An astonishing and immersive new novel, Pod by Laline Paull takes the reader into the depths of the ocean—and into the world of its fascinating inhabitants—through the eyes of the beautiful Ea, a spinner dolphin

Laline Paull returns with an immersive and transformative new novel of an ocean world—its extraordinary creatures, mysteries, and mythologies—that is increasingly haunted by the cruelty and ignorance of the human race.

Ea has always felt like an outsider. As a spinner dolphin who has recently come of age, she’s now expected to join in the elaborate rituals that unite her pod. But Ea suffers from a type of deafness that prevents her from mastering the art of spinning. When catastrophe befalls her family and Ea knows she is partly to blame, she decides to make the ultimate sacrifice and leave the pod.

As Ea ventures into the vast, she discovers dangers everywhere, from lurking predators to strange objects floating in the water. Not to mention the ocean itself seems to be changing; creatures are mutating, demonic noises pierce the depths, and whole species of fish disappear into the sky above. Just as she is coming to terms with her solitude, a chance encounter with a group of arrogant bottlenoses will irrevocably alter the course of her life.

In her terrifying, propulsive novel, Laline Paull explores the true meaning of family, belonging, and sacrifice—the harmony and tragedy of the pod—within an ocean that is no longer the sanctuary it once was, and which reflects a world all too recognizable to our own.

“A terrifying novel.” —Cosmopolitan on Pod

“Pacy, provocative tale of survival in a fast-changing marine landscape.” —The Daily Mail

“Laline Paul succeeds splendidly in rising to the most important literary challenge of our time— restoring voice and agency to other-than-human beings.” —Amitav Ghosh, author of Sea of Poppies

“Thought-provoking. The dramas of the ocean are played out in a perfectly compiled plot and, as you’d expect, the beauty of the underwater is vividly and sensitively written. It’s another conversation starter.” —The Belefast Telegraph

About the author:

London-born and of Indian heritage, Laline Paull studied English at Oxford, screenwriting in Los Angeles, and theater in her home city. Her most recent novel is The Bees, which was a resounding critical and commercial success in the United States and Britain. She lives in the English countryside with her family.

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By U-Michigan News

ANN ARBOR—A new analysis of more than 20,000 trees on five continents shows that old-growth trees are more drought tolerant than younger trees in the forest canopy and may be better able to withstand future climate extremes.

The findings highlight the importance of preserving the world’s remaining old-growth forests, which are biodiversity strongholds that store vast amounts of planet-warming carbon, according to University of Michigan forest ecologist Tsun Fung (Tom) Au, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Global Change Biology.

“The number of old-growth forests on the planet is declining, while drought is predicted to be more frequent and more intense in the future,” said Au, lead author of the study published online Dec. 1 in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“Given their high resistance to drought and their exceptional carbon storage capacity, conservation of older trees in the upper canopy should be the top priority from a climate mitigation perspective.” 

The researchers also found that younger trees in the upper canopy—if they manage to survive drought—showed greater resilience, defined as the ability to return to pre-drought growth rates.

While deforestation, selective logging and other threats have led to the global decline of old-growth forests, subsequent reforestation—either through natural succession or through tree planting—has led to forests dominated by increasingly younger trees.

For example, the area covered by younger trees (<140 years old) in the upper canopy layer of temperate forests worldwide already far exceeds the area covered by older trees. As forest demographics continue to shift, younger trees are expected to play an increasingly important role in carbon sequestration and ecosystem functioning.

“Our findings—that older trees in the upper canopy are more drought tolerant, while younger trees in the upper canopy are more drought resilient—have important implications for future carbon storage in forests,” Au said.

“These results imply that in the short term, drought’s impact on forests may be severe due to the prevalence of younger trees and their greater sensitivity to drought. But in the long run, those younger trees have a greater ability to recover from drought, which could be beneficial to the carbon stock.”

Those implications will require further study, according to Au and colleagues, given that reforestation has been identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a potential nature-based solution to help mitigate climate change.

The Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan published during the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt (COP27) also reaffirmed the importance of maintaining intact forest cover and associated carbon storage as a social and environmental safeguard.  

“These findings have implications for how we manage our forests. Historically, we have managed forests to promote tree species that have the best wood quality,” said Indiana University’s Justin Maxwell, a senior author of the study.

“Our findings suggest that managing forests for their ability to store carbon and to be resilient to drought could be an important tool in responding to climate change, and thinking about the age of the forest is an important aspect of how the forest will respond to drought.” 

The researchers used long-term tree-ring data from the International Tree-Ring Data Bank to analyze the growth response of 21,964 trees from 119 drought-sensitive species, during and after droughts of the past century.

They focused on trees in the uppermost canopy. The forest canopy is a multilayered, structurally complex and ecologically important zone formed by mature, overlapping tree crowns.

The upper canopy trees were separated into three age groups—young, intermediate and old—and the researchers examined how age influenced drought response for different species of hardwoods and conifers.

They found that young hardwoods in the upper canopy experienced a 28% growth reduction during drought, compared to a 21% growth reduction for old hardwoods. The 7% difference between young and old hardwoods grew to 17% during extreme drought.

While those age-related differences may appear fairly minor, when applied at the global scale they could have “huge impacts” on regional carbon storage and the global carbon budget, according to the study authors. That’s especially true in temperate forests that are among the largest carbon sinks worldwide.

In the study, age-related drought-response differences in conifers were smaller than in hardwoods, likely because needle-bearing trees tend to inhabit more arid environments, the researchers say.

The current study was part of Au’s doctoral dissertation at Indiana University, and he continued the work after joining U-M’s Institute for Global Change Biology, which is based at the School for Environment and Sustainability.

The new study is a synthesis that represents the net effects of thousands of trees in diverse forests across five continents, rather than focusing on single forest types. In addition, the new study is unique in its focus on trees in the upper forest canopy, which reduces the confounding effects of tree height and size, according to the authors.

In addition to Au and Maxwell, the study’s authors include Scott Robeson, Sacha Siani, Kimberly Novick and Richard Phillips of Indiana University; Jinbao Li of the University of Hong Kong; Matthew Dannenberg of the University of Iowa; Teng Li of Guangzhou University; Zhenju Chen of Shenyang Agricultural University; and Jonathan Lenoir of the UMR CNRS 7058 at Université de Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France.

Study authors received support from Indiana University, the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The research was supported in part by Lilly Endowment Inc., through its support for the Indiana University Pervasive Technology Institute.

See The Study: Younger trees in the upper canopy are more sensitive but also more resilient to drought

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Destination Stewardship Report – Spring 2022 (Volume 2, Issue 4)

This post is from the Destination Stewardship Report (Spring 2022, Volume 2, Issue 4), an e-quarterly publication that provides practical information and insights useful to anyone whose work or interests involve improving destination stewardship in a post-pandemic world.

Ataúro Island Revives a Conservation Tradition

Another winner from the Top 100 – Green Destinations organizes the annual Top 100 Destination Sustainability Stories competition, which invites submissions from around the world – a vetted collection of stories spotlighting local and regional destinations that are making progress toward sustainable management of tourism and its impacts. From the winners announced last year, we’ve selected this one from Timor-Leste, which showcases how restoring and expanding an indigenous tradition is helping one island restore its unique reefs, supported by responsible tourism. Submitted by Mario Gomes, President. Asosiasaun Turizmu Koleku Mahanak Ataúro (ATKOMA), the DMO for Ataúro Island. Synopsis by Jacqueline Elizabeth Harper.

In Timor-Leste, Little Ataúro Island Makes Big Waves in Marine Conservation

At 25 square kilometres in area, what Ataúro Island lacks in size it makes up for an abundance of biodiversity. This micro island belonging to Timor-Leste lies in the Indonesian archipelago just north of the country’s capital, Dili, on the eastern portion of the island of Timor.

Ataúro is home to one of the most biodiverse reefs in the world and has the highest average of reef fish species on the planet. Controlling the exploitation of these natural resources has been difficult. The majority of Ataúro inhabitants come from a long history of fishing livelihoods, but due to a limited number of police and forest guards, overfishing went largely unregulated. Cases of blast fishing have damaged several coral reefs around the island.

Nevertheless, the abundant aquatic life has recently turned this island into a popular diving spot. Timor-Leste has had an 82 percent increase in international tourist arrivals since 2011. Yet tourism here is still in its relative infancy. The marine habitats have huge potential for responsible nature and adventure tourism, which can add economic value and offer economic diversification to the island. Ataúro Island is now focusing on nature protection and biodiversity conservation to foster growth in low-impact sustainable tourism.

A Traditional Code Revived

To protect natural assets and endangered areas, Ataúro has reemployed the traditional Timorese practice of tara bandu in recent years, pushing it into formal law. Tara bandu is being used as a code of behaviour and community ritual that uses local conservation knowledge and expands community cooperation. While the literal meaning of tara bandu is “prohibition by hanging,” Today this traditional code for natural resources management is applied to any activity or behavior that may damage forests or marine resources and negatively impact the community. If a person is found guilty of violating tara bandu restrictions, they are not hanged, but fined money or handing over assets to the community. Violators usually comply; to do otherwise would be essentially sacrilegious in local tradition.

Adoption of tara bandu has successfully established 13 Marine Managed Areas (MMAs) across the island. The community of Adara, located on the Western side of Ataúro, was the first to use tara bandu in 2016 with the purpose of creating a “no take” MMA to protect the reef habitat, promote sustainable fisheries and food security, and encourage marine ecotourism. Its success led to 12 more MMAs being established around the coastline between 2017 and 2018.

According to the Sustainable Management Plan for Ataúro Island, each of the MMA sites includes a core area that is ‘no take’ and is surrounded by a buffer area. Activities permitted in these areas are governed by Suco regulation (pdf, p80), a written document explaining the rules pertaining to the area’s land and sea resources, ensuring future generations can access them (see poster below). In the no-take areas, all fishing and gleaning activities are forbidden, except in a few scenarios. In the buffer areas fishing is permitted only by using semi-traditional fishing techniques and during agreed-upon times. The regulations are the same for each site.

Tourism’s Contribution

To offset the loss of fishing income, there is now a $2 tourism fee paid to the local village council for every guest who swims, dives, or snorkels within the MMA. In 2018, the village of Beloi earned over $10,000 from this income stream. However, tourist visitation is not distributed equally across the island, so there are steps afoot to create a collective management system.

As Timor-Leste has only recently become independent, tara bandu is a way for locals to reclaim ownership of their natural resources and revive local traditions suppressed under the years of Indonesian occupation. Community support is important. Tara bandu will not work without complete support and buy-in from the local community. Through tara bandu and monitoring of the MMAs, biodiversity has improved in the no-take zones. Dr. Sylvia Earle, a famed ocean explorer, has recognized the people of Timor-Leste for their extraordinary commitment to ocean conservation.

Banner photo at top: Photo taken by João Murteira (Timor-Leste) Taken in Atauro Island – East Timor WMO 2022 Calendar Competition

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