🌏 Thanks for signing up to support small, purpose-driven media. Next Tuesday, expect stories on the pollution caused by illegal drug production, an interview with the UK’s former Chief Scientific Advisor, and more. 🌏

An environmental permit for oil drilling? 🛢

If you’re angry about the Cambo Oil Field, don’t let these plans to drill for oil on the Isle of Wight fall under the radar.

Cambo Oil Field will not need to meet new ‘climate checkpoint’ rules as it’s an extension of a previously-licensed field. The harvesting of its estimated 800 million barrels of oil will, however, have an obvious climate impact. 

But the nation is still fielding other applications beyond the higher-profile North Sea. These shouldn’t be allowed to slip through the net. UK Oil and Gas’ proposal for new wells on the Isle of Wight promises nothing like the amount of oil at Cambo. The principle behind it, however, is the same. 

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As dams run dry, Zimbabwe experiments with a new style of farming 🐟

Could aquaponics ensure food security in Harare, a city suffering from persistent drought?

Zimbabwe’s capital city, Harare, is suffering acute water shortages. Sources have all but dried up, due in part to droughts exacerbated by climate change. 

The city draws its water mainly from the Chivero Dam – alongside the Harava, Seke, and Manyame dams. In 2019, the Harava Dam was decommissioned because of exceptionally low water levels; it was operating at just 7% capacity. 

Aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture, AKA breeding fish and other aquatic animals, and hydroponics, which involves growing plants without soil.

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Pakistan’s snow leopards: threatened by an international hunting mafia 🐆

Snow leopard carcasses can be sold for $10K each. Poachers and conservationists are fighting over the endangered animal’s future.

Snow leopards are listed as ‘vulnerable’ globally. They’re on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list, and have been ‘critically endangered’ since 2013 in Pakistan.

The expansion of mountainous communities has forced the big cats to relocate to further remote areas in the mountains, away from human settlements. But it is poaching that’s contributing most to their decline. The practice is allegedly funded by an international hunting mafia, who illegally trade snow leopard skin across borders. 

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👋 See you next week!

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