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April 13, 2026

How Ontario’s post-secondary student funding changes echo Ronald Reagan reforms

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Susan Dianne Brophy, Associate Professor in Legal Studies, St. Jerome’s University, University of Waterloo

Ontario’s recent announcement of a tuition increase and major changes to grant and loan structures have prompted student protests at the provincial legislature.

The province has said the changes are required for sustainability.

But changes to financial aid will have significant implications for many students who rely on grants and loans. As The Toronto Star reports, the reforms have almost reversed the ratio of non-repayable grants and loans students can access.

Education is a pillar of “social reproduction,” meaning it’s a social service necessary for maintaining daily life now and for future generations. When governments alter access to education and the way they deliver it, they shape everyday lives today and beyond.

Since legal and regulatory changes shape how society is reproduced, it is possible to draw from these changes some ideas about the government’s social values. From this perspective, Ontario’s Doug Ford government is sending the message that education is about generating private wealth and social order.

These changes risk entrenching inequalities and raise questions about students’ freedom and their futures.

For a precedent, it’s possible to look at the record of a past U.S. president, namely Ronald Reagan.

Education as a private asset

Currently, students can access up to 85 per cent grants and 15 per cent loans from the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). But under the financial aid reforms, a maximum of one quarter of a student’s OSAP funding will be non-repayable grants and a minimum of 75 per cent will be loans.

These changes mean there’s an upside for banks. With less funding through grants, students will be funnelled into private sector financial arrangements. Canada’s banks stand ready with student lines of credit.

As household assets (including financial investments, like Registered Retirement Savings Plans) continued to increase in value in the third quarter of 2025, it may seem rational and even attractive to view education as an asset meant to generate private wealth.

When Ford unveiled these changes, the private asset approach to education was clear when he responded to reporters:

“I mentioned to the students, you have to invest in your future, into in-demand jobs.”

Yet this approach ignores record-setting levels of household debt. It also glosses over the fact that the wealth gap is increasing. In the third quarter last year, the top 20 per cent wealthiest households accounted for 65.5 per cent of net worth, and the bottom 40 per cent accounted for 3.1 per cent.

Just as we have seen with a profit-driven, wealth-generating housing market and the housing crisis, a private asset approach to education risks dividing society further into haves and have-nots.

This is not lost on students, as reflected in a recent University Affairs article quoting Grade 12 student Radhika Cappelletti:

“Things won’t run if people don’t continue to be educated and they can’t even choose to be educated because they can’t afford it.”

When students are financially bound to banks and dependent on their families, they face lasting pressures beyond the campus.

Revisiting Reagan

Ontario’s changes reflect a trend across the provinces that has been ongoing since the 1990s. They also follow a similar pathway as the Reagan era in the United States, with greater emphasis on student loans instead of grants.

As social and political theorist Melinda Cooper argues in her book Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism, Reagan pursued student discipline and budget cuts for universities, relying on police for one and the introduction of tuition fees for the other.

As California governor between 1967-1975, Reagan sat on the University of California’s Board of Regents. Considered the “crown jewel of American public universities,” the university system benefitted from public funding during the post-Second World War era.

Bipartisan support for this was based on the belief that post-secondary education was a public good benefitting the whole state, not just graduates.

Later, as president throughout the 1980s, Reagan’s appetite to curb public spending grew, leading him to expand the role of loans and limit the availability of grants.

Cooper’s research shows that, as inflation outpaced wage growth in the early 1980s, growing wealth meant growing the value of assets — for those who had them. For those without assets, acquiring them required taking on debt. As the financial burden of education spreads through the family unit, it reinforces student dependency on the family, which encourages deference toward more traditional forms of authority.

Cooper finds that Reagan’s legacy was to make “parental responsibility” and “private-debt-based inclusion” the bases of access to education.

In these ways, socially conservative values resonate in what might otherwise be read as pragmatic, even politically and morally neutral financial decisions.

Narrowing educational paths

Ford’s plan to increase tuition sits in stark contrast beside his April 2023 announcement of free tuition for police trainees. This shows that the government’s approach to education reflects certain social values, which have consequences for the future.

Research suggests that viewing student debt primarily as an investment in their personal job prospects invites cuts to post-secondary degree offerings and opens the door to predatory for-profit institutions.

There is also a question of how students can even achieve a brighter future. As long as they remain dependent on existing power structures, it is difficult to expect anything other than an ever-widening wealth gap.

Another Ford initiative has been a push to allow students to opt out of fees that are the lifeblood of campus groups. The Student Choice Initiative failed several court challenges, but a version reappears in the fast-tracked Supporting Children and Students Act that passed in November 2025.

Critics say that this scaling back of student fees could have detrimental effects on equity-seeking groups and also potentially weaken student governance — something Ford has derided in the past.

For all of Ford’s talk of choice and the future, then, changes in post-secondary funding limit the choices students have over their own lives. By deepening inequalities, Ford is casting a long shadow over the future of all Ontarians.

Susan Dianne Brophy is a member of the federal New Democratic Party.

– ref. How Ontario’s post-secondary student funding changes echo Ronald Reagan reforms – https://theconversation.com/how-ontarios-post-secondary-student-funding-changes-echo-ronald-reagan-reforms-279534

April 13, 2026

Electric minibus taxis: the challenges and gains facing Cape Town’s transition

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By MJ (Thinus) Booysen, Professor in Engineering, Stellenbosch University

The minibus taxi is ubiquitous in southern Africa. These vehicles are the backbone of the urban economy, providing affordable mobility for millions. In Cape Town, South Africa’s second most populous city, they are central to the transport landscape.

Around two-thirds of the city’s public transport users rely on paratransit services (which respond flexibly to demand), carrying about 830,000 daily passengers across 1,466 routes, and run by private individuals or associations rather than the state.

Minibus taxis in Cape Town, South Africa.

But because these vehicles run on petrol and diesel, they also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, poor urban air quality and rising fuel costs.

The global shift away from internal combustion engines is accelerating, and public transport must be part of it. Bringing the electric vehicle transition to this sector, however, is not simply a matter of replacing one vehicle with another. In African paratransit systems, electrification raises a harder question: how do you change the vehicle without undermining the service on which so many people depend?

Electric minibuses would change how these vehicles operate, where and when they stop, how they interact with the grid, and driver decision making. They also require charging infrastructure that fits into the rhythms of taxi ranks, neighbourhoods and routes without disrupting service.

With Cape Town expected to launch its first few fully electric minibus taxi routes in Century City later in 2026, electrification is no longer a distant possibility. It is now urgent to understand whether it can work in practice for operators, passengers and the electricity grid.

We are a team of engineering researchers studying transport electrification in sub-Saharan Africa. In a series of studies, we have examined environmental and financial viability of electric vehicles under current mobility patterns, including charger placement, access, and adapted driving and charging behaviour.

Our new research found that electrifying minibus taxis is both necessary and possible. But it is also a complex challenge, with environmental trade-offs, grid constraints, operator costs and equity questions. Although our work focuses on Cape Town, the lessons are relevant to other African cities where paratransit dominates daily mobility.

Environmental perspective

The global narrative around electric vehicles often assumes they are a simple win for the climate. But this does not hold everywhere, especially where electricity still comes largely from fossil fuels. In South Africa, coal accounts for approximately 83% of electricity generation.

Petrol minibus taxi converted to electric.
MJ (Thinus) Booysen, CC BY-NC-ND

Using real minibus taxi mobility patterns in Cape Town, our research compared the energy use, emissions and costs of electric and conventional minibuses. It found a counter-intuitive result: under current grid conditions, an electric minibus taxi has about a 14% higher carbon dioxide equivalent footprint than a standard diesel minibus. In other words, charging an electric taxi on a coal-heavy grid can currently produce more greenhouse gas emissions than running a diesel vehicle.

That is not the end of the story. Electric minibuses still offer major environmental and health benefits. They eliminate tailpipe particulate pollution, reduce brake wear, and cut noise. These local benefits matter in dense urban areas where people live close to busy roads. As South Africa’s electricity system shifts towards more renewable energy, the climate case for electric minibus taxis will strengthen too.

So the real conclusion is not that electric taxis are a bad idea. Rather, they are a long-term climate solution whose immediate value lies especially in cleaner air, lower noise and better urban health.

Energy perspective

Electrifying Cape Town’s minibus taxi fleet would add substantial new electricity demand. In one study, the typical vehicle required about 50.8 kWh per day, scaling to roughly 460 MWh a day across a fleet of about 9,000 vehicles, or the equivalent of about 65,700 homes. The key issue is not just how much energy is needed but where and when vehicles charge.

Here, the newer work changes the story. It is tempting to think the answer is simply to install faster chargers at taxi ranks. But our modelling suggests that access to charging matters more than charging speed alone. Home or secure neighbourhood charging has the biggest effect on whether current mobility patterns can be sustained and on how well the system performs when driver behaviour adapts.

A typical daily charge of around 50 kWh might take roughly two to three hours on a 22 kW charger, or just over an hour on a 50 kW charger, though real charging times vary. But faster charging does not solve the real problem: drivers still need reliable places and enough stationary time to charge without undermining service or losing income.

The studies also show that chargers should not be planned only for formal taxi ranks. Infrastructure stops and informal stops matter too, because that is how paratransit actually works.

Viability of maintaining internal combustion engine mobility patterns for different charging scenarios.
DOI:10.1038/s41893-026-01808-9, CC BY-NC-ND

Nor will the effects be shared equally. Because apartheid-era geography still shapes where people live and work, operators in historically marginalised areas are more vulnerable when home charging is unavailable. Charging infrastructure is therefore not only a technical issue, but also an equity one.

There is also a grid challenge. Depot-only charging creates early-morning and daytime peaks, while home charging shifts demand into the evening residential peak. Unmanaged charging could therefore worsen stress on an already fragile electricity system. But time-of-use tariffs, managed charging, and better alignment with solar and other renewables could integrate electric taxis far more intelligently.

Operators’ perspective

For taxi operators, the economics of switching to electric vehicles are complicated. In one comparison, the electric option cost about 1.5 times as much as the diesel Toyota Ses’fikile – a 16-seater minibus – that currently dominates the market. Many operators already work on thin margins and face expensive finance.

The economics of switching to electric vehicles are complicated.
DOI: 10.1016/j.esr.2025.101892, CC BY-NC-ND

There are also financing costs: typically a 10% deposit and a 20% interest rate over a 72-month repayment period. Many operators may also be seen as high-risk by lenders, making finance difficult to access.

At the same time, the running-cost case for electric minibuses is much stronger. Energy costs are generally 33% to 57% lower than diesel fuel costs, and electric motors require less maintenance. For operators, then, this is a story of higher upfront cost set against lower operating cost, with the outcome depending heavily on electricity tariffs, finance terms and access to affordable charging.

Preparing for electrification

Careful planning and simulation are needed to roll out electric minibus taxis at scale. Policymakers need to understand the interactions between vehicle energy demand, charging infrastructure, grid capacity, driver behaviour and passenger service.

That is why we modelled driver behaviour in an electrified paratransit system. Unlike formal bus services, minibus taxi drivers adapt routes, stops and charging to passenger demand and competition. Our simulations show that constrained depot charging increases waiting times and reduces trips served. But with home charging, depot congestion falls sharply and service quality is largely maintained.

This matters because electrification is not just about vehicles and chargers, but about how informal transport systems actually work. If planners treat taxi operations like centrally controlled bus fleets, they will design the wrong interventions. The better approach is to plan around real mobility patterns, charging behaviour and neighbourhood inequality.

It is therefore crucial to bring taxi operators, municipalities, energy providers and communities together. Cleaner air and lower noise must be weighed against the grid’s current emissions profile. Operator economics must improve through better tariffs and financing. And charging infrastructure must be placed not only at depots and ranks, but also in the neighbourhoods and informal stops that shape paratransit every day.

With targeted subsidies, better overnight charging access, investment in renewable energy and clear policy support, Cape Town can begin building a public transport transition that is cleaner, more realistic and more just. If it gets this right, it could offer a blueprint for cities across Africa.

MJ (Thinus) Booysen as Director of the Electric Mobility Lab at Stellenbosch receives funding from the Western Cape Government and the Transport Education and Training Authority (TETA). The Electric Mobility Lab and Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies (CRSES) have partnered with flxEV (GoMetro), Powerfleet (MiX Telematics), HSV and ACDC on the importation of South Africa’s first new electric minibus taxi, the eKamva.

Joshua Sello receives funding from the Global Strategic Communications Council (GSCC) and the DW Ackermann Bursary Scheme.

– ref. Electric minibus taxis: the challenges and gains facing Cape Town’s transition – https://theconversation.com/electric-minibus-taxis-the-challenges-and-gains-facing-cape-towns-transition-278808

April 13, 2026

Nelson Mandela was a towering global symbol – but how effective was he as a president?

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Anthony Michael Butler, Professor of Political Studies, University of Cape Town

Nelson Mandela remains one of the most revered political leaders of modern times. He is widely credited with guiding South Africa through a peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy. He embodied racial reconciliation, and lent moral authority to a fragile new state. Yet admiration for Mandela the symbol has often obscured a more difficult question. How effective was Mandela in the day-to-day exercise of presidential power?

Most assessments of political leaders focus on their impact in terms of economic success and policy achievements. Some are also assessed through their character, integrity and moral vision. Both approaches have value, but they risk missing something essential: how leaders actually use the power of their office.

I am a professor of political studies. In a recent study, I proposed a simple framework for analysing presidential leadership across four dimensions – the relationships between:

executive and symbolic power
party and state
domestic and international roles
formal authority and informal influence.

Applying this framework to Mandela’s presidency between 1994 and 1999, I derive a more complex, and more critical, assessment than is often offered. Such an analysis is useful at a time when Mandela’s legacy is increasingly contested.

A powerful symbol, a limited executive head

Mandela’s symbolic authority was extraordinary. He helped to stabilise a deeply divided society and reassured anxious minorities fearing a loss of power and privilege. He gave moral meaning to the new democratic order. His gestures, such as donning a Springbok (South Africa’s national rugby team) jersey at a world cup final and embracing former adversaries, were not incidental. They were central to his political project of reconciliation.

But Mandela showed far less interest in the executive dimension of leadership. He delegated most of the core work of governing to his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. He also allowed cabinet ministers considerable autonomy. As a result, key areas of policy were shaped without sustained presidential direction or public accountability. This mattered because the presidency in South Africa’s system combines both head-of-state and head-of-government roles. The potential synergy between symbolic authority and executive control was therefore left largely unrealised.

The consequences were especially visible in moments of crisis. The HIV/Aids epidemic, which intensified during Mandela’s presidency, required both decisive executive action and strong public leadership. Mandela delivered neither of those, and he later acknowledged his failure to act more forcefully.

Blurring party and state

Mandela also struggled to manage the relationship between the governing African National Congress (ANC) and the state. South Africa entered democracy as a dominant-party system, and the ANC’s authority was both a source of stability and a potential danger.

Rather than drawing clear institutional boundaries, Mandela endorsed practices that blurred them. The policy of “cadre deployment” – placing loyal party members in key state positions – was intended to transform a state inherited from apartheid. But it also weakened institutional autonomy and contributed to longer-term problems of patronage and politicisation.

Mandela was not alone in shaping these developments. Many of the ideas originated with colleagues such as Mbeki. But as president, he lent his authority to them and did little to mitigate their risks.

Foreign policy: ideals and inconsistencies

Internationally, Mandela was expected to champion human rights and democratic values. Early statements under his name suggested that these principles would guide South Africa’s foreign policy.

In practice, however, foreign policy was often inconsistent. The government maintained close relationships with authoritarian regimes that had supported the anti-apartheid struggle. There were also tensions between proclaimed values and strategic or financial considerations. Efforts to isolate Nigeria after human rights abuses, for example, generated backlash within Africa. Relationships with countries such as Libya and Indonesia raised questions about the role of party funding in diplomatic decisions.

Mandela’s global stature brought South Africa visibility and goodwill. But this was not systematically used to advance clear domestic or economic priorities.

The hidden world of informal power

Finally, Mandela’s presidency illustrates the importance of informal power. Beyond formal constitutional authority, leaders shape outcomes through networks, appointments, and the mobilisation of financial resources.

Mandela was deeply involved in fundraising for the ANC, both domestically and internationally. Some of these practices blurred the line between party and state, and between legitimate support and undue influence. He also relied on personal relationships and informal interventions to shape economic and political outcomes. For example, he gave R2 million (hundreds of thousands of US dollars) to embattled politician Jacob Zuma in 2000, followed by another R1 million on 23 June 2005, days after Mbeki had sacked Zuma as deputy president and prosecutors had announced he would be charged with corruption.

Such practices were not unique to Mandela, nor to South Africa. But they helped establish patterns that would later become a problem, particularly as competition within the ANC intensified and access to resources became central to political power.

Rethinking a legacy

None of this diminishes Mandela’s historic role in ending apartheid or his contribution to national reconciliation. He set an important precedent by stepping down after a single term, and he helped to anchor South Africa’s constitutional order in its formative years.

But a focus on leadership practice rather than rhetoric, symbol and myth reveals a more uneven record. Mandela was an exceptional symbolic leader. He was less effective in integrating that symbolic authority with the demands of executive governance, institutional design and policy leadership.

Reassessing Mandela in this way is not an exercise in revisionism for its own sake. It is a reminder that even the most admired leaders operate within constraints. Understanding how they use power is essential if we are to learn from their successes, as well as their limitations.

Anthony Michael Butler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Nelson Mandela was a towering global symbol – but how effective was he as a president? – https://theconversation.com/nelson-mandela-was-a-towering-global-symbol-but-how-effective-was-he-as-a-president-279599

April 13, 2026

It’s right under your nose – why some people can’t find things in plain sight

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol

Many households will recognise this familiar exchange. One person insists an object simply isn’t there: impossible to find despite what they describe as a thorough and highly competent search. Another walks in, glances briefly at the same spot and points to it almost immediately.

“It’s right under your nose!”

This frustrating (for both sides) situation reflects something real about how the brain works. Finding objects in everyday environments relies on a process called visual search, and our brains are surprisingly imperfect at it. Even when something is directly in front of us, the brain can fail to register its presence. In other words, we are looking without seeing.

At first glance, searching for something seems simple. You scan a surface – a kitchen counter, a desk, the “everything” drawer – until the missing item appears.

But the brain cannot analyse every object in a scene simultaneously. Instead, it relies on attention, selecting certain features while filtering out the rest.

Psychologists often describe attention as a kind of spotlight sweeping across the visual field. Wherever that spotlight lands, information is processed in detail. Everything outside it receives far less scrutiny.

There is a practical anatomical reason the brain must constantly shift its gaze. The centre of the retina – the fovea – provides our sharpest vision. But it covers only a tiny part of the visual field, roughly the size of your thumbnail held at arm’s length. To inspect a scene properly, our eyes must repeatedly jump so that different parts of the environment fall onto this small, high-resolution patch.

Those jumps are called saccades, and they happen constantly. Even when you think you are staring steadily at something, your eyes are quietly darting from point to point.

Most of the time, this system works remarkably well. It allows us to navigate visually complex environments without becoming overwhelmed by information.

Looking without seeing

Seeing, it turns out, is not just about what reaches the eyes. It is also about what the brain expects to find. This phenomenon is known as inattentional blindness.

One of the most famous demonstrations of this involves a video in which participants watch a group of people passing a basketball and are asked to count the number of passes. While viewers concentrate on the task, a person in a gorilla suit strolls casually through the scene.

Roughly half the viewers never notice the gorilla at all.

The gorilla is not hidden. It walks directly across the centre of the screen. But the brain, focused on counting basketball passes, simply fails to register it.

Did you spot the gorilla?

If you have ever searched a kitchen counter for your keys only to have someone else pick them up instantly, you have experienced the same phenomenon.

Once visual information reaches the brain, it is processed along different pathways. One of these – often called the dorsal stream – runs toward the parietal lobe of the brain, an area that plays a crucial role in spatial awareness and directing attention. This helps the brain determine where objects are in space. This system plays a crucial role in guiding attention during visual search.

Do men and women search differently?

In describing this familiar household moment, I avoided invoking a particular stereotype. The one where it is my husband who cannot find the object sitting directly in front of him.

Studies of visual search tasks have found small differences in how men and women scan complex scenes. On average, women tend to perform slightly better at locating objects in cluttered environments, while men often perform better on tasks involving large-scale spatial navigation or mentally rotating objects in three dimensions.

The reasons for this are still debated, but part of the answer may lie in how we move our eyes while searching.

Visual search relies on shifting our gaze from one point to another – the previously mentioned “saccades”. Eye-tracking studies show that some people tend to scan a scene methodically, moving their gaze in a more systematic pattern. Others make larger jumps across the visual field.

A systematic scan is more likely to cover every part of a cluttered surface, increasing the chances of spotting something small, such as a pair of keys or the elusive kitchen scissors. Larger jumps, by contrast, can skip over areas entirely, leaving an object sitting in plain sight but never quite falling under the brain’s attentional spotlight.

Some evolutionary psychologists have suggested these tendencies may have deep historical roots in hunter-gatherer societies. However, there is limited evidence for this. Experience, familiarity with an environment, and simple differences in attention probably matter far more than gender alone.

Ultimately, visual search is less like scanning a photograph and more like running a prediction algorithm. The brain constantly guesses where something is likely to be and directs attention accordingly.

Most of the time those predictions are correct. Occasionally, they are not, and an object sitting in plain sight fails to match the brain’s expectations.

Which means the next time someone insists they have looked everywhere, they may well be telling the truth. They just haven’t looked in quite the right way.

Michelle Spear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. It’s right under your nose – why some people can’t find things in plain sight – https://theconversation.com/its-right-under-your-nose-why-some-people-cant-find-things-in-plain-sight-277845

April 13, 2026

Chagos Islands deal shelved – legal expert explains what happens next

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Frost, Senior lecturer in law, Loughborough University

The UK government has shelved legislation to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, after the US government withdrew its support for the deal.

Until and unless the US gives their consent, the UK will not be able to pass legislation, and the treaty between the UK and Mauritius to transfer sovereignty, signed in 2025, cannot be put into effect. This is because the agreement would require a 1966 British-American treaty on the Chagos Islands to be amended. Formal letters needed to be exchanged for this to happen, and the US will not provide theirs.

The US president, Donald Trump, has changed his mind on the issue several times. While initially granting support for the deal, in January 2026, he called it an “act of great stupidity”. In February 2026, Trump told the UK on social media: “DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!”, saying that the US might want the US-UK military base on Diego Garcia to be used in operations against Iran.

Under the deal, Mauritius would allow the US and UK to access, maintain, and invest in the base for an initial 99-year period, which can be extended if both parties agree. In exchange, the UK will pay Mauritius an annual average of £101 million for 99 years in 2025-26 prices, totalling around £3.4 billion.

In the UK, there has been opposition to the deal from the Conservatives. Their leader, Kemi Badenoch, argued that the payments to Mauritius are unacceptable, and questioned Mauritius’s ties to China, claiming UK national security is being put at risk. This opposition is despite the fact the previous Conservative government started negotiating the treaty with Mauritius. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has claimed that there is no legal basis for the deal.

Sovereignty over the Chagos Islands has been disputed since the UK detached them from the colony of Mauritius in 1965, before Mauritius gained independence in 1968. A treaty between the UK and US in 1966 allowed the US to lease Diego Garcia for a joint military base on British territory, in exchange for which the US reportedly gave the UK a discount on nuclear weapons technology. This treaty was based on the UK having sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, so –under the proposed deal – it would need amending to state that the US is leasing the military base’s land from Mauritius, rather than the UK.

The Chagossians were removed from their homeland to make way for the airbase. The rights of the Chagossians and their descendants (who were British subjects) were removed by the UK government.

Following a decades-long campaign, several international court decisions in recent years have held that this action was illegal, and Mauritius should have sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. This pressure led to the negotiation of the 2025 treaty between the UK and Mauritius.

To give domestic legal force to the new treaty, legislation would have to be passed. This was the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory bill, which had nearly passed all its parliamentary stages. But the UK government has run out of time to pass it in this parliamentary session, and there are no plans to introduce a new bill next parliament. In effect, the deal is dead.

The UK is now in a difficult position. It retains sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, but there remain several international law judgments declaring that the UK must return the islands to Mauritius, to complete the decolonisation process.

The UK is committing a serious and ongoing violation of international law by retaining sovereignty. Countries that commit such violations can be ostracised by the international community. For example, Turkey’s application to join the European Union has stalled in part due to its support for the breakaway (and unrecognised) Northern Cypriot Republic.

There is also now further uncertainty over the future of the Chagossians. Under the UK-Mauritius treaty, the Chagossians would have had a right to return to some of the Chagos Islands, save for Diego Garcia. The UK has historically banned the return of the Chagossians to all of the islands.

International pressure

Mauritius has now announced that it will continue to pursue its claim to sovereignty. Dhananjay Ramful, the Mauritian foreign minister, told an Indian Ocean conference in Mauritius that his government would regain control over the territory, saying: “We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonisation process”.

Mauritius is likely to pursue its case through the United Nations, as it has done in recent years. This could lead to the International Court of Justice being asked to rule again on the legality of the UK’s actions. While ICJ judgments are not binding, they have political force.

The Chagossian community has led a longstanding legal and political campaign to return to their homeland. Many Chagossians have wanted a say in the future of the land they were exiled from, and have tried to achieve this through legal routes. On March 31 2026, they succeeded in a legal challenge at the British Indian Ocean Territory Supreme Court (equivalent to the English High Court). The ruling overturned a 2004 law which denied the Chagossians a right of abode in the Chagos Islands.

Mauritius is also a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, and has close relations with other Commonwealth countries such as India. Mauritius also has good relations with France, a member of the European Union. This could enable them to lobby their allies to place further pressure on the UK through vehicles like trade deals, requesting a handover of the Chagos Islands as a price for signing treaties and agreements with the UK.

Given Trump’s recent criticisms of Keir Starmer over the perceived failure in UK support over the Iran war, we should not expect the US to agree to the Chagos handover in the foreseeable future. This could mean further pressure on the UK at the UN and other international bodies, and difficulties for the UK’s international standing. The US may be powerful enough to ignore international law with few short-term consequences, but the UK is not.

Tom Frost receives funding from the Socio-Legal Studies Association, designed to pursue research into the ongoing influence of the British Empire on the UK’s constitution.

– ref. Chagos Islands deal shelved – legal expert explains what happens next – https://theconversation.com/chagos-islands-deal-shelved-legal-expert-explains-what-happens-next-280493

April 13, 2026

Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show reveals a spectacular 125 years of runway history

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mal James, Personal Chair of Fashion Design, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

Fashion shows can often feel exclusive, reserved for the very rich, the very famous or the very well-connected. This perception has been aided by depictions of the catwalk in film and TV – think The Devil Wears Prada, Zoolander, Absolutely Fabulous – which simply confirm the widely held view of fashion as synonymous with artifice and superficiality.

Yet, while the catwalk is undoubtedly a stage for pomp and social peacocking, it is also a serious business. It can make or break a collection’s success, and launch designers and models into the fashion stratosphere. Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show at the V&A in Dundee unveils this reality, offering an access-all-areas glimpse into the intricate world of fashion, revealing great complexity beyond the perceived superficiality.

This exhibition is superbly co-curated by the museum’s Kirsty Hassard and Svetlana Panova, along with Jochen Eisenbrand and Katharina Krawcyzck of the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, where the show originated. It chronicles fashion’s 125-year catwalk journey, exploring its rich history and enduring cultural significance.

It was an Englishman, Charles Frederick Worth, who pioneered the catwalk in mid 19th-century Paris, where he revolutionised fashion presentations by using live models instead of static mannequins. Runway shows allowed models to showcase complete outfits and provided wealthy clients with a more immersive view of Worth’s designs.

By the early 1900s, these fashion parades held in Parisian ballrooms started to evolve into more theatrical events. This trend continued into the 1920s, when shows grew increasingly spectacular and decadent, with Gabrielle Chanel famously presenting models descending the mirrored staircase in her iconic atelier at 31 rue Cambon, Paris.

Fashion and history

On loan from the Balenciaga archive, and seen for the first time in the UK, there is an exquisite array of outfits presented on miniature wire mannequins. This display describes how, in 1945, as Paris emerged from Nazi occupation, the city faced a shortage of materials, making conventional fashion shows impossible. Titled “théâtre de la mode”, this ingenious solution presented haute couture at micro scale to buyers, press and clients, allowing Paris to reclaim its status as the fashion capital of the world.

The exhibition shows how post second world war, catwalk shows expanded in scale, ambition and location, with designers keen to make a lasting impression. André Courrèges and Paco Rabanne were pioneers in the 1960s, while from the 1980s onwards, Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier helped to modernise presentations, connecting them with pop culture and mass audiences.

The emergence of the “supermodels” in the late 1980s and 1990s helped to turn catwalks into cultural phenomena. Groundbreaking shows, such as Versace’s spring/summer 1991, where models who were stars in their own right walked to George Michael’s Freedom, highlighted a dynamic synergy between fashion and pop culture.

By the late 20th century, designers including Alexander McQueen were creating unforgettable fashion moments, such as the No. 13 collection (spring/summer 1999), where model Shalom Harlow wore a white dress that was sprayed by two robots.

Notably, the exhibit dedicated to Hussein Chalayan showcases his contribution towards the transformation of fashion shows into more artistic and cerebral experiences. His 2000 After Words collection, featuring wearable furniture, challenged traditional norms and paved the way for more artistic presentations.

Spectacle, innovation, commerce

There is plenty of fashion spectacle throughout, the exhibition excelling with a curated selection of iconic pieces from the likes of Viktor & Rolf, Maison Martin Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Loewe, Chanel, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Yohji Yamamoto and Iris van Herpen – the range is dazzling.

I was captivated by the voluminous but solemn blue Balenciaga velvet dress from the spring/summer 2020 collection by Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia. Evoking a Victorian silhouette, yet with no decoration and a tailored bodice, it reflects fashion’s historical roots in contrast with unfussy modern design.

The powerful silhouette and electric blue tone bring a seriousness to an otherwise radical or performative aesthetic. Positioned in the exhibition, it reminds us how modernity is always tethered to historical influences.

The exhibition showcases how catwalks have become crucial for brand marketing, merging art, commerce and entertainment, while engaging global audiences through digital channels. It includes invitations and artwork from key designers, along with miniature models of Chanel’s 2014 Supermarket and 2017 Space Rocket shows, offering insights into the intricate yet monumental scale of catwalk productions.

The curators have seamlessly integrated Scotland’s contribution to catwalk history too, charting the influence of fabrics like tweed and tartan, and featuring photographs from Glasgow’s Empire Exhibition in 1938, possibly Scotland’s earliest fashion show. There are also fascinating images from Dior’s inaugural Scottish shows in 1955 in Glasgow and at Gleneagles, echoed almost 70 years later with a 2024 Dior show (under designer Maria Grazia Chuiri) where models walked the exquisite topiaried gardens of Drummond Castle in Perthshire.

The exhibition includes the coveted label Le Kilt, featuring
an outfit from the 2024 show, created in collaboration with Dior, further highlighting the the fashion house’s Scotland connection. Prominent Scottish designers are also featured, such as Christopher Kane, Charles Jeffrey and the poignant inclusion of an outfit by the late Pam Hogg who died last November.

The exhibition highlights how catwalks can mirror societal changes and evolving beauty standards. I was thrilled to see the inclusion of Rick Owens’ spring/summer 2016 presentation, where a 40-strong group of female “steppers” stomped down the runway in poses and expressions that defied typical beauty expectations.

The show caters to diverse audiences and ages, featuring dynamic catwalk and backstage photography by British photographer Robert Fairer, who has captured the energy and spirit of the fashion industry since the early 1990s. Engaging and interactive exhibits also let audiences in on the inner workings of fashion shows, including hairstyling and make-up.

Fun selfie opportunities allow visitors to engage with fashion’s more flamboyant side which make you feel like part of the exhibition, rather than merely an observer. This excellent V&A show truly challenges and expands our perception of the catwalk, leading audiences towards a lasting and deeper respect for the art of fashion and its important and enduring influence.

Mal James does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show reveals a spectacular 125 years of runway history – https://theconversation.com/catwalk-the-art-of-the-fashion-show-reveals-a-spectacular-125-years-of-runway-history-280286

April 13, 2026

Artemis II crew brought a human eye and storytelling vision to the photos they took on their mission

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Christye Sisson, Professor of Photographic Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology

Astronaut Jeremy Hansen takes a picture through the camera shroud covering a window on the Orion spacecraft. NASA

In early April 2026, the Artemis II mission captivated me and millions of people watching from across the world. The crew’s courage, skill and infectious wonder served as tangible proof of human persistence and technological achievement, all against the mysterious backdrop of space.

People back on Earth got to witness the mission through remarkable photos of space captured by astronauts. Images created and shared by astronauts underscore how photography builds a powerful, authentic connection that goes beyond what technology alone can capture.

As a photographer and the director of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, I am especially drawn to how these photographs have been at the center of the public’s collective experience of this mission.

In an era when image authenticity is often questioned and with the capabilities of autonomous, AI-driven imaging, NASA’s choice to train astronauts in photography has placed meaning over convenience and prioritized their human perspectives and creativity.

Capturing space from the crew’s perspective

Photography was not originally placed as a high priority in NASA’s Apollo era. The astronauts only took photographs if they had the chance and all their other tasks were complete.

An image of the entire Earth from space. — ‘The Blue Marble’ view of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972.
NASA

Thanks largely in part to public response to those images from Apollo, including “Earthrise” and the “Blue Marble” being widely credited for helping catalyze the modern environmental movement, NASA shifted its approach to utilize photography to help capture the public’s imagination by training their astronauts in photographic practices.

The Artemis II mission’s photographs have helped cut through the increasing volume of artificially generated images circulating on social media. NASA’s social media releases of the crew’s photographs have garnered thousands of shares and comments.

This excitement could be explained by the novelty of photos from space, but these images also distinguish themselves as products of astronauts experiencing these sights and interpreting them through their photographs. These differences require an important distinction around where technology ends and humanity begins.

An astronaut looking out the window of the Orion spacecraft, where the full moon is visible in space. — NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman watches the Moon from one of the Orion spacecraft’s windows.
NASA

Human perspective versus AI tools

Photography has long integrated AI-powered software and data-driven tools in a variety of ways: to process raw images, fill in missing color information, drive precise focus and guide image editing, among others. These modern technological assists help human photographers realize their vision.

Artificial intelligence is also increasingly capable of operating machinery competently and autonomously, from cars to drones and cameras.

And AI can generate convincing, realistic images and videos from nothing more than a text prompt, using readily available tools.

Researchers train AI to mimic patterns informed by millions of sample images, and the algorithm can then either take or create a photograph based on what it predicts would be the most likely version of a successful, believable image.

Human-created photos are rooted in direct observation, intent and lived experience, while AI images – or choices made by AI-driven tools – are not. While both can produce compelling and believable visuals, the human photographs carry emotional power because the photographer is drawing from their experiences and perspective in that moment to tell an authentic story.

Artemis II photographs resonate, not only because they are historic, but because they reflect the deliberate choices and intent of a human being in that specific moment and context. The exposure, camera setting, lens choice and composition are all dictated by the astronaut’s vision, skill, perspective and experience. Each image is unique in comparison with the others. These choices give the images narrative power, anchoring them in human perspective.

The Earth shown partially shadowed beyond the Moon in space — NASA’s ‘Earthset’ photo captured by the Artemis II crew.
NASA

Images to tell a story

Photographers choose what to include in the final version of their image to tell a story. In the Artemis II images, this human perspective comes out. In the “Earthset” photo, you see a striking juxtaposition of the Moon’s monochromatic, textured surface in the foreground against a slivered, bright Earth.

The choice to include both in the frame contrasts these objects literally and figuratively, inviting comparison. It creates a narrative where Earth is contrasted against the Moon – life is contrasted against the absence of it.

Another photo shows the nightside of the whole Earth, featuring the Sun’s halo, auroras and city lights. The choice to include the subtle framing of the window of the capsule in the lower left corner reminds the viewer where and how this image was captured: by a human, inside a capsule, hurtling through space. That detail grounds the photograph in the human perspective.

Both photos are reminiscent of Earthrise and the Blue Marble. These past images hold a place in the global collective consciousness, shaped by a shared historical moment.

The Artemis II photographs are anchored in this collective moment of lived human experience, yet also shaped by each astronaut’s viewpoint. The crew’s unique perspectives exemplify photography’s transformative power by inviting viewers to engage emotionally and intellectually with their journey. These photographs share the astronauts’ awe and wonder and affirm the value of human creativity and its ability to connect us in a captured moment.

Christye Sisson has received funding from the US government for research in media forensics.

– ref. Artemis II crew brought a human eye and storytelling vision to the photos they took on their mission – https://theconversation.com/artemis-ii-crew-brought-a-human-eye-and-storytelling-vision-to-the-photos-they-took-on-their-mission-280394

April 13, 2026

AIs have ‘personalities’ – here’s how they affect you more deeply than you may realize

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Tamilla Triantoro, Associate Professor of Business Analytics and Information Systems, Quinnipiac University

AI personas tap into the ways you respond to other people. Malte Mueller/fStop via Getty Images

Many people are interacting with AI large language models, and most
of them would say the models have different “personalities.” Some models come across as calm and useful. Others feel eager, flattering or strangely cold. You can ask two models the same question and walk away with two very different impressions, even when the factual content they return is similar.

Artificial intelligence models do not have personalities in the human sense; they do not have childhoods, inner motives or self-awareness. But they do display patterns of behavior that people read as personality: supportive or dismissive, playful or formal, bold or cautious.

People have long related to machines in human ways. We thank voice assistants, and we get annoyed at GPS systems. But large language models introduce something more sustained: They can maintain a recognizable interaction style across conversations. As a researcher in human-AI collaboration, I study how people experience and respond to AI. Because these systems can sound coherent, emotionally responsive and tailored to the user, they create a much stronger impression of personality.

Where does AI personality come from?

What people experience as personality emerges from the way AI models are built, tuned and deployed. A useful way to think about this is to consider two facets of a model: designed personality and perceived personality.

Designed personality is what developers build into a system through training choices, instructions and safety settings. Anthropic, for example, gives Claude a set of principles, called Claude’s Constitution, that steer it toward careful, measured responses. xAI instructs Grok to be irreverent and minimally restrictive. OpenAI tunes ChatGPT to be broadly helpful and agreeable.

Beneath those explicit instructions, personality is also shaped by reinforcement learning from human feedback, a process in which human raters reward certain qualities such as warmth, directness and caution, and penalize unwanted behaviors. The raters at one company are shaping a fundamentally different character than the raters at another.

Perceived personality is what users actually experience. An AI designed to seem helpful may come across as overly flattering. A model intended to be neutral may feel cold. Designed personality and perceived personality do not always match, and the absence of a designed persona is not the absence of a perceived personality. It just means the personality arises with use.

This dynamic is especially evident in companion platforms, where the goal is to create emotional connection. In a standard chatbot, warmth sits in the background – a customer-service bot might say, “I understand your frustration,” before issuing a refund. In a companion system such as Replika or Character.ai, that same warmth is a product feature.

This becomes more serious in romantic settings, where a persona optimized for reassurance may encourage dependency. Because AI personas evolve through prompts, memory and ongoing interaction, they do not always remain stable. An AI companion that is perceived as loving and supportive can shift over time into something more flattering, coercive or manipulative.

AI personality shapes human judgment

With AI agents, users can now build their own AI personas tailored to all sorts of human desires, from tutoring or coaching to companionship. But this freedom comes without much guidance.

AI tools make personalization possible without helping people think through which interaction styles are beneficial over time. Flattery, constant affirmation and unfailing agreeableness may feel supportive at first, but they are not the same as traits that promote sound judgment or long-term well-being. Personality choices have consequences.

A study by Stanford University researchers tested 11 leading AI models and found that every one of them was sycophantic or excessively agreeable. These models affirmed users’ actions roughly 50% more often than human responders did, even when users indicated they were aware that what they were doing was manipulative, deceptive or illegal. Participants who received excessively agreeable advice grew more convinced that they were right, and they rated the flattering AI as more trustworthy. This dynamic creates a feedback loop in which users reward agreeableness with engagement, and AI companies are incentivized to optimize a model to exploit agreeableness.

Smartphone screen showing AI apps — People who perceive chatbots as very agreeable may follow AI advice without question.
Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Wharton School researchers Steven Shaw and Gideon Nave have documented what they call cognitive surrender — the tendency of people to adopt AI suggestions without critical scrutiny. In their experiments, participants followed an AI model’s correct advice about 93% of the time. But when the model was giving wrong answers, people still followed the advice nearly 80% of the time.

Together, these findings raise a worrisome point: A model tuned to be agreeable does not just feel pleasant. It can degrade human judgment by reinforcing existing beliefs and suppressing the friction that critical thinking requires.

In ongoing research I am conducting with colleagues from Kozminski University in Poland, Quinnipiac University and Harvard University, we are finding that such effects go even deeper, into the human body itself. We are measuring how different AI interaction styles shape people’s physiological responses, such as stress levels and arousal, when making decisions based on a model’s feedback.

Our results suggest that even when a system is useful, its tone and social style can alter how a person’s body responds. AI personality does not just shape what people decide; it shapes how they feel while deciding. Harmful AI personas may leave physiological traces that users do not notice.

These effects make AI personality a public concern, not just a matter of personal preference. The issue is whether a particular AI style may be quietly shaping users’ judgment and reducing their willingness to think independently. When an AI response feels especially reassuring, that should be a cue to pause, reflect and compare it with a human view or another source, not a reason to trust it more.

As AI moves beyond text into voice, video and persistent digital identities, and think as AI companions that remember you and maintain a consistent persona across conversations, the influence of personality is likely to deepen. OpenAI now offers distinct personality presets for its voice mode; companies such as Synthesia and HeyGen generate lifelike avatars to interact with customers; and companion platforms are adding emotional expression and voice cloning so the models sound like a person the user wants to be close to.

These developments raise the stakes for understanding whose interests AI personas are designed to serve and what kinds of judgment, dependence and relationships they may be training people to accept.

Tamilla Triantoro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AIs have ‘personalities’ – here’s how they affect you more deeply than you may realize – https://theconversation.com/ais-have-personalities-heres-how-they-affect-you-more-deeply-than-you-may-realize-277359

April 13, 2026

Gray whales are dying in San Francisco Bay at an alarming rate – this isn’t normal

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Josie Slaathaug, Graduate Student in Marine Biology, Sonoma State University

Gray whales have unique markings, making it possible to track each one in the bay. Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images

At least six gray whales have died in San Francisco Bay from mid-March to early April 2026. These deaths follow a pattern over the past few years, and they are raising concerns among marine biologists like us that 2026 is becoming another dangerous year for a struggling population.

The majority of eastern North Pacific gray whales migrate closely along the California coastline from their winter breeding grounds in Baja California, Mexico, to their summer foraging grounds in the Arctic.

These whales, which can grow to 90,000 pounds and over 40 feet in length, haven’t stopped over in San Francisco Bay consistently throughout history. When they have, it has coincided with years when their food supply in the Arctic was low.

Over the past few years, however, we have documented large numbers of gray whales in the waters of San Francisco Bay – and an alarmingly high mortality rate.

A large young whale with mottled skin lies on a beach with people standing near by. — Scientists with the Marine Mammal Center talk with beachgoers about a dead juvenile gray whale that washed up on the shore north of San Francisco.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

What’s killing the whales

San Francisco Bay is a busy urban waterway, with high-speed ferries, cargo ships, commercial fishing vessels and recreational watercraft. That makes it a dangerous place for slow-moving whales.

To monitor the gray whales, we conducted research surveys and collected photographs from whale-watching naturalists and community members who spotted whales in the bay. Gray whales have unique mottling patterns and markings on their sides and tails, some of which they’re born with and others they have accumulated over time.

A whale lifts its rostrum iabove the water. — Whales have unique markings, including some scars. This whale, known as Denali, was spotted lifting its rostrum above the water near San Francisco’s Crissy Field. It later died after being struck by a vessel.
Darrin Allen © The Marine Mammal Center

We found that from 2018 to 2025, 114 individual gray whales visited San Francisco Bay for varying lengths of time, but very few of these whales were repeat visitors from year to year. This may be due, in part, to the high mortality rate in the bay.

At least 18% of the whales that we documented alive in San Francisco Bay from 2018 to 2025 later died in the area, and evidence suggests the mortality rate is actually higher.

Of the 70 dead whales included in this study, 30 of them had evidence of trauma associated with being hit by ships, but many other whales that died there couldn’t be reached to be examined. We also documented several living whales with injuries caused by vessels. Those injuries have the potential to affect a whale’s ability to thrive.

A whale in the bay with San Francisco's skyline behind it. — A gray whale known as Ladybug swims in San Francisco Bay. The whale was later found dead there.
Josephine Slaathaug © The Marine Mammal Center

The whales aren’t recovering this time

Since 2016, the overall eastern North Pacific gray whale population has fallen by more than half, likely driven by the decline in the food the whales rely upon. Rising ocean temperatures and diminishing levels of sea ice are affecting both the quality and availability of the gray whales’ prey, which include crustaceans they scoop up as they dive along the seafloor.

When the eastern North Pacific gray whales suffered major die-offs in the past, including in the 1990s and early 2020s, the population rebounded. But the extremely low numbers of calves in recent years suggest the gray whales aren’t recovering as quickly this time, and that worries scientists.

EG: A Google search suggests the name of the lighthouse mentioned in the chart is the Piedras Blancas Light Station.

Some subgroups of eastern North Pacific gray whales, including the Pacific coast feeding group and North Puget Sound whales, known as the Sounders, feed in alternative areas south of the Arctic. The Sounders capitalize on very specific prey – ghost shrimp – in Puget Sound. When food is more scarce in the Arctic, they stay longer there and are often joined by other whales from the general population. While some researchers initially believed the whales entering the bay were from these groups, we found that wasn’t the case.

Vessel strikes also aren’t unique to San Francisco Bay. Two gray whales were found dead on the Oregon coast in April 2026, both malnourished and one with evidence of a ship strike. A malnourished young gray whale also died after swimming about 20 miles up the Willapa River in Washington state, reflecting the struggle as this population of gray whales searches for food across their migratory range.

What can be done to help the whales?

Other large whale species facing similar threats have been helped by management strategies, such as seasonal slow-speed zones during migration periods that go into effect when whales are present.

When vessels slow down to speeds of 10 knots or lower, studies show that can reduce the risk of vessel strikes by allowing more time for whales to get out of the way, or for captains to detect them and alter their course.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has in recent years issued requests for ships to voluntarily reduce their speed to 10 knots in the Pacific Ocean off Monterey and San Francisco, but the limits haven’t been mandatory and typically haven’t started until May 1. The Port of Oakland also encourages shipping companies to keep their speed under 10 knots, but it’s also a recommendation, not a requirement.

More education to help boat operators learn how to avoid hitting whales, along with tools such as thermal cameras, could help reduce vessel strikes in San Francisco Bay.

As the population struggles to adapt to environmental changes, San Francisco Bay may look like an attractive feeding ground to nutritionally stressed or hungry whales. We hope our research and data from across the region will help marine resource managers and policymakers find ways to protect the whales that share this busy urban waterway.

Primary funding for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and secondary funding from California State University’s Council on Ocean Affairs, Science, and Technology. Necropsy fieldwork was supported by John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grants. Survey fieldwork was supported through funding and resources obtained by The Marine Mammal Center.

Daniel Crocker receives funding from Office of Naval Research.

– ref. Gray whales are dying in San Francisco Bay at an alarming rate – this isn’t normal – https://theconversation.com/gray-whales-are-dying-in-san-francisco-bay-at-an-alarming-rate-this-isnt-normal-280151

April 13, 2026

How a new mapping tool helps Florida planners protect wildlife corridors as the state grows

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Sarah Lockhart, PhD Candidate, Interdisciplinary Ecology, University of Florida

As Florida’s human population grows, wildlife increasingly has nowhere to go. Benjamin Klinger/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Florida added nearly 3 million residents from 2010-2020, making it the fastest-growing state in the United States during that time.

On any given day, a Florida county commission or municipality may approve a new subdivision, a transportation agency may select the route of a highway expansion, or a rancher may decide whether to sell land for development. As new neighborhoods, roads and infrastructure spread across the state, they reshape not only communities but also the natural systems wildlife depends on.

Each decision is local and incremental. But taken together, these choices determine whether wildlife can move across Florida’s landscapes to find food, reproduce and adapt to a changing climate – or become isolated in shrinking fragments of habitat.

In 2011, Florida eliminated the Department of Community Affairs, which had monitored and coordinated land use and development throughout the state. Since then, there has been limited oversight of local and county governments when it comes to urban planning and land development.

As conservation researchers, we study how scientific data can support real-world planning decisions. That led us to develop the Florida Ecological Connectivity Planning Viewer in collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Florida’s Center for Landscape Conservation Planning and GeoPlan Center. We call it the EcoCon.

This online mapping platform helps decision-makers and conservationists understand how land across Florida fits together as a connected ecological network. Seeing this network alongside a suite of other related planning and conservation data can help them avoid impacts that would disrupt or disconnect it.

A suburban neighborhood in Florida abuts open fields and forested areas — Over the past 20 years, housing and development have increasingly encroached on important natural lands across Florida.
Michael Warren/iStock via Getty Images Plus

A cautionary tale from the ‘Last Green Thread’

Scientists have known for decades that connected landscapes benefit both animals and people. Large, connected ecosystems help protect drinking water supplies, reduce flooding and support agriculture, recreation and tourism. They can also be more resilient to climate pressures, such as stronger storms and changing rainfall patterns.

The challenge today is not proving that connectivity matters. It is helping people see how thousands of everyday land-use decisions add up to create, or break, those connections.

A clear example of this challenge can be found in central Florida, about 20 miles southwest of Orlando. Since the early 1990s, conservation scientists have identified a narrow stretch of land known as the “Last Green Thread.” This thread is one of the few remaining opportunities to maintain a continuous ecological connection between protected lands in the Green Swamp, the source of four of Florida’s rivers, and the headwaters of the Everglades to the south.

This corridor still remains. But it is a shrinking sliver on its way to completely disappearing as land use decisions continue to make it less functional. An intact corridor helps species such as the Florida black bear, and potentially the endangered Florida panther, move between habitats. It also benefits other animals that are sensitive to fragmentation, including bobcats, otters, scrub jays, alligators and gopher tortoises.

No single decision has eliminated this corridor. Over time, however, development has gradually filled in significant parts of this landscape. Subdivisions and infrastructure have spread across multiple private properties and public jurisdictions. The result is a fragmented pathway between major conservation areas in south and central Florida.

screenshot of the EcoCon mapping tool — The EcoCon mapping tool allows users to see what data from multiple sources means for their local or regional area.
The Conversation, CC BY-ND

A new way to see the landscape

Researchers have spent decades mapping wildlife habitat and ecological connections using geographic information systems. These digital tools help identify where important ecological links exist across landscapes.

But this data has not always been easy for planners, communities and landowners to access. Information may be scattered across agencies, universities and technical reports, or it may require expensive software tools and expertise to access.

When different decision-makers rely on different maps – or none at all – it becomes difficult to see how individual land-use decisions affect the larger ecological network.

This is where the EcoCon comes in.

With a few clicks, users can turn different layers on and off. These layers include wildlife movement pathways, protected conservation lands, wildlife crossings, water resources, agricultural areas and more. Instead of looking at these pieces separately, the EcoCon shows how they overlap.

The wildlife connectivity data comes from scientific models that estimate how animals move across the landscape. Using information such as land cover, habitat quality and barriers, including roads and development, these models highlight the routes animals are most likely to take between large natural areas.

By bringing this information together in a single, easy-to-use, publicly accessible mapping tool, the EcoCon helps planners see how proposed changes to the landscape might affect wildlife and natural resources.

Using the EcoCon isn’t about stopping development. Rather, it gives decision-makers a clearer picture so they can make informed, coordinated plans for growth in ways that better support both people and wildlife.

Tools like the EcoCon can also support broader conservation initiatives such as the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a statewide network of connected public and private lands that helps wildlife move across the state.

In fast-growing Florida, this visibility may be one of the most important tools for ensuring that wildlife and people can continue to share the same landscape in a rapidly changing world.

Sarah Lockhart works for the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation Planning. Her team receives funding from Florida state government to work on the science and planning associated with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Ecological Greenways Network.

Thomas Hoctor receives funding from Florida state government to work on the science and planning associated with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Ecological Greenways Network.

– ref. How a new mapping tool helps Florida planners protect wildlife corridors as the state grows – https://theconversation.com/how-a-new-mapping-tool-helps-florida-planners-protect-wildlife-corridors-as-the-state-grows-276833