AFP

A Bengal tiger cub is being cared for by humans at Nicaragua’s National Zoo after its mother was unable to produce the milk necessary to feed the latest little addition to the endangered species, the zoo’s director Eduardo Sacasa said Tuesday.

The tiger, which was born on Saturday, is the fourth of its kind to be born at the National Zoo in Masaya, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the capital Managua. 

The four-day-old baby, who does not yet have a name, is “being fed with a special milk for cats,” Sacasa said. 

“She is very sweet,” he said.

“We’re taking care of her so that she survives — this is a difficult period for her because she did not get any colostrum for her natural defenses,” Sacasa explained, referring to the early nutrient-dense milk mammals produce right after birth. 

The cub’s mother Dalila had given birth to a female white tiger cub — called Nieve, or snow — in December, but that baby died of respiratory problems only two weeks later, despite the special care given by the zoo. 

Nicaragua’s National Zoo has two other female tigers that have also given birth.

Sacasa said the births give him hope the zoo can be a kind of “genetic center” in protecting the species.

Bengal tigers are listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species as in danger of extinction, thanks to hunting and deforestation of its natural habitat in Asia. 

Lions and cheetahs are closer to extinction than the authoritative Red List of Threatened Species suggests, according to conservation scientists who warn that sharp drops in populations could be going undetected.   

Africa’s marquee big cats are currently listed as “vulnerable”, but with declines in lion numbers close to the threshold for a higher risk category and heated debate over how many cheetahs are actually left in the wild, experts are asking if this is enough. 

An “uplisting” does not guarantee protection, they say, but it would more accurately reflect their dire situation and could channel resources to help them survive in the wild, where they are most recently menaced by poaching and the pet trade. 

The stone lions guarding Beijing’s Forbidden City, the bronze ones at Admiral Nelson’s feet on Trafalgar Square, the constellation Leo and the emblems of a score of top European football clubs all attest to the cultural significance of these majestic creatures.

But as apex predators, they are also lynchpins in their ecosystems — as South African conservationist Paul Funston puts it, the “big daddy holding a lot of things in place.” 

For half a century, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List has classified species along a spectrum from “least concern” and “near threatened” to “vulnerable”, “endangered”, “critically endangered” and “extinct in the wild”.

Broadly, if at least half the population of a species is lost within three generations, it moves to a more threatened category.  

Last stop on the slide to oblivion is “extinct”.

Threatened status can trigger national protective measures, restrictions in international trade and funding from states or NGOs. 

Lions and cheetahs were both reconfirmed as “vulnerable” in 2014 and are unlikely to change category in a Red List update at the IUCN congress in Marseille, from Friday.

But some experts want the IUCN to go further.

“Cheetahs should be classified as ‘endangered’,” Sarah Durant, an expert on cheetahs and a member of the IUCN’s cat specialist group, told AFP via Zoom.

Following the 2014 assessment, to which she contributed, Durant and another 50 conservation experts made that case in a peer-reviewed study.

One-size-fits-all criteria applied by the IUCN, they argued, do not do justice to all species.

– Catastrophic declines –

Overall, the cheetah’s global numbers were estimated to have dropped about 30 percent to roughly 7,000 over the space of three generations, or 15 years. 

To put that in perspective, the ratio of people to cheetahs on Earth is roughly a million-to-one.

While steep, the decline was still well short of the 50-percent threshold for an uplisting to “endangered”.

But that assessment is likely over-optimistic, scientists say, because the data comes overwhelmingly from protected areas, such as national parks and game reserves, even though that is not where most cheetahs are found.

About three-quarters of the big cat’s range — and an estimated two-thirds of its population — is in unprotected zones where the solitary feline must contend with scarce prey, fragmented habitat and deadly encounters with pastoralists defending their livestock.

“We’re measuring population decline in the area where they’re actually doing best,” Durant said.

More long-term, the picture is even bleaker. 

The cheetah was once a top predator across most of Africa, the Middle East, central Asia and India, but today it occupies only a sliver — less than 10 percent — of its historic range.

And since 1900, their numbers have dropped by more than 90 percent. 

“These are catastrophic declines,” said Durant, a professor in conservation science at the Zoological Society of London.

Lions have not fared better, even if their population in the wild exceeds 20,000, said Funston, senior director of the lion programme at conservation NGO Panthera.

In the 2014 assessment, to which he contributed, their global population was found to have dropped by 43 percent over three generations — 21 years — missing a reclassification threshold by a whisker.

– Hunted –

Unlike cheetahs, lions live in groups, or prides, and almost exclusively within protected areas.

But that doesn’t mean they are always easy to locate.

“Every time we go and look in any real detail, we find that there are fewer lions than we thought, typically three, four, even ten-fold fewer,” Funston told AFP. 

In 2017, Funston led an intensive survey of two large national parks in southeastern Angola where conservation authorities had put the population at about 1,000. 

“Actual numbers were so low we couldn’t derive a proper scientific estimate,” he said. 

“We concluded that there were 10 to 30 lions left.”

The top driver of lion decline is industrial-scale bush-meat poaching, either of the lions themselves or their prey.

Trophy hunting, habitat loss and conflict with humans also menace the animals.

– ‘Influencer’ effect –

Since 2014, new threats have emerged. 

“Particularly in southern Africa, we are suddenly seeing an increase in the poaching of lions for body parts” — especially teeth, claws and bones — to supply a booming market in Southeast Asia and China for bogus health and virility elixirs, Funston said.

This illegal traffic has been spurred on by South Africa’s decade-old and controversial commercial captive lion-breeding industry, according to a recent report he co-authored.

From 2011 to 2019, poaching for body parts — evident from the dismembered carcasses left behind — accounted for more than 60 percent of all lion mortality within Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, with a clear increase from 2014 onwards.

For cheetahs, the new threat comes from the Gulf states, where a demand for pets has fuelled a brisk trade in cubs, especially from the horn of Africa, where a sub-species teeters on the brink of extinction. 

Social networks are driving a demand for live big cats as well.

“Influencers are flying out of Dubai to get photographed with a cheetah or lion to boost Instagram traffic,” Durant said, highlighting a recent expose by the website Bellingcat.

One key to protection is investment. 

In central and western Africa, spending is only about $50-$100 annually per square kilometre, according to Funston.

Little wonder, he said, that both regions have lost more than 90 percent of their large wildlife.

In southern Africa however, where lion populations have gone up, $500 to $800 is invested annually per square kilometre.

Craig Hilton-Taylor, who heads the IUCN’s Red List Unit, defended its classification process as “robust” and said experts looked at a full range of issues.

But he acknowledged that without the efforts of southern African countries, “the lion would have been uplisted from ‘vulnerable’ to ‘endangered’.” 

“If the experts do the assessment again, and project forward rather than just looking in the past, they might be able to get it over the threshold,” he told AFP.

Sri Lanka’s drive to become the world’s first 100 percent organic food producer threatens its prized tea industry and has triggered fears of a wider crop disaster that could deal a further blow to the beleaguered economy.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned chemical fertilisers this year to set off his organic race but tea plantation owners are predicting crops could fail as soon as October, with cinnamon, pepper and staples such as rice also facing trouble. 

Master tea maker Herman Gunaratne, one of 46 experts picked by Rajapaksa to guide the organic revolution, fears the worst. 

“The ban has drawn the tea industry into complete disarray,” Gunaratne said at his plantation in Ahangama, in rolling hills 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Colombo.

“The consequences for the country are unimaginable.”

The 76-year-old, who grows one of the world’s most expensive teas, fears that Sri Lanka’s average annual crop of 300 million kilogrammes (660 million pounds) will be slashed by half unless the government changes course.

Sri Lanka is in the grip of a pandemic-induced economic crisis, with gross domestic product contracting more than three percent last year, and the government’s hopes of a return to growth have been hit by a new coronavirus wave.

Fertiliser and pesticides are among a host of key imports — including vehicles and spare parts — the government has halted as it battles foreign currency shortages. 

– Food security ‘compromised’ –

But tea is Sri Lanka’s biggest single export, bringing in more than $1.25 billion a year — accounting for about 10 percent of the country’s export income.

Rajapaksa came to power in 2019 promising subsidised foreign fertiliser but did a U-turn arguing that agro chemicals were poisoning people.

Gunaratne, whose Virgin White tea sells for $2,000 a kilo, was removed last month from Rajapaksa’s Task Force for a Green Socio-Economy after disagreeing with the president.

He says the country’s Ceylon tea has some of the lowest chemical content of any tea and poses no threat.

The tea crop hit a record 160 million kilos in the first half of 2021 thanks to good weather and old fertiliser stocks but the harvest started falling in July.

Sanath Gurunada, who manages organic and classic tea plantations in Ratnapura, southeast of Colombo, said that if the ban continues “the crop will start to crash by October and we will see exports seriously affected by November or December”.

He told AFP his plantation maintained an organic section for tourism, but it was not viable. Organic tea costs 10 times more to produce and the market is limited, Gurunada added.

W.A. Wijewardena, a former central bank deputy governor and economic analyst, called the organic project “a dream with unimaginable social, political and economic costs”.

He said Sri Lanka’s food security had been “compromised” and that without foreign currency it is “worsening day by day”.

– Jobs at stake –

Experts say the problem for rice is also acute while vegetable growers are staging near daily protests over reduced harvests and pest-affected crops.

“If we go completely organic, we will lose 50 percent of the crop, (but) we are not going to get 50 percent higher prices,” Gunaratne said.

Tea plantation owners say that on top of the loss of earnings, a crop failure would cause huge unemployment as tea leaves are still picked by hand.

“With the collapse of tea, the jobs of three million people will be in jeopardy,” the Tea Factory Owners Association said in a statement.

Plantations minister Ramesh Pathirana said the government hoped to provide organic compost in place of chemical fertilisers.

“Our government is committed to providing something good for the tea industry, fertiliser-wise,” he told AFP.

Farmers say Sri Lanka’s exports of cinnamon and pepper will also be affected by the organic drive.

Sri Lanka supplies 85 percent of the global market for Ceylon Cinnamon, one of the two leading types of the spice, according to United Nations figures.

Still, Rajapaksa remains confident in his course, telling a recent UN summit that he was confident that his organic initiative will ensure “greater food security and nutrition” for Sri Lankans.

He has called on other countries to follow Sri Lanka’s move with the “bold steps required to sustainably transform the world food system”.

Louisiana and Mississippi took stock Tuesday of the disaster inflicted by powerful Hurricane Ida, as receding floodwaters began to reveal the full extent of the damage along the US Gulf Coast and the death toll rose to four.

New Orleans was under a curfew Tuesday evening, nearly two days after Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm, exactly 16 years after devastating Hurricane Katrina — which killed more than 1,800 people — made landfall.

Four deaths have been confirmed as crews began fanning out in boats and off-road vehicles to search communities cut off by the giant storm. A man was also missing after apparently being killed by an alligator.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell said on Twitter she had signed an executive order mandating an overnight curfew in New Orleans, most of which was still entirely without power after the storm. 

Images of people being plucked from flooded cars and pictures of destroyed homes surfaced on social media, while the damage in New Orleans itself remained limited.

New Orleans Airport said all incoming and outgoing flights scheduled for Tuesday were canceled, while airlines had scrapped nearly 200 flights on Wednesday.

One person was killed by a falling tree in Prairieville, while a second victim died trying to drive through floodwaters some 60 miles (95 kilometers) southeast in New Orleans, officials reported.

Ida knocked out power for more than a million properties across Louisiana, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.us, most of which still out Tuesday evening, leaving residents without air conditioning in late summer. 

But power provider Entergy told New Orleans City Council members Tuesday morning that some electricity could be restored as early as Wednesday, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

The first to see power would likely be hospitals — many of which are dealing with a surge of Covid patients — and sewage and water treatment centers, the paper reported, saying it could still be days before average customers were reconnected. 

Entergy had initially said it could take days to even assess the full extent of the damage.

In Mississippi, which has been buffeted by torrential rain, a road collapse left two people dead and 10 more injured, including three in critical condition, the state’s highway patrol said.

The death toll is expected to rise further, Louisiana Deputy Governor Billy Nungesser warned Tuesday, especially in coastal areas directly hit by Ida where search and rescue operations are ongoing.

Meanwhile in St. Tammany Parish, police said a 71-year-old man was attacked and “apparently killed by an alligator while walking in flood waters following Hurricane Ida.”

– Ida heads northeast –

President Joe Biden declared a major disaster for Louisiana and Mississippi, which gives the states access to federal aid.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said his state had deployed more than 1,600 personnel for search and rescue operations, while the Pentagon said over 5,200 personnel from the military, federal emergency management and National Guard had been activated across several southern states.

Ida — now a tropical depression — was travelling northeast, threatening the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys. It was expected in the mid-Atlantic on Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Scientists have warned of a rise in cyclone activity as the ocean surface warms due to climate change, posing an increasing threat to the world’s coastal communities.

Blessed with year-round sunshine, North Africa has enormous potential for solar energy, but the huge investment and state subsidies required for large-scale projects are a challenge for cash-strapped regional governments.

The region boasts a few marquee projects that are among the largest in the world but renewable energy entrepreneurs say the focus should be at community level, helping whole villages to operate off the national grid and without using diesel fuel.

Egypt, the most populous Arab country, with more than 100 million people, has made solar power a priority in its quest to source 42 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2035.

In the western desert, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of the southern city of Aswan stands the Benban Solar Park. Visible from space, the $4 billion World Bank-funded project is the fourth largest solar park in the world, stretching over 37 square kilometres (14 square miles).

With six million solar panels, Benban was connected to Egypt’s national grid in 2019 and currently produces 930 gigawatt hours a year, which is enough to light up 420,000 households, according to the UN. 

Egypt’s 42 percent target is an ambitious one. In 2016, just nine percent of its power needs came from renewable sources, according to official figures.

– Incentives –

But experts say the state will need to provide incentives if it expects much help from consumers, few of whom have the means or space to switch to solar energy for their household needs.

“In Cairo, it’s a bit difficult to install solar panels because you need a lot of space on top of buildings plus it doesn’t cover all your electricity needs like powering an air conditioner during summer,” said Mohamed Abdel Raouf, an expert on green economies in the region.

He said tourist resorts on the Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts as well as rural centres offered more fertile ground.

“The state needs to incentivise it for the average consumer because it would cost me around 60,000 pounds ($3,800) to switch over to solar energy for my home in urban Cairo,” he said.

“Why would I invest in environmentally friendly technology that’s expensive? The state really needs to take the lead in making it attractive.”

The International Energy Agency said over the past decade North Africa has managed to increase its renewable energy production by 40 percent. But that does not mean that addiction to fossil fuels has waned.

In oil-rich Algeria, which receives around 3,600 hours of sun per year, renewable energy only represents a paltry 1.8 percent of the country’s consumption.

– ‘Monstrous projects’ –

In Morocco, the gaps in its green strategy are embodied by the gigantic Noor Ouarzazate solar complex — the world’s largest multi-technology solar installation. 

At the gateway to the Sahara, the enormous complex has four power plants with an installed capacity of 530 megawatts. 

“From the start, it was clear that the strategy was unbalanced. The strategic error was to want to invest in monstrous projects that are difficult to finance,” Said Guemra, a specialist in energy management, told AFP.

Rabat sells its green energy at a loss with the generating costs double the price it is sold at to the national grid.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) stations produce energy costing between 1.6 and 1.4 dirhams (18 cents to 16 cents) per kilowatt hour, which is sold to the National Electricity Office (ONEE) at 0.8 dirhams. 

The strategy has not paid off and the privately-owned, publicly-funded Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (Masen), which runs the Noor complex, is more than $100 million in debt.

The CEO of Cairo-based start-up Karm Solar, Ahmed Zahran, says it is time to move away from the model of selling electricity to the state in a private public partnership like Benban.

“The business model… is pretty abusive and… not comprehensive. Companies are focusing on selling electricity to one offtaker (the state) and they’re not interested in participating in the infrastructure of the countries they’re operating in,” Zahran told AFP.

“So they’re always viewed as opportunistic investors, who are trying to get specific contracts in place, preferably with the government and that’s it.”

Zahran’s company designs solar-powered buildings and water pumping systems to help whole villages operate off the national grid and without using diesel fuel.

It was the first private solar company to obtain a power distribution licence in Egypt.

“We realised that our future is not in being a solar developer but in being a utility-scale solar firm… We’re working on the entire infrastructure from building the power plant, building the distribution network, we’re doing the tower management, the power mix, everything,” Zahran said.

His firm says it has saved 2.3 million litres (608,000 gallons) of diesel and offset 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually in the process of installing solar plant projects with over 71 MW capacity.

Tunisian farmers are turning to the past to ensure a future by planting indigenous seeds as the North African country suffers at a time of drought, disease and climate change.

Traditional seeds come from a genetic heritage best suited to the environment, said Maher Medini, from Tunisia’s National Gene Bank, which promotes the development of sustainable agriculture in the country.

“They are reservoirs of genes hundreds, if not thousands of years old,” Medini said, adding that the seeds are more resistant to the ever-growing dangerous impacts of global warming.

Climate change is causing challenging variations in rainfall, temperature and humidity, creating disease in the crops, he said.

“The foundation of adaptation is diversity,” Medini said.

Wheat varieties developed in the 1980s are being blighted by disease in Tunisia, but farmers say that traditional varieties appear to be more resistant.

In the past, using indigenous seeds, Tunisian farmers set aside a small part of the harvest to sow in the next season.

But the development of hybrid or genetically modified seeds resulted in better harvests, and native varieties largely fell out of use.

One problem is that seeds from the new varieties cannot be replanted, and farmers have to buy in more seed every year.

Now some farmers are looking at the methods used by their forebears.

Mohamed Lassad ben Saleh farms in the agricultural region of Jedaida, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) northwest of the capital Tunis.

Eight years ago he switched to planting a traditional variety of wheat, known as Al-Msekni. On his farm, the harvest is now in full swing.

The wheat harvested from each hectare is weighed separately, so each plot’s productivity can be calculated.

“The results are good,” Ben Saleh said.

– Superior yield –

When he meets other farmers, he lets them know how his traditional seeds are performing.

The national average in recent years has been 1.4 to two tonnes a hectare, while Ben Saleh says his yield has been five tonnes.

Ben Saleh reports his seeds are more resistant to drought and disease, which means he does not have to use as much pesticide.

“The new varieties are weak and quickly affected by mould,” he said.

With most farmers buying new seeds every season, the country currently imports 70 percent to 80 percent of its seeds each year.

“A return to local or native seeds is one of the conditions needed to reach food sovereignty,” said Aymen Amayed, a researcher in agricultural policies.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has warned against the increased use of hybrid seeds, and considers it a threat to indigenous varieties and to local genetic heritage.

The FAO estimates that over the past century, around three quarters of the diversity in world crops has disappeared.

– ‘2050 is tomorrow’ –

But Tunisia’s gene bank is working to “reclaim its genetic heritage”. 

Since 2008, it has been collecting traditional seeds from farmers, and also working to recover indigenous Tunisian seeds stored in gene banks around the world.

So far, it has been able to repatriate more than 7,000 samples of seeds from fruit trees, cereals and vegetables out of over 11,000 located worldwide.

These seeds are once more being planted in Tunisian soil.

M’barek Ben Naceur, head of the national gene bank, says that more than 400 farmers have been persuaded to use these seeds, and old varieties such as Al-Msekni and Al-Mahmoudi are being sown again.

“These seeds are the descendants of this land, and they know it,” said Ben Naceur.

“Our varieties have been accustomed to rises in temperature and drought for thousands of years, so they will resist climate change and temperature rises,” he added.

A report last month by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed unequivocally that the climate is changing faster than previously feared, and because of human activity.

August saw record-breaking temperatures: in Tunis the mercury reached 48 degrees Celsius at midday (118 Fahrenheit), smashing the capital’s previous record high of 46.8 degrees in 1982. 

“Between now and 2050, temperatures in the world will rise between 1.8 and two degrees,” Ben Naceur said.

“And 2050 is tomorrow — it’s not so far away. Varieties that are not resistant will disappear.”

US President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced plans to open more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas exploration after a court ruled against the administration’s pause in leasing.

The decision represents a significant step back for the White House’s ambitious climate agenda and was quickly challenged by a coalition of environmental groups. 

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management expects a final notice of sale in September, “with a lease sale to follow in the fall of this year,” the agency said in a statement. 

In January, Biden announced a moratorium on new drilling from federal land pending a review, as the Democrat sought to place the climate crisis at the heart of his presidency.

But in June, a Louisiana judge appointed by former president Donald Trump stepped in to rule that the administration required approval from Congress for its pause. 

According to a Record of Decision posted online, the government projects up to 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of gas from the auction.

It noted a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  “detailing observations of a rapidly changing climate in every region globally,” but said it did not present sufficient cause to change the environmental impact statement for the drilling at this time. 

Environmental groups led by the Earthjustice advocacy group sued the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland after the notice.

“In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, it is clear that we need to be doing everything we can to transition away from fossil fuels to reduce the impacts of climate change such as stronger, more frequent hurricanes,” said Healthy Gulf’s executive director Cynthia Sarthou. 

“This lease sale is deeply disappointing. The Biden administration has folded to the oil industry based on its campaign of disinformation and political pressure, ignoring the worsening climate emergency we face,” added Brettny Hardy, Earthjustice attorney. 

The world’s leading oil producers are expected to uphold a July deal to slowly boost output at a meeting on Wednesday, despite US pressure to go further.

OPEC members led by Saudi Arabia along with allies including Russia, known collectively as OPEC+, decided in July to raise output by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) each month from August, in a deal thrashed out after weeks of wrangling.

The move is aimed at supporting a global economic recovery, which has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic — a crisis that sent oil demand plummeting last year.

But US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that the production boost agreed in July was “simply not enough” to fuel a global recovery.

However, analysts said Wednesday afternoon’s videoconference between the 23 OPEC+ partners was likely to uphold the July decision.

“It would be a surprise if they do anything (else) at the moment, despite pressure from the White House, given current price levels, demand and uncertain outlook,” said Craig Erlam, a market analyst from trading firm Oanda.

– ‘Demand fragility’ –

Helima Croft of RBC Capital Markets also said “staying the course is the most likely outcome” though “some members have expressed concern about the fragility of demand, most notably Kuwait”.

Kuwait Oil Minister Mohammed Al-Fares was quoted by the official Kuna agency as saying on Sunday that “all options” were still on the table. “No decision has been taken,” he said.

And Croft warned against “the perils of predicting” the outcomes of such meetings.

In a rare challenge to OPEC leader Saudi Arabia in July, the United Arab Emirates only agreed to the deal after a compromise was reached to adjust its output quotas next May, together with several other countries, meaning their actual cuts will be less.

Since May this year, OPEC+ members have raised oil output bit by bit with the aim of eventually returning to pre-pandemic production levels, after slashing them more than a year ago when the coronavirus pandemic crushed demand.

The grouping will “assess market developments” in December, OPEC said in July. It also agreed to extend a deadline on capping output from April next year to the end of 2022.

Oil prices — which had already been sliding owing to concerns about the global economy — plummeted in April 2020 as coronavirus spread around the world and hit global consumption, transport and supply chains.

OPEC+ then decided to withdraw 9.7 million bpd from the market and to gradually restore supplies.

Benchmark oil prices rebounded as a result to reach two-and-a-half-year highs.

The main international oil contracts have been trading around $70 per barrel.

But the market remains nervous with Covid infections and the Delta strain on the rise and governments mulling future lockdowns.

South America’s second longest river, the Parana, has dropped to its lowest level since the 1940s, leaving environmentalists and experts worried that climate change is to blame.

The decrease has become so drastic that it is affecting commercial shipping, electricity generation, fishing, tourism, as well as the provision of water for drinking and irrigation.

The effects even extend to the changing of topographies, soil and the mineral composition of the river’s water.

Experts are baffled as to whether this is part of a natural cycle or the result of climate change.

The Parana is linked to the Guarani aquifer — one of the largest underwater fresh water sources in the world — and runs for more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.

It merges with the Paraguay and Uruguay rivers, forming the Rio de la Plata before emptying out into the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way, it splits into several arms and forms the Parana Delta wetlands in Argentina, feeding many agricultural plains.

“The Parana is the largest, most biodiverse and the most important socio-productive wetland in Argentina,” geologist Carlos Ramonell, a professor at the National University of the Littoral in Santa Fe, told AFP.

While the main branch of the river continues to flow, in its network of irrigation channels “only 10 to 20 percent have water, the rest are dry,” said Ramonell.

“People have mentioned Brazilian dams, deforestation and climate change as causes but from a scientific point of view we cannot say. Obviously it is due to a lack of rains, but what provoked that?”

The navigable part of the Parana is vital for landlocked Paraguay and Bolivia.

“It’s not been possible to sail the Parana since April. Goods have to be transported by land to the Paraguay river, which quadruples the cost,” Juan Carlos Munoz, director of the Paraguayan riverboat owners association, told AFP.

Some 4,000 barges, 350 tug boats and 100 container carriers were waiting for the river level to rise.

The rainy season was still three months away.

In May, Brazil exceptionally opened its dams to allow hundreds of barges to pass downstream, but the river level has since dropped too low.

Bolivia’s soy bean exports and diesel imports have been affected.

– ‘Enormous impact’ –

The Parana’s average flow rate is 17,000 cubic meters a second, but that has dropped to just 6,200 — barely above the record low of 5,800 recorded in 1944. 

That has reduced by half the electricity generated by the Yacyreta hydroelectric plant that spans the Parana river between Argentina and Paraguay. The plant supplies 14 percent of Argentina’s electricity.

“Last year we thought we’d hit rock bottom but this year it got worse,” said Marcelo Cardinali, a manager at the plant.

The low water level has affected the ability of fish to reproduce, leaving streams cut off from the main river by sandbanks and blocking off lagoons where they would usually lay their eggs.

“Added to the stress suffered by the biotic system due to being cut off, is the water’s increasing saline content,” said Ramonell.

The dried up streams have exposed piles of rubbish while cattle have started grazing on the weeds that appear at the bottom of empty lagoons.

“With the dropping water level, all the chemicals — mercury, lead — are concentrated on the shore. When the water returns, the fish that suck mud will die. We’re going to see an enormous impact,” said Ana Pirkas, a resident in Goya, a city in Corrientes province that has seen its fishing tourism sector disappear.

A weekend fishing ban has been put in place to protect the river’s 200 fish species.

“Since the dams were built, the river has changed a lot,” said fisherman Ramon Acuna.

Gone are the tarpon — at the base of the Parana fish pyramid — that Acuna’s father used to fish.

“We cannot discount the possibility that the dropping water level is just a natural variable,” said Ramonell, pointing to similar cycles a century ago, when there were no dams, deforestation or global warming.

Who, or what, is to blame is a question yet to be answered.

The World Health Organization has said it is monitoring a new coronavirus variant known as “Mu”, which was first identified in Colombia in January.

Mu, known scientifically as B.1.621, has been classified as a “variant of interest”, the global health body said Tuesday in its weekly pandemic bulletin.

The WHO said the variant has mutations that indicate a risk of resistance to vaccines and stressed that further studies were needed to better understand it.

“The Mu variant has a constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape,” the bulletin said.

There is widespread concern over the emergence of new virus mutations as infection rates are ticking up globally again, with the highly transmissible Delta variant taking hold — especially among the unvaccinated — and in regions where anti-virus measures have been relaxed.

All viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19, mutate over time and most mutations have little or no effect on the properties of the virus.

But certain mutations can impact the properties of a virus and influence how easily it spreads, the severity of the disease it causes, and its resistance to vaccines, drugs and other countermeasures.

The WHO currently identifies four Covid-19 variants of concern, including Alpha, which is present in 193 countries, and Delta, present in 170 countries.

Five variants, including Mu, are to be monitored.

After being detected in Colombia, Mu has since been reported in other South American countries and in Europe.

The WHO said its global prevalence has declined to below 0.1 percent among sequenced cases. In Colombia, however, it is at 39 percent.