分类： environment

Nestled more than 5,000 meters above sea level in the shadow of Mount Everest, Imja Glacial Lake has long been recognized as one of the Himalayas’ most high-risk flood threats, swollen by accelerating glacial melt driven by human-caused global warming. A decade ago, a $3.5 million United Nations-backed risk reduction project drained 3.5 meters of water from the lake and installed a state-of-the-art early flood warning system designed to alert thousands of at-risk locals and visitors of an impending outburst. Today, that life-saving infrastructure has fallen into catastrophic disrepair, Nepalese government officials have confirmed to the BBC, leaving communities in the Everest region completely unprotected against a potential catastrophic disaster.

Local Sherpa communities were the first to sound the alarm, reporting that no routine inspections or maintenance work have been carried out on the system since the 2016 draining project was completed. On-site observations confirm siren towers, built to blare audible warnings across remote mountain valleys, have been left to rust in the harsh high-altitude climate. Some units have even had their batteries stolen, leaving them completely inoperable. Compounding this critical failure, the satellite-linked infrastructure designed to transmit real-time water level data from the lake to forecasters in Kathmandu, which would trigger automated mobile phone alerts to at-risk communities, has been unreliable for years, according to officials from Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM).

Scientists have repeatedly warned that glacial melt across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region is accelerating at an alarming rate, with ice loss doubling since 2000, according to a recent assessment from the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development. Rising temperatures do not only expand glacial lakes like Imja to dangerous volumes; they also weaken mountain slopes, triggering more frequent rockfalls and glacial collapses that can instantly spark a catastrophic outburst flood. If Imja were to burst, the resulting wall of water would sweep away everything in its path, including downstream villages, popular trekking routes, bridges, and tourist infrastructure. Over the past 50 years, the Everest region has already recorded at least five separate glacial lake outburst floods, a trend experts project will grow worse as global temperatures continue to rise.

For local communities, the failure of the early warning system has become a daily source of existential fear. Jangbu Sherpa, a resident of Chhukung, the first village that would be destroyed in an Imja outburst, says local leaders were promised annual inspections from DHM officials when the project was launched, but no official has visited the site in years. “We travel all the way to Kathmandu every year to beg DHM to repair and maintain the system, but nothing ever comes of our requests,” he said. Ang Nuru Sherpa, chairman of the Chaurikharka buffer zone adjacent to Sagarmatha National Park, echoed that frustration, pointing out that the local siren tower is already rusted, leaning, and at risk of collapsing at any moment. “Going by the state of the infrastructure, we don’t expect any warning at all even if the lake bursts tomorrow,” he said.

The risk extends far beyond the six local villages that sit in Imja’s flood path. Tshering Sherpa, chief executive of the local NGO Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, noted that spring brings more than 60,000 tourists, trekkers, and mountain climbers to the Everest region every year, all of whom are completely unaware of the unmonitored threat hanging over the area.

DHM officials have acknowledged the risk, but blame chronic underfunding for the system’s collapse. Senior DHM meteorologist Niraj Pradhananga told the BBC that the central Nepalese government has failed to allocate any budget for maintenance, and a proposal to fund upkeep through contributions from downstream hydropower companies has never been implemented. “As things stand right now, we can’t even confirm if the sirens still work,” Pradhananga said, confirming reports that batteries have been stolen from units in downstream villages including Dingboche.

Archana Shrestha, the DHM’s acting director general, added that all available resources and staffing were recently redirected to upgrade the early warning system for another high-risk glacial lake, leaving Imja completely neglected. “That work consumed all of our time and resources, but now we will turn our attention to Imja,” she said. The department is also revising its internal rules to ensure remote high-altitude sites like Imja get the dedicated staffing, budget, and resources required for regular maintenance, Shrestha added.

The broken data transmission system has added another layer of failure. Even if the sirens were functional, the DHM has not received consistent real-time water level data from Imja’s hydro-met station, making it impossible to issue timely mobile alerts. Pradhananga said the department has raised the issue repeatedly with the satellite company and its local service provider, but the issue remains unresolved: the satellite company denies any fault on its end, blaming the local provider, which has not responded to the DHM’s inquiries and has not yet commented to the BBC on the issue.

In a striking twist, the United Nations Development Programme has recently secured $36 million in grant funding to replicate the Imja risk reduction project at four other high-risk glacial lake sites across Nepal. UNDP Nepal communication head Monica Upadhyay said the failures at Imja have shaped the new projects, which will prioritize long-term sustainability from the start through clearer institutional governance, dedicated dedicated long-term financing, and targeted public-private partnerships to support ongoing maintenance.

For Sherpa communities living in Imja’s shadow, that future planning offers little comfort. “This whole project has just been an eyewash,” said Nawang Thome Sherpa, head of the local government in Phakding, one of the vulnerable downstream villages. “They spent millions of dollars in the name of protecting us from disaster, but we still wake up every day living in fear of losing our lives and our homes.”

On a recent Friday in Jakarta’s East Jakarta Ciracas neighborhood, crowds erupted in cheers as hundreds of city workers, local residents and environmental volunteers pulled heavy nets teeming with armored, invasive suckermouth catfish from the depths of a 6-meter reservoir. This public effort marked the peak of a coordinated, city-wide campaign to cull at least 10 metric tons of non-native janitor fish, locally called sapu-sapu, from the capital’s overburdened waterways in a bid to rescue the ecologically fragile Ciliwung River.

Originally imported to Indonesia decades ago as a popular algae-eating addition to home aquariums, Pterygoplichthys, the scientific name for janitor fish, was accidentally or intentionally released into local rivers after outgrowing tank environments. The species quickly adapted to Jakarta’s heavily polluted water systems, thriving where most native freshwater fish cannot. Growing up to 50 centimeters long and living 10 to 15 years, the armored bottom-feeders have carved out an unchallenged niche in the Ciliwung, a waterway that once carried crystal-clear mountain runoff from West Java to Jakarta’s coast, but now carries a heavy load of untreated residential sewage and industrial pollution.

Ecologists warn that the unchecked growth of janitor fish populations has pushed the already strained Ciliwung ecosystem to the breaking point. Dian Rosleine, an ecologist at the Bandung Institute of Technology, explained that janitor fish are not just a symptom of poor water quality — they actively outcompete native species for food and habitat, feeding on the eggs and young of local fish to throw the entire freshwater food web off balance. Beyond ecological harm, East Jakarta Mayor Munjirin, who goes by a single name, noted that the fish’s habit of clinging to and burrowing into concrete river embankments has caused costly structural damage that increases flood risk for surrounding dense residential neighborhoods.

Ordered by Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung, the mass removal campaign launched last week across all five of the capital’s administrative districts, drawing hundreds of participants from firefighting teams, disaster management agencies, volunteer groups and local communities. Within the first seven days of the operation, crews had already netted and disposed of more than seven metric tons of janitor fish. Friday’s targeted reservoir cleanup alone removed 320 kilograms of the invasive fish, leaving piles of wriggling catfish stacked in red barrels along the shore — visible progress for residents who have long dealt with the river’s declining health.

The campaign has not proceeded without debate, however. Indonesia’s Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), the country’s leading Islamic clerical body, raised ethical objections to the initial practice of burying caught janitor fish alive, arguing that the practice violates Islamic teachings on animal welfare. In response, Governor Anung announced a revised protocol requiring all fish to be humanely euthanized before burial at designated, sanitary sites, to prevent any accidental return of the fish to local waterways or unregulated commercial trade.

Officials are also exploring long-term, sustainable disposal methods that could turn the invasive catch into a useful resource. While janitor fish are consumed in other countries, high levels of heavy metal contamination in Jakarta’s polluted rivers rule out immediate approval for human consumption. Current proposals include processing the fish into livestock feed or organic fertilizer; buried fish can also act as natural compost, and Anung has floated the idea of adopting a Brazilian model that processes invasive suckermouth catfish into charcoal for economic benefit.

Despite the early progress of the removal campaign, ecologists emphasize that culling janitor fish alone will not solve the Ciliwung’s long-term problems. Rosleine and other experts warn that without systemic upgrades to Jakarta’s wastewater management infrastructure and dramatic reductions in pollution entering the river, the favorable warm, slow, nutrient-heavy conditions that allowed janitor fish to dominate will remain, leading to a rapid rebound of the invasive population. “Addressing the symptoms without tackling the root causes will not provide a lasting solution,” Rosleine said, noting that full rehabilitation of the Ciliwung River remains Jakarta’s greatest unaddressed environmental challenge.

Across the sun-baked southeastern fringe of the Tengger Desert in northwest China, land management teams work systematically to press braided straw rope bundles into shifting sand dunes, forming an immense, interconnected grid that anchors the moving terrain and halts its advance. This innovative grass grid barrier technique represents a modern evolution of decades of Chinese sand control expertise, bringing new efficiency to one of the world’s largest ongoing ecosystem restoration campaigns.

Tang Ximing, a veteran forestry engineer based in Zhongwei, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, explained that the upgraded barrier system addresses key shortcomings of traditional sand control methods. “It requires less manual labor than older straw grid variants, can be deployed far more quickly, and boasts an extended service life of five to six years,” Tang said. For Zhongwei, a city long on the front lines of China’s battle against desert expansion, this new technology is the latest step in a generations-long fight to reclaim land from encroaching dunes.

Ningxia’s geographic position has made it a natural front for this struggle: surrounded by deserts on three sides, Zhongwei sits directly in the historic pathway the Tengger Desert used to push southeast toward populated and developed areas. As far back as the 1950s, local researchers and land managers pioneered the iconic straw checkerboard method, a low-cost, high-impact technique designed to protect the newly built Baotou-Lanzhou Railway — China’s first rail corridor carved through a major desert — from being buried by shifting dunes.

After more than 70 years of sustained, incremental effort, that early innovation laid the groundwork for a historic milestone: Ningxia became the first provincial-level administrative region in China to successfully reverse the spread of desertification across its territory. This local victory is mirrored by large-scale progress across the country.

China is among the nations globally most severely impacted by desertification, with its most vulnerable arid and semi-arid lands concentrated in the northwest, north and northeast of the country — a vast swathe collectively referred to as the “Three Norths.” For decades, the Chinese government has prioritized large-scale afforestation, sustainable land management, and technological innovation to combat desert expansion, turning local trials into national policy that has restored millions of hectares of degraded land. Beyond its domestic environmental gains, China now increasingly shares its decades of accumulated sand control experience with other nations facing similar desertification challenges, offering actionable lessons for global ecosystem restoration and climate adaptation.

Ahead of the 2026 World Earth Day, Chinese natural resources authorities announced a major milestone in the nation’s push for ecologically responsible mineral extraction: more than 5,500 green mines at the provincial level or higher have been completed across the country. The announcement, delivered at a Beijing press conference on Tuesday, underscores how far China has advanced in reorienting its mining sector toward long-term sustainability, moving away from traditional production models that prioritized output over ecological protection.

Dong Qingji, deputy director general of the Department of Mineral Resources Protection and Supervision under the Ministry of Natural Resources, noted that the shift to green mining has evolved from a policy initiative to a shared priority across all key stakeholders. Local government bodies, regulatory agencies, mining operators, and the general public now uniformly recognize the value of integrating environmental stewardship into mineral resource development, Dong said.

A key pillar of this progress is the formal institutional and legal foundation that has been established to embed green mining standards into national governance. Requirements for environmentally responsible mining operations have been formally codified into China’s Mineral Resources Law and Ecological Environment Code, creating clear, enforceable legal obligations for industry players. Beyond legislative backing, a comprehensive cross-sector working framework has also taken shape, combining top-down government guidance, inter-departmental coordination, core responsibility resting with operating enterprises, and public accountability through external oversight. This multi-layered structure is designed to ensure green mining standards are implemented consistently across all regions and project types, laying the groundwork for further expansion of sustainable practices across the entire mining sector.

Along the sun-baked southern fringe of the Taklimakan Desert, China’s largest shifting sand desert, a sweeping, vibrant green barrier stretches far beyond the visible horizon. Hardy sand-fixing trees stand tall as resilient sentinels holding back encroaching dunes, while fruit orchards and medicinal plantations have taken firm root in what was once barren, inhospitable sand. This dramatic transformation is the result of the region’s ambitious Taklimakan Desert sand-blocking green belt initiative, which is delivering dual wins: reversing advancing desertification and unlocking new sustainable economic opportunity for local communities in southern Xinjiang, Northwest China.

What began as an ecological restoration project has evolved into a model of balanced development that pairs environmental protection with inclusive economic growth. Rather than treating desert management as a purely conservation effort, regional planners designed the green belt to support commercially viable, sand-adapted industries that benefit local households. Today, medicinal herbs such as Cistanche deserticola — a valuable traditional Chinese medicine — are grown among sand-fixing shrubs, while drought-tolerant fruit tree plantations produce high-quality crops for markets across China and beyond.

Official project data shows that the expansion of these sand-based sustainable industries now covers 10.83 million mu, equivalent to roughly 722,000 hectares, of former desert land. The sector generates an annual output value of 28.975 billion yuan, approximately $4.25 billion, injecting much-needed vitality into the regional economy and creating stable local jobs for rural residents. Photographs from mid-April 2026 captured workers at an agricultural technology firm in Aksu, a key prefecture along the desert’s edge, sorting processed slices of harvested Cistanche deserticola ahead of distribution to pharmaceutical and wellness markets.

Ecological monitoring data confirms the project’s environmental impact: the green belt has significantly slowed the southward advance of Taklimakan’s dunes, reduced regional sandstorm frequency, and improved overall soil retention across southern Xinjiang. For local stakeholders, the initiative stands as a proof of concept that arid desert landscapes do not have to be economic wastelands — with strategic planning and sustainable management, they can be turned into productive, vibrant lands that support both people and the planet.

Deep within the radioactive contamination of Ukraine’s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where humans have not been allowed to settle for nearly four decades, one of the planet’s most remarkable ecological recoveries is unfolding. On ground poisoned by the worst nuclear disaster in human history, rare and once-endangered wildlife roams free, turning a symbol of human catastrophe into an accidental wild refuge—now facing a new, man-made threat from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The disaster that created this strange landscape dates back to April 26, 1986, when a catastrophic explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant blew a plume of radioactive fallout across much of Europe. The disaster forced the immediate evacuation of every town and village across a 2,600-square-kilometer exclusion zone spanning Ukraine and neighboring Belarus, displacing more than 100,000 people. To this day, the zone remains too radioactive for permanent human habitation, unfit for settlement for generations to come. But in the absence of people, nature has reclaimed the land.

Wolves now traverse the vast unoccupied terrain that humans abandoned. Brown bears, absent from the region for more than a century, have returned to repopulate their historic range. Populations of lynx, moose, red deer, and even free-roaming dog packs have rebounded dramatically, creating an ecosystem that mirrors the wild European landscapes of centuries past. The most notable success story, however, centers on Przewalski’s horse, a rare wild breed native to the steppes of Mongolia that once hovered on the edge of total extinction.

Distinct from all domestic horse breeds, Przewalski’s horses carry 33 pairs of chromosomes—one more than their domesticated relatives— and are the last truly wild horse species walking the planet today. Known as takhi, meaning “spirit,” in their native Mongolia, the species was first formally documented by 19th-century Russian explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky, from whom it takes its common name. As the species declined to near-extinction across its original Asian range, conservationists launched an experimental reintroduction in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in 1998, releasing a small founding population into the radioactive landscape.

Four decades on, that experiment has yielded what leading zone ecologist Denys Vyshnevskyi calls a “small miracle”: a self-sustaining, free-roaming population of the rare horses has taken root and grown. Hidden motion-activated camera traps, which Vyshnevskyi spends hours installing across dense, overgrown terrain, have revealed the horses adapting to their new home in unexpected ways: they seek shelter from harsh winters and biting insects in crumbling Soviet-era barns and abandoned human homes, even bedding down inside the derelict structures. While many of the original introduced animals died off in the first years, the remaining population has adapted, forming small, stable social groups: one mature stallion, multiple mares, and their young, alongside separate all-male bands of younger horses.

Scientists have not recorded widespread wildlife die-offs tied to the zone’s persistent background radiation, though subtle biological impacts have been documented: some frog species have evolved darker pigmentation to protect against radiation damage, while bird populations in the most contaminated areas show higher rates of cataract development. Even so, ecologists broadly agree that the absence of human activity, from industrial development to hunting and agriculture, has created a net benefit for wildlife that far outweighs the costs of low-level radiation exposure. “Nature recovers relatively quickly and effectively,” Vyshnevskyi explained, noting that the exclusion zone now looks much like European landscapes did centuries before widespread industrialization and human settlement. The transformation is visible to the naked eye: tree saplings push through the foundations of abandoned apartment blocks, crumbling roads have been reclaimed by forest, and faded Soviet road signs stand weathered beside overgrown cemeteries dotted with leaning wooden crosses.

For conservation science, the Chernobyl recovery offers an unprecedented natural experiment. “For those of us in conservation and ecology, it’s kind of a wonder,” Vyshnevskyi said. “This land was once heavily used—agriculture, cities, infrastructure. But nature has effectively performed a factory reset.”

That accidental wonder is now under severe threat from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. When Russian troops advanced toward Kyiv in the early weeks of the war, fighting swept directly through the Chernobyl exclusion zone, with soldiers digging fortifications and military positions directly into contaminated soil. Military activity has sparked widespread wildfires across the zone’s forests, sparked by downed drones and artillery strikes. Oleksandr Polischuk, who leads a local firefighting unit in the zone, says crews often must travel dozens of kilometers across unpaved, dangerous terrain to reach blazes. The fires pose an additional hidden risk: they can stir up trapped radioactive particles and release them back into the atmosphere, spreading contamination across wider areas.

Harsh wartime winters and damage to Ukraine’s power grid have also taken a heavy toll, stripping protected area management teams of critical resources. Scientists have recorded sharp increases in fallen trees and dead wildlife, casualties of both extreme cold and hastily built military fortifications that fragment habitat and disrupt animal movement. Today, the exclusion zone is no longer just a quiet accidental wildlife refuge: it is a heavily militarized corridor, crisscrossed with concrete barriers, barbed wire, and unmarked minefields. Personnel who monitor the wildlife and maintain the zone rotate in and out constantly to limit their radiation exposure, just as they navigate the constant risks of a war that has settled across the contaminated landscape.

The paradox of Chernobyl remains, decades after the disaster: it will almost certainly remain off-limits to permanent human settlement for generations. It is a landscape defined by one of humanity’s worst mistakes, too dangerous for people to call home. Yet in that absence, it has become a haven for life—one that ecologists are working desperately to protect even amid the chaos of a new man-made conflict.