#preventative conservation

[reasonsforhope]

Legit though, we should start turning ecosystem restoration and work to make our world more tolerant to the effects of climate change into annual holidays and festivals

Like how just about every culture used to have festivals to celebrate the beginning of the harvest or its end, or the beginning of planting, or how whole communities used to host barn raisings and quilting bees - everyone coming together at once to turn the work of months or years into the work of a few days

Humble suggestions for festival types:

Goat festival

Besides controlled burns (which you can't do if there's too much dead brush), the fastest, most effective, and most cost-efficient way to clear brush before fire season - esp really heavy dead brush - is to just. Put a bunch of goats on your land for a few days!

Remember that Shark Tank competitor who wanted to start a goat rental company, and everyone was like wtf? There was even a whole John Oliver bit making fun of the idea? Well THAT JUST PROVES THEY'RE FROM NICE WET PLACES, because goat rental companies are totally a thing, and they're great.

So like. Why don't we have a weekend where everyone with goats just takes those goats to the nearest land that needs a ton of clearing? Public officials could put up maps of where on public lands grazing is needed, and where it definitely shouldn't happen. Farmers and people/groups with a lot of acres that need clearing can post Goat Requests.

Little kids can make goat-themed crafts and give the goats lots of pets or treats at the end of the day for doing such a good job. Volunteers can help wrangle things so goats don't get where they're not supposed to (and everyone fences off land nowadays anyway, mostly). And the goats, of course, would be in fucking banquet paradise.

Planting Festival and Harvest Festival

Why mess with success??? Bring these back where they've disappeared!!! Time to swarm the community gardens and help everyone near you with a farm make sure that all of their seeds are sown and none of the food goes to waste in the fields, decaying and unpicked.

And then set up distribution parts of the festival so all the extra food gets where it needs to be! Boxes of free lemons in front of your house because you have 80 goddamned lemons are great, but you know what else would be great? An organized effort to take that shit to food pantries (which SUPER rarely get fresh produce, because they can't hold anything perishable for long at all) and community/farmer's markets

Rain Capture Festival

The "water year" - how we track annual rainfall and precipitation - is offset from the regular calendar year because, like, that's just when water cycles through the ecosystems (e.g. meltwater). At least in the US, the water year is October 1st through September 30th of the next year, because October 1st is around when all the snowmelt from last year is gone, and a new cycle is starting as rain begins to fall again in earnest.

So why don't we all have a big barn raising equivalent every September to build rain capture infrastructure?

Team up with some neighbors to turn one of those little grass strips on the sidewalk into a rain-garden with fall-planting plants. Go down to your local church and help them install some gutters and rain barrels. Help deculvert rivers so they run through the dirt again, and make sure all the storm drains in your neighborhood are nice and clear.

Even better, all of this - ESPECIALLY the rain gardens - will also help a ton with flood control!

I'm so serious about how cool this could be, yall.

And people who can't or don't want to do physical stuff for any of these festivals could volunteer to watch children or cook food for the festival or whatever else might need to be done!

Parties afterward to celebrate all the good work done! Community building and direct local improvements to help protect ourselves from climate change!

The possibilities are literally endless, so not to sound like an influencer or some shit, but please DO comment or reply or put it in the notes if you have thoughts, esp on other things we could hold festivals like this for.

Canning festivals. "Dig your elderly neighbors out of the snow" festivals. Endangered species nesting count festival. Plant fruit trees on public land and parks festival. All of the things that I don't know anywhere near enough to think of. Especially in more niche or extreme ecosystems, there are so many possibilities that could do a lot of good

[evannilchristie]

09-02-2023

The latest challenge at work is finding correct ways of storing big collections of historical crockery. There's not a lot of bibliography on the topic and it's honestly not my favorite material to work with. Its fragility is a bit unnerving, and it's been giving me anxiety.

(can i go back to either jewlery or hats please?? they're always so fuuuuuuuuun)

[wachinyeya]

To Halt Ibis Extinction Austrian Man Shows Beloved Birds a New Migration Route With His UltraLight–And it’s Working https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/to-halt-ibis-extinction-austrian-man-shows-beloved-birds-a-new-migration-route-with-his-ultralight-and-its-working/

[red-flagging]

offering "last of the late breakers" as a title to anyone writing an f1 surfing au in the near future, free of charge to a good home

[antique-symbolism]

(11.28.23)

Living in a dying body,

Stranded on a dying world,

What shall the dying do?

Grind our bleach-white coral bones,

Drown in rising water, our limbs too weak to tread?

How about this instead?

On New Year's Eve, my father, a doctor of the weather said: 

"I believe in the resilience of our atmosphere."

And thus began my year,

With a body set for ambush storms, and unprepared to take my cover,

Hopeful, kicking at the knees that wouldn't last the summer.

But if Dad can see the damning data and give us yet our chance, 

Then I will face the fates that are written in my scans,

Feed the sturgeon lunch at the museum,

Bend slowly to the waterline and whisper this to them:

"I believe in our resilience, too."

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

This November, remember how they voted for you so you can return the favor...

Vote Blue

[10holmes]

Had a really cool day.

Until I just received a mail from my boss aka head teacher forwarding me an angry-parent email in which a Karen complained about her daughter being confused about me wanting to be addressed as "teacher" instead of Mr/Ms and how I dared, as a teacher, to bring my gender identity into the classroom...

As if like every other fucking teacher that goes by Mr or Ms doesn't bring their gender identity to the classroom??!!!!

But yeah, of course, because I'm enby and boomers can't wrap their pea-sized heads around the concept of just using a gender neutral address I'm at fault...

To make matters worse I dared show the students the short animation "my shadow is pink" to question gender norms and teach them that it's okay - especially for boys - to be who they are and wear what they want and not be fcking ridiculed and shamed for it...

But yeah apparently that was too woke and too much diversity and tolerance I brought to the classroom and now I have to write a formal statement to my head teacher about the "incident" justifying myself...

Precious time and emotional energy of may day wasted that could have been avoided if people in this world were just fcking kind and accepting and didn't make problems out of stuff that does not negatively effect their daily life... (but what they make into a problem and struggle for other people in their daily life...)

I'm so sick and tired of this.

[alwaysneedyforsir]

sometimes i hate people. so. fucking. much.

[laufire]

the thing about tolkien’s (unforgivably few) female characters is that he seems to regard women as these borderline incomprehensible, distant, hard-edged creatures, with a touch of marvel and quite a lot of mystery. the thing about me is that I’m into that shit.

[polaraffect]

sometimes I truly genuinely forget nuance is dead on the internet and then I have to read people who should be on the same side argue about politics on the internet and I start wanting to bash my head into a wall.

[hope-for-the-planet]

They just released the first 8 Spix's macaws back to their native range in Brazil after 22 years of them being gone from the wild, if you want to look into it!

Thanks so much for sending this in and giving be an excuse to gush about it!

Honestly I think the heart of this conservation story can be summed up by the very first line of the article:

"The Spix’s little blue macaw — extinct in the wild for 22 years — now flies free again in its natural habitat in Brazil, thanks to decades of research and effort by hundreds of scientists, conservation biologists, veterinarians, aviculturists and indigenous peoples."

So many people from so many different backgrounds cared enough to invest their time, money, and knowledge--often with no or very little financial compensation--to bring these birds home. Many whose names and contributions we will never know.

Eight birds were released earlier in June and 12 more are set to be released in December. This is only the beginning of the reintroduction phase of a captive breeding and reintroduction plan that has been in the making for decades. Parrots are challenging animals to reintroduce to the wild because they are so intelligent and social, but conservationists have learned a lot from both failed and successful parrot reintroductions in the past. I'm wishing all the luck in the world to those first eight birds--they have been given the best shot possible at making it in the wild.

This is one of those conservation stories that makes it all worth it. After 22 years, there will finally be little blue parrots in the Brazilian forest again.

(For those who are wondering, yes, this is what the movie Rio was based on. Rio brought an immense amount of attention and support to the Spix's macaw reintroduction efforts)

[idontdrinkgatorade]

honestly looking back on the whole situation i had made for myself when i was on the internet at 14 was wild

[poetrylesbian]

so excited to start my volunteering project on the sunshine coast next week. it's gonna be all collections management and I am so fucking excited. I fucking love collections management.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[dpskampteeroad]

International Plastic Bag Free Day | Plastics give a helping hand, but they are polluting our land!

This day symbolizes the significance of taking small steps in refusing plastic bags, which can contribute to monumental leaps for our beautiful, clean, and green environment. By choosing reusable alternatives and raising awareness about the harmful effects of plastic bags, we empower ourselves to make a positive impact.

International Plastic Bag Free Day

DPS Kamptee Road Nagpur 

[vordemtodgefeit]

liz truss waiting until the country is distracted then announcing that not only will they be immediately reneging on their promise to uphold the fracking ban until scientific review has proven that it is safe, they have postponed the aforementioned scientific review until after the mourning period because of course that is the respectful thing to do