PRI's The World: Technology from BBC/PRI/WGBH

Chile has been facing a megadrought for more than a decade, with central regions receiving 30% less rainfall than usual over the past 13 years .

Around 8% of Chile’s population does not have access to clean drinking water or proper sewage systems, according to the Chilean Ministry of Social Development .

For years, people believed that climate change was to blame. But a recent study published in the Switzerland-based journal Water found that this shortage was not only due to the megadrought, but has also been caused by water misuse and management practices established under the country’s current legislation.

Related: Why Chile moved ahead with COVID vaccines for the very young

That includes the process of diverting water sources away from populated areas toward crops instead — like avocados — that require a lot of moisture to grow.

Cistern truck delivering water in Petorca, Chile.

Credit:

Courtesy of Veronica Vilchez

In the municipality of Petorca — a rural area about 120 miles north of the capital, Santiago — the population now relies on water delivery trucks for its drinking water supplies after the nearby River Petorca dried out several years ago.
Veronica Vilchez, a farmer who lives in the area, said that a truck delivers between 20 and 40 liters of water a day for her family. That’s only enough for each family member to take a two-minute shower.

This is despite a court ruling from March 2021 that set a minimum of 100 liters per day per person for Petorca.

“We don’t have people here who enforce the ruling,” Vilchez said.

She added that she lives with five other family members and that they all have to find creative ways to reuse the water multiple times.

“I clean the floor with the same water I use to wash my hair, do the dishes and water the plants,” she said.

“Our horses, cows, sheep, they are all dying. Schools are closing and people are moving away because there is no water.”

Veronica Vilchez, farmer who lives in Petorca, Chile
“In Petorca, it smells like death,” she said. “Our horses, cows, sheep, they are all dying. Schools are closing and people are moving away because there is no water.”

Vilchez is part of the organization Mujeres Modetima, a group of women activists who deliver water to nearby communities. But while people are suffering from severe water shortages, she said that she can see, from her window, rows of green trees from the avocado plantations covering the hills nearby.

Related: Electricity rates have skyrocketed in Brazil. The govt says the water crisis is to blame.

As a major avocado exporter, Chile produces nearly 220,000 metric tons of avocados per year, and the majority of them grow in Petorca. Avocado producers pump thousands of liters of water per second to irrigate the area, according to Chilean hydrologist Pablo Garcia-Chevesich, a professor at the University of Arizona.

He said that Chile is one of the few countries in the world that allows full privatization of water.

“Just because a water course is flowing, in Chile, you can get the water rights from a river, and they give it to you for life, for free,” he said. “And then you can [divert] that river and use it [for] your convenience.”

It’s a water code that goes back to the early 1980s under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Now, 90% of the country's fresh water rights are held by private companies.

Related: In Mexico, shuttered cemeteries mean financial ruin for thousands of flower farmers

Chile’s economy, being the largest in South America by per-capita gross domestic product , is built on water-intensive, extractivist industries, principally mining and agriculture.

So, García-Chevesich discovered that the root cause of Chile’s water crisis is overconsumption of water by the agriculture and mining industries, not climate change.

“The pattern is the same: A big exporting company arrives, takes all the water rights, drills very deep wells, [diverts] the rivers, and that means the aquifers deplete, the rivers dry out and the farmers don't have any more water,” he said.

“The final purpose for the freshwater is to create profit, not to provide welfare for citizens.”

Pablo Garcia-Chevesich, Chilean hydrologist and professor at the University of Arizona
“The final purpose for the fresh water is to create profit, not to provide welfare for citizens,” he added.

A person holding a sign that reads, “No more water robbery" in Petorca, Chile.

Credit:

Courtesy of Veronica Vilchez

The researcher said that “[the] water crisis is by far the most urgent health, economic and environmental problem” in the South American country.
Meanwhile, Chile’s President Gabriel Boric is now proposing a new constitution that would prioritize water for human consumption. It would also allow the government to suspend the rights of usage on threatened water sources.

But the plan needs a two-thirds majority in Congress to pass before it can be put to a national referendum for voters to decide on.

Garcia-Chevesich said that while deprivatization of water is a long overdue policy in Chile, it won’t solve the existing water emergency: “We will have to look at different sources of water, like [conducting] desalination, for example.”

He also said the country urgently needs an education program about the water crisis as well as a national ration plan.

In April, the governor of Santiago, Claudio Orrego, did announce a possible four-tier alert system to ration water to the city of nearly 6 million people.

Related: Iran's 'system is essentially water bankrupt,' says environmental expert

“We're in an unprecedented situation in Santiago's 491-year history where we have to prepare for there to not be enough water for everyone who lives here,” Orrego said.

The four stages of the proposal, which hasn’t been implemented yet, will be based on the capacity of the Maipo and Mapocho rivers. The process will begin with public service announcements, moving onto restricting water pressure and ending with rotating water cuts of up to 24 hours.

In Brazil, the bodies of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian anthropologist Bruno Pereira who went missing in the western Amazon on June 5 have been found while two suspects have been detained in the case.

“It was really very brutal the way our companions were executed. Their bodies were buried really far from the river,” said Kora Kanamari, an Indigenous leader from the Javari Valley Indigenous territory, in a message sent to friends over WhatsApp on Wednesday night that was also shared with The World.

Related: 'We still have a little hope of finding them': A journalist and anthropologist working in the Amazon have gone missing

Phillips and Pereira were in the region interviewing people from Indigenous communities for a book that Phillips was writing about sustainable development in the Amazon.

Pereira had worked for many years at Brazil’s Indigenous Agency. Their work called attention to the increasing numbers of illegal fishermen, hunters, loggers and narcotraffickers on Indigenous land.

Indigenous and environmental leaders are mourning the deaths and asking questions about the government's role in protecting the Amazon.
The search
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen on their boat in a river near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia. That area has seen violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers and government agents.

Related: Brazil’s Lula makes a comeback on a campaign to defend democracy

The 10-day search for their bodies was exhaustive , and largely led by the Union of Indigenous peoples of the Javari Valley together with Brazil’s federal police, and military leaders.

The police have arrested two brothers in the case: Amarildo and Oseney da Costa de Oliveira. They are both illegal fishermen who allegedly threatened Phillips and Pereira earlier in their trip. On Wednesday, the federal police said that Amarildo had confessed to killing the men using a firearm and led them to the remains.

“A crime was committed. We have the material evidence. We are now in the phase of uncovering all of the authors of this criminal act and the circumstances and the real motivation of the crime.”

a top member of the Federal Police in Manaus
“A crime was committed,” said a top member of the Federal Police in Manaus during a press conference on Wednesday night. “We have the material evidence. We are now in the phase of uncovering all of the authors of this criminal act and the circumstances and the real motivation of the crime.”

Authorities said Wednesday that they expected to make more arrests in the case. None had been made as of Thursday, but police said searches for the boat the two had used were about to restart while Phillips’ and Pereira’s bodies will arrive in Brasilia on Thursday evening for further investigation.

Related: Brazil's public health workers race to tackle dengue surge

Guilherme Torres of the Amazonas state police said that the missing men's boat had not been found yet but police knew the area where it purportedly was hidden.

“They put bags of dirt on the boat so it would sink,” he said. The engine of the boat was removed, according to investigators.

Authorities have said a main line of investigation has pointed to an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley reserve, which is Brazil’s second-largest Indigenous territory.

Pereira, who previously led FUNAI's local office in the region, had taken part in several operations against illegal fishing, which usually lead to seizure of fishing gear and fines for violators. Only the Indigenous can legally fish in their territories.

But police have not ruled out other motives, such as drug trafficking.
Luto , or ‘mourning’
The Portuguese word luto , or “mourning,” has been shared by friends over WhatsApp, posted to social media and published on top of a black background on the front page of an environmental journal in Brazil.

Composer André Abujamra remixed a song featuring Pereira singing in an Indigenous language.

Pereira’s wife wrote on Twitter : “Now that Bruno’s spirits are wandering in the forest and spread among us, our strength is much greater.”

Agora que os espíritos do Bruno estão passeando na floresta e espalhados na gente, nossa força é muito maior.
— Beatriz Matos (@irekaron) June 16, 2022

"Now we can bring them home and say goodbye with love,” said Phillip’s wife Alessandra Sampaio, in a statement. “Today, we also begin our quest for justice. I hope that the investigations exhaust all possibilities and bring definitive answers on all relevant details as soon as possible.”

“It’s sad but we need to take advantage of this moment, so we can ensure that their death is not in vain. “We need to organize in their memory. We need to continue their work.”

Barbara Arisi, anthropologist
“It’s sad but we need to take advantage of this moment, so we can ensure that their death is not in vain,” said anthropologist Barbara Arisi , who has lived and worked closely with communities in the Javari Valley. “We need to organize in their memory. We need to continue their work.”
Illegal invasions
Illegal invasions into Indigenous territories have spiked under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro . He has vocally backed development in the Amazon and gutted resources to state agencies that once protected reserves, conservation areas and Indigenous territories.

Related: Samba schools at Carnival take a stand against the racism and violence that Black Brazilians face

Bolsonaro has been a frequent critic both of journalists and Indigenous experts and his government was accused of being slow to act in the disappearances. Before the bodies were discovered on Wednesday, he criticized Phillips in an interview, saying that locals in the area where he went missing didn't like him and that he should have been more careful in the region.

“We are concerned for the safety of our region and the Indigenous peoples after everything that has happened here,” said Eliesio Marubo, one of the leaders of the Union of Indigenous peoples of the Javari Valley . “We have been abandoned by the state. And we will surely continue to be abandoned. We have done our part. But the state must assume the responsibility of protecting the lives of those here.”

UNIVAJA, an association of Indigenous peoples of the Javari Valley, mourned the loss of “two partners” in a statement Wednesday, adding they only had help and protection from local police.

Colleagues of Pereira called a vigil outside FUNAI's headquarters in Brasilia.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

When looking for dolphins, follow the birds.

That’s the advice of marine biologist Ayaka Öztürk, who spends her days observing dolphins swimming in the waters of Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait.

On one outing, Öztürk and her colleagues from the Turkish Marine Research Foundation (TUDAV) watched a small pod of dolphins with their calves swimming through one of the world’s busiest commercial shipping lanes.

“The dolphins are feeding on the fish, so the fish come up to the surface and the birds can also feed on them,” Öztürk said. “Birds follow dolphins and we follow the birds!”

But lately, the Black Sea has spelled troubled waters for the dolphins. Since February, hundreds of dolphins have been found dead along the coasts of Ukraine, Bulgaria and Turkey. And scientists have pointed to the war in Ukraine as a possible cause.

Some dolphins have gotten entangled in fishing nets and washed ashore in a phenomenon known as “strandings. ” Scientists speculate that navy sonar systems used to locate other vessels hundreds of feet under water are creating powerful sounds that disorient marine animals.

Öztürk and her colleagues from the Turkish Marine Research Foundation settle in on their boat to search for dolphins.

Credit:

Durrie Bouscaren/The World

In just the first month of the war, scientists counted more than 80 dolphin deaths along the Turkish coast, an “extraordinary increase,” TUDAV reported.

In normal times, there would only be a few.

Pre-war estimates put the Black Sea dolphin population near 253,000.

According to Öztürk, the fact that common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins are being caught in fishing nets is odd, because they tend to know how to swim out.

The Turkish coast sits some 400 miles from the coast of Ukraine, on the southern edge of the Black Sea.

Many dolphins also live in the narrow, polluted waters of the Bosphorus Strait — dodging oil tankers and litter from Istanbul’s 16 million people.

Twice a month, Öztürk’s team completes a survey trip with cameras in tow, hoping to better understand if the dolphins they see are long-term residents or new arrivals from the north.

Anecdotally, Öztürk said, she’s seeing an unusually high number of common dolphins in the Bosphorus Strait; a species that tends to prefer deeper, open waters. This could mean they’re seeking refuge from unusual activity in the Black Sea.

Or they could be following higher than usual volumes of fish.

“This year, they tend to stay around. Which is unusual,” Öztürk said. “But we don’t really know.”

We’ll have to ask them, she laughed.

Related: At the mouth of the Black Sea, a ship spotter watches for clues amid Ukraine war

Marine biologist Ayhan Dede and doctoral student Aylin Güler keep an eye out for dolphins on a survey trip in the Bosphorus Strait.

Credit:

Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Listening to dolphins
To hear the dolphins’ vocalizations, the researchers have installed hydrophones (underwater microphones) in the Bosphorus.

“It’s this multisensory noise,” said Dr. Ayhan Dede, a marine biologist with TUDAV and Istanbul University. “It’s unbelievable."

Dolphins use echolocation to hunt, navigate, and avoid predators – especially in murky waters. Their hearing is sensitive, and when damaged, it can be life-threatening.

That’s why the underwater navy sonar systems used in the Russian invasion of Ukraine are being strongly considered as the source of the problem.

To hear the dolphins’ vocalizations, the researchers have installed hydrophones in the Bosphorus.

Credit:

Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Simon Elwen, director of the South Africa-based Sea Search, said that their research on underwater mammals exposed to naval exercises shows that they respond to loud sonar as they would to a killer whale attack.

“Essentially, they get a big fright, they rush to the surface, and they scatter,” Elwen said.

Deep diving animals that surface too quickly can experience decompression sickness the same way a scuba diver might, Elwen said.

In shallower water, explosions or loud noises can permanently damage a dolphin’s hearing – and therefore their ability to use echolocation to hunt, navigate, and find each other.

“Behavioral changes like that can result in moving away from normal habitat, and – what seems to be happening in the Black Sea — getting caught in fishing nets because they aren’t familiar with the area, or panicking and not paying attention, or impaired hearing,” Elwen said.

This research was done during naval exercises in peacetime, in controlled settings, he cautioned.

“You can imagine that in war, a lot of the health and safety and environmental protocols do fall aside,” Elwen said.

Proving that a dolphin has suffered acoustic trauma is difficult.

Scientists must take a sample from the animal’s inner ear within 24 hours of the animal’s death. There are only a few specialized labs in Europe with the ability to analyze the samples, which requires an export permit.

“Behavioral changes like that can result in moving away from normal habitat, and – what seems to be happening in the Black Sea — getting caught in fishing nets because they aren’t familiar with the area, or panicking and not paying attention, or impaired hearing."

Simon Elwen, director, Sea Search, South Africa

Scientists are trying to determine if underwater navy sonar systems used in the Russian invasion of Ukraine are a possible cause of recent dolphin deaths in the Black Sea.

Credit:

Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Distressed dolphins
Öztürk and her team remain on the lookout for dolphins in distress.

She’s in regular touch with city cleanup crews, fishermen and the Turkish Coast Guard, who alert her when they find a stranded dolphin.

So far, she’s found one dolphin washed ashore who was pregnant and near term – her belly full of fish.

She was healthy, Öztürk said, but somehow got entangled in a fishing net and suffocated.

"It was very, very heartbreaking," Öztürk said.

Dolphins can stay underwater for long periods of time but must reach the surface to breathe.

Did this dolphin die because her hearing was damaged in the war?

Öztürk said it’s too soon to say.

Alternative causes of death — like disease or pollution — still have to be ruled out.

“We just have to keep monitoring what’s going on,” Öztürk said. For now, she said, it’s a strong hypothesis.

As summer nears in Europe, firefighters in Spain are gearing up to battle forest fires.

On a recent day, men armed with gas-powered weed-whackers were working the perimeter of Barcelona, a city hemmed in by the sea on one side and, inland, by a huge forest called Collserola Park.

Here, where the city meets nature’s edge, it’s crucial to keep the area clean in order to prevent forest fires. Shepherds are now being trained to start “fire flocks,” herds of sheep and goats that graze at the edge of forests to prevent wildfires from spreading to populated areas.

Related: Barcelona is one of Europe's loudest cities. It's trying to turn down the volume.

Weed-whacking worker Richard Verdum laughed at the idea. “If you bring in sheep and goats, they’ll eat everything within reach. All the vegetation will die,” he said.

But experts say that’s not exactly right. Spanish ecology professor Ferran Paunè explained that unchecked forest growth has thrown Spain’s countryside out of balance and goats and sheep — natural ruminants, or grazers — can help.

“As a society we look at a forest as a very good thing. ... But for our countries, it is a big problem, because there are few wild animals in the woods."

Ferran Paunè, ecology professor
“As a society we look at a forest as a very good thing,” he said. “But for our countries, it is a big problem, because there are few wild animals in the woods,” he said — and virtually none that graze.

“You recover vegetation, but not fauna. If you do not have herbivores, you have fire,” Paunè said.

Four flocks of sheep and goats are now working the hills above Barcelona.

Dani Sanchez, 35, said his so-called “fire flock” tidies up the forest better than any machine.

“My sheep and goats are firefighters. ... They’re our firewall.”

Dani Sanchez, 35, shepherd

Barcelona shepherd Dani Sanchez, 35, follows his flock through a park just above the city. His "fire flock" eats the underbrush that can fuel forest fires.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“My sheep and goats are firefighters,” he said with pride. “They’re our firewall.”

Sanchez leads his 130 animals through a stand of pines just yards from Barcelona’s outermost road — within earshot of the weed whackers.

Vast strips of forest floor look like they’ve been mowed over the last two months.

Sanchez’s fire flock is part of a pilot program run by Paunè, the ecologist, and the Catalan government.

If all goes to plan, they’ll provide the entire Catalan region with flocks, from the Ebro Delta to the south, all the way to the French border.

“We need even more flocks out here grazing,” Sanchez said.

A sign in Barcelona's Collserola Park reads "No lighting fires." The summer is about to begin and people across Spain are expecting an increase in fires with the high temperatures.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

‘This isn’t sustainable’
Hotter, dryer days due to climate change and neglect in keeping forests clean are two main reasons behind the increasing intensity of the fires.

Last year, in the Catalonia region of Spain, there were a record 51 blazes in July alone.

One of last summer’s worst fires swept through the mountains about an hour away from Barcelona. Overnight, a 30-foot-high wall of flames incinerated about 7,400 acres of dense, overgrown wilderness.

Planes and helicopters dumped water as local farmers bulldozed crops, making a protective fire-cut around the town of Santa Coloma de Queralt. Their actions likely saved the village.

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The next day, fire inspector David Borrell said that it’d be much more affordable to pay people to return to the countryside — to become its custodians again — compared to spending millions in fighting these ever-bigger and more frequent fires, or having to rebuild afterward.

“This isn’t sustainable,” he said.

Spain’s forests have grown large as people abandon the countryside for cities.

“Having a mix of farms, forests and grazing lands lets us to break up these large forests."

Related: Spain vows to help rebuild La Palma after devastating volcano eruption
A new generation of shepherds
Back in Barcelona, Sanchez passes mountain bikers and hikers all day long. Occasionally, he scolds a dog owner for not using a leash.

But mostly, people enjoy the presence of his flocks.

“Ever since the sheep arrived, we’ve been running into each other,” a young jogger said as he ran by. “It’s great. It also gives Barcelona residents a different view on nature.”

But where there are flocks, there must also be shepherds.

As fate would have it, for reasons ranging from COVID-19 to worries over global warming, the job is gaining in popularity — even among younger people.

An hour south of Barcelona, some 20 young people attended shepherding school under a hot June sun.

One class taught how to use flocks to clear land around the suburbs — they call it “precision grazing.” An instructor explained how out-of-control fires can easily sweep through residential areas.

But fire prevention isn’t what pushed 24-year-old Aina Solana to leave behind her life in downtown Barcelona, where she’d been a dancer and student.

“I remember one day walking the streets of Barcelona,” she said. “Looking around, I said to myself, I don’t see beauty here.”

Related: Foragers in Catalonia embrace a new mushroom-hunting season after last year’s strict lockdown

Shepherd-in-training Aina Solana rests with goats on a hot day. Losana has given up city life to reconnect with her roots and with nature.

Credit:

Courtesy of Paroma Basu

Last year, Solana moved to her ancestral home, high in the Pyrenees, where her grandparents had been shepherds.

She decided to follow their path.

“In Barcelona, I didn’t even know what I was eating or where it came from. Now that I’ve returned to the country, I know that my eggs come from my neighbor. It gives me peace of mind.”

Aina Solana, 24, shepherd-in-training
“In Barcelona,” she said, “I didn’t even know what I was eating or where it came from. Now that I’ve returned to the country, I know that my eggs come from my neighbor. It gives me peace of mind.”

Solana and her classmates are nearly finished with their studies.

Afterwards, they could choose a solitary life in the mountains, or join a cheesemaking co-op.

But the shepherding gig with the most openings? Leading a so-called fire flock.

Because the rate of forest fires is only likely to increase.

At first glance, Japan’s Tokyu trains look like a relic from the 1980s. What’s less obvious is that these trains don’t leave a carbon footprint.

Satoru Nishino, a company spokesperson, said that the Tokyu railway has been trying to find creative ways to use less electricity and cut costs.

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“Some train cars have been in use for decades,” he said. “They use a lot of electricity, just like old cars. So, they’re being replaced by newer ones.”

Today, Tokyu trains involve hydropower, geothermal power, wind power and solar power , according to VOA News.

It’s the first time that a railway in Japan has become entirely net-carbon neutral. In Tokyo, a city that transports 20 million people by train every day, the reduction in carbon emissions is substantial.

Nishino said that the company is also gearing up to expand its use of renewable energy to include office buildings and reducing carbon emissions during building construction.

“I think it is very significant for Japan to have railroad companies that decarbonize their operations. I think that everyone should promote decarbonization.”

Satoru Nishino, Tokyu, spokesperson
“I think it is very significant for Japan to have railroad companies that decarbonize their operations,” Nishino said. “I think that everyone should promote decarbonization.”

Hironori Kato, a transport expert at The University of Tokyo, said that the railway’s decision to switch to renewables is ambitious.

Related: Japan gears up for evacuation drills amid spate of North Korean missile tests

“ It is quite a challenging task for them, because the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously and negatively damaged their revenues. Ridership declined quite significantly and also, of course, by using renewable energy, the cost is more expensive than using traditional energy sources.”

Last year, renewables accounted for an estimated 21% of all electricity generated in Japan. The government aims to double that percentage by 2030 . And, it wants to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Other train companies in Tokyo are also beginning to decarbonize their rail networks, which signals a big shift in the private sector.

But there’s no single nationwide electricity grid in Japan, which makes it difficult to switch to renewable energy, said Llewellyn Hughes, with the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University .

He explained that the power grid on Japan’s four main islands was built by nine different electricity companies; each one serves a particular region.

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The train companies, though, are pushing the Japanese government, he said, to make some much-needed upgrades to the grid.

“They have, essentially, gone to the government and gone to their electricity providers and said, ‘Look, we've got a global commitment to decarbonize our electricity supply, and you need to build a system that lets us do that,’ and that's been quite influential in helping push that system forward in Japan.”

Llewellyn Hughes, Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University
“They have, essentially, gone to the government and gone to their electricity providers and said, ‘Look, we've got a global commitment to decarbonize our electricity supply, and you need to build a system that lets us do that,’ and that's been quite influential in helping push that system forward in Japan.”

Last year, the G-7 pledged to work toward phasing out coal-powered energy by 2035. Japan was the only member reluctant to agree.

The resource-poor nation is highly dependent on imported fossil fuels, and it has no plans to phase coal-fired energy out entirely .

The government plans to restart nuclear power plants and introduce carbon capture and storage, which is expected to provide 30% to 40% of the country’s total energy supply by 2050.

All nuclear power plants went offline following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 .

Related: Did the world 'build back better' since the start of the pandemic? Not so much.

It remains a sensitive topic in Japan, Hughes said, and the government will need to convince the public before advancing its nuclear energy policy.

There have been calls for the government to drop nuclear energy in favor of increasing the share of renewables.

But securing a stable, reliable energy supply remains a technological challenge.

In 2017, a group of indigenous forest patrol in Ecuador's Amazon discovered a serious threat to their community.

“We flew a drone over an inaccessible area, and placed camera traps along remote trails,” Alexandra Narváez said. “And we saw mining excavators in the river, and trucks cutting down trees.”

Narváez belongs to the Cofán community, a 1,200-member Indigenous tribe that has lived in the Ecuadorian Amazon for centuries. She said that she and her team were angry to see these machines doing work there without the people’s consent.

It turned out that the Ecuadorian government had signed 20 deals for large-scale gold mining in Sinangoe. An additional 32 were in the process of being approved.

Narváez, together with another activist, Alex Lucitante, organized a group of Indigenous people in Sinangoe to protect the land. With the help of international organizations, the Cofán filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government in 2018. It resulted in 79,000 acres of rainforest being protected from gold mining.

Now, thanks to their efforts, the two activists have been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize , which “recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk,” its website says.

Gold, copper, silver and oil — all of these natural resources are found in this region. But mining operations are also a threat to the people who live there.

This ancestral land has been severely damaged by decades of mining operations. For this reason, in 2017, the Cofán, led by Narváez and Lucitante, created La Guardia Indigena , an Indigenous forest patrol, which uses drones and GPS tracking devices to monitor the land.

“We surveil our territory,” said Narváez, who was also the first woman to join the patrol. “We walk around and make sure no outsider contaminates our river, or hunts animals without our permission.”

Narváez gathered the evidence to be presented in court.

“We got photos and video to prove our allegations were real,” she said.

In the meantime, Lucitante led dozens of protests against these newly discovered mining operations.

For Lucitante, who works as a traditional healer, the Cofán territory is sacred and it’s not for sale.

“It would be like selling your own mother. It feeds us, and nourishes us spiritually.”

Alex Lucitante, Indigenous activist
“It would be like selling your own mother,” he said. “It feeds us, and nourishes us spiritually.”

Their activism attracted support from international environmental groups like Amazon Frontlines , which provided technical support for the legal battle.

Viktor Marco, media coordinator with Amazon Frontlines Ecuador, said that the problem goes beyond the big mining companies.

“Once that infrastructure tears roads, it encourages smaller miners, illegal poachers, to use those paths to penetrate the lands,” he said. “And there's no recourse for people trying to stop them, They're not heard.”

According to Marco, the main challenge in Sinangoe was to convince Indigenous people that change was possible.

“When you have a community that has felt disenfranchised for so long, they don’t believe they can take ownership back.”

The legal battle went on for a few years, until Ecuador’s supreme court ruled in their favor.

Now, Indigenous communities must approve any mining project on their lands.

The Cofán people have a lot to celebrate, according to Marco.

“To win a constitutional court ruling of this magnitude is one of the most powerful things that can happen, not just for Ecuador, but for Indigenous people all across South America,” he said. “To partake in your territory and your in your land is a part of what makes an Indigenous community thrive and live.”

To protect the planet, Lucitante said, it’s often up to Indigenous people to take the lead.

Rosa emerged from the tent she’s lived in for nearly eight years with specks of dust in her red henna-dyed hair. The flimsy tarp has been no match for the tireless succession of dust storms that have swept across Iraq and swathes of the Middle East this year.

“Even people’s faces are covered in dust. ... It gets into everything.”

Rosa, a Yazidi woman living in a camp for displaced people in Erbil, northern Iraq
“Even people’s faces are covered in dust,” she told The World, pointing to the fine grayish powder coating the small informal settlement occupied by Yazidi people in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil. “It gets into everything.”

Related: Iraq's Yazidis stuck in 'tug-of-war' between regional armed groups

About a dozen dust storms have blown across Iraq this year. While these types of storms are a yearly occurrence in Iraq and neighboring countries, experts warn of an increased frequency and intensity attributed to climate change, drought and desertification.

Those hit hardest by extreme weather patterns are Iraq’s most vulnerable, according to analysts.

Related: ‘I had no life left here’: Iraqi Kurds are at the center of the migration crisis in Europe

People push a cart during a sandstorm in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 23, 2022.

Credit:

Hadi Mizban/AP

Rosa said her neighbor was hospitalized for severe breathing difficulties. She’s among thousands hospitalized due to the storms that have swept through the central and southern parts of the country in recent months, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Health, who also confirmed that at least one person has died .

People with breathing problems are treated at a hospital during a sandstorm in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 23, 2022.

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Hadi Mizban/AP

As the dust settles, the Yazidi women living in the encampment get to work — expertly using water and squeegees to guide the grime from their fragile, but cherished, homes.

The clear water quickly turns to mud as it zig-zags across the unpaved settlement near one of the many glistening new skyscraper projects shooting up across the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region.

The women have spent countless hours cleaning in recent months, but insist this is not the worst they’ve experienced as a result of Iraq’s propensity for extreme weather.

When torrential rains caused flash flooding in December, Rosa’s family lost everything — furniture, clothes, identification documents.

“If the police didn’t come to help, we might have drowned,” she said. The incident killed at least 11 people in Erbil.

Residents have since dug a shallow moat around the encampment in the hopes that it will prevent future flooding.

A policeman stands during a sandstorm in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 23, 2022.

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Hadi Mizban/AP

Experts say that those living in Iraq should prepare for more extreme weather and its stormy consequences on the war-scarred society.

“We're seeing Iraq really dealing with a massive ecological crisis."

Zeinab Shuker, sociologist, Sam Houston State University, Texas
“We're seeing Iraq really dealing with a massive ecological crisis,” said Zeinab Shuker, a sociologist at Sam Houston State University in Texas.

“The poor, the unhoused IDPs [internally displaced people], the farmers, those who live in rural areas, those with limited access to resources, those who are most impacted by the storms,” she said, listing those immediately impacted by the extreme weather.

As the fog settled over cities across Iraq last week, many were still out on the streets, forced to work out of financial necessity.

Related : Heat wave sparks blackouts, questions on India's coal usage

“At the end of the day, it’s work,” said Ayman, a food delivery app driver who declined to share his last name. He said that he hits the streets, protected with only a face mask and helmet on his motorcycle, no matter the weather.

Many in Iraq struggle to find adequate work — especially Syrians like Ayman. About one-third of Iraq's population now lives in poverty, according to the United Nations.

A man pushes a cart during a sandstorm in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 23, 2022.

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Hadi Mizban/AP

The spiraling cycle of increasing temperatures, droughts, water shortages, combined with government mismanagement have all contributed to worsening extreme weather events that will have disastrous long-term social, political and economic implications, Shuker said.

Related: Drought in Iraq and Syria could totally collapse food system for millions, aid groups warn

Shivan Fazil, a researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, also said that the impacts of climate change will “exacerbate existing inequalities and grievances in Iraq.”

“[Iraqis] interact with the shortfalls in basic services and lack of economic opportunities. Hence, exacerbating several key drivers of insecurity in an already fragile setting.”

Shivan Fazil, researcher, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
“They interact with the shortfalls in basic services and lack of economic opportunities. Hence, exacerbating several key drivers of insecurity in an already fragile setting.”

Iraq is not the only country in the region dealing with the impacts of climate change, with recent storms also hitting Iran, Syria and the Gulf States.

“This is a multilateral, crossborder crisis,” Shuker said.

Iraq’s government, however, needs more capacity, funding and institutions to fully focus on lessening its impacts.

In a lab situated just steps away from the Black Sea, scientist Berat Haznedaroğlu is on a mission to turn algae into biofuel.

Here, long pools of cloudy, green algae swirl under the hot sun in the lab’s greenhouse with the help of a squeaky motor.

“Right now, they’re just getting fat,” said Haznedaroğlu, who is the director of the Istanbul Microalgae Biotechnologies Research and Development Center. “As you can see they’re just using air — carbon dioxide and sunlight.”

This project, based at Boğaziçi University, is Türkiye’s first initiative to turn algae into fuel for airplanes. It’s also — Haznedaroğlu believes — the first carbon-neutral algae biofuel lab in Europe.

Related: Biomass energy may soon lose its green label in the EU

Berat Haznedaroğlu, director of the Istanbul Microalgae Biotechnologies Research and Development Center, checks the motor keeping an algae pool flowing. The movement allows researchers to maximize the sun exposure of the microalgae, which are photosynthetic.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

This particular strain of algae is jam-packed with fatty lipids — like the rib-eye steaks of the plankton world. The fatter the algae, the more biofuel they can create.

But producing algae biofuel to scale is easier said than done.

“These guys are microscale, so you need a little more expensive equipment and also a lot of energy,” he said.

Haznedaroğlu and his team drain the algae pools into large metal tanks and then use ethanol and chloroform to break the algae down into fatty acids.

Irem Karamollaoğlu, project expert for the lab, checks a motor in an algae seeding pool at the Istanbul Microalgae Biotechnologies Research and Development Center. After growing in small pools, the algae is transferred to the larger racetrack ponds for a few weeks before being processed into fuel.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

The resulting oil is checked for quality, and sent to a refinery nearby to be made into jet fuel.

“For biofuel you just have to grow a lot of [algal]-biomass,” Haznedaroğlu said.

Berat Haznedaroğlu, director of the Istanbul Microalgae Biotechnologies Research and Development Center, stands amid equipment used to extract lipids from microalgae and convert them into fatty acids. After testing for quality, the oil is shipped off to a nearby refinery to be turned into jet fuel.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

‘It’s a supply and demand issue’
Airline travel is currently responsible for about 2.5% of global gas emissions. But batteries large enough for long-haul flights would likely be too heavy to be practical, so solar and wind are not generally considered to be an option.

European airlines are clamoring for algae-based fuels to meet European Union sustainability goals, with several airports — including in Los Angeles, Brisbane and Stockholm — offering regular distribution of sustainable aviation fuels, or SAFs.

Algae biofuels are considered renewable because the algae absorb carbon while growing — even more efficiently than corn and soy.

Regulators have approved algae-based biofuels to be blended with conventional jet fuels in a 50/50 ratio, without any modification into airlines’ jet engines.

But there’s not quite enough of it yet.

Without government incentives, algae-based jet fuel costs about $2,500 to $3,000 per ton — about three times the price of its conventional counterparts.

Still, producers have a hard time keeping up with demand.

Just one of Haznedaroğlu’s 2,600-gallon tanks can only grow enough algae for 15 to 40 gallons of fuel at a time. In comparison, a Boeing 737 passenger jet burns 800 gallons of fuel in an hour.

“It’s still a supply and demand issue. You can’t grow enough algae to replace half of the [conventional jet fuel] in the whole world.”

Berat Haznedaroğlu, director of the Istanbul Microalgae Biotechnologies Research and Development Center
“It’s still a supply and demand issue. You can’t grow enough algae to replace half of the [conventional jet fuel] in the whole world,” Haznedaroğlu said.

Clear bottles showcase the supplements, pigments, and other products that Haznedaroğlu’s team derives from algae, with biodiesel the second from the left.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

The future of algae biofuel
Almost a decade ago, algae was a darling of hedge fund investors and oil companies hoping to go green — as well as the US government.

It grows quickly, it can thrive in wastewater, and it doesn’t require valuable agricultural land and expensive fertilizers to produce it.

“So, in theory, it’s win-win-win,” said Kevin Flynn, a phytoplankton expert with the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the United Kingdom. “But when you do the calculations, the total amount of land and nutrients needed to do this is phenomenal.”

Flynn used to believe in algae biofuel as a solution to help reduce carbon emissions globally.

But in 2015, he led a European algae industry initiative which concluded that to make a dent in Europe’s energy needs with algae biofuels, one would have to flood an area three times the size of Belgium to a depth of nearly a foot to grow enough of it.

Despite investor interest, algae biofuels seemed too expensive and unpredictable outside of a lab. In 2016, the price of crude oil dropped below $40 a barrel, driving markets away from sustainable fuel development efforts.

“Investors lost interest, practically overnight,” said Rebecca White, a microbiologist who now heads the Algae Biomass Organization, a Minnesota-based industry group. “It was definitely a bubble, and it definitely burst.”

At the time, White worked for San Diego-based Sapphire Energy and saw how investors were promised rapid timelines to scale up production, despite glaring technical problems.

“There was a lot of hype … and then when it came down to the work, it was much harder than anticipated.”

Rebecca White, head of the Algae Biomass Organization
“There was a lot of hype … and then when it came down to the work, it was much harder than anticipated,” she said. “They couldn’t harvest it efficiently.”

But in recent years, many of those technical issues have been resolved, White said. Companies such as Neste and Honda are reentering the industry with algae biofuel initiatives.

Haznedaroğlu said his goal is to see the price of algae-based fuel down to $1,000 per ton — a price point that he believes would be low enough to compete with conventional jet fuel.

One way is to offset the costs by selling other algae-based products, like supplements and animal feed. The lab has a separate greenhouse with an enclosed tube system for food-grade algae products.

Irem Karamollaoğlu, project expert for the lab, stands near a rack of clear, interconnected tubes used to grow food-grade algae at the Istanbul Microalgae Biotechnologies Research and Development Center.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

“Fuel is the cheapest product you can get from algae — and by cheapest, I mean the lowest-value product,” Haznedaroğlu said. “The other pigments [food-grade algae products] go for like, 2,000 euros [about $2,129] per kilogram.”

Haznedaroğlu said he puts faith in algae because it can grow almost anywhere.

"Anybody can grow algae, we just need to realize that we need to grow a lot.”

Berat Haznedaroğlu, director of the Istanbul Microalgae Biotechnologies Research and Development Center
“Very easily, you can open a trench and put a very basic liner. There you have a pond. Anybody can grow algae, we just need to realize that we need to grow a lot,” he said.

At the end of the year, Haznedaroğlu’s team will have its first real test: A demonstration flight, taken by Turkish Airlines, with up to 5% of its fuel provided by their algae lab.

He hopes it’s just the start.

“We just need to take baby steps,” he said.