have’, ecosystem restoration is needed on a large scale in order to achieve the sustainable development agenda.

Over-exploitation of natural resources is embedded in economies and governance systems, and the resulting degradation is undermining hard-won development gains and threatening the well-being of future generations.

Countries need to deliver on their existing commitments to restore 1 billion hectares of degraded land and make similar commitments for marine and coastal areas. Ecosystem restoration is one of the most important ways of delivering nature-based solutions for food insecurity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity loss.

It won’t be quick or easy, and it will take deep changes to everything from the way we measure economic progress to how we grow food and what we eat. But the beauty of ecosystem restoration is that it can happen at any scale – and everyone has a role to play.

Synthesis report

Trees are more important today than This report represents a synthesis of recent research. All selected ecosystems – farmlands; forests; freshwater; grasslands, shrublands and savannahs; mountains; oceans and coasts; peatlands; and urban areas – are being degraded, often at an accelerating rate. We are fast approaching a tipping point for the climate (IPCC 2018) and are close to overshooting some of our other ‘planetary boundaries’. The demands humanity places on the biosphere – our ecological footprint – are simply too much (Dasgupta 2021).

Read the full report

KEY MESSAGE 1
Countries need to deliver on their existing commitments to restore 1 billion hectares of
degraded land and make similar commitments for marine and coastal areas.

The fulfilment of these commitments is not simply something that is ‘nice to have’. Restoration is essential for
keeping global temperature rise below 2°C, ensuring food security for a growing population and slowing the rate of
species extinctions. Humanity is not outside of nature; it is part of it. We need to recreate a balanced relationship with the ecosystems that sustain us.

KEY MESSAGE 2
Unfortunately, we are still going in the wrong direction.

The world’s ecosystems – from oceans to forests to farmlands – are being degraded, in many cases at an accelerating rate. People living in poverty, women, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups bear the brunt of this damage, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened existing inequalities. While the causes of degradation are various and complex, one thing is clear: the massive economic growth of recent decades has come at the cost of ecological health.

KEY MESSAGE 3
Ecosystem restoration is needed on a large scale in order to achieve the sustainable development agenda.

The conservation of healthy ecosystems – while vitally important – is now not enough. We are using the equivalent of 1.6 Earths to maintain our current way of life, and ecosystems cannot keep up with our demands. Simply put, we need more nature. The good news is that nature has an extraordinary capacity for renewal. While some ecosystems are approaching a tipping point from which they cannot recover, many others can flourish again if we stop the damage and restore their health, biodiversity and productivity.

KEY MESSAGE 4
Ecosystem restoration delivers multiple benefits.

It is one of the most important ways of delivering nature-based solutions for societal challenges.

• Half of the world’s GDP is dependent on nature, and every dollar invested in restoration creates up to USD 30 dollars in economic benefits.
• Restoring productive ecosystems is essential to supporting food security. Restoration through agroforestry alone has the potential to increase food security for 1.3 billion people. Restoring the populations of marine fish to deliver a maximum sustainable yield could increase fisheries production by 16.5 million tonnes, an annual value of USD 32 billion.
• Actions that prevent, halt and reverse degradation are needed if we are to keep global temperatures below 2°C. Such actions can deliver one-third of the mitigation that is needed by 2030. This could involve action to better manage some 2.5 billion hectares of forest, crop and grazing land (through restoration and avoiding degradation) and restoration of natural cover over 230 million hectares.
• Large-scale investments in dryland agriculture, mangrove protection and water management will make a vital contribution to building resilience to climate change, generating benefits around four times the original investment.
• With careful planning, restoring 15 per cent of converted lands while stopping further conversion of natural ecosystems could avoid 60 per cent of expected species extinctions.

KEY MESSAGE 5
Achieving successful ecosystem restoration at scale will require deep changes, including:

• Adopting inclusive wealth as a more accurate measure of economic progress. This will rest on the widespread introduction of natural capital accounting.
• Creating an enabling environment for private sector investment, including through public-private partnerships.
• Increasing the amount of finance for restoration, including through the elimination of perverse subsidies that incentivize further degradation and fuel climate change, and through initiatives to raise awareness of the risks posed by ecosystem degradation.
• Taking action on food waste, making more efficient use of agricultural land, and encouraging a shift to a more plant-based diet.
• Expanding awareness of the importance of healthy ecosystems throughout our educational systems.

KEY MESSAGE 6
Everyone has a role to play in ecosystem restoration.

The restoration of ecosystems at scale is no small task, and it will take a concerted effort to truly restore the planet. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to catalyse a global movement among local communities and activists, women, youth, indigenous groups, private companies, financial investors, researchers and governments at all levels.

The beauty of restoration is that it conveys a message of action and hope, and it can happen at any scale – whether a backyard plot, a city park, a river valley, a national forest or a globally threatened ecosystem. This means that everyone can get involved.

KEY MESSAGE 7
Achieving the aims of the UN Decade will require action by many. We call on:

• Governments to ensure that their COVID-19 recovery plans incorporate significant allocations for ecosystem restoration as a central component to delivering a green, sustainable and fair recovery. Currently, only about 18 per cent of recovery stimulus plans can be characterized as ‘green’.
• Parties to deliver on existing commitments under the Rio Conventions and the Bonn Challenge to restore 1 billion hectares of land.
• Donors and institutions working on coastal and marine restoration to develop and deliver on ambitious restoration goals equivalent at least to the Bonn Challenge.
• Public and private financial institutions and regulatory bodies to develop and strengthen instruments and mechanisms to ensure that finance flows support – and do not compromise – restoration efforts.
• Indigenous peoples and local communities across the world to build on their knowledge, experience and capacity for action to help achieve restoration goals.
• Youth organizations to play an active leadership role in ecosystem restoration locally, nationally and globally and to actively participate in the governance and implementation of the UN Decade.

Source: UNEP
Featured photo by Pablo Nida

The post Ecosystem Restoration for People, Nature and Climate: Becoming #GenerationRestoration appeared first on Rewilding Academy.

Where is the Anthropocene headed? The current trajectory of the Earth System is a rapid exit from the Holocene, accelerating towards a much hotter climate system and a degraded, ill-functioning biosphere. Perhaps most concerning is a possible ‘fork in the road’ beyond which lies ‘Hothouse Earth’. The key element of this trajectory is a ‘tipping cascade’, in which a series of interlinked tipping points – the melting of polar ice, the conversion of forest biomes to grasslands or savannas, changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation – take control of the trajectory of the Earth System and move it to a much hotter, biodiversity-impoverished, but stable state.

Professor Will Steffen (Climate Council of Australia, Australian National University) argues that avoiding this possible tipping cascade requires fundamental changes to human societies. These changes include not only advances in technologies but also more fundamental changes in societal structures and core values.

Source: The Royal Society of Victoria

The post The Anthropocene: Human pressures on the planet appeared first on Rewilding Academy.