A Scientist Who Resisted Trump Administration Censorship of Climate Report Just Lost Her Job

For several years, climate change scientist Maria Caffrey led a trailblazing study outlining the risks of rising seas at national parks. She’s now out of a job.

Climate scientist Maria Caffrey is out of a job starting on February 15.

Caffrey, who worked under a contract with the National Park Service, resisted efforts by federal officials to remove all references to human causes of climate change in her scientific report. After Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting reported the attempts at censorship, Democratic members of Congress called for an investigation, and in May, the park service released the report with all the references reinstated.

Caffrey’s contract expired Friday. Park service officials told her last year they would hire her for a new project. But they notified her Thursday that no funding is available for the work.

Read the story from MotherJones by Elizabeth Shogren - “A Scientist Who Resisted Trump Administration Censorship of Climate Report Just Lost Her Job.”

A third of world's nature reserves severely degraded by human activity

A third of global protected areas such as national parks have been severely degraded by human activities in what researchers say is a stunning reality check of efforts by nations to stall biodiversity loss.

The report’s authors said one of the most glaring examples of
human encroachment on protected areas was Barrow Island
off Western Australia, pictured, where a gas plant was built
 is in the middle of a nature reserve home to 13 mammal species. 

A University of Queensland-led study, published on Friday in the prestigious academic journal Science, analysed human activity across 50,000 protected areas worldwide.

Researchers found more than 90% of conservation sites, such as national parks and nature reserves, showed some signs of degradation from human activities including logging, mining, tourism and urbanisation and a third – or 6m square kilometres of protected land – had been severely modified.

The worst damage was found in highly populated parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, but researchers said there was significant degradation in all nations, including wealthy and less-populated countries such as Australia.

Read the story by Lisa Cox from The Guardian - “A third of world's nature reserves severely degraded by human activity.”

National Parks prime players in combatting climate change

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Lance Richardson.

ational Parks might not appear in cursory terms as important in mitigating climate change, but that is not the case, according to Lance Richardson.

Extolling the virtues of national parks, Richardson says, “They are crucial in the fight against climate change.”

Richardson wrote about the importance of these parks in today’s Melbourne Age, Traveller section, in a story headed: “The history of national parks: America's best ever idea”.