Monday Briefing: Birdsong and nature sounds are disappearing, and what that means

good morning.

Waking up to the sound of birdsong is one of life’s little pleasures. But what if one day you wake up and hear nothing? This is the future we may face as our growing biodiversity crisis means the voice of nature is disappearing. In some places, they have disappeared.

There is no shortage of alarming data on biodiversity loss. According to leading scientific assessments, wildlife populations on Earth have declined by 69% over the past 50 years. Despite mounting evidence and increasingly dire warnings, communicating the scale of the world’s biodiversity crisis to the public and governments remains difficult for researchers, conservationists and journalists.

The Guardian Soundscapes series is a different way of communicating the impact of nature loss by letting the natural world speak for itself. It looks at what the loss of natural sounds tells us about environmental health.

In today’s newsletter, I talk to The Guardian’s biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston about the project’s findings. That was after the headlines.

five big stories

1. NHS | The time doctors must spend on compulsory training will be cut as part of an NHS push to improve the working lives of medical staff, The Guardian can reveal. The results of a review commissioned by NHS England amid concerns over burdening doctors with compulsory training are expected to be announced soon.

2. Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu said he would oppose any efforts to impose sanctions on Israeli military units, amid reports that an IDF battalion faces US sanctions over its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

3. Rwanda Act | Rishi Sunak is under pressure today to make last-minute concessions to secure the passage of a Rwandan deportation bill that would allow exemptions for Afghans serving with British troops. The Prime Minister faces calls from Conservative MPs and opposition parties for guarantees that Afghans, including Special Forces veterans, will not be airlifted to Rwanda if they cross the Channel to the UK.

4. drug | Deadly synthetic opioids are killing more than two people a week in the UK, with thousands of social media posts advertising sales, an investigation has found.

5. Everest | Digitized copies of many of Mallory’s letters, 100 years after British mountaineer George Mallory and his colleague Sandy Irvine disappeared while trying to summit Mount Everest in 1924. In particular, letters exchanged with his wife Ruth will be from his alma mater, Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Go deeper: It’s a silent wake-up call for the future

“We interviewed acoustic ecologists who have been working in this field for decades, and they repeatedly told us that sounds in a variety of habitats are declining in intensity and diversity,” Phoebe said. In short, natural sounds are disappearing and becoming more and more homogeneous.

The problem is closer to reality than many people realize: Phoebe recorded birdsong while walking in a local park in south London and discovered that the wooded area contained only two species of birds: blackbirds and robins. The problem, of course, is the sliding baseline. Phoebe said the soundscape disappears so quickly that many people don’t even notice. You can’t mourn something you never knew existed. These sonic records serve as reminders of a loss that most people cannot recognize.

Rapidly developing technology means researchers can measure biodiversity through sound. In a particularly moving piece from the series, Phoebe talks to soundscape recordist Bernie Krause, who has been documenting the natural world for thirty years. He returns every year to record sounds at a specific spot in California’s Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, but last April, for the first time ever, there was silence. There was no noise from birdsong or animal activity at all. Klaus told Phoebe that at the peak of spring I had an hour’s worth of material and nothing.

“I remember when Klaus first sent me the audio file, I heard the park fall into silence and I felt that way,” Phoebe said. It’s not an academic understanding of what’s going on, but a more emotional, visceral feeling when you hear the sound disappear.

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Why have the sounds of nature disappeared?

The main reason for the disappearance of natural sounds is habitat loss due to agricultural expansion. Almost 90% of critically endangered mammal species, and more than 80% and 70% of critically endangered amphibian and bird species, cannot live on agricultural land, and for large species and species accustomed to living in specialized environments, The problem becomes more serious.

Pollution, resource extraction, climate crisis and invasive species are also drivers of the decline in acoustic diversity in nature. The climate crisis is becoming a more prominent part of the problem as global warming causes changes in sensitive environments.

Phoebe said climate change is making even good habitats bad because it changes the very fine environments in which these animals survive and evolve. It also reduces species complexity: as the climate crisis changes their habitats, we see specialist species losing out to generalist species. It effectively homogenizes the wildlife we ​​see in the ecosystem.

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all is not lost

Biodiversity is not necessarily irreversible, and there are great opportunities for people to work on local ecological restoration. In Wellington, New Zealand, residents have adopted pest control and other conservation measures and are seeing some species flourishing again. Phoebe says that if you create conditions where nature can grow well, it will return to normal at an astonishing rate.

But this example is just a small local effort. Wildlife around the world is disappearing at an alarming rate, and more structural solutions to global problems in industrial agriculture are needed to reverse this trend.

Phoebe said there was a book, Silent Spring, written in 1962, which warned that if we continued to destroy the environment, the sounds of nature would disappear. Now that we’re in this dire situation, somewhere in California could actually have its own Silent Spring. It was a silent alarm bell of what was to come.

what else have we read

• carolyn lucas Farewell to all that, the Guardian’s new series of exit interviews begins, featuring Westminster MPs who stand down at the next election (whenever that may be). The long-term sole Green MP talks to John Harris about the triumphs, failures and next steps of her career. Charlie Lindlar, Newsletters Team

• Women run 80% of elections in the United States, and they bear the brunt of harassment by government workers. Rachel Leingang explores the impact on individuals and society misogynistic attack and the impact on democracy. Nemo

• Guardians Phil Daoust’s goal is to live to be 100 years old, a goal he can’t achieve without repairing his body. Insomnia.In this article, Phil searches for the answer to insomnia, and it turns out it might be surprisingly simple Charlie

• The younger generation seems to be paying more and more attention to Aging and how to slow it down. Sarah Marsh talks to experts to find out the economic and psychological drivers behind this growing obsession. Nemo

• this Caesar Salad It’s a solid staple, so why are modern restaurants suddenly so keen on updating the classic? Alan Cushing investigates an era of unchecked Caesar salad fraud for The Atlantic. Charlie

sports

football | Manchester United pulled off a truly remarkable victory in the FA Cup semi-final against Coventry City. After leading 3-0, the Premier League giants chased the score to 3-3 and the two sides entered overtime. The British Championship team lost the seemingly winning game 4-2 in the penalty shootout, but was ruled out by VAR. Judgment invalid. In the Premier League, Liverpool defeated Fulham 3-1 to retain their chance to compete for the title. In the WSL, Arsenal defeated Leicester City 3-0 at the Emirates Stadium to secure their place in the Champions League.

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sports | Kenyan runner Peres Jepchirchir won the women’s race in the London Marathon with a new women’s world record of 2 hours, 16 minutes and 16 seconds. The record, for a race without a male pacer, was nearly five minutes slower than the official women’s record set last year. The men’s race was won by another Kenyan, Alexander Mutiso Munyao, and surprisingly, two British men finished in the top four for the first time since 1988.

Formula one | Max Verstappen won the Chinese Grand Prix with another dominant drive, extending his lead over third-placed teammate Sergio Preez to 25 points.

front page

superior protector The headlines are that the Prime Minister faces calls to include Afghan concessions in the Rwanda Bill, as Rishi Sunak faces pressure to exempt Afghans serving with British troops.this telegraph The Prime Minister has refused to back the under-criticized Met chairman after an official suggested that being openly Jewish was a provocation to pro-Palestinian protesters.Controversy leads to mail Jewish leaders also made headlines calling for the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to resign.inside era Voters view the police differently as the newspaper reports on a YouGov survey on police confidence.

this Financial Times After the U.S. House of Representatives passed a long-awaited aid package, Zelensky warned that the war in Ukraine headed by Kiev made it urgent to deploy U.S. arms cash.inside I The Conservatives are set to face a fresh pay conflict with public sector workers ahead of the autumn election, with reports that they could inherit negotiations if Labor wins.inside Mirrorheadlined “Fighting for Stephen”, the newspaper said Keir Starmer had pledged to honor Stephen Lawrence’s legacy on the 31st anniversary of his murder.

and in sunRussian hackers breached British company Hall Jets as newspapers reported holiday flights had been hacked electronically.

Today’s focus

Where does Kass’s comments place trans youth?

Dr Hilary Casss’ comments on NHS gender identity services have been published. Hannah Moore say amelia gentleman About what this means for the children at the center of it all.

Today’s Cartoon | Edith Pritchett

Subscribe to Inside Saturday for more Edith Pritchetts comics, the best of Saturday magazine content and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage

benefit

A good news reminder that the world is not all bad

Ever heard of straw wrinkles? Emma Beddington regrets it. However, she also believes that the idea that you should worry about your face getting wrinkled when you drink alcohol belongs on her list of health trends you really don’t need to worry about.

Also on the list: sitting too much, giving up fruit (a word to myself) and worrying about where to park the superyacht.

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