Lenny: Hi, this is Lenny Librizzi along with Dominique Burrell, Mark Latour, Jim Scarsella, and Charlie Olson. Welcome all of you listeners to Mostly Good Environmental News number 23, where we will cover positive local and global environmental issues, milestones, and activities that you may not otherwise hear about. Usually We hear bad news about drought, wildfires, floods, species loss, or the weakening of environmental regulations. But there are good things happening in the environment we will share with you in this podcast. We hope you enjoy listening. One of our regular listeners, Laura, suggested we mention that a North American river otter Has been spotted in the Bronx River in New York City for the first time in about 100 years. Thanks to the efforts of local groups like the Bronx River Alliance, the river is clean enough and vibrant enough for the otters. Thanks for the suggestion, Laura. And all you others out there, please share any good environmental news stories with us. For our first good news report, Dominique Barrel will report how Big Bend National Park is being preserved. Dominique?
Dominique Borel: Thanks. Preserving the Big Bend border. Big Bend National Park is located in West Texas, bordering Mexico. The park is the largest protected area of Chihuahuan desert ecology in the United States and was named after a large bend in the Rio Grande River. The park protects more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds. 56 species of reptiles and 75 species of mammals. The area has a rich cultural history from archaeological sites dating back 10,000 years to pioneers, ranchers, and miners. Geological features include sea fossils, dinosaur bones, and volcanic magma. The park encompasses over 1,200 square miles and includes 118 miles along the US boundary with Mexico. On the Mexican side, the park is bordered by the protected areas of Santa Elena Canyon and the Madeiras del Carmen Biosphere. But last February, the U.S. government's plan to build a wall through Big Bend National Park ignited one of the most surprising bipartisan grassroots campaigns in recent memory. There was a public outcry over the permitting waivers to allow a border wall to be built. and over the massive destruction the project would bring. And the No Big Bend Wall campaign to protect homes, livelihoods, and the wilderness along the Rio Grande corridor was begun. The previous summer, Congress had passed the one big beautiful bill giving Homeland Security forty six billion to expand the border wall. The legislation delivered on the first half of the promise to build the wall, but the second half, that Mexico would pay for it, never materialized. In the Big Bend region, illegal crossings are quite rare, and a concrete and steel wall is difficult to justify. The wall would be an eyesore and would cause irreparable damage to wildlife. Limit river padders and fishermen's access to the Rio Grande River and strip the Big Bend of its international dark sky status, a mainstay of its tourism industry. Nearby residents say that they live in a desert and that building a wall to cut them off from the river makes no sense. Despite public pressure, it still looks like the wall will be built through the park. With surveillance technology and patrol roads. And this is Texas, where residents aren't keen on surveillance, and locals know that a wall will impair the entire ecosystem and that flora and fauna will suffer. So border agents, sheriffs, progressive activists, and right wing politicians have coalesced, drawing up lawsuits. Mobilizing local landowners and creating a petition with over a hundred and fifty thousand signatures. For many property owners, their land would be cut off in two by the wall, and part of their land would become inaccessible. So let's hope that the No Big Ben Wall campaign is successful in protecting the natural springs, cottonwood trees, oak, juniper, maple, ponderosa pine, eagles. hawks, jays, warblers, woodpeckers, fox, bear, javelina, deer, rabbit, bobcats, badgers, ringtails, fish, turtles, and other species along this river. If this happens, that will be good news for the environment. A and now over to Charlie for his report on good news for the environment.
charlie olson: Fires in Spokane, Washington this summer are the latest reminder that when a wildfire is detected can be just as important as where it starts. A blaze found within minutes can often be contained before it spreads. But if you wait too long, a small spark can become a major disaster. A new effort to shorten that timeline began in July when a SpaceX rocket carried the first three Firestat satellites into orbit. The trio is the first part of a planned network of fifty satellites built solely to spot wildfires while they are still small enough to stop. Firestat is designed to fill an important gap. Existing weather and Earth observing satellites can detect large fires, but they often lack the resolution or revisit the same location too seldom to spot small fires shortly after they ignite. Firestat is designed to detect fires as small as a beach bonfire. Once the full constellation is deployed, Firestat will scan every point on Earth about every twenty minutes. The satellites use infrared sensors and artificial intelligence to search for heat that could ignite and signal a new wildfire. The system compares new images with earlier ones and accounts for factors such as weather conditions and nearby sources of heat before sending alerts to emergency responders. The goal is to identify real wildfires while reducing false alarms. Firestat works with a growing network of cameras on the ground that use artificial intelligence to search for smoke and heat. Together, the systems give firefighters their earliest warning yet that a fire has started. Wildfires have become one of the most destructive natural disasters in the United States. Rising temperatures, deforestation, prolonged drought, dry soil, and more frequent stretches of hot, dry and windy weather have made fires easier to ignite and harder to contain. In fact, most of the western United States now experiences two more months of fire weather each year than in the nineteenth century. seventies, and for firefighters every minute matters. In the western states, cameras continuously scan the landscape from fire towers and mountaintops. Artificial intelligence then reviews every image, searching for smoke during the day and heat after dark. The AI algorithms are being run continuously on that imagery to say smoke or not smoke. And at nighttime, AI looks at heat signatures. So heat versus cold. And then system operators zoom in and validate that it is a potential fire start. If the system spots a possible fire, a human analyst reviews the images before an alert is sent to fire agencies. That process often takes only a few minutes. Firefighters say that head start can make all the difference. It's a great tool to validate what's going on. Having that image can alert firefighters before they Before the fire grows out of control. California has built one of the largest camera networks in the country. The system includes more than 1,200 cameras used by Cal Fire. The system now detects about half of all wildfires before anyone calls 911. One recent fire near Fresno was spotted about 20 minutes before the first emergency call reached dispatches. Firefighters were able to respond quickly and keep the blaze from growing. At Cal Fire, one of the goals is to suppress 95% of fires at 10 acres or less in size. And the Firestat system helps to accomplish that goal. As soon as a fire signal is received, CAL FIRE sends resources to fight it. Ground cameras can only see the landscape in front of them. But satellites can watch vast stretches of remote forests, mountains, and grasslands where there are no cameras and often no people to report a fire. Together, the two systems give firefighters a faster and more complete picture of where fires are starting. A fire that is detected quickly and extinguished while it is still small rarely attracts attention. That is exactly the outcome firefighters are working toward. The fires that this system helps extinguish are the fires you do not read about in the newspapers. So this new satellite and artificial intelligence system is good news for forests, good news for property owners, and great news for the environment. And now a word from Jim.
Jim Scarcella: thank you Charlie and d Dominique for those reports. we have some good news here with the what's called the Phoenix Project. And in in the USA Our government has been rolling back protections for endangered species and many countries are around the world are failing to deliver on their conservation commitments. Corporations are also backpedaling on their environmental pledges. but we're lucky because one hundred imperiled animals and plants got some good news recently. A new fund called the Phoenix Species Project will pump 200 million into efforts to pull these plants and animals back from the brink of extinction and attempt to restore them in the wild. It's among the largest philanthropic funds focused entirely on species recovery. The project is funded by the By folks such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeff Bezos, and Todd Graves of Raising Cain. The move comes along amid alarming declines in biodiversity, meaning the variety of life on the planet. Species and ecosystems have been shrinking as humans plow, pave, and mine the Earth's land, pollute the rivers. ruin the soil and pull massive quantities of fish from the oceans. Climate change is adding more pressure. Human consumption of food, energy, and countless material goods is ultimately to blame and needs to be slowed down. The hundred species that will benefit for the project were chosen because they were near extinction and had Local environmental groups already working to save them. The Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander in North Carolina had habitat destroyed and wiped out from mudslides during Hurricane Helene in 2024. A plant in South Africa called the fuzzy belly button, whose sudden popularity has a houseplant has driven it to near extinction in the wild. And the bow mouth guitar fish, with which looks like a cross between a stingray and a shark, and is killed for his fins, these are these are three of the many species that'll be attempt to be saved. species down to very small numbers have been able to recover with the right resources and the right partners working. So for some species this money will unlock resources that will make recovery relatively straightforward. Other species like the Viquita porpoise in Mexico face far more challenging paths And I just wanna add that Sea Shepherd has been working to pr protect the Vaquita porpoise and its marine conservation habitats with the Mexican conservation police. Systematic changes are needed to ensure that humans and the natural world can both thrive in the future. While species conservation can win some battles We risk losing the war without bigger changes to how we use our environment and what products we consume. Mr. Bezos company, Amazon, it's enormous sales and and byproducts are fueling the very problems that conservationists are trying to solve. Amazon, like other multinational corporations, drives habitat. that loss and extinction through massive consumerism. Amazon and other companies need to do far more in sustainability and each of us needs to make better decisions on purchases and our lifestyles that that could be more sustainable. Beneath the economics of consumerism, natural resource extraction, and economic development, there are many local environmental groups fighting to stave off extinctions. and they will be helped with the Phoenix Fund monies. For the hickory nut gorge green salamander, it'll mean boosting numbers in the captive beating program, restoring habitat lost during the mudslides of Hurricane Helene, and eradication of tree diseases so that the salamanders can be returned to the wild. for the fuzzy bellied button plant of South Africa, this species has lost more than two-thirds of its population due to harvesting. The money will allow conservationists to breed more plants in captivity, buy trail cameras for security, and fun work with the community so the plant can be returned to the wild without over-harvesting. Most of these endangered plants and animals are not as charismatic as pandas, gazelles, or baby hippos, so they don't get the resources that other species might get. But the Phoenix Recovery Plan gives new resources to many overlooked plants and animals. Currently, more than eleven thousand species are classified as either critically endangered or extinct in the wild. Almost forty thousand more are endangered or vulnerable. These include primates such as the red colobus monkey, the golden topped tamarind, brown spider monkey, and several varieties of orangutan. and the North Carolina red wolf are also endangered. Tory pine trees from coastal California have been nearly wiped out from wildfires. Dozens of species of turtles and tortoises such as the western swamp turtle, the bog turtle, the four eyed turtle, and the pancake tortoise need protection. Rare birds such as the Maui parrot bill, the Hawaiian crow, and the cherry throated tanager are also in danger, along with other species like the green sawfish, Appalachian mussels, Ekman's magnolia, and And pink iguanas. The 100 identified species being supported by the Phoenix Species Project are a fantastic first step in restoring biodiversity. It's up to us to help and also support causes like this. The Phoenix Species Project is very good news for biodiversity and very good news for our environment. Thank you. And and now I would like to introduce Lenny.
Lenny: Thanks, Jim. The good news for the environment is farmers' markets. We usually think about farmers markets as providing fresh fruit and vegetables and related products, but farmers markets also provide environmental benefits as well. Farmers markets were first documented in ancient Egypt, where farmers sold their wares at a market along the Nile River. first market in the United States was in Boston in 1634. Farmers have always set up little stands on the roadside next to their farm or joined with other farmers to sell in the town square. A real breakthrough happened in the 1970s where markets sprang up in urban locations where city groups utilized underused spaces and And organized regional farmers to come and sell their produce. Among the first modern farmers' markets was one set up in an unused space next to the Queensborough Bridge in New York City, and started the Green Market program, which is celebrating its 50-year anniversary in 2026. Urban farmers' markets are now found in cities large and small. There are many environmental benefits of farmers' markets. Much of the produce sold in supermarkets is trucked or flown, an average of 2,500 miles. The farmers market produce comes from regional farms one to two hundred miles away, thereby saving fuel and lessening pollution. The urban farmers markets helped save local farms. by giving the farmers an outlet for their produce so they could stay in business. This kept land surrounding cities from being developed and helped preserve open spaces close to cities. The markets contribute to biodiversity as over 100 varieties of apples are sold in the green markets in New York City. Grain varieties that were traditionally grown in the state now have a market and more farms are growing them. Many unusual varieties of vegetables and fruit can also be found in the markets. The markets are contributing to human health as the benefits of eating fresh produce are well known. And the urban markets also act as a town square. Where people are engaged with their neighbors, making cities more livable. For all these reasons, farmers markets are good news for the environment. Visit one near you to enjoy these benefits if you are not already a regular shopper. And now Mark has some snippets of good news.
Mark: Okay, thank you. first Bill Frist, a former majority leader of the US Senate from Tennessee, has emerged as an outspoken advocate for environmental health. He talks these days about how environmental health improves human health. In congressional testimony, he's been highlighting the inseparability of planetary health and human health. According to Frist, a healthier planet means healthier people. The science shows it, our experience shows it, and nobody can credibly argue against that anymore. This summer, mister Frist published a video showing how ecosystem collapse and wildlife habitat loss imperil children's brain development and immune response by reducing their exposure to beneficial microbes. Recently he spoke to the Senate Budget Committee addressing topics such as how rising temperatures lead to higher health care costs, how air pollution speeds up cognitive decline, how climate biodiversity and nature shape human health, the importance of river and wetland restoration, how drugs we rely on from nature, such as cyclosporine, a drug that revolutionized organ transplants, is derived from soil fungus, and how weight loss drugs mimic chelomonster venom, how lung cancer risk increases due to tobacco smoke and airborne particulates, how air air pollution contributes to coronary artery blockages. How smog and wildfire drive heat stroke and breathing problems, how global warming expands the ranges for Lyme disease and West Nile disease, So we are hopeful that Senator Frist is helping elected officials to understand the growing threats of global warming, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Governor Waltz of Minnesota has just issued an order blocking all mining in Minnesota's boundary waters. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area is our nation's most visited wilderness area, a labyrinth of forests, wetlands, lakes, and rivers that provide habitat for creatures like grey wolves, Canada lynx, and more. Yet this landscape has been under the threat of toxic pollution since Congress lifted a ban on mining here. In recent months, environmentalists have delivered thousands of messages to legislators with a simple message, this lush wilderness. Is worth so much more than the minerals and materials we can extract from it. Now, Governor Watts' executive order will delay any prospect of heavily polluting nickel and copper mining in the boundary waters. So let's build on this momentum by calling on federal legislators to pass permanent legal protections for all national parks, national forests, and national monuments. Finally, a crews are planting trees in a vast park in western Newfoundland to help its forests recover from a moose population that was once among the most abundant on Earth. Teams at Grossmore National Park have planted three-quarters of a million trees in the past three years, and they will plant another half million trees. These once forested areas had been chewed into grasslands by hungry hordes of moose. Crews aren't just planting to restore the exact same forests, they're planting a careful mix of trees that will survive warmer temperatures, creating new forests to better withstand climate change. The trees being planted today have to survive for another century. Moose are plentiful across the boreal forests and rivers of Newfoundland, but they've become particularly abundant in Grossmorne, where a hunting band once kept them safe from humans, their only apex predator. In the nineteen nineties, there were about sixty five hundred moose in the park, and they were eating a lot of young trees. Their diets became a problem in areas where trees had been killed off by beetles, for example. Often these areas would recover on their own, but the moose ate all the fresh shoots that could have grown into trees. The result was a network of bald patches or moose meadows dotting the forest. Officials opened the park to moose hunters in twenty eleven. And these hunters have brought the population down to two thousand moose. And in twenty twenty three, tree planters with bags of two year old saplings were dropped into the moose meadows to begin replanting the forest. Grossmorne is home to a lot of black spruce, white spruce, red maple, and balsam fir, and the planters are mixing in boutique trees, such as yellow birch, white pine, and wild cherry, which are found in the southern reaches of the park. Those trees are already adapted to warmer temperatures. So planting over a million saplings in Newfoundland will help the moose, will help provide habitat for hundreds of wildlife species, and that's good news for the environment. And now, Lenny, over to you.
Lenny: Thanks, Mark, and thank you for listening to the Mostly Good Environmental News Report. We hope you enjoyed hearing some good news. If you liked our good news items, please share with your friends and listen to more episodes of the Mostly Good Environmental News Report wherever you listen to podcasts. A special thank you to Fred Duca for the original music compositions we are using in this podcast. Here is a little bit of that music. Bye for now.
Dominique Borel: Thanks. Preserving the Big Bend border. Big Bend National Park is located in West Texas, bordering Mexico. The park is the largest protected area of Chihuahuan desert ecology in the United States and was named after a large bend in the Rio Grande River. The park protects more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds. 56 species of reptiles and 75 species of mammals. The area has a rich cultural history from archaeological sites dating back 10,000 years to pioneers, ranchers, and miners. Geological features include sea fossils, dinosaur bones, and volcanic magma. The park encompasses over 1,200 square miles and includes 118 miles along the US boundary with Mexico. On the Mexican side, the park is bordered by the protected areas of Santa Elena Canyon and the Madeiras del Carmen Biosphere. But last February, the U.S. government's plan to build a wall through Big Bend National Park ignited one of the most surprising bipartisan grassroots campaigns in recent memory. There was a public outcry over the permitting waivers to allow a border wall to be built. and over the massive destruction the project would bring. And the No Big Bend Wall campaign to protect homes, livelihoods, and the wilderness along the Rio Grande corridor was begun. The previous summer, Congress had passed the one big beautiful bill giving Homeland Security forty six billion to expand the border wall. The legislation delivered on the first half of the promise to build the wall, but the second half, that Mexico would pay for it, never materialized. In the Big Bend region, illegal crossings are quite rare, and a concrete and steel wall is difficult to justify. The wall would be an eyesore and would cause irreparable damage to wildlife. Limit river padders and fishermen's access to the Rio Grande River and strip the Big Bend of its international dark sky status, a mainstay of its tourism industry. Nearby residents say that they live in a desert and that building a wall to cut them off from the river makes no sense. Despite public pressure, it still looks like the wall will be built through the park. With surveillance technology and patrol roads. And this is Texas, where residents aren't keen on surveillance, and locals know that a wall will impair the entire ecosystem and that flora and fauna will suffer. So border agents, sheriffs, progressive activists, and right wing politicians have coalesced, drawing up lawsuits. Mobilizing local landowners and creating a petition with over a hundred and fifty thousand signatures. For many property owners, their land would be cut off in two by the wall, and part of their land would become inaccessible. So let's hope that the No Big Ben Wall campaign is successful in protecting the natural springs, cottonwood trees, oak, juniper, maple, ponderosa pine, eagles. hawks, jays, warblers, woodpeckers, fox, bear, javelina, deer, rabbit, bobcats, badgers, ringtails, fish, turtles, and other species along this river. If this happens, that will be good news for the environment. A and now over to Charlie for his report on good news for the environment.
charlie olson: Fires in Spokane, Washington this summer are the latest reminder that when a wildfire is detected can be just as important as where it starts. A blaze found within minutes can often be contained before it spreads. But if you wait too long, a small spark can become a major disaster. A new effort to shorten that timeline began in July when a SpaceX rocket carried the first three Firestat satellites into orbit. The trio is the first part of a planned network of fifty satellites built solely to spot wildfires while they are still small enough to stop. Firestat is designed to fill an important gap. Existing weather and Earth observing satellites can detect large fires, but they often lack the resolution or revisit the same location too seldom to spot small fires shortly after they ignite. Firestat is designed to detect fires as small as a beach bonfire. Once the full constellation is deployed, Firestat will scan every point on Earth about every twenty minutes. The satellites use infrared sensors and artificial intelligence to search for heat that could ignite and signal a new wildfire. The system compares new images with earlier ones and accounts for factors such as weather conditions and nearby sources of heat before sending alerts to emergency responders. The goal is to identify real wildfires while reducing false alarms. Firestat works with a growing network of cameras on the ground that use artificial intelligence to search for smoke and heat. Together, the systems give firefighters their earliest warning yet that a fire has started. Wildfires have become one of the most destructive natural disasters in the United States. Rising temperatures, deforestation, prolonged drought, dry soil, and more frequent stretches of hot, dry and windy weather have made fires easier to ignite and harder to contain. In fact, most of the western United States now experiences two more months of fire weather each year than in the nineteenth century. seventies, and for firefighters every minute matters. In the western states, cameras continuously scan the landscape from fire towers and mountaintops. Artificial intelligence then reviews every image, searching for smoke during the day and heat after dark. The AI algorithms are being run continuously on that imagery to say smoke or not smoke. And at nighttime, AI looks at heat signatures. So heat versus cold. And then system operators zoom in and validate that it is a potential fire start. If the system spots a possible fire, a human analyst reviews the images before an alert is sent to fire agencies. That process often takes only a few minutes. Firefighters say that head start can make all the difference. It's a great tool to validate what's going on. Having that image can alert firefighters before they Before the fire grows out of control. California has built one of the largest camera networks in the country. The system includes more than 1,200 cameras used by Cal Fire. The system now detects about half of all wildfires before anyone calls 911. One recent fire near Fresno was spotted about 20 minutes before the first emergency call reached dispatches. Firefighters were able to respond quickly and keep the blaze from growing. At Cal Fire, one of the goals is to suppress 95% of fires at 10 acres or less in size. And the Firestat system helps to accomplish that goal. As soon as a fire signal is received, CAL FIRE sends resources to fight it. Ground cameras can only see the landscape in front of them. But satellites can watch vast stretches of remote forests, mountains, and grasslands where there are no cameras and often no people to report a fire. Together, the two systems give firefighters a faster and more complete picture of where fires are starting. A fire that is detected quickly and extinguished while it is still small rarely attracts attention. That is exactly the outcome firefighters are working toward. The fires that this system helps extinguish are the fires you do not read about in the newspapers. So this new satellite and artificial intelligence system is good news for forests, good news for property owners, and great news for the environment. And now a word from Jim.
Jim Scarcella: thank you Charlie and d Dominique for those reports. we have some good news here with the what's called the Phoenix Project. And in in the USA Our government has been rolling back protections for endangered species and many countries are around the world are failing to deliver on their conservation commitments. Corporations are also backpedaling on their environmental pledges. but we're lucky because one hundred imperiled animals and plants got some good news recently. A new fund called the Phoenix Species Project will pump 200 million into efforts to pull these plants and animals back from the brink of extinction and attempt to restore them in the wild. It's among the largest philanthropic funds focused entirely on species recovery. The project is funded by the By folks such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeff Bezos, and Todd Graves of Raising Cain. The move comes along amid alarming declines in biodiversity, meaning the variety of life on the planet. Species and ecosystems have been shrinking as humans plow, pave, and mine the Earth's land, pollute the rivers. ruin the soil and pull massive quantities of fish from the oceans. Climate change is adding more pressure. Human consumption of food, energy, and countless material goods is ultimately to blame and needs to be slowed down. The hundred species that will benefit for the project were chosen because they were near extinction and had Local environmental groups already working to save them. The Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander in North Carolina had habitat destroyed and wiped out from mudslides during Hurricane Helene in 2024. A plant in South Africa called the fuzzy belly button, whose sudden popularity has a houseplant has driven it to near extinction in the wild. And the bow mouth guitar fish, with which looks like a cross between a stingray and a shark, and is killed for his fins, these are these are three of the many species that'll be attempt to be saved. species down to very small numbers have been able to recover with the right resources and the right partners working. So for some species this money will unlock resources that will make recovery relatively straightforward. Other species like the Viquita porpoise in Mexico face far more challenging paths And I just wanna add that Sea Shepherd has been working to pr protect the Vaquita porpoise and its marine conservation habitats with the Mexican conservation police. Systematic changes are needed to ensure that humans and the natural world can both thrive in the future. While species conservation can win some battles We risk losing the war without bigger changes to how we use our environment and what products we consume. Mr. Bezos company, Amazon, it's enormous sales and and byproducts are fueling the very problems that conservationists are trying to solve. Amazon, like other multinational corporations, drives habitat. that loss and extinction through massive consumerism. Amazon and other companies need to do far more in sustainability and each of us needs to make better decisions on purchases and our lifestyles that that could be more sustainable. Beneath the economics of consumerism, natural resource extraction, and economic development, there are many local environmental groups fighting to stave off extinctions. and they will be helped with the Phoenix Fund monies. For the hickory nut gorge green salamander, it'll mean boosting numbers in the captive beating program, restoring habitat lost during the mudslides of Hurricane Helene, and eradication of tree diseases so that the salamanders can be returned to the wild. for the fuzzy bellied button plant of South Africa, this species has lost more than two-thirds of its population due to harvesting. The money will allow conservationists to breed more plants in captivity, buy trail cameras for security, and fun work with the community so the plant can be returned to the wild without over-harvesting. Most of these endangered plants and animals are not as charismatic as pandas, gazelles, or baby hippos, so they don't get the resources that other species might get. But the Phoenix Recovery Plan gives new resources to many overlooked plants and animals. Currently, more than eleven thousand species are classified as either critically endangered or extinct in the wild. Almost forty thousand more are endangered or vulnerable. These include primates such as the red colobus monkey, the golden topped tamarind, brown spider monkey, and several varieties of orangutan. and the North Carolina red wolf are also endangered. Tory pine trees from coastal California have been nearly wiped out from wildfires. Dozens of species of turtles and tortoises such as the western swamp turtle, the bog turtle, the four eyed turtle, and the pancake tortoise need protection. Rare birds such as the Maui parrot bill, the Hawaiian crow, and the cherry throated tanager are also in danger, along with other species like the green sawfish, Appalachian mussels, Ekman's magnolia, and And pink iguanas. The 100 identified species being supported by the Phoenix Species Project are a fantastic first step in restoring biodiversity. It's up to us to help and also support causes like this. The Phoenix Species Project is very good news for biodiversity and very good news for our environment. Thank you. And and now I would like to introduce Lenny.
Lenny: Thanks, Jim. The good news for the environment is farmers' markets. We usually think about farmers markets as providing fresh fruit and vegetables and related products, but farmers markets also provide environmental benefits as well. Farmers markets were first documented in ancient Egypt, where farmers sold their wares at a market along the Nile River. first market in the United States was in Boston in 1634. Farmers have always set up little stands on the roadside next to their farm or joined with other farmers to sell in the town square. A real breakthrough happened in the 1970s where markets sprang up in urban locations where city groups utilized underused spaces and And organized regional farmers to come and sell their produce. Among the first modern farmers' markets was one set up in an unused space next to the Queensborough Bridge in New York City, and started the Green Market program, which is celebrating its 50-year anniversary in 2026. Urban farmers' markets are now found in cities large and small. There are many environmental benefits of farmers' markets. Much of the produce sold in supermarkets is trucked or flown, an average of 2,500 miles. The farmers market produce comes from regional farms one to two hundred miles away, thereby saving fuel and lessening pollution. The urban farmers markets helped save local farms. by giving the farmers an outlet for their produce so they could stay in business. This kept land surrounding cities from being developed and helped preserve open spaces close to cities. The markets contribute to biodiversity as over 100 varieties of apples are sold in the green markets in New York City. Grain varieties that were traditionally grown in the state now have a market and more farms are growing them. Many unusual varieties of vegetables and fruit can also be found in the markets. The markets are contributing to human health as the benefits of eating fresh produce are well known. And the urban markets also act as a town square. Where people are engaged with their neighbors, making cities more livable. For all these reasons, farmers markets are good news for the environment. Visit one near you to enjoy these benefits if you are not already a regular shopper. And now Mark has some snippets of good news.
Mark: Okay, thank you. first Bill Frist, a former majority leader of the US Senate from Tennessee, has emerged as an outspoken advocate for environmental health. He talks these days about how environmental health improves human health. In congressional testimony, he's been highlighting the inseparability of planetary health and human health. According to Frist, a healthier planet means healthier people. The science shows it, our experience shows it, and nobody can credibly argue against that anymore. This summer, mister Frist published a video showing how ecosystem collapse and wildlife habitat loss imperil children's brain development and immune response by reducing their exposure to beneficial microbes. Recently he spoke to the Senate Budget Committee addressing topics such as how rising temperatures lead to higher health care costs, how air pollution speeds up cognitive decline, how climate biodiversity and nature shape human health, the importance of river and wetland restoration, how drugs we rely on from nature, such as cyclosporine, a drug that revolutionized organ transplants, is derived from soil fungus, and how weight loss drugs mimic chelomonster venom, how lung cancer risk increases due to tobacco smoke and airborne particulates, how air air pollution contributes to coronary artery blockages. How smog and wildfire drive heat stroke and breathing problems, how global warming expands the ranges for Lyme disease and West Nile disease, So we are hopeful that Senator Frist is helping elected officials to understand the growing threats of global warming, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Governor Waltz of Minnesota has just issued an order blocking all mining in Minnesota's boundary waters. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area is our nation's most visited wilderness area, a labyrinth of forests, wetlands, lakes, and rivers that provide habitat for creatures like grey wolves, Canada lynx, and more. Yet this landscape has been under the threat of toxic pollution since Congress lifted a ban on mining here. In recent months, environmentalists have delivered thousands of messages to legislators with a simple message, this lush wilderness. Is worth so much more than the minerals and materials we can extract from it. Now, Governor Watts' executive order will delay any prospect of heavily polluting nickel and copper mining in the boundary waters. So let's build on this momentum by calling on federal legislators to pass permanent legal protections for all national parks, national forests, and national monuments. Finally, a crews are planting trees in a vast park in western Newfoundland to help its forests recover from a moose population that was once among the most abundant on Earth. Teams at Grossmore National Park have planted three-quarters of a million trees in the past three years, and they will plant another half million trees. These once forested areas had been chewed into grasslands by hungry hordes of moose. Crews aren't just planting to restore the exact same forests, they're planting a careful mix of trees that will survive warmer temperatures, creating new forests to better withstand climate change. The trees being planted today have to survive for another century. Moose are plentiful across the boreal forests and rivers of Newfoundland, but they've become particularly abundant in Grossmorne, where a hunting band once kept them safe from humans, their only apex predator. In the nineteen nineties, there were about sixty five hundred moose in the park, and they were eating a lot of young trees. Their diets became a problem in areas where trees had been killed off by beetles, for example. Often these areas would recover on their own, but the moose ate all the fresh shoots that could have grown into trees. The result was a network of bald patches or moose meadows dotting the forest. Officials opened the park to moose hunters in twenty eleven. And these hunters have brought the population down to two thousand moose. And in twenty twenty three, tree planters with bags of two year old saplings were dropped into the moose meadows to begin replanting the forest. Grossmorne is home to a lot of black spruce, white spruce, red maple, and balsam fir, and the planters are mixing in boutique trees, such as yellow birch, white pine, and wild cherry, which are found in the southern reaches of the park. Those trees are already adapted to warmer temperatures. So planting over a million saplings in Newfoundland will help the moose, will help provide habitat for hundreds of wildlife species, and that's good news for the environment. And now, Lenny, over to you.
Lenny: Thanks, Mark, and thank you for listening to the Mostly Good Environmental News Report. We hope you enjoyed hearing some good news. If you liked our good news items, please share with your friends and listen to more episodes of the Mostly Good Environmental News Report wherever you listen to podcasts. A special thank you to Fred Duca for the original music compositions we are using in this podcast. Here is a little bit of that music. Bye for now.
