AFP

The death toll from Hurricane Ida was expected to climb “considerably,” Louisiana’s governor warned Monday, as rescuers combed through the “catastrophic” damage wreaked as it tore through the southern United States as a Category 4 stormsoar.

The city of New Orleans was still without power almost 24 hours after Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast, exactly 16 years to the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall, wreaking deadly havoc.

“The biggest concern is we’re still doing search and rescue and we have individuals all across southeast Louisiana… who are in a bad place,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards told the Today show Monday morning.

One death has been confirmed so far but Edwards said he expected the toll “to go up considerably.”

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.

Branches, broken glass and other debris littered New Orleans’s downtown, while in the touristy French Quarter, a number of trees were uprooted.

Ida — which was downgraded to a tropical storm early Monday — knocked out power for all of New Orleans, with more than a million properties across Louisiana without power, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.US.

“I was there 16 years ago. The wind seems worse this time but the damage seems less bad,” said French Quarter resident Dereck Terry, surveying his neighborhood in flip flops and a t-shirt, umbrella in hand.

“I have a broken window. Some tiles from the roof are on the streets and water came inside,” the 53-year-old retired pharmacist added.

According to Edwards the levee system in the affected parishes had “really held up very well, otherwise we would be facing much more problems today.”

Electricity provider Entergy reported that it was providing back-up power to New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, which operates the pumping stations used to control flooding.

– ‘Total devastation’ –

In the town of Jean Lafitte, just south of New Orleans, mayor Tim Kerner said the rapidly rising waters had overtopped the 7.5-foot-high (2.3-meter) levees.

“Total devastation, catastrophic, our town levees have been overtopped,” Kerner told ABC-affiliate WGNO.

“We have anywhere between 75 to 200 people stranded in Barataria,” after a barge took out the swing bridge to the island.

Cynthia Lee Sheng, president of Jefferson Parish covering part of the Greater New Orleans area, said people were sheltering in their attics.

Several residents of LaPlace, just upstream from New Orleans, posted appeals for help on social media, saying they were trapped by rising flood waters.

“The damage is really catastrophic,” Edwards told Today, adding that Ida had “delivered the surge that was forecasted. The wind that was forecasted and the rain.”

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

One person was killed by a falling tree in Prairieville, 60 miles northwest of New Orleans, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

Edwards reported on Twitter that Louisiana had deployed more than 1,600 personnel to conduct search and rescue across the state.

“We’re going to be responding to this hurricane for quite a while and then we’re going to be recovering from it for many months,” Edwards said.

US Army Major General Hank Taylor told journalists at Pentagon briefing the military, federal emergency management officials and the National Guard had activated more than 5,200 personnel in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama.

“They bring a variety of assets including high water vehicles, rotary lift and other transportation capability to support recovery efforts,” he said.

– ‘Way less debris’ –

Most residents had heeded warnings of catastrophic damage and authorities’ instructions to flee.

“I stayed for Katrina and from what I’ve seen so far there is way less debris in the streets than after Katrina,” Mike, who has lived in the French Quarter, told AFP Monday, declining to give his last name.

The memory of Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, is still fresh in the state, where it caused some 1,800 deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

The National Hurricane Center issued warnings of storm surges and flash floods over portions of southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi and southern Alabama as Ida travels northeast.

As of 1500 GMT Monday, Ida was located about 65 miles (105 kilometers) southwest of Jackson, Mississippi, packing maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour.

The storm system will move further inland and is expected to be located over western and central Mississippi by Monday afternoon, before tracking across the United States all the way to the mid-Atlantic through Wednesday, creating the potential for flash flooding along the way.

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.

Drivers in Paris faced longer trips Monday as a lower speed limit of 30 kilometres per hour came into effect for most of the capital’s streets, part of Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s pledge to reduce traffic and pollution.

While the measure has been praised by environmental groups and many residents, critics accuse the leftwing Hidalgo, who is weighing a bid for the presidency, of penalising millions of people who drive into the French capital each day for work.

Nearly two-thirds of Paris’s roads were already limited to 30 kph (19 miles per hour), mostly along narrow streets or those near schools, in line with the maximum imposed in other large cities such as Lille or Nantes.

Now only a handful of major thoroughfares, including the iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard, will let people cruise at 50 kph.

The Paris ring road or “Peripherique,” one of Europe’s most heavily used with some 1.1 million users each day, will also remain at 70 kph, though Hidalgo has said she wants to reduce lane numbers to make more room for bikes and pedestrians.

Taxis and delivery drivers in particular have assailed the lower speeds as impractical and unnecessary.

“It’s not easy to stay at just 30 kph in a bus lane,” Smail Chekimi, who has driven his cab for 28 years, told AFP.

“This morning I was a bit stressed, a client was pretty angry because a trip took five to ten minutes longer than normal,” Chekimi said.

“Some taxi drivers might decide to quit because of it.”

– ‘More complicated’ –

For Fabrice Bosc, a glass fitter who relies on his delivery van, the new limits will only create bigger traffic jams in the capital.

“We already have enough trouble working with the 50 kph limit, at 30 kph things are just going to get more complicated,” said Bosc, 55.

The move comes as Hidalgo also pushes ahead with the removal of 60,000 of the city’s roughly 140,000 street-level parking spaces.

City officials say they are responding to tougher pollution rules and a broad public consensus on the need to encourage public transport and other alternatives such as bikes or electric scooters.

An opinion poll commissioned by City Hall late last year found that 59 percent of Parisians approved the lower speed limits — though it was supported by just 36 percent of people living in the suburbs.

“It’s true that there’s too much noise — sometimes you can’t even hear people when they’re talking,” said Marie Hiz, who manages the Carrefour (The Crossroad) cafe on a corner of the busy Miromesnil street.

“At 30 kph, things are going to change. We’ll have fewer cars and people will pay more attention,” Hiz said.

But she sympathised with deliverers and others who drive for a living.

“Imagine a driver who has to go all over Paris, all day, at just 30 kph. Even at 60 kph he still never arrives on time,” she said.

– Will it work? –

So far, however, few drivers appeared to be respecting the lower limits during the Monday morning rush hour.

“You can’t see any difference yet,” said Pierre Morizot, a 32-year-old cyclist who was on the Boulevard Haussmann, where 30 kph is now the norm.

“There are more and more bikes and there are lanes are everywhere, but we’re still very close to cars, so slowing them down will make things safer,” he said.

But many drivers said the lower limits would be nearly impossible to enforce and might have only a minimal impact on actual driving speeds.

“All the cities that have gone to 30 kph put forward the same arguments — pollution, noise, accidents,” Pierre Chasseray, head of the 40 Million Motorists association, told AFP.

“Except that when you look at it closely, you see that the introduction of 30 kph has not led to a reduction in speed. So in the end, there is no reduction in sound, there is no reduction in pollution,” he said.

The use of leaded petrol has been eradicated from the globe, a milestone that will prevent more than 1.2 million premature deaths and save world economies over $2.4 trillion annually, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said Monday.

Nearly a century after doctors first issued warnings about the toxic effects of leaded petrol, Algeria — the last country to use the fuel — exhausted its supplies last month, UNEP said, calling the news a landmark win in the fight for cleaner air.

“The successful enforcement of the ban on leaded petrol is a huge milestone for global health and our environment,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP, which is headquartered in Nairobi. 

Even as recently as two decades ago, more than 100 countries around the world were still using leaded petrol, despite studies linking it to premature deaths, poor health and soil and air pollution.

Concerns were raised as early as 1924, when dozens of workers were hospitalised and five declared dead after suffering convulsions at a refinery run by US giant Standard Oil, nicknamed the “looney gas building” by staff. 

Nevertheless, until the 1970s almost all the gasoline sold across the globe contained lead.

When UNEP launched its campaign in 2002, many major economic powers had already stopped using the fuel, including the United States, China and India. But the situation in lower-income nations remained dire.

– ‘End of a toxic era’ –

By 2016, after North Korea, Myanmar and Afghanistan stopped selling leaded petrol, only a handful of countries were still operating service stations providing the fuel, with Algeria finally following Iraq and Yemen in ending its reliance on the pollutant.

UNEP said in a statement that the eradication of leaded petrol would “prevent more than 1.2 million premature deaths per year, increase IQ points among children, save $2.44 trillion (2.07 trillion euros) for the global economy, and decrease crime rates.”

The agency said the dollar figure came from a 2010 study led by scientists at California State University at Northridge.

Its chief factors were the benefits of better health for the overall economy; lower medical costs; and a dip in criminal activity — higher crime rates have previously been linked to exposure to leaded fuel.

UNEP warned that fossil fuel use in general must still be drastically reduced to stave off the frightening effects of climate change.

Greenpeace hailed the news as “a celebration of the end of one toxic era.”

“It clearly shows that if we can phase out one of the most dangerous polluting fuels in the 20th century, we can absolutely phase out all fossil fuels,” said Thandile Chinyavanhu, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Africa.

“Africa’s governments must give no more excuses for the fossil fuel industry,” she added.

Globally, vehicle sales are set to climb exponentially, particularly in emerging markets.

“The transport sector is responsible for nearly a quarter of energy-related global greenhouse gas emissions and is set to grow to one third by 2050,” UNEP said, adding that 1.2 billion new vehicles would hit the streets in the coming decades.

“This includes millions of poor-quality used vehicles exported from Europe, the United States and Japan, to mid- and low-income countries. 

“This contributes to planet warming and air polluting traffic and (is) bound to cause accidents,” the global body said.

Earlier this month, a bombshell report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that Earth’s average temperature would be 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer around 2030 compared to pre-industrial times.

A decade earlier than projected, the rise has raised alarm bells about the use of fossil fuels.

Flood waters rose Monday across northeastern India, where hundreds of thousands of people are stranded on the roofs of their homes or have fled to higher ground as more torrential rain fell.

Incessant downpours for more than a week forced the Brahmaputra and other major rivers to burst their banks across Assam and Bihar states.

Up to two metres (6.6 feet) of water has submerged many villages. Experts say annual floods which hit the region are getting worse because of climate change.

At one dam, authorities released water fearing the walls would collapse. 

The floods have also threatened a UNESCO World Heritage-listed reserve that is home to the largest concentration of one-horned rhinos.

Tens of thousands of people are stuck in villages cut off by the floods and the state governments said more than 400,000 had been moved to higher ground.

Sixteen-year-old Anuwara Khatun said she and her family have spent nearly a week on the roof of their home at Ghasbari in Assam’s Morigaon district. 

“The water level has been rising for five days now,” she told AFP by telephone from her stricken village on the banks of the Brahmaputra. 

“A lot of families are stuck on their roofs. There is a shortage of essential supplies so we only eat once a day. There is no hygiene here.”

Santosh Mandal moved his family to a sandbank in Bihar’s Supaul district after his village was flooded.

“There is no clean water to drink, food to eat and the children are crying for milk. We are praying for help because the government has yet to send relief,” Mandal said. 

The Bihar government has sent rescue boats to get people to safety but these are concentrated in the worst-hit districts.

The Bihar and Assam governments said more than 12,000 people were in relief camps.

The Bihar government opened up the Valmiki Gandak dam, warning people in nearby villages to move away, after 16 centimetres (six inches) of rain fell in 24 hours.

About 70 percent of the 430-square-kilometre (166-square-mile) Kaziranga National Park in Assam is underwater, threatening its rare one-horned rhinoceroses as well as elephants and wild boar. 

Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam’s chief minister, on Monday made an “urgent appeal” for traffic to avoid a key highway through the reserve.

He said animals that seek shelter on the highway were now at risk.

In the freshwater swamp forest of Hlanzoun in southern Benin, majestic trees hum with chirping birds and playful monkeys.

Home to once bustling flora and fauna, experts now warn that the fragile environment, one of the last of its kind in the West African country and accessible only by canoe, is at risk of disappearing.

The 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of forest, which takes its name from the river Hlan, is home to 241 plant and 160 animal species including the rare red-bellied monkey, the marsh mongoose and the sitatunga, a swamp-dwelling antelope.

Perched at the top of a gigantic tree squawks a hornbill — a big bird known for its long, down-curved and colourful bill, similar to toucans. 

“Hornbills feed on insects and fruits. They like to follow monkeys around because they force insects to come out when they move around, making it easier for hornbills to catch,” explains Vincent Romera, a French ornithologist and photographer.

With his binoculars, Romera admires a family of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, while keeping a clear distance. 

“The animals here have become fearful,” he says. He’s considering using camera traps to try to photograph them, but also to count the forest’s animal population.

“The numbers are in freefall,” he says.

Sometimes, the forest’s noisy concert is interrupted by gun shots, he says, probably from poachers.

– Logging –

Communities living around the forest “need money, so those who can shoot go and kill animals,” explains Roger Hounkanrin, a local tourist guide.

Despite steady economic growth in recent years, poverty is widespread in Benin, especially in rural areas, and 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line according to World Bank data.

On the side of the road that lines Hlanzoun forest, lizards, crocodiles and snakes killed by hunters are sold and bought. Monkeys, too, are sometimes sold for meat. 

But even more than poaching, excessive logging threatens the forest.

Between 2005 and 2015, Benin’s forest cover was slashed by more than 20 percent according to the World Bank, and the deforestation rate continues to be high at 2.2 percent annually.

Trees are cut down for firewood, and the fermented sap of palm trees is used to make a local alcohol, sodabi. 

The damaging practice of slash-and burn agriculture has also become more prevalent, warns Josea Dossou Bodjrenou, director of Nature Tropicale, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works on environmental issues in Benin.

The destruction of the forest habitat reduces areas where animals can thrive, forcing them towards farms to find food and exposing them to poachers.

“This is a location that is at risk of disappearing,” says local agricultural economist Judicael Alladatin. 

“It’s a poor area and we can’t blame people for wanting to feed themselves,” Alladatin says, urging authorities “to create conditions for alternative sources of income.”

The government does not officially recognise Hlanzoun forest despite the lobbying efforts of several NGOs and scientific papers on the forest since 2000.

But it has started to recognise the importance of safeguarding forests in general, according to the World Bank.

In Hlanzoun, the state “must act quickly” said Bodjrenou, and “support forest communities so that they can continue to make profit… but in a different way” by developing agriculture, trade and sustainable tourism.

Powerful Hurricane Ida battered the southern US state of Louisiana, leaving at least one dead and knocking out power for more than a million people, including the whole of New Orleans.

Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm on Sunday, 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, but had weakened to a tropical storm early Monday.

The storm knocked out power for all of New Orleans, with more than a million customers across Louisiana without power, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.US.

“We have now lost power, citywide! This is the time to continue to remain in your safe places. It isn’t a time to venture out!!,” New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell said on Twitter.

Electricity provider Entergy said it was providing back-up power to New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, which operates the pumping stations used to control flooding.

The National Weather Service issued warnings of storm surges and flash floods for several areas, including the town of Jean Lafitte, just south of New Orleans, where mayor Tim Kerner said the rapidly rising waters had overtopped the 7.5-foot-high (2.3-meter) levees.

“Total devastation, catastrophic, our town levees have been overtopped,” Kerner told ABC-affiliate WGNO.

“We have anywhere between 75 to 200 people stranded in Barataria,” after a barge took out the swing bridge to the island.

“The winds are still too strong, we can’t put boats in the water to get to them,” he told WGNO.

“This is a very dangerous situation. I’ve never seen so much water in my life,” he said.

Cynthia Lee Sheng, president of Jefferson Parish covering part of the Greater New Orleans area, said people were sheltering in their attics.

“We really believe the calls coming in here to our emergency operations center, is that people are in attics in Lower Lafitte,” she told WGNO.

She said the power was out but rescue teams, including the Louisiana National Guard, were ready to help once they can safely get to the area.

Several residents of LaPlace, just upstream from New Orleans, posted appeals for help on social media, saying they were trapped by rising flood waters.

President Joe Biden, who described Ida as “a life-threatening storm,” declared a major disaster for Louisiana, which gives it access to federal aid.

One person was killed by a falling tree in Prairieville, 60 miles northwest of New Orleans, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

Throughout Sunday showers and strong winds swept New Orleans’ deserted streets, buffeting boarded-up windows at businesses and homes surrounded by sandbags.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said Ida could be the most powerful storm to hit the state since 1850.

“There is no doubt that the coming days and weeks are going to be extremely difficult,” he said at a briefing Sunday.

– ‘Not sure if I’m prepared’ –

Most residents had heeded warnings of catastrophic damage and authorities’ instructions to flee.

In one neighborhood in eastern New Orleans, a few residents were completing preparations just hours before landfall.

“I’m not sure if I’m prepared,” said Charles Fields, who was bringing his garden furniture indoors, “but we just have to ride it.”

“We’ll see how it holds up,” added the 60-year-old, who in 2005 saw Hurricane Katrina flood his house with 11 feet (3.3 meters) of water.

– ‘Very serious test’ –

Governor Edwards warned on Sunday that Ida would be “a very serious test for our levee systems,” an extensive network of pumps, gates and earthen and concrete berms that was expanded after Katrina.

He told CNN that hundreds of thousands of residents were believed to have evacuated.

The storm “presents some very challenging difficulties for us, with the hospitals being so full of Covid patients,” he said.

With a low rate of vaccination, Louisiana is among the states hit hardest by the pandemic, severely stressing hospitals.

Hospitalizations, at 2,700 on Saturday, are near their pandemic high.

The memory of Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, is still fresh in Louisiana, where it caused some 1,800 deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

Rainfall of 10 to 18 inches (25 to 46 centimeters) is expected in parts of southern Louisiana through Monday, with up to 24 inches in some areas.

As of 4 am Monday, the storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 60 miles per hour (97 kph) and was expected to continue weakening as it moves over land, with a predicted track taking it north over the central United States before veering eastward, reaching the mid-Atlantic region by Wednesday.

The White House said Sunday that federal agencies had deployed more than 2,000 emergency workers to the region — including 13 urban search-and-rescue teams — along with food and water supplies and electric generators.

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.

Powerful Hurricane Ida battered the southern US state of Louisiana and plunged New Orleans into darkness Sunday, leaving at least one person dead 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm but had weakened to a Category 1 by early Monday.

The storm knocked out power for all of New Orleans, with more than a million customers across Louisiana without power, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.US.

“We have now lost power, citywide! This is the time to continue to remain in your safe places. It isn’t a time to venture out!!,” New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell said on Twitter.

Electricity provider Entergy said it was providing back up power to New Orleans Sewage and Water Board, which operates the pumping stations used to control flooding.

The National Weather Service issued warnings of storm surges and flash floods for several areas, including the town of Jean Lafitte, just south of New Orleans, where mayor Tim Kerner said the levees had been breached by rapidly rising waters.

“Total devastation, catastrophic, our town levees have been overtopped,” Kerner told ABC-affiliate WGNO.

“We have anywhere between 75 to 200 people stranded in Barataria,” after a barge took out the swing bridge to the island.

“The winds are still too strong, we can’t put boats in the water to get to them,” he told WGNO.

“We have a small group trying to take out the people in the most imminent danger,” Kerner said. “This is a very dangerous situation. I’ve never seen so much water in my life.”

President Joe Biden, who described Ida as “a life-threatening storm,” declared a major disaster for Louisiana, which gives it access to federal aid.

One person was killed by a falling tree in Prairieville, 60 miles northwest of New Orleans, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

Throughout the morning showers and strong wind swept the city’s deserted streets, buffeting boarded-up windows at businesses and homes surrounded by sandbags.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said Ida could be the most powerful storm to hit the state since 1850.

“There is no doubt that the coming days and weeks are going to be extremely difficult,” he said at a briefing Sunday, adding that some people might have to shelter in place for up to 72 hours.

“Find the safest place in your house and stay there until the storm passes,” he tweeted earlier.

– ‘Not sure if I’m prepared’ –

Most residents had heeded warnings of catastrophic damage and authorities’ instructions to flee.

In one neighborhood in eastern New Orleans, a few residents were completing preparations just hours before landfall.

“I’m not sure if I’m prepared,” said Charles Fields, who was bringing his garden furniture indoors, “but we just have to ride it.”

“We’ll see how it holds up,” added the 60-year-old, who in 2005 saw Hurricane Katrina flood his house with 11 feet (3.3 meters) of water.

– ‘Very serious test’ –

Governor Edwards warned on Sunday that Ida would be “a very serious test for our levee systems,” an extensive network of pumps, gates and earthen and concrete berms that was expanded after Katrina.

He told CNN that hundreds of thousands of residents were believed to have evacuated.

The storm “presents some very challenging difficulties for us, with the hospitals being so full of Covid patients,” he said.

With a low rate of vaccination, Louisiana is among the states hit hardest by the pandemic, severely stressing hospitals.

Hospitalizations, at 2,700 on Saturday, are near their pandemic high.

The memory of Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, is still fresh in Louisiana, where it caused some 1,800 deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

Rainfall of 10 to 18 inches (25 to 46 centimeters) is expected in parts of southern Louisiana through Monday, with up to 24 inches in some areas.

As of 1:00 am Monday, the storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kph) and was expected to continue weakening as it moves over land, with a predicted track taking it north over the central United States before veering eastward, reaching the mid-Atlantic region by Wednesday.

The White House said Sunday that federal agencies had deployed more than 2,000 emergency workers to the region — including 13 urban search-and-rescue teams — along with food and water supplies and electric generators. 

Local authorities, the Red Cross and other organizations have prepared dozens of shelters with room for at least 16,000 people, the White House added.

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.

In the freshwater swamp forest of Hlanzoun in southern Benin, majestic trees hum with chirping birds and playful monkeys.

Home to once bustling flora and fauna, experts now warn that the fragile environment, one of the last of its kind in the West African country and accessible only by canoe, is at risk of disappearing.

The 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of forest, which takes its name from the river Hlan, is home to 241 plant and 160 animal species including the rare red-bellied monkey, the marsh mongoose and the sitatunga, a swamp-dwelling antelope.

Perched at the top of a gigantic tree squawks a hornbill — a big bird known for its long, down-curved and colourful bill, similar to toucans. 

“Hornbills feed on insects and fruits. They like to follow monkeys around because they force insects to come out when they move around, making it easier for hornbills to catch,” explains Vincent Romera, a French ornithologist and photographer.

With his binoculars, Romera admires a family of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, while keeping a clear distance. 

“The animals here have become fearful,” he says. He’s considering using camera traps to try to photograph them, but also to count the forest’s animal population.

“The numbers are in freefall,” he says.

Sometimes, the forest’s noisy concert is interrupted by gun shots, he says, probably from poachers.

– Logging –

Communities living around the forest “need money, so those who can shoot go and kill animals,” explains Roger Hounkanrin, a local tourist guide.

Despite steady economic growth in recent years, poverty is widespread in Benin, especially in rural areas, and 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line according to World Bank data.

On the side of the road that lines Hlanzoun forest, lizards, crocodiles and snakes killed by hunters are sold and bought. Monkeys, too, are sometimes sold for meat. 

But even more than poaching, excessive logging threatens the forest.

Between 2005 and 2015, Benin’s forest cover was slashed by more than 20 percent according to the World Bank, and the deforestation rate continues to be high at 2.2 percent annually.

Trees are cut down for firewood, and the fermented sap of palm trees is used to make a local alcohol, sodabi. 

The damaging practice of slash-and burn agriculture has also become more prevalent, warns Josea Dossou Bodjrenou, director of Nature Tropicale, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works on environmental issues in Benin.

The destruction of the forest habitat reduces areas where animals can thrive, forcing them towards farms to find food and exposing them to poachers.

“This is a location that is at risk of disappearing,” says local agricultural economist Judicael Alladatin. 

“It’s a poor area and we can’t blame people for wanting to feed themselves,” Alladatin says, urging authorities “to create conditions for alternative sources of income.”

The government does not officially recognise Hlanzoun forest despite the lobbying efforts of several NGOs and scientific papers on the forest since 2000.

But it has started to recognise the importance of safeguarding forests in general, according to the World Bank.

In Hlanzoun, the state “must act quickly” said Bodjrenou, and “support forest communities so that they can continue to make profit… but in a different way” by developing agriculture, trade and sustainable tourism.

Hundreds of Aussie sporting heroes — from rugby captain Michael Hooper, to pace bowler Pat Cummins and world champion surfer Mick Fanning — teamed up Monday to demand the government do more to tackle climate change.

In an online petition dubbed “The Cool Down” a raft of Australian sports stars demanded the country’s conservative leaders step up their game and adopt more ambitious carbon targets.

“Like so many Australians, we’ve experienced the impacts of climate change first hand,” the group of around three hundred athletes said.

“But at the moment, if climate action was the Olympics, Australia isn’t winning gold, we’re not making the finals, in fact, we don’t even qualify.”

Sports-mad Australia has been at the sharp end of climate change in recent years, with intense droughts, bushfires, floods and Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching all made worse by atmospheric warming.

But the country’s conservative ruling coalition has slow-peddled efforts to address the problem, instead vowing to build new coal mines and refusing allies’ demands to set a deadline for net-zero carbon emissions.

After a landmark UN climate report last month warned catastrophic global warming is occurring far more quickly than previously forecast, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would not follow other advanced economies in adopting a net-zero target.

Australia is one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters, sending vast quantities of gas and coal overseas which piles cash into the coffers of a mining sector with close ties to the government and Labor opposition. 

Morrison — who once proudly brought a lump of coal onto the floor of parliament — has sought to deflect focus onto developing countries and the need for new technology, which he said was key to solving the crisis.

Signatory and recently retired rugby superstar David Pocock rejected criticism that the stars should “stick to sport” and stay out of politics.

“Yep, we’ve heard that one before,” he tweeted. “As athletes we care about our families, communities and the next generation of Aussie kids coming through. We can’t stand by. It’s time to step up our climate ambition and action.”

Other signatories included Davis Cup-winning tennis star Mark Philippoussis, swim veteran Cate Campbell, golfer Karrie Webb and Wallabies stalwarts Nick ‘Honey Badger’ Cummins, Matt Giteau, James O’Connor, Samu Kerevi, Christian Leali’ifano, and Drew Mitchell.

Scientists have discovered what is believed to be the world’s northernmost landmass — a yet-to-be-named island north of Greenland that could soon be swallowed up by seawaters. 

Researchers came upon the landmass on an expedition in July, and initially thought they had reached Oodaaq, up until now the northernmost island on the planet. 

“We were informed that there had been an error on my GPS which had led us to believe that we were standing on Oodaaq Island,” said the head of the mission, Morten Rasch from Copenhagen University’s department of geosciences and natural resource management. 

“In reality, we had discovered a new island further north, a discovery that just slightly expands the kingdom” of Denmark, he added. 

Oodaaq is some 700 kilometres (435 miles) south of the North Pole, while the new island is 780 metres (2,560 feet) north of Oodaaq.

Copenhagen University said in a statement late Friday the “yet-to-be-named island is… the northernmost point of Greenland and one of the most northerly points of land on Earth.”

But it is only 30 to 60 metres above sea level, and Rasch said it could be a “short-lived islet”.

“No one knows how long it will remain. In principle, it could disappear as soon as a powerful new storm hits.”

The autonomous Danish territory of Greenland has grabbed headlines in recent years, most notably in 2019 when former US president Donald Trump said he wanted to buy the Arctic territory. 

The proposal, described as “absurd” by the Danish government, caused a diplomatic kerfuffle, but also signalled renewed American interest in the region.

It has also been hard hit by climate change as warmer temperatures have melted its glaciers, causing alarming sea level rise.