Latest news with #SharedPlanet
CBC
04-03-2025
- General
- CBC
How your choices at the checkout can affect wildlife at home and abroad
Have you ever enjoyed your morning coffee while considering the plight of migratory birds? Sipped a glass of Pinot Noir while thinking about Pacific salmon? The products we buy have impacts on the natural world, including wildlife, that we might not think of. And with limitless consumer choice, it's easy to overlook where these items come from. But whether it's coffee that protects the habitats of migratory birds in Latin America and Africa, or vineyards that implement practices to help restore salmon habitats in the Pacific Northwest, there is a growing market for wildlife-friendly products. The four-part series Shared Planet highlights the benefits that come from working with nature, including the more ethical consumer goods that make their way to you. Can palm oil be orangutan-friendly? Versatile and inexpensive, palm oil is in about half of the products on store shelves — everything from lipstick and chocolate to laundry detergent. But palm oil is highly unsustainable. Indonesia and Malaysia produce more than 80 per cent of the world's palm oil, and millions of hectares of tropical rainforest have been cleared for palm plantations — destroying the habitat of wildlife like the orangutan. It's estimated that tens of thousands of orangutans have died over the last 20 years because of palm oil production. In the heart of oil palm country on Borneo, the Shared Planet team met Mariana (Dadai) Singgong. Born and raised in the Kinabatangan district, she has witnessed first-hand the massive scale of deforestation there. Now, she's working for a local conservation group, Hutan, and leads a reforestation team, in tandem with the Malaysian government's ambitious plan to replant 100 million native trees across Malaysia. Hutan has planted more than 220,000 trees in the Keruak Wildlife Corridor along the Kinabatangan River. It reconnects two areas of protected forest, transforming the landscape from a vast monoculture into a mosaic of palms and native species. The results speak for themselves, as orangutans have moved back into these smaller patches of forest. The palm oil produced from the plantation that provided some of the land for the corridor is certified as sustainable, and the reforestation efforts are good for business as well. Orangutans can cling on with the help of native trees 19 days ago Duration 1:26 Don't just drink responsibly — drink ethically Mexican biologist Rodrigo Medellín is one of the world's top bat experts. He is on a mission to rehabilitate the animal's public image while supporting one of his country's most beloved exports. Bats are often portrayed as vicious bloodsuckers or carriers of disease. And their PR problem only got worse with COVID-19. But in Mexico, bats are the main pollinators of the agave plant, which is used to make tequila and mescal. However, the industry is threatened. Many producers maintain fields of genetically identical plants, leaving entire crops vulnerable to disease. Additionally, the distillers don't allow the plants to flower as it drains the plant of the sugars that are converted to alcohol to make mescal and tequila. And the bats that would introduce pollen — and much-needed genetic diversity — from wild-growing agaves won't visit flowerless agave farms. In Shared Planet, Medellín advises mescal producer Don Emigdio Jarquín Ramirez on how to attract bats to his property by allowing a small number of plants to flower. With Medellín's help, bats are returning to Jarquín Ramirez's agave fields and the mescal brand he distills for, Mezcal Vago, can sell bottles with a bat-friendly label. Farming mezcal with the help of bats 1 month ago Duration 4:58 Bats aren't bad - just ask this Mexican farmer, who's agave farm now relies on the small flying mammals to help protect his mezcal business for the future. Watch Shared Planet on CBC Gem. What you can do From palm oil and coffee to mescal and wine, there are a number of wildlife-friendly products you can incorporate into your pantry. Look for certification: Seek out products that carry recognized wildlife-friendly certifications, such as Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and Bat Friendly. Research brands: Are the brands you're considering committed to wildlife conservation? Are they transparent about their supply chain? The clearer they are about their manufacturing process, the better. Read labels: Look closely at ingredient lists to see if they mention sustainable sourcing and wildlife-friendly farming methods. Shop at a farmers' market: Buying directly from small-scale producers is a great way to learn more about the food you're buying. Smaller operations typically have more wildlife-friendly operations.
CBC
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Shared Planet: incredible 4K wildlife series shows how humans can live in harmony with the natural world
Social Sharing This stunning new nature series is all about hope. Shared Planet, a four-part documentary series from The Nature of Things, reveals inspiring, untold stories of people and wildlife flourishing — together – all over the world. In our current age of devastating environmental challenges, Shared Planet offers an alternative for our future. There are unique benefits that come with sharing space with nature; the series spans dozens of countries and visits people from all walks of life who are interacting with nature in innovative ways that benefit humans, habitats and wildlife. Farming mezcal with the help of bats 17 days ago Duration 4:58 Bats aren't bad - just ask this Mexican farmer, who's agave farm now relies on the small flying mammals to help protect his mezcal business for the future. Watch Shared Planet on CBC Gem. Go into the heart of our cities where people are bringing nature back into urban spaces, then to the open savannahs of Kenya where locals are living alongside lions. Visit Mezcal makers in Mexico who are attracting bats to improve their agave crops. Shared Planet dives into watery worlds, where protecting coral reefs creates a fish haven and improves the lives of locals, and heads into the trees to discover how people are reshaping the way they live and work in forests, while coexisting and protecting wildlife. Produced by the Emmy-winning team behind Wild Canada, Wild Canadian Year and Wild Canadian Weather, Shared Planet captures the beauty and intricacies of our natural world, immersing audiences in breathtaking landscapes with unforgettable characters.
CBC
13-02-2025
- General
- CBC
How one community in Guatemala lives off the forest, while protecting it for the future
The sound of chainsaws rips through the air. A tree falls to the ground. This may sound like the usual destruction of our environment, but this time, it's not what it seems. These loggers at work actually live in the forest — and want to protect it. Within the Maya Biosphere Reserve, part of one of the largest tracts of rainforest in Central America, are more than 80,000 hectares of land cared for by the villagers of Uaxactún. This clip from the "Forest" episode of Shared Planet, a series from The Nature of Things, Uaxactún mayor Erwin Maas shows how the community lives off the forest, while protecting it for the future. A member of the Q'eqchi', Maas sees the forest as a part of himself. "For me, the forest is part of who I am," he says. "When you go into the forest, you connect with nature." Walking through the underbrush, Maas and his team of loggers are looking for a tree they can cut down. Uaxactún relies on the forest's resources for its exports — sustainable lumber, palm fronds for floral arrangements, tree nuts sold as a superfood — and One mahogany tree, for example, can fetch roughly $23,000 — a significant sum in a country where the annual income is close to $10,000. But it's not just humans that rely on the forest. Looking up at one prospective tree, Maas notices a flash of red. The canopy is a refuge for the fewer than 200 scarlet macaws left in Guatemala. Lacking the beautiful plumage of its parents, a baby macaw is nestled in a hollow high above the forest floor. This fledgling is the future. To protect the trees is to protect the species. Maas designates this tree as a "seeder." It will be left standing to propagate other trees while also providing a home for wildlife. In doing so, Maas and his community are thinking long-term. "What do you gain from clear cutting?" he said. "In one year, it can be very lucrative. But you are stealing from future generations." Not everyone agrees. On the edge of the community's forest, a pile of leaf litter is set alight, threatening extensive damage to the community's forest. Drug cartels want to clear the land for illegal cattle ranching — a way of laundering money. In this part of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, designating an area as a national park is not the most effective way of safeguarding the forest. It's Maas and his community, who live and work there and are committed to protecting it. Watch the video above for the full story.
CBC
06-02-2025
- Science
- CBC
Leave it to beavers to save farmland from drought in the face of climate change
Cattle farmer Jay Wilde's Idaho ranch had been threatened by devastating droughts for years. And he knew if his land ran out of water completely, it would be the end of the fourth-generation family operation. But one morning, Wilde had an epiphany — there were no longer any beavers on his land. Many ranchers see beavers as a nuisance, since they don't want their trees cut down and their land flooded. "I grew up hating them," Wilde says. "If we got a chance, we would shoot them." But once the beavers disappeared, so did the water. Wilde's farm is located on a high and dry plateau, a place where water is already in limited supply. Human-induced climate change has made the last two decades the hottest and driest of the past 1,200 years in the West. And in 2023, America's two largest reservoirs reached record lows. Wilde was already starting to see the impact on his farm. Fishing holes and streams which once criss-crossed his land were now gone. This was the beginning of Wilde's journey to make amends with the beavers and reintroduce them, and their landscape engineering, to his land. The story is featured in this clip from the "Waters" episode of The Nature of Things series Shared Planet. A beaver's dam is an unmistakable engineering marvel. A humble structure of logs jammed together blocks the mouth of a creek or stream, totally transforming the land around it. Restricting the flow of the water causes it to spread out into ponds. Dams also hold back the spring snow melt, keeping the land wet and fertile for longer. Wilde suspected that these dams would be the key to restoring his ranch. But he now had a problem to solve: how do you bring beavers back to the land? Wilde reached out to Joe Wheaton, an associate professor of riverscapes at Utah State University, who had been developing ways to reintroduce beavers to watersheds. Wheaton and Wilde came up with a plan to make the land more inviting — and to source the much-needed beavers. "To finally see it all come together, it was almost like a dream come true," Wilde says. Watch the video above for the full story.
CBC
06-02-2025
- Science
- CBC
How disaster prompted this Australian sheep farmer to switch to sustainable practices
Looking like a cross between a porcupine and an anteater, an echidna trudges across an island of green in a sea of red, dusty soil. Weighing less than a bag of potatoes, this strange mammal is one of Australia's tiniest farmers. On the hunt for ants and termites, the echidna rummages around in the dirt, leaving behind small pits where decaying vegetation, seeds and moisture can collect. These small pockets will support six times more plant life than the untouched soil, making the animal a vital part of maintaining a healthy and diverse ecosystem. For Australian sheep farmer Charles Massy, the sight of echidnas tilling the soil on his lush pastures is a wonder to behold. But they're just one part of what sustains the resilient grassland. Disaster prompted a switch to sustainable farming Massy is a fifth-generation sheep farmer, and his daughter and grandson are farmers on the same land. In this clip from "Open Spaces" — the second episode of Shared Planet, a series from The Nature of Things — Massy explains how switching to sustainable farming methods enabled him to bring life back to his pastures after disaster struck. In the early 1980s, a massive drought known as the "Great Dry" swept through eastern Australia. Massy's traditional farming practices had allowed his sheep to intensely graze the landscape, stripping the ground of plant life, and this combined with the drought led to a food shortage that required him to buy industrial grain to feed his flock. Although his sheep survived, Massy was financially devastated and had to sell a portion of his family's land to recover. Wanting to avoid another catastrophe, the farmer decided to change how he used the land to feed his sheep. He took inspiration from wild herbivores on the African savannah, moving his flocks between pastures every few days to prevent overgrazing. "It doesn't matter where the grassland is," says Massy. "If you graze the landscape properly, you're getting regeneration." Over a 30-year period of trial and error, Massy was able to transform his land in a way he never thought possible. What was once bare ground was now covered in vegetation — a natural grassland resistant to drought. And when severe drought hit again between 2017 and 2020, Massy's farmland survived the devastating conditions. Since changing his farming practices, Massy's farm has become an oasis for wildlife, including 140 species of birds and a thriving population of echidnas. He's even spotted many animals he's never seen on his land before. "If you can work with nature instead of against her, I think it adds so much more meaning to life," Massy says. Watch the video above for the full story.
