A European project called Beech Power aims to protect Europe’s last remaining beech forests.

To find out more about the initiative, Smart Regions spoke to the Paklenica Nationa Park’s Director, Natalija Andačić.

_To watch the full interview, click on the video player above_

The post Life’s a beech: preserving our forests for the future first appeared on Magazin Haber Ajansı.

As part of their attempt to rebuild their lives in a foreign country many of these Ukrainian refugee children have started going back to school. I went to France to see how these Ukrainian children are adjusting to their new lives abroad.

You wouldn’t expect a teenager quietly sitting at his school desk to say the words just above. But that’s exactly what 17-year-old Serhii Horbonos told me when we met.  He arrived in France without his parents. He came as part of a group of 26 Ukrainians, all from Dnipro in Eastern Ukraine. Even though the students were all from the same city they had never met before – since then they have become like a family. 

Serhii, 17, is one of 26 young Ukrainian refugees from Dnipro now studying in the French school system.Euronews

I met Serhii at the “Diois School Academy” in the laid-back southern French town of Die. The idyllic mountain region couldn’t be more different from war-torn Ukraine. The school management has created an intensive French course for them. The aim is to help them gradually integrate so they can take part in other courses.

Their teacher tells me that talk of war is kept out of the class. Among the giggles over French pronunciation, sometimes the mood gets heavier. But attempts to read the French sound of ‘U’ trigger laughter again.

The goal is not only to teach them French, says the academy’s director Jean-Yves Ebel, but also to give them their social life back, to let them live out their adolescent lives.

“One of the missions of education is to give students a place to develop their personality and their well-being.”

Andrii, 9, from Kyiv, is the only non-French speaker in his class in Lyon.Euronews

The assimilation of Ukrainian students into French school classes I saw was done with a lot of care and respect. I was moved to see little Andrii, 9, from Kyiv, in his new class in Lyon. He was the only non-French speaker among around 30 pupils. His teacher used a translation app on her mobile phone to communicate with him. His classmates used gestures and goodwill. Andrii was one of the best pupils in his Ukrainian class. Despite this dramatic change in environment, he is now understanding more and more.

I left all the schools I visited with a smile and a thought. Surely all refugees from all ethnicities and nationalities are worth the same unprecedented support given to Ukrainians.

The post New life, new school: France welcomes Ukraine’s refugee children first appeared on Magazin Haber Ajansı.

While the vast majority (93 per cent) of adults know what’s causing climate change, only about half the population is aware of carbon-capture and its use in reversing the damaging effects of global warming.

Carbon-capture is the process by which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere. This can be done by innovative technology or anything that photosynthesises, like a tree.

Although we often think of huge rainforests like the Amazon as being crucial for carbon capture, smaller natural resources also play a big part. 

A great example is seagrass, the plant at the root of WWF’s Force for Nature campaign.

Not only do seagrass meadows capture carbon, the latest research shows that sucrose accumulates underneath them – at concentrations around 80 times greater than previously thought. The presence of this sugar-like substance is proof that the plant represents one of the largest global stores of organic carbon. 

“Seagrass captures carbon in the same way that the grass on land would. It just photosynthesises the sun’s energy to make energy,” Alec Taylor, the head of the land-use climate programme for WWF tells Euronews Green.

Southampton Solent, where the seagrass is being plantedCanva

Seagrass is particularly good at rapidly harvesting carbon, working over 30 times faster than a rainforest on land would, Taylor explains. As seagrass can stay undisturbed underwater, it can also remove the carbon for thousands of years.

“Whereas a tree might capture carbon, when it gets cut down, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. Seagrass can hold on to it, and it buries it into the roots.”

Seagrass is also great for creating a habitat for young fish and creating beautiful ecosystems for snorkellers to enjoy.

Replanting seagrass across the country

WWF’s plan is to repopulate the coasts of the UK with seagrass.

Hundreds of years ago, there was far more seagrass around the coasts. But the UK has been one of the worst countries in the world at protecting its natural resources. 92 per cent of the UK’s seagrass has disappeared in the last century.

“The UK’s natural habitats are a key ally in the fight against climate change, yet they are being depleted at an alarming rate. From wildflower meadows to peat bogs and kelp forests to seagrass, we must protect these vital assets and secure their future – for our own sake,” Tanya Steele, Chief Executive at WWF, said.

The campaign wants to plant about 30,000 square metres of seagrass habitat in the Solent Southampton, about the same as three football pitches.

But that’s only the beginning of the project, Taylor says. “Hopefully, we can use that to scale up things like seagrass restoration from, say, a few hectares to a few 100 hectares.”

Key to scaling up the project will be investment from the government. With COP27 on the horizon, Taylor thinks it’s time for the government to do more than just talk about climate efforts. “The government has had some really good words on it in recent months. But we now need to see some of those words followed up with action.”

Some of the action WWF wants to see includes greater investment in natural resources like seagrass. They also want a removal of rules that treat restoration efforts the same as environmentally destructive projects, requiring fees and complex approval processes.

How can you get involved in bringing seagrass back?

The campaign is about more than just repopulating Britain’s coasts with seagrass, it’s also about educating people to the importance of natural resources in reversing the effects of climate change.

WWF’s partnership with Sky Zero for ‘Force for Nature’ asks the public to add their names to a call on the government to keep their climate promises.

For every 1,000 people who sign up, Force for Nature will plant 4,000 seagrass seeds.

A field of seagrass at low tide.Canva

If you want to get your hands dirty and live by the coast, WWF has plenty of volunteering opportunities too. 

“We’ll be needing lots of hands to help fill the sacks with sand and plant the seeds and get the seagrass seeds out into the water,” Taylor says.

Not lucky enough to live near the beach? Well you can still make a difference Taylor says. Planting trees and planning shopping to waste as little food as possible are key ways to help. He also recommends you stop buying compost with peat in it (a government ban on peat compost comes into effect in 2024). 

Peat bogs are another great natural carbon-capture resource and the more they are left alone, the better for our planet.

“Ultimately at the heart of this campaign is showing people that these amazing habitats are carbon-capturing machines as well as all of the other benefits that they have,” Taylor concludes.

The post This underwater plant absorbs carbon 30 times faster than a rainforest first appeared on Magazin Haber Ajansı.

The school and orchestra get their name from its founder Ntumba Malamba Camunga. Camunga means “a small thing that is born, grows and then shines”, the founder tells us. He believes the name is particularly appropriate for this school as “it started off as a small project, then it grew and now it is shining”

The school was created in 2011 with just five students. 10 years later there are now 450 students and some of them have even become teachers at the school. 

Tough beginnings

Not all the students that attend the school have come from easy backgrounds and happy places.Ntumba Malamba Camunga explains that the school helps many children on the street, “children involved in delinquency, drugs and even prostitution.”

Kelson’s story

Kelson Bento Afonso is one student with a difficult past. He now considers the orchestra his home, family and place of comfort. But he has come a long way for that to be the case. Kelson admits that he would hang out with people who behaved badly, people who were also violent. 

After going to a party with some of the school’s students, Kelson visited the school and met the director, Ntumba. He was welcomed with open arms. His motivation was the main group playing. He says that it moved him and he wanted to be like them.

Kelson’s progression was gradual. He first learnt the viola for three months, but then the teacher realised his real vocation was wind instruments. 

However, it wasn’t just the straight and narrow for Kelson. He returned to bad habits. He took things that he shouldn’t have and fell ill because of it. When Ntumba realised Kelson had stopped coming to lessons, he went to his house to encourage him to come back. It worked and Kelson was able to start playing music again.

Ntumba Malamba Camunga, director and founder, Camunga Symphony OrchestraLuanda, Angola

Making the effort

Some of the music school’s students have to travel very far to get to the lessons. This is the case for 13-year-old Delcio Macedo. He travels 56 kilometres just for the music. He is passionate about playing the violin. “Music is really in his soul”, his mother says.

Social help

Part of the orchestra’s operation is to fight malnutrition. As Ntumba says, “you can’t do much on an empty stomach.” The students can get food at the school. 

The symphony orchestra is also community-driven and depends on donations. Once the students reach a level of proficiency with their instruments they become teachers there themselves. It’s what Ntumba describes as giving back what you take.

The Camunga Symphony Orchestra and the school go beyond the music, as Kelson aptly says the people you teach have to grow, “that’s the only way we can change the country.”

The post The Camunga Symphony Orchestra – More than just a musical education first appeared on Magazin Haber Ajansı.

That video was then shared by a far-right Twitter account called ‘Libs of Tiktok’ to its more than 1.1 million followers, resulting in a dramatic uptick in the number of death threats and insults they received online.

According to Skye Tooley, they first received messages from people telling them to “leave kids alone” after their video was re-shared by the account.

“But then it just kept increasing to them calling me a ‘groomer’ and using words like ‘pedophile’, they said.

“And then I started getting death threats, whether in my emails, DMS, or in the comments section.”

Tooley is not alone. Over the last two years, ‘Libs of TikTok’ has shared videos made by liberal, LGBTQ+ influencers in the United States.

Many of these creators are teachers who use TikTok to promote LGBTQ+ rights and inclusive education.

According to Media Matters for America, a research center focusing on misinformation in the US, ‘Libs of TikTok’ has tagged more than 222 educational institutions in 2022 alone.

The account has bragged about teachers losing their jobs after it re-posted their content; some of the people targeted by the account have received hundreds or even thousands of hate comments; and ‘Libs of TikTok’ regularly re-shares posts equating these teachers to ‘groomers’ for educating students on the LGBTQ+ community.

Tooley said receiving hate comments after the account posted their video was “dehumanising”.

“It dehumanises us and makes us seem less than human and deserving fewer rights and protections than cis people,” they added.

Twitter has temporarily suspended the account several times, but it is still active. One of the reasons the account is influential is because it is promoted by popular conservative voices in the US.

Joe Rogan said it was “one of the greatest f***ing accounts of all time” on his podcast. And Fox News anchors talk about its posts on their shows.

Christina Pushaw, who is the press secretary for Florida governor Ron DeSantis, regularly interacts with the account.

DeSantis recently signed into law a controversial bill that has been dubbed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which prevents some teachers from discussing LGBTQ+ topics in the classroom.

Tooley told Euronews that creators have reached out to support each other. And they personally have unions and lawyers to support them.

But they also want more action to be taken on a federal level.

“There needs to be actual steps that counteract what’s happening … to say that [LGBTQ+ education] needs to be taught in the classroom, and that Trans people need to be protected.” 

Both Twitter and ‘Libs of TikTok’ were contacted, but did not respond to a request for comment.

The post ‘Libs of Tiktok’: Twitter account is targeting LGBTQ+ teachers in the U.S. first appeared on Magazin Haber Ajansı.