In today’s edition, a ban on toxic pesticides that helped Sri Lanka halve its suicide rate could be a lesson to other countries, the population of sarus cranes in Cambodia rose 20% in 2024 after years of steep decline, and communities from Northern California to New Orleans are building local networks to boost resilience and aid disaster recovery.
Self-poisoning from pesticides kills 100,000 to 150,000 people a year worldwide. Although global statistics on suicide have remained stable for decades, Sri Lanka is a dramatic example of the difference banning certain pesticides can make.
Ovarian cancer is often detected late because its symptoms are common ones and are frequently not recognised as signs of cancer. The blood test developed by UK and US researchers uses an algorithm trained on thousands of patient samples to look for what ovarian cancer sheds into the bloodstream, even in its early stages.
After a decade of steep decline, the population of the 1.8-metre-tall sarus crane started to turn around in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2022. In Cambodia alone the population grew 20% last year. Officials attribute the success to strategic government policies as well as wide cooperation between local communities, the private sector, and the society at large.
A familiar sight at takeaway sushi shops everywhere, South Australia will be the first place in the world to ban the soy-sauce fish, under a wider ban on single-use plastics that comes into force in September. The mini polyethylene containers often end up in the sea, causing not just microplastic pollution but also the problem that fish might eat them.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority started the Water Patrol in 2003, in a time of extreme drought in the Colorado River Basin. 20 years later, some two dozen investigators patrol Las Vegas daily, flagging leaks, irrigation malfunctions, and code violations. Las Vegas is still dry, but flags and fines are half of what they were at the start as the patrol educates and encourages citizens to conserve water.
Tough lessons were learnt from Hurricane Katrina, one of which is the importance of strengthening the ability of communities to respond to disasters. “Together Louisiana”, a statewide coalition of civic and religious groups, has spearheaded the creation of solar-powered “community lighthouses” to serve as resilience hubs offering resources, relief, and self-sufficiency, especially in times of disaster.
In the aftermath of disasters, when food stores and restaurants are closed by damages, local farmers can have surpluses with no outlets while local people go hungry. The North Coast Emergency Food System Partnership has developed connections between food systems in rural northern California with state and federal programmes and disaster relief. Now outside helpers coming in can plug into a local food resilience network and put it to its best use.
Vital to wind energy production, but challenging to recycle, a number of companies work to creativity upcycle used turbine blades. The ‘nacelle’ that houses the motor also eventually retires and now the Dutch company “Business of Wind” has shown how one of these can be converted to a chic, caravan-like tiny home.
Furniture maker Bruce Saunders noted London’s reliance on imported timber while local city trees felled by storm or circumstance were getting turned to wood chips. Now he salvages tonnes of wood from trees headed for the chipper and turns it into locally sourced furniture with still a long life to live.
The UN has recognised the small Chinese county of Youyu with a New Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements award for its ecological restoration of a desertified area. Arid ground, sand, and wind had made tree growth in the region impossible, but villagers nurtured seedlings in nearby mountains, manually irrigated and transplanted them. Now the area is covered in trees, grasslands, and pastures.
