Sunny side of 2019

The positive side of 2019 is Oh, what a year that was... there (if you look carefully)

BV staffer HEATHER LEAH SMITH looks back and comes up with a list of the year’s breakthroughs and positives

GOOD BUZZ FOR BEES London is rolling out the welcome mat to nature’s favourite pollinators with a seven-mile corridor of wildflower refuge through the city. Construction began over the summer.

In Holland, the city of Utrecht has covered hundreds of bus stops with living green roofs to make them buzz stops too, providing respite for honeybees and other insects, boosting biodiversity and improving air quality.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki have developed the PrimeBEE vaccine, which has shown promise in combating the microbial diseases threatening bee colonies worldwide.

The scientists hope for a commercial launch within a few years to inoculate the pollinators — and protect global crops worth between $235 and $577bn annually.

PLASTIC SNACKS Over the past two years, more than 50 types of plastic-eating mushrooms have been identified. One variant was found to digest small quantities of polyurethane in a matter of months, and another degraded plastic while growing into an edible snack. Scientists are working on scaling the solutions.

Mexican researcher Sandra Pascoe Ortiz has developed a bioplastic made from the juice of the prickly pear cactus, which has a natural breakdown time of only three months — or two weeks in water. If ingested, the bioplastic is harmless to humans and animals. Pascoe Ortiz is being courted by businesses that hope to help

her take her breakthrough from the “laboratory to an industrial process”.

Recycling programmes are ratcheting-up the impact. In Rome, metro passengers can now pay for the trip by recycling plastic bottles. The initiative has collected over 350,000 bottles thus far. In Nigeria, Lagos schools have implemented a win-win

solution for students and parents, municipalities and nature. Through the Recycle Pay project, parents and children collect plastic trash in payment for school fees.

ECOSYSTEMS WIN OUT Norway has rejected plans for mineral exploration in the Lofoten area — estimated to hold around 1.3 billion barrels of oil and gas — to preserve the picturesque region’s fragile ecosystem. Meanwhile Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global has begun to phase out oil stocks, affecting about $7.5bn in equity holdings.

A ruling in favour of the indigenous Kofan people has freed more than 79,000 acres in the Ecuadorian Amazon from gold mining contracts. The courts have also sided with the Ecuadorian Waorani tribe, denying the government’s intent to auction off Amazonian rainforest for oil exploration. These efforts aim to embolden indigenous people and activists to take legal action against environmental offenders. Tim Sweeney — the CEO of Epic Games, the company that created the popular video game Fortnight — has spent millions over the past decade to fund a “conservation land grab” in his native North Carolina. Sweeney is one of the state’s largest landowners, with 40,000 acres protected under his name. He swooped in to save the wild spaces from developers dreaming of golf courses and retail shops. The protected forests are home to black bears and bobcats, foxes and coyotes.

NASA data has confirmed that the Earth is greener than it was 20 years ago. Ambitious reforestation and agricultural programmes in China have contributed to the boost in global vegetation and helped the industrial giant offset its carbon emissions. In India, grassroots hero Jadav Payeng planted a tree each year over the past few decades to eventually create a protected forest reserve of about 1,360 acres, home to tigers, rhinos, and elephants. In India’s Uttar Pradesh, 800,000 people volunteered for 24 hours to plant over 50 million trees — and earned an entry in the Guinness World Records.

EMPOWERMENT The Indian village of Piplantri is recognised for environmental stewardship and gender empowerment. Every time a baby girl is born in Piplantri, the village celebrates by planting — and nurturing to maturity — 111 trees in her honour. They also open a small trust fund for each female infant to combat the burden of the still prevalent dowry system and enforce age limits on marriage to enable the girls to pursue a proper education. The village now boasts equal numbers of boys and girls enrolled in school as well as lush orchards of mango, neem, and aloe vera.

Iceland has been consistently ranked by the World Economic Forum as the most genderbalanced country, and in 2018, the country passed a law to enforce equal pay for equal work — and put the onus of proof on the employer. Companies with 25 employees or more must certify the equality of their pay policies with the government — and face fines if found wanting. Iceland is striving to eradicate the gender pay gap completely by the year 2022.

Malawi’s Chief Theresa Kachindamoto was appointed in 2003 to rule over a district of some 900,000 people. She has since banned child marriages, annulled over 3,500 underage marriages, and supported children’s educational initiatives. She has advocated against gender-based violence and promoted women’s rights. Kachindamoto is a force to be reckoned with and in her native dialect, her surname aptly warns “Don’t mess with fire”. Karen Uhlenbeck became the first woman to be awarded the Abel Prize, the most prestigious recognition amongst mathematicians. Her work has been called transformative, leading to some of the most dramatic mathematical advances of the past 40 years. Uhlenbeck’s research has inspired generations of female mathematicians to follow in her footsteps.