Thanks to an ambitious ‘refaunation’ project, Brazil’s blue-and-yellow macaws return to Rio after 200 years
Last spotted by Austrian naturalist Johann Natterer in Rio de Janeiro in 1818, experts say after that, blue-and-yellow macaws were almost certainly wiped out by deforestation, along with other species that once roamed forests around the city.
Now, biologists are bringing the macaws, and the forests they inhabit, back to life as part of an ambitious “refaunacation” project from a group called Refauna to restore the rainforest.
So far, four macaws have been dslowly reintroduced, with another six on the way, and longer-term plans to release 50 of them.
Why is this good news? While locals are delighted to see the iconic birds return to the city, the project is more focused on saving the forest and entire ecosystem, “rebuilding ecological relationships and ensuring that these species can once again perform their ecological roles.”
The global suicide rate has fallen by 40% since the 1990s
The global suicide rate has fallen significantly over the last three decades. According to new data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and Global Burden of Disease, the rates have fallen from 15 to 9 deaths per 100,000 people since the 1990s.
The rates differ widely from country to country, with experts citing bans on highly toxic pesticides as an effective way to reduce a common method of suicide in many low-to middle-income countries.
Sri Lanka has seen the most improvement. In the early 2000s, the South Asian island country had the second-highest suicide rate in the world after Greenland. After banning the most toxic pesticides, the number of Sri Lankans dying from suicide has more than halved, saving thousands of lives every year.
“Immigration is not a problem to solve. It is an opportunity to seize—an opportunity to build a country that is stronger not despite our diversity, but because of it.
That is why I have always believed: We must build longer tables, not higher walls.”
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