Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

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Key developments

LA up in flames

ANIMAL IMPACT: At least 25 people died in blazing wildfires that tore through 40,000 acres of land in Los Angeles, NBC News reported. Vox examined how the fires “affected the animals and wildlife who call Los Angeles their home”. Videos showed people evacuating with everything from chickens to horses, Vox said, and one animal shelter took in more than 300 animals. Gavin Jones, an ecologist at the US Forest Service, told the outlet in 2023: “In this new era of rapidly changing fire regimes, we don’t have a great roadmap for how to conserve wildlife.” Al Jazeera explained that wildfires can result in “some wildlife [losing] their habitat”, which can lead to ecosystem imbalance. 

AGRI AFFECTED: The fires affected farm infrastructure and animals in the surrounding region, an agricultural meteorologist told RFD TV. A citrus and avocado farm in Pauma Valley, more than two hours from Los Angeles, was impacted by the fire-fuelling Santa Ana winds. Farmer Andy Lyall told ABC News that gusts blew down fruit from his trees, ruining around half of his crops. The “strong and gusty” Santa Ana winds occur several times a year in southern California, BBC News outlined, creating “ripe conditions” for wildfires. (See Carbon Brief’s article on the role of climate change in the fires.)

PARKS AND TREES: Satellite images published in Al Jazeera showed how houses, trees and other infrastructure were scorched in the fires. The Palisades fire – the largest of the fires – “destroyed” historic buildings and other infrastructure at two major parks, according to a statement from California State Parks. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times looked at claims and counter-claims about the risk shrubs and brush posed to the spread of the wildfires. Chief Brian Fennessy from the Orange County Fire Authority told the newspaper that clearing brush is “very effective” at limiting fire spread on a normal day, but not against the strength of these fires and winds.

Brazil: COP30, Amazon shipping and soy moratorium

ROCKY WATERS: Brazil’s government cancelled a bid for a “dredging project” to aid the docking of cruise ships in Belém when it hosts COP30 later this year, according to Folha de São Paulo. The dredging, which would remove sediment from the bottom of the port, was expected to impact “the composition of sediments, the behaviour of aquatic mammals and the quality of the water itself”, the newspaper said. The project was aimed to increase accommodation amid a shortage of hotel rooms for the climate summit. 

‘RISKY’ SHIPPING PLANS: Meanwhile, Mongabay looked at Brazil’s plans to develop new shipping channels in Amazon waterways, which experts say could “result in conversion of traditional peoples’ lands to carbon-intensive agriculture”. The outlet said the country is “poised” to invest in developing more than 2,000km of channels for agribusiness transport in “shrinking rivers”. Dr José Marengo, a climatologist and hydrology specialist, said it is “crazy” to consider creating the shipping channels in certain rivers because of the “extremely low [water] levels, mainly due to the droughts of 2023 and 2024. It’s very risky.”

SOY PACT: Elsewhere in Brazil, the supreme court will soon rule on a request challenging a state law that would end tax breaks for grain traders who avoid soy from recently deforested areas of the Amazon, Reuters reported. The legislation was passed in Mato Grosso last year, but will not take effect until a final court decision in February, the newswire said. The law added “growing pressure” to Brazil’s soy moratorium – the “voluntary pact” to ban the purchase of soy from deforested Amazon areas after 2008, Reuters noted. Last month, a farmer lobby group asked the country’s antitrust agency to investigate the signatories of this pact, describing them as a “purchasing cartel”, the newswire said.  

Spotlight

Illegal rewilding in Scotland

In this Spotlight, Carbon Brief explores the curious case of the illegal reintroduction of four Eurasian lynx in the Scottish Highlands.

A few days ago, a pair of labrador-sized cats with dappled fur and tufty ears were spotted wandering free in Cairngorms national park in the Scottish Highlands.

They were quickly identified as Eurasian lynx, a species of big cat that went extinct in the UK more than 1,000 years ago. (They are still widely found across Europe and Asia).

The cats were released illegally, according to the police and the national park authority. The animals – along with a second pair caught on camera traps a day later – were captured humanely and brought to a nearby wildlife park. One has since died.

While there is a growing movement advocating for the reintroduction of lynx in order to “rewild” Scotland, none of the conservation groups involved with such calls have claimed responsibility for the release.

One charity called the move “reckless” and “highly irresponsible”, warning the cats were most likely raised in captivity and would have died after being left alone in the wild.

Despite this, there is “speculation” that the most likely culprit is “someone who had grown frustrated with the slow progress” of the campaign to reintroduce lynx to Scotland and decided to “take matters into their own hands”, according to the Guardian.

Guerrilla rewilding

The UK has a long history of illegal animal releases shaping its ecosystems.

Multiple introductions of grey squirrels since the 1890s has all but wiped out the native red across most of the country. Further illicit releases, once blamed on the US musician Jimi Hendrix, have allowed feral green parakeets to spread across London and its surrounding areas.

More recently, conservationists have warned of the growing practice of “beaver bombing”, the covert release of beavers into natural areas by advocates who think the government is not moving fast enough to reintroduce the rodents as part of rewilding efforts. (The new Labour government is reportedly blocking plans to legalise beaver releases in England.)

Both beavers and lynx are considered to be “keystone species”, meaning they can have an outsized impact on the environment surrounding them.

A group of beavers released illegally in the River Otter in Devon were given official permission to stay by the government after a five-year trial showed that their dam-building helped to alleviate flood risk and local pollution.

Climate carnivores

Advocates of reintroducing lynx to Scotland say that the predators could help to reshape the forest ecosystem surrounding them through the “ecology of fear”.

In essence, lynx litter the landscape with their faeces and urine, prompting roe deer – their main prey – to keep moving, rather than staying still and overgrazing on young vegetation before it has had a chance to establish.

Over time, this could help to create a denser forest environment, with benefits for storing carbon and boosting biodiversity, it is argued.

However, research has found that local communities in Scotland have mixed feelings about reintroducing lynx.

A study published in 2023 involving interviews with more than 40 people found that some locals were in favour of reintroducing lynx, either for economic or environmental reasons, while others were “unconvinced” of the evidence supporting the benefits or felt strongly opposed to the idea of big cats being set loose.

The farmers’ union NFU Scotland opposes the reintroduction of lynx over fears the animals could hunt and kill livestock.

News and views

BIDEN BACKTRACKS: The Biden administration “abruptly” stepped back from a plan to protect old-growth forests after “pushback from Republicans and the timber industry”, the Associated Press reported. This ended a “years-long process to…better protect old trees that are increasingly threatened by climate change”, the newswire said. Opponents argued that restricting logging in older forests was not necessary, partly because “many forested areas already are protected”, the AP said. Alex Craven from the Sierra Club conservation group said there was a “scientific necessity and public expectation” to protect these forests. 

WATER WOES: Climate change is “wreaking havoc” on the Earth’s water cycle, according to the Global Water Monitor’s 2024 report, covered by the Indian Express. Last year, water-related disasters killed at least 8,700 people, displaced 40 million and resulted in economic losses exceeding $550bn globally, the newspaper said. At the same time, there were 38% more record-dry months, compared to the period 1995-2005. In 2025, droughts could intensify in northern South America, southern Africa and parts of Asia, it added.

KOALAS AT RISK: Logging in the proposed “Great Koala national park” in New South Wales, Australia, has increased since 2023, according to an analysis covered by the Guardian. In March 2023, a new Labor state government came into power, promising to protect the area. But the report, from the conservation group North East Forest Alliance, found that more than 7,000 hectares of forest has been logged in the region since then, the newspaper said. New South Wales agriculture minister Tara Moriarty said “the claims in the report are not true” and the government was “getting on with delivering a Great Koala national park while at the same time ensuring a sustainable timber industry”.

BOTSWANA ADAPTATION: Botswana has put forward a new climate plan to the UN, prioritisting adaptation measures, such as introducing drought-tolerant crops and cows, over measures to cut its already-low emissions, Climate Home News reported. Botswana’s climate plan, known as a “nationally determined contribution” (NDC), said that, “as Botswana is one of the lowest emitters in the world, the limited financial resources available will be prioritised for adaptation”. Climate Home News said that the move has been “praised by African climate negotiators as a model that low-emitting, vulnerable countries should follow”.

FUTURE CROP YIELDS: Senior officials in India believe that rice and wheat yields will drop by 6-10% in future due to climate change, the Press Trust of India reported, via the Kashmir Observer. This will “significantly impac[t] farmers and food security”, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, the director general of the India Meteorological Department, told the newspaper. In 2023-24, India’s wheat output exceeded 113m tonnes – about 14% of the global output, the outlet noted. The country also produced more than 137m tonnes of rice. 

Watch, read, listen

BACK IN TIME: The possibilities and scientific developments around species “de-extinction” were discussed in a Yale Environment 360 feature. 

ON THE MOVE: An article in Vox explored how wildlife migrations are “increasingly threatened” by roads, climate-fuelled extreme weather and agricultural fields. 

DAILY FIX: An editorial in the Financial Times examined how climate change is “mostly to blame” for skyrocketing coffee and chocolate prices.

‘UNIT OF NATURE’: In the first Georgina Mace Review, an annual conservation biology journal named after the late UK scientist, a group of biologists examine whether it is possible to create a standardised measure for biodiversity, otherwise known as a “unit of nature”.

New science

• A Nature study found that one-quarter of freshwater animal species are at “high risk” of extinction. The researchers assessed the global extinction risk of more than 23,000 freshwater species, finding that fauna faced several “prevalent threats”, such as pollutants, agriculture and invasive species.
• Crop and grass biomass production could decline by more than 50% by 2050 in parts of west Africa due to climate change and other factors, a study in Scientific Reports said. The results of the modelling “underscore the intricate interplay between climate, crops, livestock and emissions”, the researchers wrote. 
• Forests in Borneo that had been selectively logged retained relatively high levels of biodiversity, compared to areas that had been cleared to make way for palm oil plantations, research in Science found. The findings “demonstrate the complexity of land-use impacts on ecosystems”, the study said.

In the diary

• 15-18 January: Global Forum for Food and Agriculture | Berlin  
• 16 January: Vanuatu parliamentary elections
• 16-17 January: G20 first sustainable finance working group meeting | South Africa
• 20 January: US presidential inauguration day | Washington DC
• 20-24 January: World Economic Forum annual meeting | Davos, Switzerland

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org

Cropped 18 December 2024: No UN deal for drought; Brazil beef investigations; New IPBES reports

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18.12.24

Cropped 4 December 2024: Climate talks omit nature; Land COP underway; ‘Frankenchickens’

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04.12.24

Cropped 20 November 2024: Food at COP29; ‘Big ag’ in Baku; Brazil’s new climate pledge

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20.11.24

Cropped 6 November 2024: COP16 concludes; Recognition for Indigenous peoples; Spain’s farms hit by ‘deadly floods’

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06.11.24

The post Cropped 15 January 2025: LA up in flames; Illegal rewilding in Scotland; COP30 dredging cancelled appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 15 January 2025: LA up in flames; Illegal rewilding in Scotland; COP30 dredging cancelled