Why no one asks the trees?
Three approaches to a new form of environmental journalism
The Fridays for Future movement remains an ongoing journalistic issue. Three ideas on how environmental monitoring can succeed with the journalism of things.
First: Trees. During the great dying of the forests in the 1980s, it was the acid rain that made the trees sick. Today it seems to be pests and the increasing drought caused by climate change that are affecting the trees. Environmentalists, foresters and climate researchers are questioned. And I wonder: Why doesn’t anyone ask the trees? Somebody does. The TreeWatch project gives them a voice. “Compared to yesterday, my sap flow only begins now. 90 minutes later than yesterday. #stress? twitters a maple tree from Gent @TreeWatchFBW in Belgium. And a big Dutch poplar from Wageningen reports @treeWatchWUR: “Yesterday I transported 31,46l and today 30,4l. My stomata are quite well regulated.” Does the poplar sound surprisingly satisfied, doesn’t it? Only the German forest is silent — still. A German oak tree from Veitshöchheim will soon tweet again with technology from the Bavarian State Institute for Viticulture and Horticulture.
Second, poaching. For many journalists, especially in developing countries, research on environmental issues primarily fails because of a lack of data and information. For them, sensor journalism offers the opportunity to collect their own secure data. The waters off Tanzania are usually rather calm. Here there is a separate ecosystem of marine life. But the area is threatened by explosives fishing. Few ruthless fishermen throw dynamite into the water and cause great damage. This is where Sea Sensors comes in. The initiators Gill Braulik, a scientist at the University of St. Andrews who has been working on the protection of marine mammals for 15 years, and her research colleague Jamie Macaulay sank four state-of-the-art sound recorders off the north coast of Tanzania in 2018. Each station has three hydrophones. Gill Braulick writes: “Our goal is to set up a network of underwater acoustic monitoring stations anchored to the seabed along the Tanzanian coast that will log and map each blast as it occurs. The intention is to shine a light on the details of blast fishing — when and where — so that the authorities can target enforcement.” The sensors used are waterproof hydrophones. The three underwater stations are mounted on each side of a triangular steel frame. The frame is aligned to the north so that the data appear on a map in correct orientation. To prevent the nets from getting caught at the sensor stations, they were installed at a depth of 20 meters. The recording unit used is a special design for the University of St. Andrews: waterproof and only active when it gets loud. In quiet areas, the power supply lasts for several months.
Three: Bumblebees. The scientist Vikram Iyer from the University of Washington has found a rather unusual location for environmental sensors. Iyer is actually working on small drones that transport sensors. In an experiment, however, he mounted environmental sensors on a completely different platform. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk, he says: “We took a completely different approach and piggy-backed the sensors onto natural flying machines. Over thousands of years, bumble bees have developed into very efficient flyers. With the right food, they can fly for hours.” Iyer calls his platform “Living IoT”. It weighs only 100 milligrams and is smaller than a grain of rice. To save energy, the measured data is not read until the bumble bees return to their nest.
Bumblebees with sensors, twittering trees and underwater sensors: the new environmental journalism will be quite exciting.
