Arquivo da tag: Adaptação

Experts: Why migration is ‘not a failure of adaptation’ in a warming world (Carbon Brief)

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People moving their belongings after a flooding incident in the River Ganga area.

People moving their belongings after a flooding incident in the River Ganga area. Credit: Pacific Press / Alamy Stock Photo

Original article

22 May 2026  15:24

Multiple Authors 

Hundreds of scientists gathered in London this week to discuss the role of migration as a way for communities to adapt to climate change.

The impacts of a warming world, such as sea level rise and worsening extremes, are pushing many people around the world to leave their homes.

As a form of climate adaptation, a decision to migrate involves an array of different factors, such as politics, conflict and economic opportunity.

The conference unpacked these topics, as well as the impacts of climate change on livelihoods, relocation and gender norms across Africa and Asia.

The event had a strong focus on urban areas, with one co-convenor stating that “half of the world’s population now lives in the cities…A lot of the battles of climate adaptation will be won and lost in cities.”

Another co-convenor told Carbon Brief that the conference’s “focus really is on the climate change adaptation community, showing that migration is not a failure of adaptation – it is part of adaptation”. 

Carbon Brief attended the conference to report on the sessions and speak to world-leading experts on climate-driven migration.

Migration as adaptation

The two-day conference on “mobility in adaptation to climate change” was held at Wellcome’s headquarters in London. It gathered more than 100 leading experts in migration, adaptation and climate change from countries across Europe, Africa and Asia.

On day one of the conference, co-convenor Prof Neil Adger, a professor from the University of Exeter, told Carbon Brief:

“Our focus really is on the climate change adaptation community, showing that migration is not a failure of adaptation – it is part of adaptation.”

In his opening address, Adger highlighted that there were still many unknowns on climate migration – such as how and when it is an appropriate way to adapt to climate change, and who benefits and loses in these situations.

Prof Neil Adger from the University of Exeter, opening the conference.
Prof Neil Adger from the University of Exeter, opening the conference. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

Dr Manuela Di Mauro – the head of climate-adaptation research at the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office – took to the stage next. She told attendees that mobility has always been a part of human life, stating:

“We are all migrants. We are all part of the same history.”

She urged the scientific community to “learn the language and the political perspective” needed to support and engage with policymakers about climate-driven migration.

Conference co-convenor Dr Chandni Singh from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) then delivered the first in-depth talk of the conference, outlining the current state of knowledge on climate change and migration.

She explained that cross-border migration is “emotionally and economically arduous” adding “under a changing climate, people choose to move within national borders first”. (Estimates suggest that around three-quarters of total global migration is internal.)

Singh emphasised that “mobility choices are extremely complex and nuanced, based on one’s aspirations and capabilities, social norms and asset bases”. She continued:

“Some [people] are forced to move or are displaced, others are relocated preemptively to move people out of harm’s way and others choose to stay despite escalating risk – or because resilience-building measures allow people to stay.”

She stressed that people need resources to migrate, so the poorest people are often unable to move – leaving them in a state of “immobility”. However, she also noted that most people do not want to leave their homes, stressing the “visceral reality of place attachment”.

Singh explained that many families “live dual lives”, in which family members work in the city to save money for a life back in their village. This dynamic of living across two locations is often referred to as “translocality”.

For example, Singh shared the story of residents from the Indian village of Kolar, who travel more than 100km to and from Bangalore for work every day, or else live there in informal settlements.

These workers send the money they earn back home, where it is often used to dig bore wells to access water. However, Singh warned that climate change and poor water management mean these wells often fail year after year, trapping people in this cycle of travelling to Bangalore to earn more money.

Singh also stressed the prevalence of rural-to-urban migration. She cited UN estimates (that do not explicitly include climate-driven migration), which find that around 2.5 billion people are expected to migrate from rural to urban areas by 2050. It adds that 90% of the change occurring in Africa and Asia.

Singh added:

“Half of the world’s population now lives in the cities…A lot of the battles of climate adaptation will be won and lost in cities.”

She noted that although migration “helps to manage risks”, it also has “significant financial, personal and social costs”. 

Singh went on to discuss the global goal on adaptation – a set of 59 indicators to measure global progress on adaptation. Singh said that “migration and mobility are completely invisible…and therefore completely overlooked” in the goals. 

She concluded by discussing the importance of new narratives on climate change and migration, saying:

“It’s the narratives and stories we tell of this moment that can help us first acknowledge what is happening, help subvert misinformation and untruths, and really demand accountability.”

Cities and livelihoods

Migration from villages to cities was a central theme of the conference. 

On day two of the conference, Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the IIHS, told delegates that the “root cause of the climate emergency is maldevelopment” and emphasised the importance of pursuing adaptation, mitigation and development goals together.

Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the IIHS, addressing conference attendees
Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the IIHS, addressing conference attendees. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

He noted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is currently working on a special report on climate change and cities and argued that “cities will play a decisive role in shaping global climate futures”.

He continued:

“Cities concentrate opportunities, but they also concentrate poverty, inequality and risk. And that’s something that we really don’t know how to understand, especially in a changing climate.”

Throughout the conference, many of the delegates presented nuanced stories of rural-to-urban migration from individual communities. These case studies highlighted the complex, interlinking factors that drive a person’s decision to move and the wide range of outcomes.

Dr Aysha Jennath from the IIHS presented the results from her research, which unpacks the experiences of migrants who have moved from rural to urban areas, for a range of reasons including the changing climate and for better livelihoods.

Jennath and her colleagues interviewed thousands of migrants living in informal settlements, or working in informal jobs, in large cities in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. The researchers’ questions aimed to understand the migrants’ “wellbeing, adaptive capacity and precarity”.

Overall, Jennath found that migrants in large cities are vulnerable to poor housing, unsafe working conditions and a lack of basic social services. 

Dr Binaya Pasakhala and Dr Sabarnee Tuladhar from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, presented initial results from the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) project, in which researchers interviewed households across Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal about migration patterns.

They conducted hundreds of surveys to identify how households are adapting to the changing climate and grouped responses into a series of “pathways” describing the impacts of rural-to-urban migration on their livelihoods. 

Dr Binaya Pasakhala and Dr Sabarnee Tuladhar from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and Halvard Buhaug Peace Research Institute Oslo answering questions in a panel discussion.
Dr Binaya Pasakhala and Dr Sabarnee Tuladhar from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and Halvard Buhaug Peace Research Institute Oslo answering questions in a panel discussion. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

For example, Tuladhar noted that in Bhutan, there is a huge emphasis on education, which has “changed the aspirations of the community – especially the youth”. This drives “huge depopulation” from rural areas as young, educated people migrate to urban areas or internationally, she said. 

This mass movement into the cities provides opportunities for young people. It also provides money for the families back home – a type of finance known as remittances.

However, it also “weakened resilience” in the villages through “gungtong” – a phrase which translates literally to “empty houses”.

However, they also described the case of Nepal’s Baragon mountain community, where remittances from people who moved to urban centres has allowed communities in the villages to shift livelihoods away from subsidence farming towards commercialised farming and tourism. In this case, “migration has actually strengthened the resilience of the community”, Tuladhar said.

Prof Nitya Rao is a researcher in gender and development at the University of East Anglia (UEA), also presented research funded by CLARE.

She told the conference that when men are forced to leave for work, due to a lack of other options, a lot of their earnings go towards “survival” and less is saved. On the other hand, “mixed migration” – such as the movement of a father and son  – is often “aspirational”. It typically yields higher remittances and improves adaptive capacity back home, according to Rao.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Rao argued that in order to “make migration a case of adaptation and not just survival in the short term”, destination cities need to do more to welcome migrants.

Prof Nitya Rao addressing conference attendees.
Prof Nitya Rao addressing conference attendees. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

Dr Maria Franco Gavonel, a lecturer at the University of York and Prof Mumuni Abu, a senior lecturer from the University of Ghana, explored the concept of “social tipping points” in migration decision-making. 

They suggested that as a drought intensifies, there may be a threshold at which households decide to leave. The authors compared drought indices to immigration patterns across communities in Ghana, Mali, Kenya and Ethiopia, but did not find evidence of a social tipping point.

This could be because households anticipate severe droughts and leave before they hit, the speakers suggested. They also noted that there are many government-led policy responses to drought that could affect a household’s decision to stay or leave. 

For example, Kenya has a livestock-insurance policy to help families who lose animals during drought. Similarly the African Union uses satellite data to assess the severity of droughts and provide compensation to affected households.

In the final session of the conference, Dr Kasia Paprocki, an associate professor of environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, provided a counterpoint to the idea that the vast majority of villagers want to abandon farming and move to the city.

She argued that people are often displaced from rural communities and unable to live farming lifestyles, even if they want to, adding:

“I have found that agrarian dispossession is being intensified through development interventions that are today being referred to as climate change adaptation.”

She argued for the need to “reorganise economies” to enable people to stay “if they would like to”, adding:

“Climate change adaptation and climate migration without meaningful agrarian reform will not produce climate justice.”

Immobility and relocation

Movement from rural to urban areas was not the only migration pattern discussed in the conference. Experts also discussed movement patterns including planned relocation and immobility. 

The graphic below – adapted from the 2021 Groundswell report and originally published in Carbon Brief’s 2024 explainer on climate-driven migration – shows different categories of mobility and immobility due to climate change.

Different categories of human mobility and immobility due to climate change
Different categories of human mobility and immobility due to climate change. Source: Adapted from the Groundswell report (2021).

Dr Roman Hoffmann from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis’s migration and sustainable development research group opened a session on “immobility” by presenting a way of defining and measuring the phenomenon.

He told Carbon Brief that immobility is “basically the absence of movement”, adding:

“The are different types of immobility. We have voluntary and involuntary immobility – and sometimes these different forms are not so clearly distinguishable, but there’s more sort of a continuum. Basically, the question is whether people are able to realise their aspirations to move or to stay.”

In his talk, Hoffman noted that media narratives around migration often focus on large movements of people, while the topic of immobility “falls between the cracks”.

Immobility is often seen as a problem experienced by the poorest and most vulnerable members of society – for example, because people cannot find or afford the resources they need, such as food or transportation, because they are not healthy enough to move or because they do not have the social network they require to make such a big change.

However, Dr Joyce Soo from the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies, explained that there are also instances when “wealth enables immobility”. 

Soo explained that in coastal regions of Sweden that are exposed to extreme events, many residents there choose to stay, as there is “strong trust in government protection”, such as coastal defences. She explained that in this instance “immobility is linked to identity and status”.

A separate session at the conference focused on planned relocation – the organised movement of a group of people away from a site that is highly vulnerable to climate extremes. 

Dr Ricardo Safra de Campos, a senior lecturer in human geography at the University of Exeter, told the delegates that planned relocation is “arguably the most controversial aspect of mobility as a response to climate change” and is usually implemented when “all other forms of in-situ adaptation have failed”.

Safra de Campos and Nihal Ranjit, a senior research associate at IIHS, worked with a team of researchers to interview people who underwent planned relocation programmes in India and Bangladesh. 

They told delegates that planned relocation is often implemented when people feel unsafe – for example due to climate extremes – resulting in an “erosion of habitability”.

However, Ranjit explained “safety alone doesn’t make relocation successful”. He argued that the most important aspect of planned relocation is to ensure that migrants do not lose their livelihoods.

He presented the example of Ramayapatnam – a fishing village in India where houses were slowly being lost to coastal erosion. Ranjit explained that a planned relocation programme was set up to move people away from the coast, but that many people refused to move, as doing so would mean losing their only means of earning money. 

He also noted the many Indian citizens hold a deep mistrust of the government and question the authorities’ intentions.

Relocation must be “rights-based, participatory, livelihood-centred and attentive to culture, community and long-term wellbeing”, Ranjit said.

Meanwhile, Dr Annah Pigott-McKellar, a human geographer at the Queensland University of Technology, compared two case studies of relocation in Australia. 

When devastating flash floods hit Queensland in January 2011, a relocation programme led by the local government was set up to move people. The first houses were built within a year, and people were moved in “extremely fast”, Pigott-McKellar said. She explained that the goal was to keep the town together and “keep some level of social continuity”.

Conference attendees asking questions to the panel.
Conference attendees asking questions to the panel. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

Conversely, when northern New South Wales faced severe flooding in 2022, the response was slow, according to Pigott-McKellar. She explained that different members of the community were offered varying levels of assistance by the state. For example, some households offered buybacks for their lost properties, while others were not. 

The result was a “fragmented and dispersed mobility pathway” that saw the community split up and mistrust in the government grow. 

Pigott-McKellar emphasised the importance of follow-through and continuity in relocation, stating:

“Relocation isn’t a moment in time. It is a process that unfolds over months or years”.

Legal pathways

Most human migration happens within borders. However, conference delegates also discussed cases in which people move to other countries, with a focus on the possible legal pathways.

Prof Jon Barnett, professor in the school of geography, Earth and atmospheric sciences at the University of Melbourne, explained migration patterns in the south Pacific islands.

He told delegates that climate change is causing “significant social impacts” across the islands, adding:

“While we can’t say that climate change is a major factor in migration decisions…there is a “fingerprint of climate change in [all] migration decisions.”

Barnett outlined legal migration routes for Pacific islanders, such as Fiji’s climate relocation trust fund, which has already had more than 2,000 requests, or seasonal worker schemes to New Zealand, which have already issued 137,000 visas.

However, he noted that there is a “massive burden” for the women who stay on the Pacific islands when their husbands leave. He explained that not only do women substitute for the labour of the men, but climate change can also amplify their workload by making farming more difficult and illnesses more widespread. 

He concluded:

“Migration cannot be the only adaptation strategy we offer to the Pacific Islands. It’s got to be one strategy in the portfolio.”

Speaking separately to Carbon Brief, he said:

“As climate change amplifies pressures on people’s livelihoods, we may end up with a whole series of transnational populations that are kind of constantly in churn – where they’re not just living on the island, but also in Australia, New Zealand, the US. 

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, I think, so long as people still have a right to return to their islands and can do so – and are making informed choices…to manage their climate risk.”

Demographer Prof Raya Muttarak, from the University of Bologna, told delegates that Italy is the only EU country with explicit legislation for climate-related protection. 

This six-month residence permit was introduced in 2018, for people who are found to have faced a “contingent and exceptional calamity”. However, she noted that there are flaws in the evidence base for making these claims, which can make it difficult for people to obtain the permits.

Changing narratives 

Many speakers discussed the framing of climate change and migration in their talks. There was also a workshop on how to develop and promote “new narratives” around migration as an adaptation response to a changing climate on the first day of the conference.

Workshop on “new narratives”.
Workshop on “new narratives”. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

Dr Reetika Subramanian, a senior research associate at UEA who helped to organise the conference, told Carbon Brief that many media narratives around migration are “alarmist” and “crisis-based”, with a focus on people from poorer countries illegally entering wealthier countries.

However, explained that the conference convenors wanted to begin work on developing a new framing for migration – both in response to climate change and more generally – focusing on its “adaptive aspects”.

Dr Benoy Peter, the executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, told Carbon Brief that “far right” media and politics often “leverage” migration to present a negative framing.

However, he said that he sees migration as a “solution”, describing it as the “fastest way for intergenerational upward social mobility for people from socially and economically disadvantaged populations”. 

Prof Kerilyn Schewel, assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Carbon Brief that the migration community has “moved beyond a ‘push factor’ narrative – that climate change is coming and uprooting communities – to a more nuanced perspective that recognises that people are already moving for all kinds of reasons”.

She said the new “research frontier” is “seeing how environmental factors intersect with these other social or developmental outcomes”, such as education.

Liby Johnson, the executive director of development organisation Gram Vikas, told the conference his reason for hope:

Attendees of the “mobility in adaptation to climate change” conference.
Attendees of the “mobility in adaptation to climate change” conference. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

“Communities are figuring this out. They are not rejecting mobility – they are asking for mobility that is safer, fairer and more dignified. Communities affected by climate uncertainty are not simply enduring crises – they are actively using mobility to diversify risk, protect dignity and build better futures.”

Revi, from the IIHS, told Carbon Brief:

“The future of mobility is much more certain than the climate futures are. People have been mobile for a very long time. That’s been an important part of the transformation of societies and economies for centuries…Mobility is part of the solution. It is not the full solution, but it’s part of the solution. People are voting with their feet and with their aspirations to make a change.”

With song and seed (Al Jazeera)

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Two Maxakali Indigenous people — a man and a woman — stand in front of a verdant landscape
A Maxakali couple pose in front of their plot of land in Minas Gerais, Brazil [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

How Brazil’s Indigenous Maxakali confront climate change

By Sara Van Horn

Published On 30 Apr 2025 – original article

Bertopolis, Brazil – The hottest region in Brazil is blanketed with guinea grass: thick, invasive and highly flammable. Black swaths of burned earth checkerboard the rolling hills — evidence of the fires that have increased along with the temperature.

Yet enter the village of Pradinho, and a verdant patchwork emerges. Here, lush banana palms, cassava plants and guava trees sprout from the dry plains.

These flourishing lots are the product of Hāmhi Terra Viva, an Indigenous-led agroforestry project in the eastern state of Minas Gerais where ancestral songs and traditions are woven into the planting process.

Each oasis of trees, cultivated in backyard plots or large reforestation areas, signals a kind of rebirth for the local Maxakali people, also known as the Tikmũ’ũn.

The Atlantic Forest, a complex ecosystem of rainforests, coastal broadleaf trees and mangroves, used to cover the Maxakali territory. Its dense canopy trapped in moisture and fostered one of the most biodiverse regions in the world.

But the destruction of the Atlantic Forest has exacerbated the local effects of climate change — and with it, heightened the risks of wildfires.

In Brazil, the Jequitinhonha Valley, where the four Maxakali territories are located, has suffered a dramatic rise in temperatures in recent years.

Twenty Brazilian cities registered temperatures five degrees Celsius (nine degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average daily maximum, according to 2023 government data analysed by the newspaper O Globo. Of those cities, 18 were in the Jequitinhonha Valley.

The city of Araçuaí even shattered the record for the hottest temperature in Brazil’s history in November of that year, with thermometers rising to 44.8 degrees Celsius — or 112.6 degrees Fahrenheit. It lies a mere 130km (81 miles) from Maxakali territory.

“We are in the epicentre of the climate crisis in Brazil,” said Rosângela Pereira de Tugny, coordinator of the Hāmhi project.

Grass smolders and burns in the rolling hills of Minas Gerais.
A fire in the Minas Gerais grassland smoulders, sending smoke drifting across the landscape [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

More than 85 percent of the Atlantic Forest has been destroyed, as agriculture, development and practices like logging encroach upon its land. In Minas Gerais, experts estimate, less than eight percent of the forest remains.

“When I was a kid, there was lots of forest,” said Lúcio Flávio Maxakali, a schoolteacher and a master’s degree student at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. “There were lots of animals and we planted food — corn, beans, sugarcane — in the middle of the woods.”

But over the centuries, colonial settlers used fire to clear vast tracts of the Atlantic Forest. Farmers often seeded the burned areas with guinea grass, brought from Africa, to feed their cattle.

A man in a burgundy shirt stands under a tree outdoors in Brazil.
Lúcio Flávio Maxakali remembers the landscape being radically different when he was a child [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

“The farmers changed the landscape,” said Manuel Damásio Maxakali, the 52-year-old leader of Pradinho village.

His wrinkled hands drawing makeshift maps in the dusty earth, Damásio was eager to communicate the destruction that the farmers wrought. “They burned everything. They added fences. They added cattle. They cut down everything. Each time, the farmers took more land.”

Brazil’s dictatorship, from 1964 to 1985, set the stage for even greater destruction of the region’s tropical forests.

Governed by the motto “integrate to not surrender”, the military leadership cut roadways through dense forest and pushed for development projects in remote regions to stimulate economic growth.

Deforestation ultimately hit a peak in the period between 1995 and 2004, when as much as 27,772 square kilometres (10,723 square miles) of forest in Brazil were destroyed per year.

Damasio Maxakali leans over and draws in the dirt to show how the environment has changed.
Manuel Damásio Maxakali draws maps in the dirt to illustrate how the landscape has changed [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

That, in turn, increased temperatures across the country. In the region of the Atlantic Forest in particular, one study found that the surface temperature of a hectare increased by one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) whenever a quarter of its tree cover was razed.

If the entire hectare of forest was demolished, the study said, temperatures could spike by four degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit).

Without the moist tree cover, experts say the Maxakali territory has grown hotter and drier. That increases the likelihood of wildfires sparking.

Last year even broke a record for the number of wildfires in Minas Gerais. In less than nine months, 24,475 wildfires were tallied — far exceeding the previous record high in the whole of 2021.

Scarce rainfall also heightens the risk of fires, as does the seemingly endless guinea grass, which creates a thick carpet of flammable material across the landscape.

Grass fires can spread four times as quickly as forest fires, leading the Maxakali to nickname the invasive plant “kerosene”.

Men try to beat back flames that tear through tall grass in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Men attempt to beat back flames spreading across the dry grassland [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

Some blazes are started accidentally within the Maxakali communities themselves.

Fire, after all, is a frequent part of Maxakali death rites, which often involve the burning of the deceased’s clothing, tools and house, and it is also used for cooking and to clear areas of snakes.

But wildfires are not the only consequence of the changing climate. The river in the village of Pradinho has shrunk so much that villagers are unable to bathe.

“There’s no water. The water has dried up,” Damásio explained. “We normally use water from the river, but there’s nothing now.”

A small hut stands against a dry and scorched hillside in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
The Atlantic Forest has been destroyed throughout much of the Maxakali territory [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

Maxakali territory once spanned at least three large valleys in the Atlantic Forest. Elders in the village remember how the forest supplied food, medicine and construction materials — in addition to serving as habitat for the yãmĩyxop, spiritual beings central to Maxakali beliefs.

“There were medicines in the forest for us,” explained Damásio. “When we had stomachaches, we would use the bark from the trees to feel better. But now, it’s just grass. The farmers burned everything.”

But the four remaining Maxakali reservations — reduced to 6,434 hectares (15,900 acres) of pasture — contain less than 17 percent of their original vegetation. Some experts consider the Atlantic Forest to be regionally extinct.

That absence has many Maxakali leaders turning to reforestation — and finding in their musical traditions an ecological blueprint of the past.

Damasio Maxakali holds up a stalk from a banana tree in the lush vegetiation of the Hamhi project.
Manuel Damásio Maxakali tends to banana trees in Minas Gerais, Brazil [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

Singing organises life in Maxakali villages: Music, for instance, is used to cure illness, teach history or transmit practical instructions, like how to make bags or weave fishing nets.

“Songs tie together the whole Tikmũ’ũn social structure,” said de Tugny, the Hāmhi project coordinator, who is also a musicologist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. “People don’t compose songs. They have songs.”

To have a song, she added, means being capable of taking care of the spirit considered to be the song’s creator.

Ancestral songs also provide an extremely detailed register of local ecology. Twelve musical canons, distinct in grammar and lexicon, total about 360 hours of song. Contained in the lyrics are hundreds of species of flora and fauna now extinct in the territory.

“We sing about everything: the saplings, the bananas, ourselves,” explained Manuel Kelé, leader of the village of Água Boa. “Even dogs have a song within our religion.”

A Maxakali woman uses a hoe to tend to crops
Caretakers at the Hāmhi nursery tend to the growing trees and plants [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

One song, for example, lists 33 species of bees, some of which don’t have names in Brazil’s national language, Portuguese, and only two of which are currently present in the territory. The lyrics supply information about bee behaviour that many Maxakali have never witnessed first-hand.

“The songs are snapshots,” said de Tugny. “They are like photographs of every detail that exists in the Atlantic Forest: the names of insects, birds, plants, moments of relationship between an animal and a leaf. All these are registered.”

For the Maxakali, ritual songs also play a crucial role in helping the forest regenerate. Singing is a daily part of their work in Hāmhi’s tree nurseries.

Nursery caretakers not only sing to seeds as they are buried, but they also make music as part of the regular rhythms of harvesting and cultivation. Caretakers divide into groups, position themselves around the nursery, and sing in concert with each other. The song lyrics help participants remember the ecological knowledge of their ancestors.

And while some of the work at Hāmhi is dedicated to planting fruit trees and other crops, the project’s leaders see reforestation as key to reducing the region’s fire risks.

A woman leans on a wooden gardening implement outdoors in Minas Gerais
Song is an important part of the growing cycle in Maxakali culture [Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera]

Since its inception in 2023, the Hāmhi project has planted over 60 hectares (148 acres) of fruit trees and 155 hectares (383 acres) of Atlantic Forest vegetation. The goal is a reforested area nearly twice that size.

Programme participants have also organised themselves into a provisional fire brigade and even created natural fire barriers, using traditional methods like planting species of fire-resistant vegetation.

“Songs help the forest grow,” said Damásio, the village leader. “We ask those who have died to help us. They walk here and assist us. We are calling on the forest to grow back.”

Are Humans Still Evolving? Scientists Weigh In (Science Alert)

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sciencealert.com

Eva Hamrud, Metafact – 20 Sept. 2020

As a species, humans have populated almost every corner of the earth. We have developed technologies and cultures which shape the world we live in.

The idea of ‘natural selection’ or ‘survival of the fittest’ seems to make sense in Stone Age times when we were fighting over scraps of meat, but does it still apply now?

We asked 12 experts whether humans are still evolving. The expert consensus is unanimously ‘yes’, however scientists say we might have the wrong idea of what evolution actually is.

Evolution is not the same as natural selection

Evolution is often used interchangeable with the phrases ‘survival of the fittest’ or ‘natural selection’. Actually, these are not quite the same thing.

‘Evolution’ simply means the gradual change of a population over time.

‘Natural selection’ is a mechanism by which evolution can occur. Our Stone Age ancestors who were faster runners avoided being trampled by mammoths and were more likely to have children. That is ‘natural selection’.

Overtime, the human population became faster at running. That’s evolution.

Evolution can happen without natural selection

That makes sense for Stone Age humans, but what about nowadays? We don’t need to outrun mammoths, we have medicines for when we’re sick and we can go to the shops to get food.

Natural selection needs a ‘selection pressure’ (e.g. dangerous trampling mammoths), so if we don’t have these anymore, does this mean we stop evolving?

Even with no selection pressures, experts say evolution still occurs by other mechanisms.

Professor Stanley Ambrose, an anthropologist from the University of Illinois, explains that “any change in the proportions of genes or gene variants over time is also considered evolution. The variants may be functionally equivalent, so evolution does not automatically equate with ‘improvement'”.

Whilst some genes can be affected by natural selection (e.g. genes that help us run faster), other changes in our DNA might have no obvious effect on us. ‘Neutral’ variations can also spread through a population by a different mechanism called ‘genetic drift’.

Genetic drift works by chance: some individuals might be unlucky and die for reasons which have nothing to do with their genes. Their unique gene variations will not be passed on to the next generation, and so the population will change.

Genetic drift doesn’t need any selection pressures, and it is still happening today.

Natural selection is still happening in humans

As much as we have made things easier for ourselves, there are still selection pressures around us, which mean that natural selection is still happening.

Like all mammals, humans lose the ability to digest milk when they stop breastfeeding. This is because we stop making an enzyme called lactase. In some countries, the population has acquired ‘lactase persistence’, meaning that people make lactase throughout their lives.

In European countries we can thank one specific gene variation for our lactase persistence, which is called ‘-13910*T’. By studying this specific gene variation in modern and ancient DNA samples, researchers suggest that it became common after humans started domesticated and milking animals.

This is an example of natural selection where we have actually made the selection pressure ourselves – we started drinking milk, so we evolved to digest it!

Another example of humans undergoing natural selection to adapt to a lifestyle is the Bajau people, who traditionally live in houseboats in the waters of South East Asia and spend much of their lives diving to hunt fish or collect shellfish.

Ultrasound imaging has found that Bajau people have larger spleens than their neighbours – an adaption which allows them to stay underwater for longer.

There are always selective pressures around us, even ones that we create ourselves.

As Dr Benjamin Hunt from the University of Birmingham puts it, “Our technological and cultural changes alter the strength and composition of the selection pressures within our environment, but selection pressures still exist.”

Evolution can’t be stopped

So, evolution can happen by different mechanisms like natural selection and genetic drift. As our environment is always changing, natural selection is always happening. And even if our environment was ‘just right’ for us, we would evolve anyway!

Dr Alywyn Scally, an expert in evolution and genetics from the University of Cambridge, explains: “As long as human reproduction involves randomness and genetic mutation (and the laws of the Universe pretty much guarantee that this will always be the case at some level), there will continue to be differences from one generation to the next, meaning that the process of evolution can never be truly halted.”

Takeaway: Evolution means change in a population. That includes both easy-to-spot changes to adapt to an environment as well as more subtle, genetic changes.

Humans are still evolving, and that is unlikely to change in the future.

Article based on 12 expert answers to this question: Are humans still evolving?

This expert response was published in partnership with independent fact-checking platform Metafact.io. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter here.

Global warming is changing our plant communities (Science Daily)

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Date: August 17, 2020

Source: University of Miami

Summary: In a comprehensive study of nearly 20,000 species, research shows that plant communities are shifting to include more heat-loving species as a result of climate change.

Although Live Oak trees are common in South Florida today, Ken Feeley, a University of Miami biology professor, said their time here may be fleeting. With climate change pushing up temperatures, the oaks, which favor cooler conditions, could soon decline in the region and be replaced with more tropical, heat-loving species such as Gumbo Limbo or Mahogany trees.

“Live Oaks occur throughout the southeast and all the way up to coastal Virginia, so down here we are in one of the very hottest places in its range,” said Feeley, who is also the University’s Smathers Chair of Tropical Tree Biology. “As temperatures increase, it may simply get too hot in Miami for oaks and other temperate species.”

Likewise, in Canada, as temperatures increase, sugar maple trees — which are used to produce maple syrup — are losing their habitats. And in New York City, trees that are more typical of the balmy South, such as Magnolias, are increasing in abundance and blooming earlier each year, news reports indicate.

These are just a few examples of a larger trend happening across the Americas — from Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego — as plant communities shift their ranges and respond to changing climates, Feeley pointed out. In his newest study, published in Nature Climate Change, Feeley, along with three of his graduate students and a visiting graduate student from the Nacional University of Colombia, analyzed more than 20 million records of more than 17,000 plant species from throughout the Western Hemisphere. They found that since the 1970s, entire plant ecosystems have changed directionally over time to include more and more of the species that prefer warmer climates. This process is called thermophilization.

“Almost anywhere you go, the types of species that you encounter now are different than what you would have found in that same spot 40 years ago, and we believe that this pattern is the direct result of rising temperatures and climate change,” Feeley said.

The research of Feeley and his students demonstrates that entire ecosystems are consistently losing the plant species that favor cold temperatures, and that those plants are being replaced by more heat-tolerant species that can withstand the warming climate. Plants favoring cool temperatures are either moving to higher elevations and latitudes, or some species may even be going locally extinct. Feeley and his students are now exploring key focal species that may offer more insight into these processes.

“Some of these changes can be so dramatic that we are shifting entire habitat types from forests to grasslands or vice versa — by looking at all types of plants over long periods of time and over huge areas, we were able to observe those changes,” he explained.

In addition to the effects of rising temperatures, the researchers also looked at how plant communities are being affected by changes in rainfall during the past four decades. Feeley and his team observed shifts in the amounts of drought-tolerant versus drought-sensitive plant species. But in many cases, the observed changes were not connected to the changes in rainfall. In fact, in many areas that are getting drier, the drought-sensitive species have become more common during the past decades. According to Feeley, this may be because of a connection between the species’ heat tolerances and their water demands. Heat tolerant species are typically less drought-tolerant, so as rising temperatures favor the increase of heat-tolerant species, it may also indirectly prompt a rise in water-demanding species. Feeley stressed that this can create dangerous situations in some areas where the plant communities are pushed out of equilibrium with their climate.

“When drought hits, it will be doubly bad for these ecosystems that have lost their tolerance to drought,” he said, adding that “for places where droughts are becoming more severe and frequent — like in California — this could make things a lot worse.”

But the implications of thermophilization go far beyond just the loss of certain plants, according to Feeley. Plants are at the base of the food chain and provide sustenance and habitat for wildlife — so if the plant communities transform, so will the animals that need them.

“All animals — including humans — depend on the plants around them,” Feeley said. “If we lose some plants, we may also lose the insects, birds, and many other forms of wildlife that we are used to seeing in our communities and that are critical to our ways of life. When people think of climate change, they need to realize that it’s not just about losing ice in Antarctica or rising sea levels — climate change affects almost every natural system in every part of the planet.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Miami. Original written by Janette Neuwahl Tannen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

  1. K. J. Feeley, C. Bravo-Avila, B. Fadrique, T. M. Perez, D. Zuleta. Climate-driven changes in the composition of New World plant communities. Nature Climate Change, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41558-020-0873-2

Borboletas estão encolhendo por causa das mudanças climáticas (O Globo)

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Estudo mostra redução no tamanho de duas espécies na Groenlândia

POR O GLOBO

07/10/2015 15:57 / atualizado 07/10/2015 16:23

A Boloria chariclea foi uma das espécies analisadas pelos pesquisadores – Divulgação/Toke T. Hoye

RIO — As mudanças climáticas já provocam impactos sobre a Humanidade, mas também sobre algumas espécies animais. Um estudo publicado ontem na revista científica “Biology Letters” mostra que borboletas na Groenlândia se tornaram menores como resposta ao aumento das temperaturas. Para os pesquisadores, a mudança no tamanho corporal prejudica a mobilidade, que pode causar graves consequências à dinâmica populacional e distribuição geográfica das espécies.

Pesquisadores da Universidade de Aarhus, na Dinamarca, analisaram aproximadamente 4,5 mil borboletas de duas espécies diferentes capturadas entre 1996 e 2013. Os resultados apontaram para uma redução no tamanho das asas, na mesma taxa em ambas as espécies, provocada pelo aumento das temperaturas durante o verão. As espécies estudadas foram a Boloria chariclea e a Colias hecla.

— Nossos estudos mostram que machos e fêmeas seguem o mesmo padrão, que é similar em duas espécies diferentes, o que sugere que o clima exerce um papel importante na determinação do tamanho corporal das borboletas na Groenlândia — explicou Toke T. Hoye, pesquisador da Universidade de Aarhus.Esse é um dos primeiros estudos a acompanhar mudanças no tamanho corporal de uma espécie durante um período de mudanças climáticas, e corrobora pesquisas realizadas em laboratório, mas raramente demonstradas em campo.

A Colias hecla está ficando menor por causa dos verões mais quentes no Ártico – Divulgação/Toke T. Hoye

Experimentos apontam que a mudança no tamanho corporal é uma resposta antecipada às mudanças climáticas, que pode acontecer de duas maneiras. Para algumas espécies, uma temporada maior de alimentação pode resultar no aumento do tamanho, enquanto para outras, alterações metabólicas provocam a perda de energia e consequente redução das dimensões.

— Nós, humanos, usamos mais energia quando está frio, porque precisamos manter a temperatura corporal constante — disse Hoye. — Mas para a larva da borboleta e outros animais de sangue frio, que dependem do ambiente para manter a temperatura, o metabolismo aumenta em temperaturas maiores por causa dos processos bioquímicos que se tornam mais rápidos. Dessa maneira, a larva gasta mais energia do que é capaz de consumir. Nossos resultados indicam que essa mudança é tão significativa que a taxa de crescimento das larvas diminui. E quando as larvas são menores, as borboletas também se tornam menores.

As consequências para as borboletas do Ártico podem ser significativas. Com corpos menores, a mobilidade é reduzida. Como as duas espécies vivem apenas no Norte, a redução no tamanho pode ter graves consequências na dinâmica populacional, e prejudicar a dispersão dos insetos.

— Elas vivem tão ao Norte que não podem se mover para regiões mais frias, e elas provavelmente vão desaparecer da parte mais ao Sul da Groenlândia por causa do aumento da temperatura — disse Hoye. — Além disso, sua capacidade de dispersão está se deteriorando, e corpos menores devem resultar em menor taxa de fecundidade. Então, essas espécies do Ártico devem enfrentar desafios severos causados pela rápida mudança climática.

Leia mais sobre esse assunto em  http://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/sustentabilidade/borboletas-estao-encolhendo-por-causa-das-mudancas-climaticas-17714284#ixzz3o0Y0gr6z
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Investimento em mudanças climáticas já é realidade para as empresas (Envolverdes)

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Juliana Guarexick
17/06/2015

85% declararam que o Brasil deveria adotar posições mais ambiciosas frente a outros países –

Pesquisa realizada pelo Instituto Datafolha com 100 empresas listadas entre as mil maiores do Brasil mostra que as mudanças climáticas já fazem parte da agenda de investimentos da iniciativa privada e que uma ação mais firme do governo para lidar com o desafio seria bem-vinda. Impressionantes 82% das empresas entrevistadas já estão adotando ações de mitigação ou adaptação às mudanças climáticas e 71% acham que políticas públicas relacionadas ao assunto beneficiariam a economia. O levantamento, encomendado pelo Observatório do Clima e pelo Greenpeace, teve como objetivo conhecer as ações adotadas pelas maiores empresas brasileiras sobre mudanças climáticas.

Os números mostram que os empresários vêem as medidas de mitigação e adaptação como algo positivo para os negócios, redundando em impactos financeiros positivos para 73% deles. A pesquisa também mostra que não há uma bala mágica para resolver o problema – as iniciativas em curso citadas foram bastante variadas e vão desde soluções para reduzir o consumo de água e energia (40%) a ações para mitigar poluentes (23%) e campanhas de educação e conscientização (12%). Entre os que estão focando na questão energética, 15% já estão utilizando energias renováveis.

“Dentro do tema ‘mudanças climáticas’, a preocupação com energia mostrou-se relevante”, destaca Carlos Rittl, secretário-executivo do Observatório do Clima. “Na pesquisa, ela aparece tanto quando falamos dos planos das empresas como quando perguntamos ao empresário o que ele acha que o governo deve fazer”, completa.

Perguntados sobre ações que o governo pode adotar para lidar com as mudanças climáticas que favorecem a inovação, os investimentos de longo prazo e retornos financeiros para as empresas, os entrevistados citaram 28 iniciativas. Entre as mais mencionadas estão a adesão à energia limpa, como solar e eólica (18%), investimentos em novas tecnologias para diminuir poluentes (12%), o incentivo tributário à preservação ambiental (12%) e ações de conservação do meio ambiente (12%). Quando questionados sobre as ações que o governo pode adotar em relação às mudanças que podem trazer retornos financeiros para o país, a energia renovável aparece com 20% de menções, atrás apenas dos investimentos em tecnologia (32%).

Para 71% dos entrevistados, as ações do governo em relação às mudanças climáticas beneficiariam a economia. Tanto que 85% declararam que o Brasil deveria adotar posições mais ambiciosas frente a outros países para lidar com as mudanças climáticas. A realidade, no entanto, não condiz com essa percepção: para 46% dos entrevistados, as iniciativas governamentais em relação ao tema são ruins ou péssimas. Para apenas 4% elas são boas ou ótimas. As opiniões dos empresários espelham as da população brasileira, avaliadas numa pesquisa anterior do Datafolha: para 48% dos entrevistados, o governo faz muito pouco contra a mudança climática.

A nova pesquisa identificou também que o tema gera algum temor: dois terços da amostra (66%) acham que os impactos das mudanças climáticas sobre a economia serão muito negativos. As principais preocupações são com a produção (queda na produtividade, diminuição no volume de vendas etc.), com o fornecimento de matérias-primas (aumento nos custos, redução da oferta) e com a produção de energia. Juntos, esses itens foram citados por 78% dos entrevistados. “O empresário já percebeu que as mudanças do clima afetam os negócios. Se eles enfrentarem o problema, pode haver impacto positivo. Se não fizerem nada, as mudanças climáticas poderão prejudicar sua atividade”, sintetiza Ricardo Baitelo, coordenador de Clima e Energia do Greenpeace Brasil.

A pesquisa foi realizada entre 17 de março e 23 de abril de 2015 por meio de entrevistas telefônicas com os cargos executivos responsáveis pelas áreas de planejamento e/ou investimentos de cem empresas que integram a lista das mil maiores corporações que atuam no Brasil segundo o ranking do Valor Econômico. Três quartos da amostra ouvida eram de nível de diretoria. O levantamento contemplou organizações dos mais variados setores econômicos: comércio varejista, alimentos, agropecuária, metalurgia e mineração, química e petroquímica, eletroeletrônica, construção e engenharia, comércio atacadista, água e saneamento, veículos e peças, transporte e logística, plásticos e borracha, papel e celulose, mecânica, energia elétrica, TI e telecom, têxtil e vestuário, petróleo e gás, açúcar e álcool, materiais de construção, fumo, educação e ensino. (#Envolverde)