Only about 20000. 00 are pure american bison. That genetic line dates back to 913 when 14 bison from the bronx zoo were trucked to Wind Cave National park in south dakota at the behest of teddy roosevelt. So when it was time to bring bison to choose they looked for a posse with the wind lineage. We went to broken grassland another Nature Conservancy preserve in northwestern iowa in october of 24 team and brought back 20 animals with us we were essentially separated off the animals that we were going to bring back to illinois make sure that they had a clean bill of health. 7 of the females we strapped g. P. S. Collars onto so that we can get near real time moving. Some of the animals tracking those movements with the g. P. S. Collars is Julian Brockman a bison researcher at Southern Illinois university. What kind of data are you receiving so were getting Location Information a g. P. S. Point on a map every hour 24 hours a day so can you show me what youve been seeing sure these are the bison locations for yesterday they seem to be spending a lot of time along their corral and trap pressure and i can corroborate that because we were there and we saw them there so what would you say is the ultimate goal of your study having that amount of data really changes how we look at their movements and their selection it helps to understand what type of habitat theyre like for reintroductions in the future. Among the 2 dozen scientists doing research at the choose is dr holly jones a conservation biologist at Northern Illinois university with her team shes traveling in tagging small mammals to assess the impact of the big bison. The completely restoration ecologist playground i get so excited about this field say lets see if some of the men. There it is small mammals are food for aerial predators things like hawks things like owls and so its really important to know how theyre doing to be able to say how the person doing as a whole and thats because if the small mammals are tasty enough to become good prey theyre feasting on a healthy environment of insects and plants. What do you see since bison have been introduced weve had 13 lying around the world which was very surprising the line of evidence pointing towards a shift in Community Compositions and there are different plots of land that have been restored at different times and all the way back to 20 years ago we can look at a plot of land like this that was restored 4 years ago and look at a plot of land over there that was restored 6 years ago and one sees and look at how restoration progresses. Through. So how we think improves science in some way. You cant but you can go there. Less than a year since the bisons arrival the Environmental Impact is subtle some changes to plant growth and small animal populations but the biggest change may be on humans. For very connected to this herd they still feel like these are their bodies this is such a cool thing that weve returned this iconic mammal to illinois its exciting. I got to say i love when you guys bring stuff back from the field especially from someplace as iconic as tall grass person reading what did you bring us at 1st till you got to stand up ok ill tell you are about 6 to ok so here is a tall grass from the tall grass prayer that is some tall grass stalk i mean i was literally swimming in this stuff you know this is amazing this is part of the vegetation were taught in this is what the bison munch on this is thats exactly what they munch on this is what the bison were brought in to help control that could not sit still. Now these are little seed pods they look like Musical Instruments but their seed pods of some of the vegetation on the prairie that a nice little rain to get and this is what theyve been using to replant some of the native vegetation and then where this is the last piece of the puzzle this is a bison for. That surprisingly soft yet and you can see theres stuff in there is a lot of stuff in here so you can see really easily how bison would be dispersing you know these these little seed these large seed disperser is across the prairie a word does even come to shape like a bicycle when i was looking at that footage i was blown away by the color in the prairie the biodiversity the flowering plants and i wonder if a lot of people have that preconceived notion that new. Nothing grows that they would if i told you kara that along with tropical rain forests prairie lands and other grasslands are the most biodiverse complex ecosystems in the world would you believe me. I mean i believe you because you are an expert its right its its totally true but it does hold my mind and i thought it was really interesting to learn how important the prairie land is here in america for you know this because Climate Change problem that were all facing these these grasses and these different plants actually act as kind of a carbon sink dont they they really do the bulk of the plants in the prairie are not above ground theyre underground because thats how they survive fire they actually are a big factor in storing carbon yeah and that really does feed into the very next story read until you get a tag team to little verify both from this guy and from the ground you know i got to see california forests from an airplane like no other and while you were in your flying laboratory i was on the ground seeing the reality of trees and whats taken him down. Is so epic its so out of the norm. That we actually dont have the answer to what can we expect long term californias epic drought reservoirs are near empty farmers herding and its forests are flame are under attack by opportunistic coasts so were seeing tree mortality all over the landscape but in order to understand these changes to forests scientists must 1st assess their health using field officers and airplanes we have the most advanced airborne Remote Sensing package that i know of on earth today for over a decade ecologist greg as noor has been monitoring the health of forests around the world in an aircraft called the carnegie airborne observatory techno profiled his work mapping the amazon in a previous episode this time we joined. On his latest effort to map drought plagued california forests in his tricked out door need to 28. In the back of the aircraft are unique sensors designed to take measurements of the forest canopy while the plane flies over it were flying over about 8000000. 00 trees per hour one of these instruments is known as light our this instrument is a laser system that fires 2 lasers out of the bottom of the plane in a pattern that image is the forest canopy over it ever it is that we fly over in 3 d. What the instruments do is provide us a very accurate very unique way of understanding the amount of carbon stored in californias forests if you dont put carbon in forests then it ends up in the atmosphere and that contributes to Climate Change the plane is also equipped with a pair of spectrometers used to detect the chemical composition of trees it was time for takeoff where we going today today were heading out pretty close to the oregon border where we have a lot of forest thats unknown in terms of its drought stress and with that we were off from the air we could see reservoirs and rivers clearly depleted of water like shasta reservoir thats right its a lot of other people see what you see up with pro but the forest canopy actually looks pretty green but they could look like theyre pretty good sheep majority of californians forests are drought stressed today by losses but most of these forests are in trouble back at the lab as theres team got to work analyzing all the data thats where techno still torres picks up the story see you did a flight with merida these are the results and looking at the cockpit it looked green but here we see something thats to radically different and what we see that the forest is varies from what we would consider pretty average conditions in the yellows and blues up there down to areas that looks severely drought stricken and. Ed next we looked at an area where the drought stress was more acute so this is from Los Padres National forest this is what it looks like when you fly over gray green looks like your typical southern cal forest. This is what it looks like in chemical detail those trees are doing ok but Everything Else is showing severe drought stress and thats showing here in red now that we have the view from above we decided to head out for a boots on the ground perspective im standing here in the middle of Los Padres National forest and as you could tell from all the dead trees behind me theres plenty of evidence of the impact of a multiyear drought one of the biggest problems here a bug that attacks water stressed pine trees. Tog in those a bunch of tom coleman is an entomologist with the u. S. Forest service a lot of dead trees right here yeah this is a nice will act of spot bark beetle. Barbadoes kill more trees than any other kind of insect or disease in north america that you just look across the landscape and you see this kind of patchwork of dead trees mortality is quite dramatic this tree here is full of thousands of bark beetles does that mean that all the trees around here are now susceptible right now from what ive seen its just basically across the entire landscape have you ever seen this but not here in california. So just 10 minutes where were looking at the devastation caused by the pine beetles and now we are here and you can see the damage done by forest fires and theres a lot going on here so even though the wildfire is actually gone through an area and cause major mortality it will still see bark beetles coming in afterwards scientists studying our forest are concerned about the impacts from drought not just in california but also or. Around the world now what were starting to worry about is whether these droughts are somehow all interrelated in length of a global scale to suit a lot of force of the world or in trouble droughts putting pressure we dont know exactly how much of the Global Forest cover is at risk but were in the process now of finally getting the measurements we need to make those predictions. The scientists that are studying these things they can say heres the problem but their hands are tied they all they can do is wait for the drought to be over for only you know to pass and try to influence management and policy they need to get the data into the right hands i think thats the plan that has to get into the hands of managers and Decision Makers so that they can actually implement changes and whether were talking about managing americas grasslands or americas forest one thing is for certain that if we have healthy ecosystems we will eventually have a healthier climate absolutely and thank you for the story today guys know from prairie being restored by bison to forest being decimated by beetles one things for sure its a complex ecosystem out there but theres a lot of scientists working hard on it thats it for now well see you next on your own techno dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes at aljazeera dot com slash techno follow our expert contributors on Twitter Facebook Instagram Google plus and more. Hello there we have the east west splits across europe not just in terms of clear skies and then cloudy skies but also the tom ridge of talk about the rain because it has been coming in with a bit of a vengeance and certainly dumbing down the skies into Southern France this is nice this one brave soul doing their best to enjoy the weather despite the fact the rain is coming down more of a monday quite heavy at times as well through the southeast of france pushing on into switzerland addles so northern italy meanwhile across northern you know what a bank of cloud against the more showers quite cool 15 celsius in madrid meanwhile 24 in bucharest so this is about 6 degrees above the average for the time of year i mean want to madrid it is about 5 degrees below 0 quite a bit of cloud across seasonal central role but areas on shes day and thats when the rain is really very heavy through eastern as a spain we could actually have some localized flooding from that system so 1st of all monday were going to take out across the faunal west morocco algeria the showers a further to the east really working their way along these coastal areas of egypt then as we head over into choose day that is when that system impacting spade importable the west a med that is when we could see some very heavy a widespread amounts of rain into morocco and on towards algeria so certainly cooling off in a bath a high that just 18 celsius. In sydney to really know someone you must walk a mile in their shoes. Follow in their footsteps. To stay for today way in the one. Chance these personal journey. Inspiring stories of people disappearing on their chosen. Weakness documentaries on and to see. New leaders place children in this refugee camp the latest victims of the unending sectarian violence in Central African republic among them are survivors of unspeakable violence 10 year olds his mother is dead her father is gone killed because they were christian by their own muslim neighbors this is the least you home an overcrowded refugee camp of 23000 people surrounded by armed militia groups celine wants answers she says she wants to be asking the questions and so we traded places inch took the microphone will we find peace how can we make the violence stop when will i be able to return home. China is calling on my want to reunify with the my. Bike the consequences one of 150 gates taiwans determination to remain independent on aljazeera. Lebanons cabinet needs to try and approve measures to fix an economic crisis thats led to mass protests. Hello im don jordan this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up libyas president looks like to face a Runoff Election as he attempts to secure a 4th consecutive term in office. Now for the. State of emergency has extended to more regions of chile after a cut in transport this fails to calm the protest its. Under strain as newspapers blackout the front pages in the government of a crackdown on press freedom. Lebanons Prime Minister is expected to announce a series of a. Forms in an effort to stop antigovernment protests start hariri has met the president ahead of a cabinet discussion happening now on new economic measures michel aoun told the meeting the protests express peoples pain but accusing all politicians of corruption is unfair meanwhile the demonstrators are continuing their calls for the government to resign well there is a plan reportedly includes a 50 percent cut in the salaries of current and former president s ministers and m. P. s and more than 3000000000. 00 in contributions from banks to achieve a near 0 deficit in the 2020 budget it also involves a rebound of the telecoms and Electricity Sector which is a crucial demand from potential foreign donors and investors to unlock 11000000000. 00 in funds. Well demonstrators in lebanon nonsense and the 5th day businesses and schools across the country a shot due to a general strike was in a honda joins us live now from the lebanese capital saina said the Prime Minister saad hariri has convened this emergency Cabinet Meeting what are we expecting zana to come out of this. Well what we expect is for the cabinet to endorse Prime Ministers thought of how do these new economic plan a plan like you mentioned requires over enfolds raising revenues by either privatizing the Telecommunications Sector slashing the salaries of former and current officials there were no longer plans to impose taxes the protests were triggered on thursday when there were reports that the government planned to raise revenues by imposing yet more taxes on the people so this is the way the government hopes to be able to call the anger in the streets that weve been talking to people here and theyre saying this is not going to be enough we have lost faith in the political elites they are corrupt we want to know why that they didnt do this from the start why were they plotting to oppose taxes when there were alternatives so people here have lost a lot of faith in the Political Leadership but at the same time some others will say well we could welcome this if for example the government will ensure that these are fast reforms and that we will get the results as soon as possible but the demands of the protesters remain the same they want the government to resign and they want the Transitional Council that will be made up of judges who do not have any political affiliation and. They also want the elections to be held under a new alec 2 or along a law that whereby lebanon will be one single constituency what that means is that the different sects will no longer be electing leaders from their sects so this is the whole really goal of this protest movement to remove the political elite who have been in power for decades have to change the put. Secretary of system in the country but many people d here are under no illusion that theyre up against people who do not want to give up power through the Ruling Alliance really they made it very clear time and time again over the past few days they have no intention of stepping down. And as we saw another night of huge demonstrations last night in the protest of cool for this general strike today tell us whats been happening there. Oh yes massive demonstrations not only in the lebanese capital across the country really crowds this size protest last thing this generation who are rich Muslim Christian young old theyre all on the streets they come together in a rare show of unity theyre telling these sectarian leaders of this country we no longer believe in your narrative you cannot keep telling us that we are not safe or we cannot live with each other if we do not support you we want we want a strong state what politicians have been doing over the years theyve been exploiting the states resources at serving their own communities in order to remain in power now people here are again under no illusion that they face a lot of risks the Security Forces the army they used to have to have the tactics on friday nights but since then theyve taken a step back but people here are afraid that the army the Security Forces to be given orders to disperse the crowds because right now the people control the streets theres a general strike protesters are blocking the roads so its not just the army or the Security Forces who could be deployed to the streets Political Parties have supporters who are armed weve seen some incidents over the past few days like in South Lebanon they took to the streets to face the Peaceful Protesters who were chanting against their leaders so there are dangers that lie ahead but clearly this is a new beginning for many people here a revolution of the house already happened or design a lot of the in the lebanese capital xenophon now thank you. Now u. S. Troops are crossed into iraq as part of their withdrawal from Northern Syria a convoy has gone to this ahead a Border Crossing in the Northern Province of book its heading into territory controlled by the peshmerga in Northern Iraq semi autonomous kurdish region the pentagon says the troops will carry on the fight against i saw it from there u. S. President donald trump pulled American Forces out of syria making way for a turkish led operation against kurdish fighters well in syria the kurdish Led Syrian Democratic forces say their fighters have pulled out of a town near the Turkish Border civilians and hospital patients have also been moved from Russell Laine forces departure from the town as a major condition of a u. S. Brokered cease fire deal gave the s. D. A. Forces 5 days to leave and then on tuesday evening turkey wants to establish what it calls a safe zone between its border and territory controlled by the s. D. It is close to the turkish Syrian Border and sent us this update. Well certainly according to a Statement Released now by the s. D. S. Those Kurdish Forces today saying that there are no s. T. s fights is left in Russell Laine they say that they left along with what we understand could well be at least a couple of 100 civilians wounded civilians wounded fighters in the 2nd to calm voice the 1st one having gone in yesterday. So yes the s. D. F. Saying that their fighters have now withdrawn from that town. Just to talk a little bit about russell i and it has been the focus of some of the heaviest fighting in the build up to this cease fire. We saw predominately what we believe to be professorial syrian fighters these are the Free Syrian Army fighters that have created a full frontal just fight fighting alongside the turks they effectively surrounded that city that was besieged. For well over a week so there were huge concerns for the civilians trapped inside a great relief that they are out now but what remains to be seen and what needs to be attention. To be focused upon is the fact that. President order one wants this his proposed a safety zone to be 440 kilometers along the border and around 30 kilometers deep inside syria what we understand is that according to the s. D. S. They had agreed to withdraw all their fighters from russell line to tell abiola which effectively is around 120 kilometers in distance between the 2 so were having some analysts estimating that only around the very most 25 percent of the area within that proposed safety zone. As the forces have moved out from that area when you have threats from the president heard of one saying that effectively in 48 hours this temporary cease fire. Aims and if those forces havent been havent left that have been full military operations will resume draws great great attention to the concerns of United Nations and aid agencies that are working in this area the pension potentially hundreds of thousands more civilians that will be trapped in another conflict zone. Early Election Results in bolivia put the president a them or honest ahead but it looks like hell have to face a runoff in december iran is doesnt appear to have enough support to win a 4th term in office outright john homan reports now from the past. Or the ability of president ial elections look set for a 2nd round the 1st time since ever morally surged to power nearly 14 years ago preliminary results show the incumbent picking up 35 percent of the vote was his nearest challenger Carlos Messer not far behind with 38 enough for a runoff. And celebrated as if it was a win it so. Says that at the moment tacl said this is a Crucial Point after almost 14 long years the bolivian people have taken a decision. Defense of a democracy that needs to be consolidated and renovated. The president run his dimmick said these results is definitive 83 percent of the votes have been counted so far he believes those still to rifle through areas give him an out right when he goes hit the general as always we trust the vote in the countryside thats why were going to wait until the last vote is being counted to continue with our process of change. Whatever happens this election is being seen as a setback for a man hes used to winning by a landslide if the right is his supporters celebrating the fact that it did come 1st in this round of voting but again the last election because 60 percent of the phone so its popularity already has come down. To bolivians a divided many like schoolteacher meant to keep faith with the president hes always talk of poverty and kept the economy growing again assented. In the government but full moralez that wasnt development they had the chance and they didnt do it but ever arrived maybe economy grow it might not have got to all of it but he has tried it. And if you eric thinks differently about the longest standing president in the live his history getting were going to put it into him was we want to see a new candidate whos going to take the country to a Better Future we think that with evo will just stagnate. A minute its not just a desire for change through also worried that were alice is slowly eroding democracy in the country. Just to run in this election and change the constitution and defied a referendum in which the electorate narrowly rejected that i guess they could be away for up to 7 days for the remaining 1st from votes to be counted and to see if the president were on his knees full of was of a full term to celebrate or another electoral votes of all the hands john home and i was a 0 lead post. All right time for short break here now to 0 when we come back canadians have to a general election is being seen as a battle between progressive and conservative values. And how its a closer look down in indian administered kashmir is affecting families that one of the statements
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