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Water authorities in the Western U.S. don’t know what the future will bring, but they are working collaboratively and with scientific rigor to make sure they’re prepared for anything.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of the Interior

In a thirsty Western United States that has become increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events, rampant wildfires and years of unprecedented drought, those at the helm of the region’s water agencies are accelerating their plans to grapple with climate change.

“The Western United States — especially the 40 million people who use the Colorado River — we’re in the bullseye of climate change,” says Cynthia Campbell, water resource management advisor for the City of Phoenix. “This is not a conceptual conversation anymore. We’re in full-on adaptation.”

With that reality comes the need to plan around the future of water for the people and wildlife who call the Colorado River Basin home.

“You can’t just plan for one future.” –Carly Jerla

But, says Carly Jerla, an operations research analyst for the United States Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Region, “you can’t just plan for one future.”

As climate change casts its shadow over water resources in the Western U.S., water authorities must navigate uncertainty in the form of the many possible futures in front of them. Those futures almost certainly hold more of what climate change has already brought — rising temperatures, changes in precipitation, shifts in snowpack, longer and more severe droughts, more frequent flooding — plus people’s responses to those changes. Taken together, these fateful forecasts go into climate projections: models that explore an array of possible future climate conditions or scenarios.

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Ancient Amazonian Societies Managed the Forest Intensively But Sustainably–Here’s What We Can Learn From Them

September 7, 2019

ANCIENT AMAZONIAN SOCIETIES MANAGED THE FOREST INTENSIVELY BUT SUSTAINABLY — HERE’S WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THEM

The Amazon’s trees, soils and mysterious earthworks tell the story of the millions who lived there before European arrival

August 15, 2019 — When loggers and cattle ranchers began toppling the rainforest in Brazil’s far western state of Acre, they revealed a mystery: vast ancient earthworks, hidden for centuries under the trees.

These “geoglyphs” took the form of geometric shapes — squares, rectangles and circles — hundreds of meters across, marked out with ditches and raised mounds. Since the 1980s, around 450 geoglyphs have been identified in Acre alone, dating back between 650 and 2,000 years — offering new perspectives on the supposed pristine nature of the Amazon as well as insights into how agriculture and healthy ecosystems might coexist.

The Amazon has long been thought of as an untrammeled ecosystem, a wilderness relatively untouched by humans. Indigenous peoples were presumed to be so few in number, and live so lightly on the land, that they had a negligible impact on the environment.

But recent interdisciplinary research across the Amazon basin is overturning that old story. It’s showing instead that the rainforest’s early inhabitants numbered in the millions, and that they managed the landscape intensively, in complex and sustainable ways — offering lessons for how we manage the Amazon today.

Ancient Agroforestry

Jennifer Watling, currently an archaeologist at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, spent several seasons digging holes in some of Acre’s geoglyphs for her Ph.D. research at the University of Exeter in the U.K.

It is still unclear exactly what the geoglyphs were used for, Watling says. From the lack of household debris, it seems people didn’t live there, but perhaps visited for ceremonies and other special events. New tools, including the analysis of microscopic plant remains called phytoliths, are helping archaeologists find other stories in the soil.

coffee trees in agroforestry system Nova Maringá, Mato Grosso, Brazil — Agroforesters grow crops among trees for benefits such as increased biodiversity and soil health. Of the ancient sites archaeologists are finding in Brazil, one researcher says, “It looks a lot like agroforestry — managing the landscape, encouraging palms and probably other useful plants as well.” Photo courtesy of Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR

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Across the U.S., Flood Survivors are Growing in Number–And They Aren’t Just Seeking Restitution, But Answers

April 29, 2019

ACROSS THE U.S., FLOOD SURVIVORS ARE GROWING IN NUMBER — AND THEY AREN’T JUST SEEKING RESTITUTION, BUT ANSWERS

As risk of floods increases, so does awareness and determination among flood survivors, who are no longer simply victims, but an ever-growing constituency for change.

"I Flood and I Vote". Floodlothian Midlothian

Photo courtesy of Floodlothian Midlothian

April 23, 2019 — Susan Liley didn’t set out to become an activist. “A grandma, that’s all I am,” she says. But when her hometown of De Soto, Missouri, flooded four times in three years, Liley felt called to act.

After the first couple of floods, Liley did what she could do to help her neighbors: She dragged waterlogged furniture from a friend’s home and delivered eggs from her chickens to those without electricity. But the third time around, Liley says, “I got mad.”

Across the U.S., flood survivors are growing in number and — like Liley — they’re getting mad and fighting back. From city streets to subdivisions and trailer parks, they are comparing notes with neighbors and asking hard questions about the rising tide. They are messaging each other on Facebook, packing meeting halls and lawyering up. And, increasingly, they are seeking not just restitution, but answers. Flood survivors are identifying the root causes of repeated flooding and working toward solutions.

Most recently, their ranks were swelled by a March “bomb cyclone” in the Upper Midwest, which unleashed catastrophic flooding that was visible from space. According to the 2018 National Climate Assessment, climate change is driving more severe floods in many parts of the country.

Sea-level rise is inundating coastal cities, where “sunny-day flooding” is now a thing. Rising seas contribute to high-tide flooding, which has grown by a factor of five to 10 since the 1960s in many U.S. coastal communities — and that trend that is expected to accelerate in the future. Farther inland, increased rainfall is a major culprit.

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OPINION: WHAT MY MOTHER’S DEATH TAUGHT ME ABOUT SAVING THE PLANET. WE CAN’T, AND HERE’S WHY.

January 26, 2019

OPINION: WHAT MY MOTHER’S DEATH TAUGHT ME ABOUT SAVING THE PLANET. WE CAN’T, AND HERE’S WHY.

As environmentalists, we often refer to our work as “saving the planet.” This is unhelpful for a couple of reasons.

Illustration by Sean Quinn

January 24, 2019 — As I look back on 2018, the thing I’ll remember most is being with my mother for her final days.

At 86, she was doing great until she had a stroke around Halloween. That began a cascade of events that put her in and out of the intensive care unit. She staged a remarkable rebound that allowed her to leave the ICU and have one last wonderful 24 hours talking with me, my siblings and my father. She died just before Thanksgiving.

It was a bittersweet experience that, paradoxically, shed light on something that’s been nagging me about my profession for some time.

As environmentalists, we often refer to our work as “saving the planet.” This is unhelpful for a couple of reasons.

The World Is Not Binary

First, framing the challenge of living on a changing planet as a rescue mission is confrontational, which puts environmentalists in the role of “hero,” fighting those out to “harm” the planet.

Of course, there are a lot of bad actors out there who willingly destroy our natural systems in the pursuit of profit. But we all impact the environment in some way. In my role as an executive at Environmental Defense Fund, where I mostly work on agricultural and coastal resilience issues, I encounter good, honorable men and women who are responding to a set of powerful economic incentives and social norms that influence their actions.

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What a Project in Wisconsin Can Teach Others About Working With Farmers to Reduce Phosphorus Runoff

January 24, 2019

WHAT A PROJECT IN WISCONSIN CAN TEACH OTHERS ABOUT WORKING WITH FARMERS TO REDUCE PHOSPHORUS RUNOFF

Adoption of best management practices on farms near Green Bay, Wisconsin, could help answer nagging questions about how well these strategies work to reduce nutrient pollution.

Photo courtesy of NEW Water, the brand of the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District

January 23, 2019 — “People say the farmers are the ones who can save Green Bay, and it’s really true,” says Jim Snitgen, water resources supervisor for the Oneida Nation.

His office, in the tribe’s Little Bear Development Center about thirteen miles from Green Bay, Wisconsin, is decorated with aerial photos of streams and farm fields. A table holds vials of aquatic critters preserved in clear liquid, and his desk is stacked with binders detailing several stream restoration projects.

Why exactly does Green Bay need saving? Because it suffers from too much phosphorus, which contributes to Cyanobacteria, more commonly known as blue-green algae. Around the world, these bacteria are turning water a disgusting shade of green and other colors, and producing poisons that can sicken people and kill animals. And when the algae die off they can rob oxygen from other life in the water, killing fish and other aquatic life.

Around Green Bay, several small streams carry excess nutrients from farm fields into the bay and eventually into Lake Michigan. One of them, Silver Creek, is the focus of a pilot project designed to answer a crucial question: Can farmers reduce their pollution enough to help the bay, while remaining profitable? The project lies within the boundaries of the Oneida reservation, and more than half the land is owned by the tribe, which leases a lot of land to non-tribal growers.

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Opinion: Energy Development Threatens Big Game Herds in Wyoming (And Why it Matters outside the state, too)

January 20, 2019

OPINION: ENERGY DEVELOPMENT THREATENS BIG GAME HERDS IN WYOMING (AND WHY IT MATTERS OUTSIDE THE STATE, TOO)

We’re faced with a federal government determined to continue free-for-all industrial development even when there are pragmatic, evidence-based conservative solutions available.

Illustration by Sean Quinn

Wyoming is sprawling and sparsely populated, home to some of the most awe-inspiring, intact lands and ecosystems in North America. Tourists from all over the world flock to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks to spot iconic wildlife such as elk, bison, deer and pronghorn. Hunters travel here for once-in-a-lifetime experiences chasing big game through Wyoming’s rugged mountains and desert basins.

Wyoming also plays an important role in the nation’s energy economy: Our production of oil, natural gas and coal ranks us as one of the top energy-supplying states. The majority of those industrial operations take place on over 30 million acres (12 million hectares) of federal public lands, which comprise about half the state.

For decades, Wyomingites have strived to strike a balance between an energy economy and an outdoor culture that values both natural resources and energy extraction. Our state leaders were at the forefront of Greater sage-grouse conservation and championed a collaborative, science-based plan that was adopted throughout the West and was credited for the 2015 decision that no listing was required for the sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act.

Yet in the current political climate and administration, where an “energy dominance” mandate for management has been passed to federal public lands managers, we are facing a future where one of the West’s most iconic species — the mule deer — could be irreparably devastated. The stakes are obvious for Wyoming, but even for those who aren’t concerned about Wyoming ecosystems or the native big game species of the West, this is a conflict with sobering nationwide ramifications.

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Health Departments Are On Climate Change’s Front Lines

January 17, 2019

HEALTH DEPARTMENTS ARE ON CLIMATE CHANGE’S FRONT LINES

From extreme heat to mosquito-borne diseases, climate change is having a huge public health impact. Can health departments keep up?

Photo © iStockphoto.com/Karl Spencer

January 2, 2019 — When the rains of Hurricane Harvey finally dissipated in late summer 2017, the potential for health hazards lingered on. At least 25 million gallons (95 million liters) of sewage floated through the streets of Houston and surrounding areas. Chemical and other industrial plants pulsed out millions of pounds of dangerous air pollution. Soggy homes grew mold and harbored bacteria and fine particles that snaked into residents’ lungs.

A full year after the storm, a survey found that one in every six Gulf Coast residents affected by Harvey said someone in their household had a new or worsened health condition. We can blame the hurricane for the health hazards, but that hurricane, according to experts, was made substantially worse because of climate change. And when it comes to the health hazards relating to climate change, hurricanes are far from the only culprit. Extreme heat events, increasingly frequent and severe wildfires, the spread of tick- and mosquito-borne diseases — these and more are affecting human health. And sitting on the front lines in the effort to prepare for, and respond to, all those climate-related health effects, are U.S. public health departments — state and local agencies around the country that are charged with assessing and protecting communities’ health and coordinating services.

“They’re where the rubber hits the road,” says Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital and co-director of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE). Public health departments large and small have begun climate change programs of various sorts.

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Opinion: Sooner or Later, We Have to Stop Economic Growth–And We’ll Be Better For It

January 14, 2019

OPINION: SOONER OR LATER, WE HAVE TO STOP ECONOMIC GROWTH — AND WE’LL BE BETTER FOR IT

The end of growth will come one day, perhaps very soon, whether we’re ready or not. If we plan for and manage it, we could well wind up with greater well-being.

Illustration by Kelsey King

January 8, 2019 — Both the U.S. economy and the global economy have expanded dramatically in the past century, as have life expectancies and material progress. Economists raised in this period of plenty assume that growth is good, necessary even, and should continue forever and ever without end, amen. Growth delivers jobs, returns on investment and higher tax revenues. What’s not to like? We’ve gotten so accustomed to growth that governments, corporations and banks now depend on it. It’s no exaggeration to say that we’re collectively addicted to growth.

The trouble is, a bigger economy uses more stuff than a smaller one, and we happen to live on a finite planet. So, an end to growth is inevitable. Ending growth is also desirable if we want to leave some stuff (minerals, forests, biodiversity and stable climate) for our kids and their kids. Further, if growth is meant to have anything to do with increasing quality of life, there is plenty of evidence to suggest it has passed the point of diminishing returns: Even though the U.S. economy is 5.5 times bigger now than it was in 1960 (in terms of real GDP), America is losing ground on its happiness index.

So how do we stop growth without making life miserable — and maybe even making it better?

To start with, there are two strategies that many people already agree on. We should substitute good consumption for bad, for example using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.

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Perennial Versions of Conventional Crops Offer Benefits to the Environment–But Are They Ready for Prime Time?

September 28, 2018

PERENNIAL VERSIONS OF CONVENTIONAL CROPS OFFER BENEFITS TO THE ENVIRONMENT — BUT ARE THEY READY FOR PRIME TIME?

Crops that don’t need to be planted every year can reduce soil erosion and nutrient runoff, but currently have lower yields. These researchers and businesses are working to fix that.

Stan Cox examines the head of a perennial sorghum plant. Photo courtesy of the Land Institute

September 6, 2018 — In 2000, noted crop breeder Stan Cox was weary of the Sisyphean task of incorporating new disease resistance traits into wheat varieties. Fumbling to explain his malaise to a colleague, he recalls typing, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do something crazy like work for the Land Institute.”

At the time, the Land Institute — a nonprofit that develops alternative farming practices they hope will displace destructive, industrial monocultures — was pursuing what many considered a quixotic endeavor: working with wild plants to create perennial varieties of wheat, legumes or sorghum. Such perennial crops could be harvested for multiple years without the need to cultivate the soil. By maintaining root systems year-round, there would be less soil erosion, more soil carbon and less fertilizer making its way into waterways— a problem that leads to harmful algal blooms and coastal dead zones.

Thirty seconds later, Cox deleted that sentence and instead wrote an email to Land Institute founder Wes Jackson, asking if he had any open positions.

“There was a time in the 1980s, when these efforts were in their infancy, that a lot of seasoned agronomists rejected the idea outright,” says Tim Crews, the Land Institute’s research director. Why, the thinking went, would anyone essentially start over at the dawn of agriculture to create perennial varieties of conventional crops using wild material — especially when it would take decades to match modern yields? Crews, rather, turns that on its head and questions the destructive impact of modern food production instead.

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Opinion: Science Denialism is Dangerous. But So Is Science Imperialism.

July 13, 2018

OPINION: SCIENCE DENIALISM IS DANGEROUS. BUT SO IS SCIENCE IMPERIALISM.

Calls for strict science-based decision making on complex issues like GMOs and geoengineering can shortchange consideration of ethics and social impacts.

Illustration by Sean Quinn

July 5, 2018 — “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” – Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcom in “Jurassic Park.”

With the extreme politicization of major issues like climate change, vaccines and the teaching of evolution in schools, scientists (including myself) are clamoring to learn more about how people receive and respond to scientific information. Our ostensible goal is to ensure that important decisions, whether made in our homes or halls of government, are informed by the best available science. However, it is essential that we learn to recognize the kinds of questions that science can, and cannot, answer.

In this struggle to ensure that science is not pushed out from its well-earned place in our polity by those with political or economic motivations to do so, there is a risk of coming on too strong. Indeed, some scientists and science advocates are responding to those who question or deny scientific advice with what can only be described as a haughty imperialism that embodies a mistaken assumption that social problems can or should be solved by science alone.

A growing cohort of science celebrities, such as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, prolific science communicator Bill Nye and climatologist Michael Mann, have mobilized in defense of science, leveraging their reputations to weigh in on many of the world’s trickiest policy debates. Tyson, for example, narrated the controversial genetically modified organism (GMO) advocacy film Food Evolution. He also argued that Earth needs a “Rationalia”: a society where policy is based solely on “the weight of evidence.”

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What Will We Do With All Those Solar Panels When Their Useful Life is Over?

April 15, 2018

WHAT WILL WE DO WITH ALL THOSE SOLAR PANELS WHEN THEIR USEFUL LIFE IS OVER?

As solar power booms, businesses are exploring ways to ensure valuable components don’t end up in landfills.

Photo courtesy of sinovoltaics.com

April 11, 2018 — Solar power is having its hockey stick moment. Since the early 2000s, the amount of solar panels being installed worldwide has been growing exponentially, and it’s expected to continue to do so for decades. By the end of 2015, an estimated 222 gigawatts worth of solar energy had been installed worldwide. According to a recent report from the International Renewable Energy Agency, that number could reach 4,500 GW by 2050.

But the solar panels generating that power don’t last forever. The industry standard life span is about 25 to 30 years, and that means that some of the panels installed at the early end of the current boom aren’t long from being retired. And each passing year, more and more will be pulled from service — glass and metal photovoltaic modules that will soon start adding up to millions, and then tens of millions of metric tons of material.

“It’s not too far off that those are going to be coming off line, and we’re going to have a waste management issue,” says Garvin Heath, a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and a solar power expert. “It’s fair to say that it’s starting to become more widely recognized as an issue that we’re going to need to start working on pretty soon.”

As photovoltaic panel installations grow, so does the need for final disposition down the road. © OECD/IEA, Design: Becquerel Institute Editing: Mary Brunisholz, IEA PVPS Analysis: Gaëtan Masson, IEA PVPS Task 1, 2016, A Snapshot of Global PV (1992-2016), IEA Publishing. License: www.iea.org/t&c. Click to expand.

The solution many are looking to is recycling. But the ability to handle the coming flow of PV modules is not yet sufficient. “There’s some infrastructure,” Heath says. “I wouldn’t say it’s especially well established at this point.”

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Food by Local Farmers. Distribution System by Ants.

February 23, 2018

FOOD BY LOCAL FARMERS. DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM BY ANTS.

Looking for a way to help a sustainable food system grow, Cullen Naumoff turned to nature.

Photo Courtesy of Oberlin Food Hub

Driving down U.S. 20 toward Cleveland, Cullen Naumoff knew something had to change.

Naumoff, director of sustainable enterprise for the Oberlin Project in Oberlin, Ohio, had recently launched a food hub with colleague Heather Adelman. Food hubs bring together what small farmers produce into quantities needed by big buyers like schools, restaurants and supermarkets. The problem? The Oberlin Food Hub was so successful that demand was outstripping the ability of participating farmers to meet it. Naumoff turned to other regional food hubs — and soon found herself driving all around the region to pick up and deliver lone bushels of produce — encumbering the expenses of big food companies without benefiting from the economies of scale they enjoy.

“All we had done with the food hub was shrink their model,” she says, “so local produce would never be able to compete.”

Then Naumoff met Ohio State University entomologist Casey Hoy at a food conference. She told Hoy of her frustration trying to incorporate a higher level of complexity into her food hub enterprise.

Stylized versions of three ant foraging patterns offer insights into strategies for boosting efficiency of a growing sustainable food system. Illustration by Sean Quinn

“Insects are so diverse they have probably already solved it,” Hoy responded. He then shared what he had learned from ants about efficient transportation.

Ant colony optimization is an approach to applying ant behavior to solving engineering and operations problems. Different ant species, Hoy said, use different kinds of networks of nests and paths in between them to optimize food transportation. In the process, they create a library of strategies humans can tap to solve our own food transportation challenges.

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How Renewable Energy Advocates are Hurting the Climate Cause

March 5, 2017

How Renewable Energy Advocates are Hurting the Climate Cause

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the proliferation of misinformation on social media is finally getting the attention it deserves. Or so I thought.

Scrolling through my Facebook news feed recently, I stumbled upon an article shared by Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization focused on climate science. “The World’s Renewable Energy Capacity Now Beats Out Coal,” read the headline from Co.Exist. I clicked. “The tipping point marks a major milestone in the transition to cleaner power sources,” the subhead declared from atop an aerial photo of a wind farm.

And so went most of the coverage of a new report on renewable energy markets by the International Energy Agency, a well-respected source of global energy statistics. Outlets big and small, reputable and lesser-known, specialized and general, adopted similar headlines, subheads and ledes, accompanied by photos of wind turbines and solar panels.

The problem is twofold. First, capacity is a highly selective way to measure electricity, especially in the context of emissions and climate change. Capacity is defined as the maximum electric output a generator can produce under specific conditions at a moment in time — for example, how much a solar farm can generate during a sunny summer day or a wind farm when it’s really windy. But, of course, the sun doesn’t always shine or the wind always blow.

“Installed capacity is not really a useful metric for a lot of purposes,” Mark Jacobson, an engineering professor at Stanford University who studies renewable energy, told me. “When you’re asking, ‘how much is this supplying, how much is wind supplying versus coal?’ you want to look at the actual energy delivered.”

That’s commonly called generation, and is defined as the amount of electricity produced on average over a period of time, such as a year. Sure enough, if you look at generation numbers, coal still beat out renewables in 2015 by a significant margin, 39 percent to not quite 24 percent.

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The Farm That Grows Climate Solutions

March 11, 2016

THE FARM THAT GROWS CLIMATE SOLUTIONS

Here’s how agriculture can make sequestered carbon one of its most valuable products.

Carbon farming with mixed crops of avocados, macadamias, bananas and coffee

March 9, 2016 — Editor’s note: The following is adapted from The Carbon Farming Solution: A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security by Eric Toensmeier (2016). The book introduces the concept of carbon farming, explains how it can help mitigate climate change, and explores strategies for adoption around the world. Published with permission from Chelsea Green Publishing.

High in the mountains of Veracruz, Mexico, a small cooperative is “farming carbon” — practicing agriculture in a way that fights climate change while simultaneously meeting human needs. Although these practices are used by millions of people around the world in some way, people in Western nations are largely unfamiliar with them, and there is little coordinated support to encourage farmers to adopt them. But if supported, implemented and developed on a global scale in conjunction with a massive reduction in fossil fuel emissions, these “carbon farming” practices — a suite of crops and practices that sequester carbon while simultaneously meeting human needs — could play a critical role in preventing catastrophic climate change by removing carbon from the atmosphere and safely storing it in soils and perennial vegetation.

The cloud forest region of Veracruz, Mexico, is a humid tropical highland ecosystem that combines a mostly temperate canopy of trees such as oaks and hickories encrusted with epiphytic ferns, orchids and bromeliads with an understory of mostly tropical vegetation such as cannas, wild taros, passion fruits and tree ferns. But the cloud forest is disappearing. Between 70 and 90 percent of it has been deforested, and what remains is highly fragmented, with only tiny pockets of old growth. Much of the former forest is degraded pasture.

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The Newest Strategy For Saving Bees Is Really, Really Old

March 6, 2016

THE NEWEST STRATEGY FOR SAVING BEES IS REALLY, REALLY OLD

With pollinators in decline around the world, conservationists turn to traditional farmers for answers.

Photo by budak (Flickr/Creative Commons)

February 15, 2016 — In northwestern India, the Himalaya Mountains rise sharply out of pine and cedar forests. The foothills of the Kullu Valley are blanketed with apple trees beginning to bloom. It’s a cool spring morning, and Lihat Ram, a farmer in Nashala village, shows me a small opening in a log hive propped against his house. Stout black-and-yellow native honeybees — Apis cerana — fly in and out.

For centuries beehives have been part of the architecture of mountain homes here, built into the thick outside walls. Traditionally wild colonies of bees found the hive themselves, or farmers brought a log with a hive in it from the surrounding forest so the inhabitants could set up shop in the village and produce honey for their human caretakers.

But in recent years those wild colonies have become increasingly rare in this valley, where 90 percent of farmers are small landholders. Modern agriculture has replaced natural forests and the diverse crops of subsistence farms almost exclusively with a single apple variety: royal delicious, favored at the market. Producing this high-demand fruit has improved economic conditions for farmers in the Kullu Valley. But it also has contributed to an untenable environment for pollinators. Similar to other situations around the world, a mix of monocropping, climate change, diseases, changes in land practices, pesticide use, deforestation, loss of habitat and an exploding human population that’s taxing the valley’s natural resources has caused native honeybee populations to decline. With the decline, orchard harvests have dropped by as much as 50 percent.

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