Italy’s Lake Garda Shrinks To Near-Historic Low Amid Drought

Italy’s worst drought in decades has reduced Lake Garda, the country’s largest lake, to near its lowest level ever recorded, exposing swaths of previously underwater rocks and warming the water to temperatures that approach the average in the Caribbean Sea.

Tourists flocking to the popular northern lake Friday for the start of Italy’s key summer long weekend found a vastly different landscape than in past years. An expansive stretch of bleached rock extended far from the normal shoreline, ringing the southern Sirmione Peninsula with a yellow halo between the green hues of the water and the trees on the shore.

“We came last year, we liked it, and we came back this year,” tourist Beatrice Masi said as she sat on the rocks. “We found the landscape had changed a lot. We were a bit shocked when we arrived because we had our usual walk around, and the water wasn’t there.”

Northern Italy hasn’t seen significant rainfall for months, and snowfall this year was down 70%, drying up important rivers like the Po, which flows across Italy’s agricultural and industrial heartland. Many European countries, including Spain, Germany, Portugal, France, the Netherlands and Britain, are enduring droughts this summer that have hurt farmers and shippers and promoted authorities to restrict water use.

The parched condition of the Po, Italy’s longest river, has already caused billions of euros in losses to farmers who normally rely on it to irrigate fields and rice paddies.

To compensate, authorities allowed more water from Lake Garda to flow out to local rivers — 70 cubic meters (2,472 cubic feet) of water per second. But in late July, they reduced the amount to protect the lake and the financially important tourism tied to it.

With 45 cubic meters (1,589 cubic feet) of water per second being diverted to rivers, the lake on Friday was 32 centimeters (12.6 inches) above the water table, near the record lows in 2003 and 2007.

Garda Mayor Davide Bedinelli said he had to protect both farmers and the tourist industry. He insisted that the summer tourist season was going better than expected, despite cancellations, mostly from German tourists, during Italy’s latest heat wave in late July.

“Drought is a fact that we have to deal with this year, but the tourist season is in no danger,” Bendinelli wrote in a July 20 Facebook post.

He confirmed the lake was losing two centimeters (.78 inches) of water a day.

The lake’s temperature, meanwhile, has been above average for August, according to seatemperature.org. On Friday, the Garda’s water was nearly 26 degrees Celsius (78 degrees Fahrenheit), several degrees warmer than the average August temperature of 22 C (71.6 F) and nearing the Caribbean Sea’s average of around 27 C (80 F).

For Mario Treccani, who owns a lakefront concession of beach chairs and umbrellas, the lake’s expanded shoreline means fewer people are renting his chairs since there are now plenty of rocks on which to sunbathe.

“The lake is usually a meter or more than a meter higher,” he said from the rocks.

Pointing to a small wall that usually blocks the water from the beach chairs, he recalled that on windy days, sometimes waves from the lake would splash up onto the tourists.

Not anymore.

“It is a bit sad. Before, you could hear the noise of the waves breaking up here. Now, you don’t hear anything,” he said.

By ANDREA ROSA and LUIGI NAVARRA

Getty Museum In LA To Return Illegally Exported Art To Italy

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is returning ancient sculptures and other works of art that were illegally exported from Italy, the museum announced Thursday.

The Getty will return a nearly life-size group of Greek terra-cotta sculptures known as “Orpheus and the Sirens,” believed to date from the fourth century B.C., according to the museum.

The sculpture group was purchased by J. Paul Getty in 1976 shortly before his death and had been on display for decades.

However, the museum now believes they were illegally excavated and taken out of Italy, based on evidence uncovered by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, the Getty said in a statement.

“It’s just extremely rare and there’s nothing similar in our collection, or closely similar in any collection,” Getty Museum director Timothy Potts told the Los Angeles Times. “It does leave a hole in our gallery but with this evidence that came forth, there was no question that it needed to be sent back to Italy.”

The fragile sculptures will be sent to Rome in September to join collections designated by the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Getty said.

The museum also is working with the Ministry of Culture to arrange the return of four other objects at a future date. Those include a “colossal marble head of a divinity” and a stone mold for casting pendants, both from the second century A.D., along with an Etruscan bronze incense burner from the fourth century B.C. and a 19th century painting by Camillo Miola entitled “Oracle at Delphi,” the Getty said.

These Are The Worst Airports For Summer Travel (In The US And Europe)

New data from AirHelp, an air passenger rights company, reveals the worst airports for on-time performance in both the U.S. and Europe. AirHelp looked at flights from peak summer travel season (May 27, 2022 – July 31, 2022) and found the following:

US – Airports with most cancellations (based on % of cancelled flights)

*For reference, about 2.6% of all flights across the US were cancelled

LGA – LaGuardia Airport (7.7%)

EWR - Newark Liberty International Airport (7.6%)

DCA - Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (5.9%)

PIT – Pittsburgh International Airport (4.1%)

BOS – Boston Logan International Airport (4%)

CLT – Charlotte Douglas International Airport (3.8%)

PHL – Philadelphia International Airport (3.8%)

CLE – Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (3.7%)

MIA – Miami International Airport (3.7%)

JFK – John F. Kennedy International Airport (3.6%)

Europe – Airports with most cancellations (based on % of cancelled flights)

*For reference, about 2.3% of all flights across Europe were cancelled (between May 27, 2022 – July 31, 2022)

OSL – Oslo Gardermoen Airport – 8.3%

CGN – Cologne / Bonn Apt – 6.7%

BGO – Bergen – 5.5%

FRA – Frankfurt International Airport – 5.1%

HAM – Hamburg Airport – 4.9%

MXP – Milan Malpensa Apt – 4.7%

CPH – Copenhagen Kastrup Apt – 4.6%

AMS – Amsterdam – 4.3%

ARN – Stockholm Arlanda Apt – 4.3%

DUS – Duesseldorf International Airport – 4.1%

African Wildlife Parks Face Climate, Infrastructure Threats

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Africa’s national parks, home to thousands of wildlife species such as lions, elephants and buffaloes, are increasingly threatened by below-average rainfall and new infrastructure projects.

A prolonged drought in much of the continent’s east, exacerbated by climate change, and large-scale developments, including oil drilling and livestock grazing, are hampering conservation efforts in protected areas, several environmental experts say.

The at-risk parks stretch all the way from Kenya in the east — home to Tsavo and Nairobi national parks — south to the Mkomazi and Serengeti parks in Tanzania, the Quirimbas and Gorongosa parks in Mozambique and the famous Kruger National Park in South Africa, and west to the Kahuzi Biega, Salonga and Virunga reserves in Congo.

The parks not only protect flora and fauna but also act as natural carbon sinks — storing carbon dioxide emitted into the air and reducing the effects of global warming.

An estimated 38% of Africa’s biodiversity areas are under severe threat from climate change and infrastructure development, said Ken Mwathe of BirdLife International.

“Key biodiversity areas over the years, especially in Africa, have been regarded by investors as idle and ready for development,” said Mwathe. “Governments allocate land in these areas for infrastructural development.”

He added that the “powerlines and other energy infrastructure cause collisions with birds, due to low visibility. The numbers killed this way are not few.”

In their quest to bolster living standards and achieve sustainable development goals, such as access to clean water and food, boosting jobs and economic growth and improving the quality of education, African governments have set their sights on large building projects, many of them funded by foreign investments, especially by China.

The proposed East African Oil Pipeline, for example, which the Ugandan government says can help lift millions out of poverty, runs through Uganda’s Kidepo valley, Murchison Falls and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, threatening species and drawing criticism from climate campaigners.

The growth of urban populations and the building that goes with it, like new roads, electricity grids, gas pipes, ports and railways, have also added to the pressure on parks, conservationists said.

But they add that replacing wildlife with infrastructure is the wrong approach for economic growth.

“We have to have a future where wildlife is not separated from people,” said Sam Shaba, the program manager at the Honeyguide Foundation in Tanzania, an environmental non-profit organization.

When “people start to see that living with wildlife provides the answer to sustainable development ... that’s the game-changer,” said Shaba.

Most of Africa’s wildlife parks were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by colonial regimes that fenced off the areas and ordered local people to stay out. But now conservationists are finding that a more inclusive approach to running the parks and seeking the expertise of Indigenous communities that live around the parks can help protect them, said Ademola Ajagbe, Africa regional managing director of The Nature Conservancy.

“The inhabitants of these areas are forcefully evicted or prevented from living there such as the Maasai (in Tanzania and Kenya), Twa and Mbutis (in central Africa) who for generations have lived with wildlife,” said Simon Counseill, an advisor with Survival International.

“Africa is depicted as a place of wildlife without people living there and this narrative needs to change,” he said.

“If we don’t pay attention to communities’ social needs, health, education and where they are getting water, we miss the key thing,” said John Kasaona the executive director of the Integrated Rural Development in Nature Conservation in Namibia.

The effects of worsening weather conditions in national parks due to climate change should also not be ignored, experts said.

A recent study conducted in Kruger National Park linked extreme weather events to the loss of plants and animals, unable cope with the drastic conditions and lack of water due to longer dry spells and hotter temperatures.

Drought has seriously threatened species like rhinos, elephants and lions as it reduces the amount of food available, said Philip Wandera, a former warden with the Kenya Wildlife Service who’s now range management lecturer at the Catholic University of East Africa.

More intensive management of parks and removing fences that prevent species from migrating to less drought-prone areas are important first steps to protecting wildlife, Wandera said.

He added that financial help to “support communities in and around national parks” would also help preserve them.

Native Americans Urge Boycott Of ‘Tone Deaf’ Pilgrim Museum

Native Americans in Massachusetts are calling for a boycott of a popular living history museum featuring Colonial reenactors portraying life in Plymouth, the famous English settlement founded by the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower.

Members of the state’s Wampanoag community and their supporters say Plimoth Patuxet Museums has not lived up to its promise of creating a “bi-cultural museum” that equally tells the story of the European and Indigenous peoples that lived there.
They say the “ Historic Patuxet Homesite,” the portion of the mostly outdoor museum focused on traditional Indigenous life, is inadequately small, in need of repairs and staffed by workers who aren’t from local tribes.

“We’re saying don’t patronize them, don’t work over there,” said Camille Madison, a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe on Martha’s Vineyard, who was among those recently venting their frustrations on social media. “We don’t want to engage with them until they can find a way to respect Indigenous knowledge and experience.”

The concerns come just two years after the museum changed its name from Plimoth Plantation to Plimoth Patuxet as part of a yearlong celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing.

At the time, the museum declared the “new, more balanced” moniker reflected the importance of the Indigenous perspective to the 75-year-old institution’s educational mission.

“Patuxet” was an Indigenous community near “Plimoth,” as the Pilgrim colony was known before becoming modern day Plymouth. It was badly decimated by European diseases by the time the Mayflower arrived, but one of its survivors, Tisquantum, commonly known as Squanto, famously helped the English colonists survive their first winter.

“They’ve changed the name but haven’t changed the attitude,” said Paula Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe who worked for nearly 20 years at the museum, most recently as marketing director. “They’ve done nothing to ingratiate themselves with tribes. Every step they take is tone deaf.”

Museum spokesperson Rob Kluin, in a statement emailed to The Associated Press, said the museum has expanded the outdoor Wampanoag exhibit, raised more than $2 million towards a new Indigenous programs building and has “several initiatives in place” to recruit and retain staff from Native communities. He declined to elaborate.

The statement also cited a pair of grants the museum received to boost its Native American education programming. That included more than $160,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to host a workshop this summer for teachers on how to incorporate Indigenous voices into their history lessons.

The museum also noted that its new director of Algonquian Exhibits and Interpretation is an Aquinnah Wampanoag who serves on his tribe’s education committee.

Carol Pollard, whose late brother Anthony “Nanepashemet” Pollard played a key role in the development of the museum’s Indigenous programming as a leading Wampanoag historian, was among those dismayed at the state of the site.

Last week, large gaps were evident in the battered tree bark roof of the large wetu, or traditional Wampanoag dwelling, that is a focal point of the Indigenous exhibit. Neither of the two museum interpreters on site was wearing traditional tribal attire. Meanwhile, on the Pilgrim settlement part of the museum, thatched roofs on the Colonial homes had been recently repaired, and numerous reenactors milled about in detailed period outfits.

“I know my brother would be very disappointed,” said Pollard, who also worked as a gardener at the museum until last summer. “I guarantee you, people dressed in khakis and navy blue tops was not my brother’s vision.”

Former museum staffers say museum officials for years ignored their suggestions for modernizing and expanding the outdoor exhibit, which marks its 50th anniversary next year.

That, coupled with low pay and poor working conditions, led to the departure of many long-standing Native staffers who built the program into a must-see attraction by showcasing authentic Indigenous farming, cooking, canoe building and other cultural practices, they say.

“For more than a decade now, the museum has systematically dismantled the outdoor exhibit,” the Wampanoag Consulting Alliance, a Native group that includes Peters and other former museum staffers, said in a statement late last month. “Many steps taken to provide equal representation to Wampanoag programming have been removed, and the physical exhibit is in deplorable condition. The result has been the virtually complete alienation of the Wampanoag communities.”

Kitty Hendricks-Miller, a Mashpee Wampanoag who was a supervisor at the Wampanoag exhibit in the 1990s and early 2000s, says she worries about what non-Indigenous families and students are taking away from their visits to the museum, which remains a school field trip rite of passage for many in New England.

As Indian education coordinator for her tribe, she’s been encouraging teachers to reach out to Native communities directly if they’re seeking culturally and historically accurate programs.

“There’s this unwillingness to acknowledge that times have changed,” said Casey Figueroa, who worked for years as an interpreter at the museum until 2015. “The Native side of the Plymouth story has so much more to offer in terms of the issues we’re facing today, from immigration to racism and climate change, but they went backwards instead. They totally blew it.”

By PHILIP MARCELO

France In Midst Of 4th Heat Wave Amid Historic Drought

France was in the midst of its fourth heat wave of the year Monday as the country faces what the government warned is its worst drought on record.

Sunflowers suffer from lack of water, as Europe is under an unusually extreme heat wave, in Ury, 112 miles south of Paris, France, Monday, Aug. 8, 2022. France is this week going through its fourth heatwave of the year as the government warned last week that the country is faced with the most severe drought ever recorded. Some farmers have started to see a decrease in production especially in fields of soy, sunflowers and corn. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

National weather agency Meteo France said the heat wave began in the south and is expected to spread across the country and last until the weekend.

Overall, the southern half of France expects daytime temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) ad won’t drop at night below 20 C (68 F).

The high temperatures aren’t helping firefighters battling a wildfire in the Chartreuse Mountains near the Alps in eastern France, where authorities have evacuated around 140 people.

Meteo France said this week’s heat wave will not be as intense as the one last month, when several regions experienced record-breaking temperatures. But the high temperatures come during the most severe drought ever recorded, according to the government. Last month was the driest July since measurements began in 1959.

Some French farmers have started to see a drops in production especially in soy, sunflower and corn yields.

Water restrictions in place range from daytime irrigation bans to limiting water usage to people, livestock and to keep aquatic species alive.

The government said last week that more than 100 municipalities can’t provide drinking water through taps and need water truck supplies.

The heat also forced energy giant EDF to temporarily cut power generation at some of its nuclear plants, which use river water to cool reactors.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises To Welcome Unvaccinated Guests Starting September 3rd Under Their SailSAFE Health & Safety Protocols

Effective September 3, 2022, Regent Seven Seas Cruises® will welcome unvaccinated guests onboard their ships. This will provide the opportunity for all luxury travelers to explore the world.

Regent’s SailSAFE Health & Safety protocols for embarkation will be as follows:

- Vaccinated travelers will not need to test prior to embarkation, subject to local regulations.

- Unvaccinated travelers may embark with a negative COVID-19 antigen or PCR test from a lab or pharmacy taken within 3 days prior to embarkation, subject to local regulations.

- Testing and vaccination requirements will differ for guests traveling on voyages departing from destinations with specific local health regulations, including but not limited to Canada, Greece, the Bahamas and Bermuda. These requirements will be highlighted to guests approximately 30 days prior to sailing.

Learn More: https://bit.ly/3yKBoTq
#ExperienceRegent #SailSafe