{"id":187432,"date":"2021-06-21T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=187432"},"modified":"2021-06-20T08:17:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T07:17:56","slug":"what-went-right-this-week-a-soaring-conservation-success-plus-more-positive-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/06\/what-went-right-this-week-a-soaring-conservation-success-plus-more-positive-news\/","title":{"rendered":"What Went Right This Week: A Soaring Conservation Success, Plus More Positive News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

17 Jun 2021 – Scotland celebrated a conservation success story, the real winner of the Euros was revealed, scientists found a novel use for plastic…
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

by Dorothea Oldani<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n

Eagles returned to Loch Lomond after 100 years<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

Twitchers are aflutter this week after white-tailed eagles were spotted at Loch Lomond for the first time in over a century. A pair of the raptors were seen \u2018nest prospecting\u2019, suggesting they intend to stay.<\/p>\n

Persecution and habitat changes pushed the birds to extinction in the UK in the early 20th century. However, subsequent reintroductions have seen them recolonise Scotland where there are now believed to be more than 150 breeding pairs.<\/p>\n

Paul Roberts, operations manager of NatureScot, Scotland\u2019s nature agency, said: \u201cThis is the latest chapter in the continuing success story of sea eagle conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Migration was declared the real winner of the Euros<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

With the Euros getting under way last weekend, a campaign kicked off to highlight how migration has shaped the beautiful game. Launched by London\u2019s Migration Museum, Football Moves People<\/a> aims to tackle racist sentiment at matches and beyond.<\/p>\n

The billboard and social media campaign comes as boos ring out from the stands at some matches while footballers take the knee in an anti-racism gesture.<\/p>\n

All nations competing in the Euros have squad members who are playing outside of their home countries. The museum\u2019s campaign celebrates migrants that shaped the sport, and highlights how different teams would look were it not for migration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no exaggeration to say that without migration, football as we know it wouldn\u2019t exist,\u201d said Robyn Kasozi, head of public engagement at the Migration Museum.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s time to put migration at the heart of our national conversations, and with tens of millions of us watching the Euros this summer, where better to start than with football?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

London\u2019s \u2018front door\u2019 is to get a radical revamp <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

Anyone who has jostled for space on its crowded pavements, or had to breathe its toxic air will attest to Oxford Circus being an uninspiring place to visit. But not for much longer, perhaps.<\/p>\n

This week, plans were unveiled to turn London\u2019s busiest shopping area into a series of leafy, pedestrian-only piazzas. Space clawed back from cars will feature trees and seating to encourage people to linger.<\/p>\n

The pandemic appears to have hastened efforts to make city centres more pleasant for pedestrians<\/a>. In Paris, plans were recently announced to turn the traffic-choked Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es into an \u2018extraordinary garden\u2019. Madrid, Barcelona and Birmingham are among the other cities with proposals to reclaim the public realm from cars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Plastic was converted into vanilla flavouring <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

Like modern-day alchemists, researchers at the University of Edinburgh have found a way of turning plastic waste into safe-to-eat vanilla flavouring. How appetising that will be remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

The process uses lab-engineered E. coli bacteria to convert polyethylene terephthalate into vanillin, which is is the primary component of extracted vanilla beans and is responsible for the characteristic taste and smell of vanilla.<\/p>\n

Researchers said the discovery highlights the role of microbial science is the burgeoning circular economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stephen Wallace of the University of Edinburgh, who worked on the research<\/a>, said: \u201cThis is the first time that bacteria have been used to make vanillin from plastic waste. This is exciting to us as it means we can also turn plastic into other useful chemicals in an environmentally friendly way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The secret to rewilding? Let the jays do it \u2013 report <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

As nations scale-up tree planting efforts to help stabilise the climate, a new study advocates leaving the heavy lifting to jays. Researchers monitoring two new woodlands in Cambridgeshire found that half the trees growing there had been planted by the birds.<\/p>\n

Like squirrels, jays bury acorns in the ground ahead of winter. Many of those turn into oak trees. The birds are, of course, one of many species whose behaviour facilitates the natural regeneration of forests.<\/p>\n

The study, published in the journal Plos One<\/a>, makes a case for using natural regeneration \u2013\u00a0also know as \u2018passive rewilding\u2019 \u2013\u00a0to meet the UK\u2019s woodland creation targets.<\/p>\n

\u201cBiodiversity-rich woodland that is resilient to drought and reduces disease risk can be created without any input from us,\u201d said Dr Richard Broughton of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, who led the research. \u201cOur study provides essential evidence that passive rewilding has the potential to expand native woodland habitat at no cost and within relatively short timescales.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The Goldman environmental prize announced its winners<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

Activists who helped disrupt the illegal trade in pangolins, who led successful campaigns to ban plastics, and who prevented coal-fired power plants from opening were among the winners of this year\u2019s Goldman environmental prize, a global award for environmental activism.<\/p>\n

The six victors were: Sharon Lavigne (pictured), who stopped a plastic factory from opening in her native US; Vietnam\u2019s Thai Van Nguyen, who rescued 1,540 pangolins from wildlife traffickers; Maida Bilal, who led a 503-day blockade of a dam in Bosnia and Hercegovina; Gloria Majiga-Kamoto, who challenged the plastics industry in Malawi and won; Kimiko Hirata, who helped persuade the Japanese government to cancel 13 coal power plants; and Liz Chicaje Churay, whose tireless campaigning led to the creation of Yaguas National Park in Peru.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese phenomenal environmental champions remind us what can be accomplished when we fight back and refuse to accept powerlessness and environmental degradation,\u201d said Susie Gelman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A UK supermarket embraced the refill concept <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

The UK supermarket Asda announced this week that it will roll out packaging-free shopping at more of its shops, following a successful trial in Leeds.\u00a0Customers will be able to refill their own containers with grains, detergents and other goods.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Asda said the Leeds pilot exceeded its expectations, and that some goods outperformed packaged sales. The new stores offering refill zones will be in York, Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire and Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Susan Thomas, director of commercial sustainability at Asda, said: \u201cOur ultimate goal is to make refill and reuse a part of every Asda shopping trip and to achieve this, we have to make it easy, accessible and affordable for all our customers to shop this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original – positive.news<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 Jun 2021 – Scotland celebrated a conservation success story, the real winner of the Euros was revealed, scientists found a novel use for plastic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":187433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[688,2206],"class_list":["post-187432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-peace-journalism","tag-positive-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}