Two climate activists made for a beautiful Monet painting exhibited at the National Museum in Sweden on a recent Wednesday morning, gluing (粘) a hand to the artwork’s protective glass and putting it in red paint. Similar scenes have unfolded at more than a dozen museums over the last year, leaving cultural workers at a loss for how to prevent climate activists from targeting delicate artworks. Meanwhile, the costs for security, conservation and insurance are growing, according to cultural institutions that have experienced attacks.

Cultural institutions are attempting to be active when their budgets allow. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, more security has been added to certain exhibitions. Returning a painting to its former glory after attacks can require hours of careful conservation work, and expensive glass cannot prevent liquids from getting through the protective barrier.

The number of workers required to clean a painting like the Monet is big, with about 10 people working for a couple of days. But there are limited options for a state-run museum to prevent an attack. “An extreme consequence would be to close the museum,” said Hedstrom from the National Museum, though that was unrealistic, since the collection belongs to the Swedish public.

Last month, Joanna and Tim were charged for damaging an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, after they put paint on the case surrounding the fragile sculpture of “Little Dancer” in April. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. It was seen as a turning point, while climate activists have called the sentence unjust. “We didn’t mean to rampage anything in the museums but call for people to think about what they value on Earth,” Joanna said. Kaywin, the National Gallery’s director, said she appreciated the work done by the authorities to bring these serious charges. “What on earth does Degas’s ‘Little Dancer’ have to do with climate change? Of course, the answer is nothing,” she said.

Deforestation is the purposeful clearing of forested land. Throughout history and into modern times, forests have been cut to make space for agriculture and raising animal, and to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction.

Deforestation has greatly changed landscapes around the world. About 2,000 years ago, 80 percent of Western Europe was forested; today the figure is 34 percent. In North America, about half of the forests in the eastern part of the continent were cut down from the 1600s to the 1870s for wood and agriculture. China has lost great expanses of its forests over the past 4,000 years and now just over 20 percent of it is forested.

Today, the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring in tropical rainforest, aided by extensive road construction into regions that were once almost inaccessible. Building roads into forests makes them more accessible for exploitation. Slash-and-burn agriculture is also a big contributor. With this agricultural method, farmers burn large numbers of trees, allowing the ash to fertilize the land for crops. Tropical forests are also cleared to make way for logging, cattle ranching, and oil palm and rubber tree plantations.

Deforestation can accelerate global warming and threaten the world’s biodiversity. More immediately, the loss of trees from a forest can leave soil easy to be eroded (侵蚀). This causes the remaining plants to become more vulnerable (脆弱的) to fire as the forest changes from being a closed, wet environment to an open, dry one.

While deforestation can be permanent, this is not always the case. There have, however, been increases in the size of some forests, often, because trees in those areas were replanted. Forests can also naturally recover themselves if the land is nurtured and protected from any further timber harvesting.

Slowing the loss of forests, experts say, will require countries and communities to develop effective forest management plans. Such plans, they say, must strike a balance between environmental protection and the economic needs of human society.

Recently, more than 100 Asian elephants made their way across The Mall in front of London’s Buckingham Palace. They weren’t live animals, however, but life-sized elephant sculptures that were handmade by Indigenous community members from the jungles of Tamil Nadu in South India.

The environmental art exhibition is called CoExistence. It was headed by Elephant Family and The Real Elephant Collective, a British Charity and nonprofit socio-environmental enterprise aimed at raising awareness for the Indian elephant. Meant as a response to the increasing conflicts between humans and animals, the campaign’s goal is to start a movement of global empathy (共鸣) for members of the animal kingdom who, like the powerful elephant, have found themselves sharing natural habitats with fast-growing human populations.

The sculptures were made using an invasive(侵入式的) weed called lantana, whose removal coincides with benefits to wildlife in protected areas, where the elephants began their migration. Flying alongside the elephant are sculpted flocks of bird species that have been declared extinct or endangered in the UK.

The project helps demonstrate this unique time in history where the worldwide reduction in human activity from COVID-19 has had an overall positive effect on certain pockets of wildlife species around the planet.

“Today marks the first significant step on the herd’s 13,000 miles migration around the world. Over the past 18 months, many countries have gone into lockdown,” said Ruth Ganesh, Creative at The Real Elephant Collective and Elephant Family Trustee. “Brought about by sad circumstances, this great pause is providing crucial guidance on how to best share space with animals in our crowded planet. The elephants are here to tell their story about the inspiring ways we can coexist with all the other living beings that make our world magical—from tigers and monkeys, to nightingales and elephants.”