Eco Minute 13:30

BULLETIN 11 June 1:30 pm

Good afternoon, here is your Eco Minute:

# Seventy southern white rhinos from South Africa’s Munywana Conservancy have been successfully relocated to Rwanda’s Akagera National Park. The move was part of a strategic ten-year plan to rewild rhinos to safe, suitable and well-managed protected areas of Africa. The rhinos represent around 15-percent of the world’s total population of white rhinos. The African Parks’ Rhino Rewild Initiative aims to disperse the animals to safe, well-managed protected areas across the continent, bolstering existing populations.

# The average level of six major dams in the Western Cape is back above 60-percent of capacity. Combined levels are now 63.2-percent, up from last week’s 60.3-percent. The largest dam, Theewaterskloof, is at 62.1-percent, and Voëlvlei at 58.2-percent. Recent heavy rainfall has pushed levels higher across all six dams. The City of Cape Town believes although the dam levels are slightly lower than this time last year, the increase is significant as winter sets in.

# And finally: United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, is urging world leaders to confront the powerful interests driving marine destruction, from illegal fishing and plastic pollution to the accelerating impacts of climate change. The third United Nations Ocean Conference, a high-level summit co-chaired by France and Costa Rica, is currently underway in Nice, France. Over 60-percent of marine ecosystems are degraded or unsustainably used. Guterres says the ocean is under siege and greed is to blame:

Stay tuned for more news………….