Sign Up for IslandWire

As Earth Island Institute looks forward to the future health of our planet, we invite you to plan for your own future through our partnership with FreeWill. Through their online estate planning tool, you can create a will or revocable living trust 100-percent free and protect the people, communities, and causes you care about.

Create your free plan

You’ve probably seen photos of these fierce fuzzies, but may not know much about Pallas’s cats, also known as a “manul.” Eurasian Wildlife and Peoples and its partner, Manul Working Group, need your help to provide essential research through the Adopt a Camera program in Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Aside from providing great images, camera traps aid in studying the manul cats and the threats they face. Every gift counts, and larger gifts come with the added benefit of cat photos in your inbox, so donate today. Meanwhile, in the US, Project Coyote has joined a coalition of organizations in filing a 60-day notice of intent to sue the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which has refused to restore Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections to the Western gray wolf. The suit comes as Rocky Mountain states have liberalized legal killing of wolves, turned a blind eye to poaching, and removed discretion from state game agencies.

Join Women’s Earth Alliance for a virtual press briefing on June 12 at 9 am, Pacific. During the educational event, Voices Unearthed: Shifting the Narrative on Women Grassroots Leaders in the Climate Movement, WEA staff and grassroots leaders will share perspectives and lessons learned over the past 18 years working with women- and community-led environmental initiatives, and will discuss what responsible media coverage of women leaders in the climate movement looks like. Click here to sign up and attend, and please feel free to share this opportunity with your contacts who work in journalism and media.

Since its founding in 1992, KIDS for the BAY (KftB) has helped develop the next generation of environmental leaders, a vast majority of them women and people of color. At a recent training, Kristina Cervantes-Yoshida, PhD, a former staff member who is now an environmental scientist at the San Francisco Water Board, taught students to lead scientific creek studies. “Working at KftB gave me the opportunity to engage with students of color in local schools and make environmental change in my own community,” she said later. At the same time, Conservation Kids and the University of San Francisco’s Environmental Studies Program recently teamed up for a conservation photography workshop for 20 students. Conservation photographer Daniel Dietrich led the group, which encountered sparrows, turtles, hummingbirds, water fowl, loads of insects, and, of course, gorgeous flowers. Learn more about their free workshops.

PPC Artist Ally Benjamin Von Wong’s “Turn Off the Plastic Tap” in Ottawa, Canada.

Ahead of the fourth session of UN Plastics Treaty negotiations (INC-4) in April, actor Jeff Bridges, in collaboration with Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) and the Break Free From Plastic movement, called on world leaders to create a strong treaty that limits plastic production and supports communities. PPC staff worked on the ground and behind the scenes to share with negotiators and the public the truth that plastic poisons people. Unfortunately, INC-4 closed on a low note, with negotiators prioritizing politics and profits over people and the planet. The final negotiating session, INC-5, is set to begin in late November in Busan, Republic of Korea.

Green Schoolyards America is pleased to share initial findings and new resources from their California Schoolyard Tree Canopy Equity Study, which maps the existing level and distribution of tree canopy at every K-12 public school campus in California, analyzing the portion of each campus that children use during the school day. This work will help establish a baseline and priorities for the California Schoolyard Forest System℠, a statewide initiative to increase tree canopy at the state’s public schools, and will also provide tools for data-driven decision-making to help policymakers in their efforts to protect vulnerable children from extreme heat and impacts of climate change. Learn more here.

Last month, the Wild Oyster Project organized a one-day Oyster Bioblitz at Heron’s Head Park, in conjunction with Reimagining SF and the City Nature Challenge. From April 26 to April 29, community scientists from around San Francisco Bay flooded the iNaturalist app, documenting biodiversity from all over the city. The results of the Oyster BioBlitz were remarkable. The shoreline of Heron’s Head Park is a thriving center of life, in part due to the installation of an artificial oyster reef in the summer of 2022. These structures have allowed significant oyster growth and fostered the emergence of new life, including birds, plants, and more. This success serves as a testament to the remarkable role that oysters play as ecosystem engineers.

Photo by Diana Robinson/Flickr.

George Wuerthner, executive director of Public Lands Media, was one of the keynote speakers for Earth Day celebrations in Bozeman, Montana, where he gave a talk on wildfire issues. He then led four members of Rewilding Chile on a five-day tour of Yellowstone National Park. Public Lands Media is a non-partisan source of conservation information, providing reliable information to scientists, conservationists, and the public to aid in informed decision-making.