Even the animals seem confused’: a retreating Kashmir glacier is creating an entire new world in its wake. Kolahoi is one of many glaciers whose decline is disrupting whole ecosystems – water, wildlife and human life that it has supported for centuries. Guardian Sajid Raina Tauseef Ahma in Srinagar 10 Dec 2025 From the slopes above Pahalgam, the Kolahoi glacier is visible as a thinning, rumpled ribbon of ice stretching across the western Himalayas. Once a vast white artery feeding rivers, fields and forests, it is now retreating steadily, leaving bare rock, crevassed ice and newly exposed alpine meadows. The glacier’s meltwater has sustained paddy fields, apple orchards, saffron fields and grazing pastures for centuries. Now, as its ice diminishes, the entire web of life it supported is shifting. Alpine flowers bloom earlier, confusing pollinators. Musk deer and ibex lose grazing grounds, and snow leopards are increasingly spotted near villages as they run out of food to hunt. For scientists, Kolahoi represents one of the most dramatic ecological changes in the region. Shepherds report shrinking grasslands and shifting streams that affect livestock. “Even the animals seem confused by the changing landscape,” says Mohammad Siraj Khan, a 55-year-old shepherd. 'We couldn’t irrigate even half the crop. This didn’t happen even during the worst years of the 1990s' Abdul Gani Dar, farmer                                                                                  

Historical records show that Kolahoi has been shrinking since the mid-19th century. A 2020 satellite assessment found it had lost almost a quarter of its area over nearly six decades, while its snout had retreated about 900 meters since 1978. Between 1980 and 2018, agricultural land in the glacier’s Lidder watershed fell by almost 40%, reflecting the direct link between glacial retreat and water availability. “This glacier is the lifeline of the Lidder and Sind rivers,” says researcher Labeeb Gulzar. “Its loss could reshape the future of Kashmir’s water, agriculture and ecosystems.”The shifts are transforming landscapes and communities across the region, says Dr Talib Bashir Bhat, a research scholar at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir (Skuast). “Changes in glacier melt and snowline elevation alter river flows, affecting irrigation, orchards and pastures, linking the glacier directly to biodiversity and livelihoods.” He says alpine plants face changes as lower-elevation species move into newly exposed land, altering the delicate balance of ecosystems.

Rising temperatures and pollution from vehicles, wood burning and construction all darken the ice, accelerating its melt. Deforestation and growing tourist infrastructure in the upper catchment have worsened the problem. For local farmers, the changes are tangible. “The canal dried up by late June, much earlier than usual,” says Abdul Gani Dar, from Pulwama.“We couldn’t irrigate even half the crop. This didn’t happen even during the worst years of the 1990s. Now the snow is gone, and the streams vanish before summer starts.” Scientific observations underline these concerns. Prof Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, vice-chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology, says Kolahoi’s mass balance is highly sensitive to temperature. “For every 1C rise, it loses about 0.65 metres of ice thickness annually,” he said. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/10/kashmir-glacier-ecosystems-snow-kolahoi-biodiversity-agriculture-aoe  

Scientists from HR Wallingford, in Oxfordshire, and Queen Mary University created a model to simulate the breakdown of plastic and how long it takes to end up in the deep sea. They found that existing pollution would still float on the surface for more than 100 years, even if no more floating plastic was dumped in the ocean. Those behind the study said the research offered "critical insights" into "the challenges of removing plastic from marine environments".Prof Andrew Manning, technical directr at HR Wallingford, said: "This study helps explain why so much of the plastic we expect to find at the ocean surface is missing." He explained that as large plastics fragment over decades, they "become small enough to attach" to marine snow - which are tiny organic particles that sink to the ocean floor. But, even after a hundred years, he said fragments could still be found at surface level "floating and breaking down". The study found that the breakdown of plastic over the time was "the limiting factor" in removing it from the ocean surface. It found that after a century, about 10% of the original plastic could remain afloat, where it releases harmful microplastics into the water."To tackle the problem properly, we need long-term thinking that goes beyond just cleaning the surface," Prof Manning said.

The study is the third and final one of its kind by Queen Mary University of London and HR Wallingford exploring the journey of plastic in the ocean. The study found that the breakdown of plastic over the time was "the limiting factor" in removing it from the ocean surface. It found that after a century, about 10% of the original plastic could remain afloat, where it releases harmful microplastics into the water. To tackle the problem properly, we need long-term thinking that goes beyond just cleaning the surface," Prof Manning said.   https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8v5jgyq20o   

And in Rivers too! Global production of plastic has increased exponentially over the past decades. Annual world production has increased from 2 million tonnes (Mt) in 1950 to 234 Mt in 2000 and 460 Mt in 2019. In a business-as usual scenario, the OECD projects global plastic production to triple by 2060. Large shares of the plastic produced soon turn out as waste, especially short-lived products such as packaging and single-use plastics – like this 353 Mt of plastic waste were generated globally in 2019 (OECD 2022). While the United States show by far the largest per capita plastic waste generation rate, major increases are expected for emerging economies in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, where plastic waste generation is forecast to quadruple by 2060. This is alarming, as solid waste management in these countries is often inadequate and will not be able to keep up with waste generation, considering the various challenges in waste management in developing countries. Rapid urbanisation trends resulting in large informal settlements will further aggravate the situation. Plastic waste far too often ends up in the environment, polluting land, rivers, and oceans. While some types of plastic are very stable, others very slowly fragment into tiny microplastic particles and eventually further into non-visible nanoplastics. As plastics can remain in the environment for many decades and production and use of plastic continues to increase, plastic pollution will be building-up exponentially over the next decades. This is ever more worrying since the resulting risks for human and environmental health are not yet fully understood.

Microplastics are defined as plastic particles smaller than 5mm in diameter in the international policy debate, e.g. in the OECD Global Plastic Outlook. Nanoplastics are considered a subset of microplastics, usually defined as being under 100 nm in size (UNEP 2022). However, various ongoing research on microplastic and nanoplastic uses different definitions, making it difficult to compare results. • Microplastics can be categorized by their source. Primary microplastics are purposefully made to be that size (e.g. microbeads used in cosmetics and personal care products, virgin resin pellets used in plastic manufacturing processes). Secondary microplastics are the result of fragmentation of macroplastic into smaller particles, either during use or after disposal into the environment. • Microplastics make up 12% of plastic pollution flows into the environment. Most microplastics found in the environment are secondary microplastics, with major sources including road transport (tire abrasions and brake wear), synthetic fibres, and wastewater sludge. Nevertheless, primary microplastics are also an important source of plastic pollution. Moreover, microplastics in the environment, especially in rivers and oceans, result from break-down of larger plastic items. • Microplastics are found everywhere - once microplastics are released into the environment they are transported in various ways incl. through the air, rivers, and the food web, as they are ingested by animals. Like this microplastics are carried to even the most remote places, for example the arctic and high mountain glaciers. Microplastics also have been detected in human blood and lungs. The pervasiveness of microplastics across our planet raises serious concerns for human and environmental health.

The understanding of sources, pathways, and fate of microplastics in the environment is still limited. More research is needed to better understand the full extent and impacts of microplastic pollution. However, considering the fact that once leaked into the environment, microplastics are difficult to contain, this should by no means delay the implementation of preventive policies to reduce microplastic pollution.

 Rivers and lakes act as plastic pollution reservoirs Around 32% of all plastic pollution ends up in aquatic environments, i.e. in rivers, lakes and oceans. Direct dumping of waste contributes a significant portion of plastic in rivers. But mismanaged waste from land can also be flushed into water bodies, e.g. by heavy rains, which feed into larger tributaries and rivers, which in turn empty into oceans. In this way, plastic from far inland can travel many miles through local streams into larger tributaries and main river down to the coastline. Rivers have for long mainly been considered a mere courier for plastic into the oceans, but more recent research found that a major part of the plastic remains within the river systems for many years, like water bottles from the 1970s at the riverbank of the Seine have shown. In 2019 alone, 5.8 Mt of plastic waste are estimated to have ended up in rivers and lakes, of which only 1.7 Mt flowed into the ocean.

Huge amounts of plastics have already accumulated in rivers and lakes and the problem is piling up: estimates are that more than 109 million tons of plastic are floating around or settling at the bottom of rivers and lakes -much more than the 30 million tons accumulated in the world’s oceans – and these numbers are expected to triple until 2060 (OECD 2022). This figure by the OECD shows current and expected plastic pollution flows in aquatic environments. Highest plastic pollution is found in rivers running through densely populated urban areas in Asia where waste management is often lacking. Researchers expect Africa to establish on the list of riverine plastic pollution hotspots in the next decades. Similar observations were made for microplastic pollution of freshwater bodies, where highest concentrations were found in China and lowest in Switzerland (Chen et al. 2022). Nevertheless, microplastics have also been found in remote Swiss mountain lakes  https://www.sdc-water.ch/dam/en/sd-web/2phc2tlfJFlg/Reseau-trendsheet-8-plastic%20pollution-2024-adelphi_EN.pdf

The rainforest the world forgot: the Congo basin is the second largest on Earth, so why is it being neglected? It is one of the world’s most vital carbon sinks, but this tropical rainforest is losing out when it comes to climate policy and funding Guardian Tam Patachako 18 Nov 2025 In October 2023, leaders, scientists and policymakers from three of the world’s great rainforest regions – the Amazon, the Congo, and the Borneo-Mekong basins – assembled in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. They were there to discuss one urgent question: how to save the planet’s last great tropical forests from accelerating destruction.For those present, the question was existential. But to their dismay, almost no one noticed. “There was very little acknowledgment that this was happening, outside of the Congo basin region,” says Prof Simon Lewis, a lecturer at the University of Leeds and University College London, and co-chair of the Congo Basin Science Initiative (CBSI). “It didn’t really fly as a conference or a set of policy proposals to better invest in that region of the world.” The people of the Congo basin have tightened their belts so that the world can breathe – and we receive no compensation Arlette Soudan-Nonault.

 Despite being the second-largest rainforest on Earth – and one of the most vital carbon sinks – the Congo basin remains the rainforest the world forgot, often overlooked when it comes to global climate policy and funding. Spanning six countries across central Africa and home to roughly 130 million people, the basin is often called the “lungs of Africa”. Its vast canopy shelters thousands of rare species. “It has about 10,000 plant species and 30% of these can only be found in the region,” says Dr Yadvinder Malhi, a leading ecologist at Oxford University. Unlike the Amazon, the Congo’s forests remain largely intact – home to endangered animals such as forest elephants, okapis, mountain gorillas and bonobos. Its significance extends far beyond its borders. The basin’s rainfall feeds main river systems across the continent, sustaining life as far away as the Sahel. “Africa is largely an arid continent,” says Malhi. “This fountain of water in the heart of the continent circulates and [also] ends up feeding into the Nile. That sustains even more lives for millions of people.” Crucially, while encroachments of logging and mining are increasing, much of the forest remains untouched. As a result, the Congo basin is believed to be the last big rainforest to remain a strong carbon sink – with enough trees left to absorb more carbon than it emits.

In a report released on Monday, as the Cop30 climate conference began in Belém, the Science Panel for the Congo Basin found that the Congo basin absorbs 600m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, but this number is falling due to accelerating deforestation. Prof Bonaventure Sonké, co-chair of the panel, said the researchers hoped it would bring international attention and support for “the Earth’s most important but least-studied tropical rain forest”.

While scientists agree on the Congo basin’s critical importance, it continues to be funded at a far lower rate than its counterparts. A report published earlier this year by the Centre for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) revealed the scale of the financial imbalance. Between 2008 and 2022, the world’s three main rainforest regions received a combined total of $20bn (£15bn) in international funding. Of that, $9.3bn (47%) went to the Amazon basin, $7.4bn (37%) to south-east Asia, and only $3.2bn (16%) to the Congo basin. Germany was the leading donor for central Africa during this period, providing 24% of total funding, followed by the Global Environment Fund (12%), the World Bank (9.4%), and the US (8.8%). Most of the money (30%) went towards biodiversity protection, with another 27% supporting environmental policy. Yet funding for scientific research accounted for just 0.1%.

“The basin countries don’t prioritise research,” says Dr Richard Sufo Kankeu, a scientist at CIFOR-ICRAF and one of the report’s authors. The result is a wide gap in scientific understanding. A 2023 study examining relative levels of climate and biodiversity research on different rainforests found about 2,000 published academic papers for the Congo basin, compared with 10,611 for the Amazon. “You’ve got this critical ecosystem, but there just aren’t enough local scientists working to understand it,” says Lee White, an honorary professor at the University of Stirling and former environment minister in Gabon.....read on        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/18/congo-basin-rainforest-africa-research-funding-aoe

About the report.......

The forests of British Columbia are in crisis. Despite strong provincial commitments over the past five years — including the Old Growth Strategic Review (OGSR, 2020), the Nature Agreement to protect 30 percent of B.C. by 2030 (2023), and the draft Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (2023) — the province has so far failed to deliver the promised paradigm shift in forest stewardship. Industrial clearcutting, climate-driven wildfires, and myopic conservation progress continue to erode ecological integrity, placing biodiversity, First Nations’ values, communities, carbon retention, climate resilience and future economic opportunities at risk.

These are the key findings of the report.......

• Old-growth loss continues: Nearly 5 percent (510,000 hectares) of the 11 million hectares of old growth identified in 2021 has been logged, burned, or removed from the public landbase.  
• Logging continues to target at-risk, big-treed forests, particularly on the coast. Since 2021, the rate of logging in big-treed old growth continued to be higher than in forests at lower risk of biodiversity loss. 
• Deferral recommendations did not effectively pause logging in endangered old growth: Logging was four times more likely inside at-risk old growth recommended for deferral than in other old growth.  
• OGSR recommendations have not yet led to new protection of old growth: Most of the 368,000 hectares of old growth protected by some designation since 2021 stemmed from processes underway long before the province committed to a new stewardship paradigm. Less than 2 percent of the most at-risk forests were protected as a result of new policy. 
• Remaining primary forest is dominated by lower productivity ecosystems: Only 2.5 million hectares of high-productivity primary forest (old growth or younger, naturally disturbed forests) with the potential to support large trees remain, much of it in small patches surrounded by degraded forest. 
• Wildfire disturbance has increased sevenfold in recent years compared to past decades: Although wildfires are natural parts of a forest’s lifecycle, the increased disturbance driven by climate heating heightens the urgency of protecting remaining old growth from logging. 
• There is little evidence of a policy shift that puts ecological health first: The draft Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework is unfinished, conservation progress is glacially slow, and provincial leadership continues to prioritise timber supply over ecological resilience. 
• The province’s commitment to 30 x 30 provides an opportunity to shift policy: The 12 percent of B.C.’s forests currently under strong protection are skewed toward low-productivity ecosystems with small trees. Less than 5 percent of high-productivity big-treed forests are protected, far short of goals for ecosystem representation. Achieving 30 percent protection of representative ecosystems will require a shift from safeguarding low-productivity areas to protecting remaining big-treed old growth and younger high-productivity primary forests. 

Addressing the intercepting crises of our time calls for the promised paradigm shift in managing forests in B.C., a shift that prioritises ecological health, carbon stores, climate adaptation and human communities above timber revenue and corporate profit. Change will require that the province embraces responsibility for the dire condition of B.C.‘s forests......read on  https://sierraclub.bc.ca/stories-events/reports-and-publications/bcforests2025/?mkt_tok=Nzg4LVlCRi0yOTYAAAGeW8oWR0IkfP1p8xEaMSf8q6BYWCIYyG1mOzZ7WkpKuseBAyeC4rZHrKIoZI139ljs0KrjRxqpao8bO11lNo1y0aoTWP4BEmcTFY-o3_2Q