FERN’s Friday Feed: Farm the forest to save the forest
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
Can agroforestry save the Amazon?
FERN and National Geographic
In remote corner of northwestern Brazil, RECA, a co-op founded in 1989, is proving that agroforestry can be a sustainable and economically viable alternative to the cattle ranching that is driving 80 percent of the rainforest destruction in the Amazon, write Brian Barth and Flávia Milhorance. “RECA’s farmers approximate [the rainforest] ecosystem, densely planting up to 40 species … The co-op processes about a dozen of these species into food products sold throughout Brazil: fruit juice, palm hearts, oils. The rest, including medicinal plants, supply local markets … Some of the harvest is even exported.”
Bumblebees are thriving in Alaska. Scientists want to know why.
Atlas Obscura
“Alaska’s bumblebees stand out both in numbers … and in the reasons for their success,” writes Gemma Tarlach. “And while many bumblebee species in the Lower 48 are declining, Alaskan members of the genus Bombus appear to be thriving. Now, researchers and conservationists are embarking on an unprecedented effort to figure out just how many bees, including bumbles, are buzzing around their enormous and largely unsurveyed state. The first-ever Alaskan bee atlas project is underway, and bumblebees will play a starring role.”
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Climate change is coming for your gas stove
Mother Jones
“For decades the American public was largely sold on the notion that ‘natural’ gas was relatively clean, and when used in the kitchen, even classy,” writes Rebecca Leber. “But that was before climate change moved from distant worry to proximate danger. Burning natural gas in commercial and residential buildings accounts for more than 10 percent of US emissions, so moving toward homes and apartments powered by wind and solar electricity instead could make a real dent … These concerns have prompted moves by 42 municipalities to phase out gas in new buildings.”
Ancient tropical cities help urban planners reimagine today’s urban jungle
The Guardian
“Visions of ‘lost cities’ in the jungle have consumed western imaginations since Europeans first visited the tropics of Asia, Africa and the Americas,” writes Patrick Roberts. “Throughout these depictions runs the idea that all ancient cities and states in tropical forests were doomed to fail.” Yet, “[a]ncient tropical cities could be remarkably resilient, sometimes surviving many centuries longer than colonial- and industrial-period urban networks in similar environments … Extensive, interspersed with nature and combining food production with social and political function, these ancient cities are now catching the eyes of 21st-century urban planners.”
It’s so hot in the West that farmers are selling their water rights
The New York Times
“In America’s fruit and nut basket, water is now the most precious crop of all,” writes Somini Sengupta. “It explains why, amid a historic drought parching much of the American West, a grower of premium sushi rice has concluded that it makes better business sense to sell the water he would have used to grow rice than to actually grow rice. Or why a melon farmer has left a third of his fields fallow. Or why a large landholder farther south is thinking of planting a solar array on his fields rather than the thirsty almonds that delivered steady profit for years.”