International
Chile’s distant paradise where scientists study climate change
AFP | Alberto Peña
Hidden inside pristine forests in Chile’s deep south, known as the end of the world, lie potential early warning signs of climate change. Puerto Williams on Navarino island, which is separated from the South American mainland by the Beagle Channel, is the world’s southern-most town.
Far from the pollution that blights major urban and industrial centers, it is a paradise that provides unique conditions to study global warming.
“There is nowhere else like it,” Ricardo Rozzi, director of the Cape Horn International Center for global change studies and bio-cultural conservation in Puerto Williams, told AFP.
It is “a place that is especially sensitive to climate change” as average temperatures do not rise above five degrees Celsius. This cold and windy area is the last inhabited southern frontier before reaching the Antarctic.
The ethnobotanical Omora park is home to an immense variety of lichens, mosses and fungi that scientists study by crouching down onto their knees with magnifying glasses.
In the crystal clear Robalo river, minuscule organisms act as sentinels of the changes produced by global warming. In both the park and river, the alarm bells are ringing.
Moss and lichen on the move
At this latitude — 55 degrees south — climate change has an exponential effect on flora that react by seeking out low temperatures, said Rozzi, 61. “The most obvious aspect of climate change is the rising temperatures,” he said. “These lichens cannot survive” if a certain threshold is passed. To escape the higher temperatures, they move.
“In the case of (mosses) we’ve noticed that they have moved. Before they were between 50 and 350 (meters above sea level) and now they are between 100 and 400,” said Rozzi. He says Omora has more diversity per square meter of lichens and mosses than anywhere else in the world. They also help to absorb carbon dioxide.
Another aspect is the elevational diversity gradient, an ecological pattern in which biodiversity changes with elevation.
The 700-meter high Bandera hill’s biodiversity changes every 200 meters and there is a mammoth 1.5 degrees Celsius difference in temperature between top and bottom.
“We can see what changes happen in the high mountains and in the area close to the sea in a very short distance, and we can see how the temperature affects the biodiversity that lives in this river,” Tamara Contador, 38, a biologist at the Cape Horn International Center, told AFP.
She studies the gradients themselves. If the height difference between gradients rises or falls on the mountain, scientists can determine whether there has been a global change in temperature. They say there has been.
Avoiding ‘extermination’
“On a global level, the polar and subpolar ecosystems are the most affected by climate change, so we are in a place where climate change has a much bigger effect on biodiversity than other places,” said Contador.
River organisms also form part of the alert system.
“The organisms that live here are also indicators of water quality and global environmental change,” added Contador.
River organisms move about and have already increased their reproductive cycle, says Rozzi. This confirms there has been a small change to the climate in the area that could have been much greater elsewhere on the planet.
“Some insects that have an annual eggs to larvae to adulthood cycle are now having two cycles because the temperature has risen,” said Rozzi.
By studying these organisms and learning from them “we can avoid crossing the threshold that brings us to the extermination of humanity and other life forms,” he added.
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A glacier over Darwin's mountain range is seen during a journey through the Beagle Channel in the Magallanes region, the southernmost of Chile, on September 23, 2022. - There is a place at the end of the world, in the southernmost point of Chile, where pristine forests hide tiny systems in their depths that already give early warning of the global climate change that the planet is suffering. Beyond the place where the American continent ends, on Navarino Island, crossing the Beagle Channel, Puerto Williams stands as the southernmost city in the world, a place far from pollution and human mistreatment, with unique conditions for the study of climate change. (Photo by Alberto PEÑA / AFP)
International
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Ecuador’s Armed Forces carried out an operation on Monday — including airstrikes — against illegal mining in the town of Buenos Aires, in the country’s north, Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo reported.
The mountainous, gold-rich area has been a hotspot for illegal mining since 2017, located in the Andean province of Imbabura.
In 2019, former president Lenín Moreno deployed around 2,400 soldiers to the region in an attempt to curb the illegal activity. “The operation began with mortar fire, followed by gunfire and bombing runs by Supertucano aircraft,” Loffredo said in a video released by the Defense Ministry.
He added that the operation would continue on Tuesday with patrols across the area to locate possible members of “irregular armed groups that may have crossed from the Colombian border.”
The Armed Forces stated on X that the intervention focused on the “complete elimination of multiple illegal mining tunnels” in the areas known as Mina Nueva and Mina Vieja.
The operation coincided with the deployment of a military and police convoy into Imbabura, which has been the epicenter of protests against President Daniel Noboa since September 22, following his decision to scrap the diesel subsidy.
International
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Venezuela has announced the closure of its embassy in Norway, just days after opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Venezuelan diplomatic mission provided no explanation for its decision on Monday.
“It is regrettable,” a ministry spokesperson said. “Despite our differences on several issues, Norway wishes to keep the dialogue with Venezuela open and will continue to work in that direction.” The ministry also emphasized that the Nobel Committee operates entirely independently from the Norwegian government.
In its announcement, the Nobel Committee stated that Machado met the criteria established by Alfred Nobel, “embodying the hope for a different future, where the fundamental rights of Venezuelans are heard.”
International
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The official death toll remains at 64, though dozens of people are still missing. President Claudia Sheinbaumacknowledged that the government does not yet know the full situation in many of the isolated villages, which range in population from 500 to 1,000 inhabitants.
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