NADA Miami 2022

Bird migrations are known to be negatively affected by armed conflicts. Every year, one-third of the storks we consider a Polish national treasure fly to Poland via Ukraine and, unlike some species such as geese, are unable to modify their route. At best, they can only change the altitude of their flight. It comes as no surprise then that this spring the storks arrived in Poland with a significant delay.
Despite the ongoing hostilities off the Black Sea coast, Ukrainian environmentalists are collecting evidence of Russia’s war crimes against nature. Each year prior to the Russian invasion, Ukrainians were digging shallow channels from coastal lagoons to the shoreline, connecting the bodies of water so that small fish had a place to spawn. This year, for the first time in 30 years, the canals will not be cleared, with disastrous consequences for the fish and herons that feed there.