Climate and environmental changes profoundly influence the movement of people, birds and other species around the globe. Cornell Law School's Marielena Hincapié and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Amanda Rodewald discuss the reasons behind these migrations, the challenges they pose and potential solutions for a more sustainable future.
Despite changes in movement patterns over recent decades, migration has been a natural phenomenon for millennia. Cornell Law School Distinguished Immigration Scholar and attorney Marielena Hincapié and Garvin Professor Amanda Rodewald, senior director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, explain why people and birds migrate — and what individuals, communities and policymakers can do to develop sustainable solutions for an interdependent world.
This episode of the Cornell Keynotes podcast from eCornell is co-sponsored by the Cornell Law School Migration and Human Rights Program and the Cornell Migrations Program.
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Chris Wofford: Today on Cornell Keynotes, we are looking at migration through a fresh lens by observing the similarities and differences among humans, birds, and other migratory animals. For this show, we combine the expertise of Amanda Rodewald, an ecologist at Cornell's Lab of Ornithology, and Marielena Hincapiéé, an immigration scholar at the Cornell Law School, to explore the impacts of climate change on migration, the sometimes negative social and legal constructs around immigration, And in the end, understand how we can change the narrative going forward.
Chris Wofford: This episode was produced in partnership with Cornell Law's Migration and Human Rights Program and the Cornell Migrations Initiative. Listeners, here's our conversation with Marielena and Amanda.
Chris Wofford: Marielena, having you two on the show together makes sense now, but partnering up an immigration lawyer and an ecologist might not strike one of our viewers as the most natural fit. So I want to ask you, how did you two come together and how, you know, how did we arrive at where we are today doing this show?
Marielena Hincapié: Yes. Thanks, Chris, for the opportunity to share my love of both people and birds in one sitting. And thanks to everybody for watching today. So, as an immigrant from Colombia, I have always loved birds. A fun fact is that Colombia is the country in the world that has the greatest number of birds.
Marielena Hincapié: Species, I think it's over 1,900. So one out of every five birds in the world lives in Colombia. And of course, they travel and migrate, which we'll talk more about but about a little bit over a year ago, when Steve Yale Lohr, who's the director of Cornell's immigration law and policy program reached out and invited me to join Cornell as a visiting scholar.
Marielena Hincapié: The thing that most attracted me to Cornell, believe it or not, was that Cornell had at that time a global challenge on migration and was looking at migration across species. So when I started, the first thing I did was reached out to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which I'm a sustained member of, and found Amanda, who was also part of the migration initiative at the time.
Marielena Hincapié: And Amanda and I have been in conversation for over a year now, really thinking about different ways to collaborate. And this is one of those examples. You're welcome.
Chris Wofford: Lovely that you two were able to come together so quickly. So Amanda, let's look at migration at its broadest level among species, particularly birds, which is your area of expertise.
Chris Wofford: So how do you define and how do you talk about migration?
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah, great question. And so we do have slightly different different definitions for migration. If you're thinking about human migration versus non human migration, so I think we're all familiar with migration and the fact that it is just this incredible, just phenomenon that happens around the world, and it happens with many different species wildebeest, salmon, monarchs, you know, and you're probably familiar with this.
Amanda Rodewald: But, of course, some of the best known migrants that we have are birds and birds just capture the imagination of people around the world, because we can actually experience this migration in real time in our own backyards, right? We can see birds, different species there at different times of the year.
Amanda Rodewald: And so, when we talk about migration to before I get into some of the details with terms, I just want to recognize that. They're really, you know, migration and migratory birds are really these living metaphors for how we're connected across countries across continents and hemispheres on the planet.
Amanda Rodewald: So, here, what you're looking at, each little dot represents a different species of bird, and you're looking at the center of its distribution as it migrates over the course of the year. So you can see these birds are moving south, and that's the center of their distribution in the non breeding season, and then they move back up north.
Amanda Rodewald: So it gives you an idea of how birds really connect people and places as well. So what do we mean by migration? Okay, well, migration is when we think about non human migration, we're talking about a predictable bi-directional movement that happens every year. So, here in this ebird animation, we're looking at 1 species, the Swainson's Thrush.
Amanda Rodewald: And so here we're seeing it move onto the breeding grounds and the darker the color represents where it's more abundant. And we can see over the course of the year, it moves from breeding areas in North America migrates through the, you know, the US, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and then can spend the winter there and returns.
Amanda Rodewald: So again, migration is that bi-directional movement. So you might be wondering, okay, why on earth would a species choose to traverse, you know, this, this distance? You know, it's so energetically demanding, it exposes them to all sorts of risks. Well, the reason is pretty simple, right? Birds, salmon, wildebeest, whatever species migrates, it's doing it fundamentally because of resources.
Amanda Rodewald: Like us, they need resources in order to survive and to reproduce you know, they need food, but they need, you know, appropriate temperatures where they can survive. Safety for predators or other hazards. And so that is what it's doing. So you can imagine for like a Swainson's thrush, you know, in the breeding season, it can go and take advantage of these flushes of insects.
Amanda Rodewald: If you've ever hiked around Northern latitudes, right? Lots of insects, good bugs to feed your, your kids growing up. You have long days, warm temperatures, but in the winter, it's just not going to be as suitable. So that's why then you start seeing movement to other locations. But of course, that's all the plus side of why a bird might move.
Amanda Rodewald: But migration isn't that simple. And so birds are exposed to many different dangers. I think they're traveling through sometimes unfamiliar terrain. There may be habitat that's used to be available. It's no longer there. Habitat as it's being degraded may no longer provide the resources it needs, you know, navigating unfamiliar terrain also exposes them to hazards that may pop up over time, you know, or they're persistently there.
Amanda Rodewald: So, for example, with birds, many fly at night, they're facing danger with collisions and our big cities, because lights are attracting them to cities where then they become disoriented and will hit tall buildings or communication towers, they're exposed to extreme weather that can cause, you know, death or injury and also to predators, you know, or other dangers.
Amanda Rodewald: And so it's not surprising then to you know, if you think about most studies of mortality across the year for birds, find that it's highest during migratory periods. So that parallel is one thing that Marielena and I have been talking where you have some of the similar hazards that any moving animal is going to face human or non human as they're trying to migrate, but in the context of this conversation today, you know, we're really want to highlight an additional challenge that birds don't face and that is that social component, right?
Amanda Rodewald: And I think this Banksky you know, art really signifies it. Well, birds aren't facing a lot of the narrative or demonization that we sometimes see with human migrants. And so that's why we're really excited to be here today and to discuss some of those similarities and some of the dissimilarities between humans and birds as they're migrating.
Chris Wofford: Marielena, I'm going to turn to you. So when we're talking about migrants, immigrants, refugees, humans, words, and definitions do matter. Help us out here distinguish between some of the words that I've just used and what they mean to you.
Marielena Hincapié: Yeah, thank you for that, Chris and lovely presentation, Amanda.
Marielena Hincapié: So just like birds and other species, people have been migrating since we have existed and will continue to migrate and move. So the term, I'll start with the term migration and immigration. So at the very core, it simply refers to people moving, right? Basically, whether you're moving from one place to another for temporary reasons or permanent reasons, whether you're going whether it's circular migration, you're returning back to your home country, right?
Marielena Hincapié: But it is basically just that piece of moving. And in the United States, we tend to use the term immigration. The rest of the world actually uses the term migration, and you also will hear immigrants and migrants, but they basically mean the same thing. And, you know, we often think about migration or immigration referring to people moving from one country to the other.
Marielena Hincapié: But one thing to be mindful of, for example, in the United States, the Great Migration is still considered one of the largest internal migration movements of people in our history in the United States. And it refers to the migration of approximately six million African Americans who moved from the rural southern United States to urban areas in the north.
Marielena Hincapié: And that was between 1916 and 1970. And they did so for a combination of reasons, right? But due on the one hand, the push factor being the racist and dangerous and violent conditions under Jim Crow laws in the South at that time, but also because there was a demand for labor in the North particularly as a result of the industrial labor happening after World War I and that's what resulted in black Americans moving.
Marielena Hincapié: So back to terminology. So migrants and immigrants, right, again, that's a person who moves from one place to another. Then we have refugees and that refers to both refugees and asylum seekers or asylees refers to someone who has fled their home country due to a well founded fear of persecution.
Marielena Hincapié: And that persecution could be due to race, religion, nationality, ethnic or indigenous identity, gender identity, or particular membership in a particular social group. And for refugees, they are going to a particular country under which they will apply for refugee status and stay there until they are vetted for national security purposes, et cetera. And then they are once they're determined to be a refugee, then they have access to go into another country. Asylees or people who are asylum seekers, basically the same thing, except they have arrived at a country. So here in the United States, we've been seeing a lot of this with people arriving at the US/Mexico border or at a port of entry, whether it's at the land or at an airport for the same reason applying because they fear persecution in their homeland.
Marielena Hincapié: Then we have the term irregular migrant or undocumented migrant, which again is the term irregular is what's used in the rest of the world. Undocumented is what we'd refer to here in the United States. And that is that refers to someone who is in the country without lawful status and that could be because they entered across the border or because they entered on a visa and overstayed their visa.
Marielena Hincapié: And then lastly, I'll just refer again to internally displaced people because that's a common term that we'll talk more a little bit more later when we talk about climate. But again, that's the movement of people usually forced displacement internally within a particular country.
Chris Wofford: Thank you. So when a call back to what Amanda was discussing just moments ago, we learned a little bit about why birds and other species may migrate resources, sustenance, etcetera. Do people move for similar reasons to birds? Where's the overlap there?
Marielena Hincapié: Absolutely. So like birds, people are migrating primarily for survival reasons.
Marielena Hincapié: They also move for love, for opportunities, safety, and freedom is the way I like to think about it. And so at its core, there are two basic types of migration. One is voluntary migration and the other is forced migration. For voluntary migration, you know, that is when people are choosing to move for educational, so to come study at Cornell, for example.
Marielena Hincapié: Or for employment opportunities or to be reunited with loved ones. My family, for example, when we immigrated from Colombia to the United States, that was because my father had been recruited to work in a textile factory in 1970. And then, out of love, he wanted to make sure that my mother and he decided that we would have better economic opportunities for my nine siblings and myself.
Marielena Hincapié: And today, my siblings, nieces, and nephews work in the health profession. They're educators. They're the biochemists. They're so Social justice, activists and business leaders as well. Forced migration is really what happens when people have no choice, right? They are forced to leave their home country due to factors such as war, conflict, persecution and Environmental disasters, which we'll talk more about as well.
Chris Wofford: Perfect. I want to get back over to Amanda. Force migration was one term that jumped out at me there. Amanda, you had shown some of the hazards, the obstacles to you know, for birds migration, right? The the ever present house cat was one that jumped out at me there. So tell us about other human activities that, that may impact migration.
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah. So, and it turns out there are a lot of a lot of the human activities that impact bird migration also are, you know, in many cases having impacts on human migration as well. So with migratory species, Birds and other species by far human activities that result in the loss of habitat or its degradation.
Amanda Rodewald: In other words, where, you know, where a species, you know, where an individual usually would be able to reasonably find the resources it needs to survive, either that habitat's missing, or it's been degraded to the point where it can no longer provide those resources. That's going to affect humans.
Amanda Rodewald: Species. So in the case of migratory birds, right, they need habitat there. So I'll just step back. All species need habitat. Doesn't matter if you're migratory or resident species. All people need habitat, right? But for a migratory species, it's extra complicated because they require habitat at geographically distant places.
Amanda Rodewald: They need it on the breeding grounds, right? If they're, you know, breeding in the north, they need it and where they're spending the overwinter, but they also need these, what we call stopover locations. So points along their migratory journey where they can stop to rest and to refuel and to have safety from the hazards or the predators that they're facing or, you know, harvesting, you know, there's sometimes they're harvested or exploited.
Amanda Rodewald: During migration. So that's really a major factor. And of course you know, there are, you know, these structures that I mentioned that can affect them. And I would say these, like, the collision structure there that that analogy would be just barriers. It's really. Any sort of barrier or structure that can either directly kill a migrating individual or can prevent its movement.
Amanda Rodewald: And there, it just sort of dies by default. Climate change is another factor that can be, it can make migration more dangerous. Sort of in real time, if you have severe weather events, you know, that increase the risk of death from exposure. But it also because climate change. Changes the timing of resources that can affect the likelihood they're going to find the resources they need as they're migrating and climate change.
Amanda Rodewald: Has to has both direct and indirect effects on that first factor. I mentioned habitat, right? Because through climate change, we can be losing habitats. If we think of shorebirds that are moving, they need, you know, wetlands. They need. Mudflats and coastal areas. Well, we might be losing those because of extensive droughts or due to sea level rise, for example.
Amanda Rodewald: Right. And so, so we can find that that migratory species are really subject to all of these pressures, you know, that they're that they're being faced you know, directly. And of course, as, as climate change is forcing movement, or I guess shifts in where human activities and human residence. are located.
Amanda Rodewald: That's also exacerbating the amount of habitat loss and degradation that we're seeing.
Chris Wofford: All right, Marielena. So similarly how does human activity in the, in this instance, you know, we're talking about climate change generally. How does this affect the movement of peoples? What are, what are we seeing?
Chris Wofford: What have we seen in recent years and what can we anticipate?
Marielena Hincapié: Yeah. I mean, like Amanda said, you know, first and foremost, right? It's habitat. It's about the need. We all need shelter. And so that's probably the most important impact that climate change is having on all of us across the world. But like birds, climate change is already resulting, increasing in, increasing the number of people that are being forced to leave their homes.
Marielena Hincapié: You know, we see individuals who are displaced by environmental disasters, whether that's rising sea levels, hurricanes, fires, extreme weather, flooding. Floods or droughts, right? I think a number of those and It's often not an immediate, right? It could be a hurricane forces people to have to migrate immediately or an earthquake.
Marielena Hincapié: Sometimes it's a much slower like slow pacing climate disaster that's happening over time. And I'll talk a little bit about that in a moment. But, you know, this could also result in internal migration. And so one of the places we see this again is Hurricane Katrina, for example, in the United States, which was the most Recent like a large climate disaster that caused such a large number of people having to leave their homes.
Marielena Hincapié: And some people were never able to come back. Some people were able to come back. What's interesting on the impact of climate change on human migration is that Although climate refugees, a term or climate migrant is a term that is starting to be used more regularly. There actually is. It's not a recognized term under international law.
Marielena Hincapié: And you know, this is 1 of the big areas of work that's going to be needed, or that is needed already. I would argue. The other thing is, you know, as I mentioned, climate change doesn't necessarily lead to increase migration. At immediately, like, what we might see is that there's a. displacement of people indirectly.
Marielena Hincapié: So if there's a drought, for example, and you've got someone who lives in a coastal area where they're primarily dependent on fishing, that drought or the change in weather may result in them suddenly not being able to fish and not being able to make a livelihood. And so they may move. From their village to the urban area in their home country and start looking for work.
Marielena Hincapié: And then because of increased heat, then they are now having to look for other work. And then slowly you start seeing a little bit of what like Amanda was describing with birds, you start seeing changes in behavior that ultimately sometimes results in people moving or feeling, being forced to migrate across national borders as well.
Chris Wofford: Right. And so, you know, there's varying rates of change and the perception or what we all feel Is that it's been slow. It's been slow. And now it's really starting to kind of pick up the pace. Right? So, you know, my question is, does climate change, it feels like it's accelerating migration. Do do things happen more rapidly?
Chris Wofford: What is the end? Is that always the case? Amanda, I think I'll start with you.
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah, that's a great question. And so in many cases, right, it does seem to be, but there are some really interesting exceptions. And so, for example, 1, that might be familiar to some of the listeners today is that Canada geese.
Amanda Rodewald: So Canada geese is like the most common goose that you would see, and, you know, across North America. And in fact, they've become so abundant in some places, they're, they're quite pesky, you know, they can be a real problem. So what we've seen with Canada geese populations, but that's a species that was historically say migratory, right?
Amanda Rodewald: I mean, isn't that the iconic in the autumn? It's like the geese flying overhead honking. Well, some Canada geese now their populations is. Especially within urban areas are now becoming resident, so they're no longer migrating, and they're doing this, in fact, for the same reasons, ironically, that some species.
Amanda Rodewald: Are migrating or migrating more. And that is because in urban areas, geese are finding that it's warmer and there are plenty of resources available for them to survive over winter. So if they can survive and thrive without having to migrate, that's great. All the better. And we see we see other examples of this, like in Europe, the Blackbird also in some cities has lost.
Amanda Rodewald: It's no longer migrating. So, you know, so we do find exceptions, but I would say the commonality is still there. still that the same reasons that force some species to migrate are also the same ones that in, in these exceptions are making it where they don't really have to anymore.
Chris Wofford: Is there a Canada geese analog among people, Marielena, anything similar?
Marielena Hincapié: Not in terms of like a particular species. I mean, I think the example that I gave earlier about the, the slow kind of slow pace of some of the climate migration, it does not necessarily lead to accelerated migration. And I think for people, I think the way I think about this, Chris, is that it's important to look at the ability to have.
Marielena Hincapié: When it comes to climate in particular, but for other reasons as well, resources, food, shelter, economic and educational opportunities is for people to have the freedom to stay in their homeland. And you know, this is about particularly when it comes to climate is to ensure that people have the freedom to stay closer to their family, to their loved ones, to their culture and to their support systems.
Marielena Hincapié: This requires that we really look at climate resilience and supporting people in rebuilding their homes and their communities and be able to make a livelihood in their closer to home or in their, you know, back to their community that there was impacted by climate. And it also requires that we look at adaptation strategies, right?
Marielena Hincapié: How do people learn and develop the skills and get the financing that they need to rebuild their homes, their communities? To make sure that we're addressing the inequitable impacts of climate, particularly for the people who live in the global south that are on just disproportionately impacted and on the climate on the climate front lines as well.
Marielena Hincapié: The converse of that is the freedom to move right, which is that. Not everybody can stay home, right? We've got climate emergencies that do end up forcing people increasing numbers of people to have to move. And that, again, could be internal displacement within a particular country or a particular region of a country or it may require people to move across national borders.
Marielena Hincapié: And so, although, as I mentioned earlier, climate refugee or climate migrant is not yet. Recognize under international law. The term does is starting to gain more momentum and and and points to the fact that there's a gap in our legal international framework and for people who have no option but to leave their homes.
Marielena Hincapié: We do need policymakers to ensure that the availability of safe and orderly internal or international migration pathways that provide that freedom to move with safety.
Chris Wofford: Hey, there's a resource we want to share with our viewers. Heads up. viewers. We're going to drop something in the chat. The climate migration explainer was something that you had tipped me to earlier.
Chris Wofford: We're going to share that with our viewers. What can we understand by checking out the explainer?
Marielena Hincapié: Yeah, I mean, so basically because this is such an important phenomenon, and it's going to be or is already the greatest driver of migration for people who are interested in this topic of migration.
Marielena Hincapié: Migration and climate and the impact it has on the movement of people. It's a great way to understand the basic terminology and understand what happens both internally within a country as well as internationally and then what some of the potential policy recommendations might be.
Chris Wofford: So you both have drawn parallels between humans and non humans, birds or otherwise and I want to understand a little bit, you've, you've, we've talked about it a little bit, but what are some of the challenges that that they share?
Chris Wofford: Where, where's their overlap? Are we dealing? With particular challenges, all of us, all the species on the planet. Are there differences? Help me with that one. We've got some more reporting to do on that or rather more resources to share on this. Amanda, I'll kick it over to you.
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah, sure. And so I guess 1 of the things that we know, based on recent reports like, from from UN convention of migratory species released earlier this year, a major report about the state of migratory species.
Amanda Rodewald: And yeah, so with with species, about half of them, half of the migratory species are in decline. And so what we what we learn and what that report really highlights is that migration is becoming more and more fraught. It's more and more dangerous over time, really across species. And so some of those factors again, you know, we've mentioned, but habitat loss and degradation, sometimes over exploitation, you know, is happening, you know, associated with movement.
Amanda Rodewald: I guess what I would highlight here is that 1 of the 1 of the really commonalities we don't if we think about what's making migration so much more dangerous and really threatening migratory species and humans. That you know, are forced to migrate is that it's not a matter of whose needs which needs do we address?
Amanda Rodewald: You know, is it birds or is it people? Is it the salmon or is it the monarchs? Right? It's it's really we're dealing with because habitat loss and degradation are some of the major drivers of this and the effects of climate change through those, you know, we're actually supporting. All species that are moving by addressing, improving habitat and improving the ability, the environment to support, you know, healthy populations, healthy individuals.
Amanda Rodewald: I'll just mention to, like, the World Health Organization a few years ago, it released a report that just showed that 1 in 4 premature global deaths. Round the world. One in four individuals who die prematurely. The cause is an unhealthy environment. So it's not a choice. It's not even an altruistic choice, right?
Amanda Rodewald: To take steps to that will help. Migrating birds, you know, or or people allowing people to really have the resources they need to live in their homes and their native lands. This is something that actually affects all of us, even for those of us who have no intentions to move to new communities that healthy environment is really kind of lifting the vote of everyone.
Marielena Hincapié: I love that so much, Chris. Could I just chime in there? Because I think that, that to me is why this conversation is so important, right? Because it talks about our interconnectedness as, as beings, as living beings. And I would add to that, not just birds, but, you know, trees and all beings, right? Which is how, how do we build a society in a world That actually benefits all of us, right?
Marielena Hincapié: Where we use our both human, financial and other resources, natural resources to build a more sustainable world and planet where we all can thrive. Right. So there's like the, the importance of the freedom to thrive. And so, you know, here is where I would say that these, both birds and people face significant challenges and risks during migration.
Marielena Hincapié: And as you know, Amanda mentioned, right, that for birds, it's facing things like threats of predators, adverse weather. Habitat loss. And for humans, it's just those very same things. And I would add for humans, I would add there's violence, right? There's human trafficking, there's exploitation as well as the impact of border controls and natural barriers.
Marielena Hincapié: I was recently reading the new book by Sonia Shah, who is a scientist who wrote the book, The Next Great Migration, which is really about looking at all, again, migrant species. And, you know, she had this statistic, which talks about how. We are currently in the world for the first time in our history, erecting more border walls all over in many, many countries.
Marielena Hincapié: And the impact it's having on people migration is zero. Actually, what it's having is an impact on birds and other species that are actually dying as a result of that. You do have people who are dying because they're finding different ways they're, they're having, they're basically feeling that they're choosing the most, the, the ways to be able to cross a, a land border.
Marielena Hincapié: But it's not actually deterring them, ultimately. But what it is having is this impact on species. We've we've seen that, for example, with monarch butterflies as well at the U. S. Mexico border and other species as well. So that's kind of at the macro level. But the other thing that I would just point to in terms of other.
Marielena Hincapié: Challenges is, you know, the motivation and decision making, right? So we already heard from Amanda that birds migrate just naturally, largely instinctual. They're driven by biological needs like people are. And there's also some genetic programming, whereas for human beings, right, they're driven by a complex.
Marielena Hincapié: Mix of social economic political and environmental factors that often on the one hand involves some conscious decision making and sometimes it's there is no choice because of those drivers of migration pushing people out, particularly when it comes to forced migration. The other thing that I would say is that you know, as you heard from Amanda as well, we have kind of the, when I think about it, it's like the scale or the permanence of migration, you know, so on the one hand, Amanda shared that birds, it's bio bi directional, right?
Marielena Hincapié: Birds are migrating and then returning to their homeland or to their, their breeding place. And for my, for people sometimes it involves a much more permanent change of residence, even when we think historically, even in the United States. people migrate and thought I will, you know, we're going to return to the old country.
Marielena Hincapié: Eventually we're just going for a couple of years and then they end up like perhaps the Canada goose remaining and staying in the new country, their new adopted home. But for for people often it's a result of human and social interaction, right? And so they arrive at a particular community and their new country.
Marielena Hincapié: And they integrate into the existing one. They've learned the language. They have a job. They're Raising children, they're perhaps falling in love or get having, you know, other opportunities that they result this side. This is my home country. This is now my adopted home and so that ends up being a much more permanent location.
Marielena Hincapié: And then the last 1 that I just wanted to raise, because I'm. It's one that I, I, I've been thinking a lot about lately is technology and kind of infrastructure, which is, you know, for people migration is both increasingly supported or hindered by the use of technology and infrastructure. And I think we're going to see even more of that over the next decade at an accelerated rate with respect to AI artificial intelligence and the impact of AI on jobs and every part of our life, basically.
Marielena Hincapié: But for birds, I think one of the things that I've learned so much about over this last year is how birds rely on natural navigation systems such as the Earth's magnetic field, stars and landmarks and almost without technology, they're able to do make their migration, which to me is just like one of the most fantastic, fascinating things I've learned.
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah, I was just going to add to, and I think a lot of those examples are just so salient and highlight to whether it's like the conservation and the environmental work, the barriers, the motivations that would drive movements of people or birds really requires collaboration and cooperation across governments, right?
Amanda Rodewald: And policies that cannot, we cannot really deal with either. Anticipating, you know, predicting migration, understanding how it's playing out, you know, ameliorating, you know, how do we manage some of the, you know, the unfortunate drivers, you know, forcing people or or other species to move that we need to work across government.
Amanda Rodewald: So that's that's also a real, a similarity that you see across migratory species irrespective of which 1.
Chris Wofford: Yeah, which brings us here the through line in the conversation that I'm hearing is that, birds don't recognize borders, but people sure as heck do, right? So are there examples of international approaches, um, regulation, policy, shared understandings, whatever it might be that actually support migration and like, you know, in the instance of countries that receive migrants any examples, Amanda, I'll start with you.
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah. So with birds, I mean, the classic one would be the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. So this was it was an act that was, you know, signed over a hundred years ago between Canada and the U.S. Also, there are different versions that include Japan and Russia, but it protects migratory species. And so it was, you know, the motivation for that was really just the common, the logic, right?
Amanda Rodewald: The basic logic that, well, if we want to make sure that roads that are that we could, you know, our birds here in the U. S. That also are spending part of their time and are considered, you know, very much like in Columbia. I work there and it's like, well, actually, our birds in the U. S. Are spending way more time in Columbia than they are up here.
Amanda Rodewald: So, and good Colombians would consider them their birds. And so, but if we each want to make sure that we have persistent and healthy populations of migratory species. Yeah. It requires that everyone be participating. And also, so we have, we have legislation like that, that really helps to set more of a regulatory framework.
Amanda Rodewald: But another element that goes along hand in hand is the resources. You know, Marielena mentioned like the Global South has, you know, been really challenged in many respects. And I think that's one of the most important aspects because of, you know, just the differential and resources and access to, you know, funding to do conservation work to do restoration that not only improves things for for biodiversity, but also actually help support livelihoods, you know, the health of people living in those systems, having programs where we can have funding from the global north to actually help support those, you know, activities that are supporting people and the planet in the global South and other areas is extremely important.
Amanda Rodewald: And we do see some of these like the Southern Wings. Southern Wings is a program that's run through the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. So state agencies in the U. S. We're now state agencies have the ability to still in a limited sense, but to provide funding. Outside, you know, actually give funding to other countries where, you know, there are some of the species they're concerned about managing are spending the winter and we need more of those kinds of resources kind of across the board.
Chris Wofford: Hey, I have a question and we might be stretching out beyond our purviews here, but I thought it was relevant to what we're talking about here. I have a question from viewer Barbara who asked. Marielena, I'm going to direct this to you and you let me know if you're good with it. Do you believe that the 5.2 billion in funding through the USAID programs have been effective? The funds were provided to various countries in Central and South America to provide training for jobs. How familiar are you with this legislation?
Marielena Hincapié: I'm a little familiar with it, so definitely not expertise. But what I will say, and actually Barbara's question is great because it was a little bit of what I was going to talk about following what Amanda just shared, which is, I'm going to take a step back first, right, which is as we've been talking about, right?
Marielena Hincapié: Migration is a global phenomenon. It is a natural phenomenon. Every species migrates and that has been the case and will continue to be the case forever. However, when it comes to the migration of people, and this is true as Amanda just shared on in terms of birds, we tend to only regulate it within nation states rather than taking a global approach and an international approach and a collaborative approach.
Marielena Hincapié: And I think, as we are seeing, particularly because of climate, but also because of war, we have an increasing number of wars around the world that are actually also push factors and enforcing people to migrate. And so we need to make sure that countries are collaborating and really looking at a managed regional approach and global approach to migration again.
Marielena Hincapié: Why are people leaving? What can we do as nation states as governments? What can we do to have people have the freedom to stay in their home country? And I think this is where the USAID funding becomes really critical, which is how do we I'll just use the United States in this example. Invest in countries that are sending migrants where people are being forced to leave. How can that development aid help people build skills, have economic opportunities, become small business owners, rebuild their communities, et cetera. How do we have one of the things that USAID has been doing has been.
Marielena Hincapié: Increasing and expanding even existing temporary labor programs, right? So that there's more circular migration, right? So workers who live in, you know, let's say El Salvador or they, a lot of their focus has been in the Northern Triangle. So El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. How do the workers from those countries leave the United, leave their home country, come to the United States or to another region regional country, get some additional skills, put, or, you know, contribute their existing skills?
Marielena Hincapié: Build additional funding and resources and be able to go back, not just to their home, to their community, but then get additional assistance, financial assistance to build, perhaps start a small business or a transnational you know, business from what they're working. So that's one thing. What I would say is that, those programs, whether it's existing temporary worker programs or any new programs that are developed, absolutely must have labor rights and civil rights and human rights protected and part of them, because historically, those programs have been basically kind of grounds for exploitation.
Marielena Hincapié: And so we have to think creatively, and this really requires everyone who's impacted by migration of people, both the workers themselves, the labor activists, unions, business community. Government officials at just at not just the federal level, but at the state and local level as well to work together to really reimagine how do we provide the resources that people need both to have the freedom to stay in their home country or to migrate, but to do so safely.
Chris Wofford: I have a thought provoking question from Doug and Amanda, I'm going to direct this at you. This is a doozy. How do birds learn and communicate the successes and failures of various migration locations so as to change migration patterns? Is there a lesson for humans? Do birds have the capacity to communicate this kind of stuff?
Chris Wofford: Do you know what Doug's getting at?
Amanda Rodewald: To like, like cultural, like learning or knowledge among species.
Chris Wofford: Let's say birds go north and don't have success in I don't know, harvesting insects or something like that. Is there any communication going on among birds about successes or failures experienced during certain migratory patterns?
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah. So there, so there are some different levels of that. So, so the most, the, the strongest sort of feedback that we see shaping migration is going to be through natural selection. Right? And so natural selection is simply when you have it's if if a bird migrates to an area, it can't find the resources it needs.
Amanda Rodewald: You know, it dies during migration. That's it is removed, you know, that behavior, because we know a lot of this, you know, Maria Elena mentioned, there is also some genetic coding and also a lot of birds show really high what we would call we call site fidelity, which means they return to the same. Same places year after year for migrating.
Amanda Rodewald: So like I've studied cerulean warblers and it'll the same bird, individual bird, and we color mark them, you know, we'll be breeding at a certain stand in Southeast Ohio. And, and when we work in Columbia on a coffee farm or in Venezuela, it's like, well, the same bird year after year, six years in a row, the same place.
Amanda Rodewald: So. So when that bird no longer, if it dies, you just start losing individuals in that place, right? And the species, the individuals that are going to places where, you know, they're able to find the resources they need, it was either a migratory path, or it was different stopover sites that were amenable to survival.
Amanda Rodewald: That's the individual and the behaviors that are going to. You know, survive and reproduce over time. So that's like one of the big mechanisms where you see it. So in the past, when we, people have heard about like changing migration patterns for birds and they're arriving earlier and earlier. So there, there are different drivers based on what the cues are that they're using to migrate.
Amanda Rodewald: So sometimes for like a hard, for when might the timing of migration of the routes are really hardwired. For those what we're probably seeing those changes for species are that in the past, the birds that arrived too early, they die. They're kind of removed from the gene pool, and then we don't, you know, they're not, you know, increasing, you know, in numbers over time that behavior.
Amanda Rodewald: Now, we don't have that selection. So that's 1 way. You see it. You also, though, have some species, especially some that are moving over shorter distances as it's getting warmer as they see leaves kind of emerging or insects that are emerging earlier. They can actually change in real time and respond to those cues.
Amanda Rodewald: So you might imagine, as they're moving. A bird that migrates to, you know, that the gulf shore, you know, the southern U. S. It can pay attention to those cues in real time and make decisions, but for a bird who has to initiate migration from, you know, the Amazon. Well, it has no idea what's happening up north.
Amanda Rodewald: So that's going to be you know, that's, that's usually more of the hardwired. So yeah, over time, it's usually through that kind of passive selection where we're getting changes for the long distance migrants. And then the day to day, the kind of communication, birds will pay attention to other species.
Amanda Rodewald: And then I'm gonna try to from other species, you know, to other individuals I can flock to, you know, for good hence on like, Oh, that looks good over there. I'm gonna I'm gonna head over there to try to forage for birds. But but yeah, usually we don't get as much quickly, but really cool question.
Chris Wofford: I thought it was really cool.
Chris Wofford: You know, seeing cues within other species, right? They've just come back from lands far away and. Boy, they don't look so good. You know that that kind of stuff. I want to say I want to switch shift gears a little bit. Marielena, I want to move on. You've, you've explained that perceptions like narratives around migration, are more often negative than positive.
Chris Wofford: Even though we've been just discussing here for 46 minutes how migration is natural, it's a positive adaptation like we just discussed, a response to like changing conditions. How does this negativity manifest itself? What, you know, what do we see?
Marielena Hincapié: Yeah, no, thanks for that question, Chris. And, and I, and we're seeing the kind of the negativity increase exponentially because of technology, of course, right?
Marielena Hincapié: Social media, misinformation, just all of that, that just makes our day to day living so much more complicated as human beings, which fortunately the birds do not have to deal with. But negative perceptions and xenophobia can often lead to discriminatory policies. It could lead to violent language and perhaps most significant.
Marielena Hincapié: The greatest consequence, of course, is that it could lead to to death to people dying as a result of that. And we see an increasing amount of that as immigration and the, the. The kind of like the political nature and the fact that immigration is being used as a wedge by authoritarian dictators and people who are really trying to use race and immigration as a wedge to divide people and particularly to divide people and instill fear in people over black and brown migrants who may be coming and rather than really looking for those for policymakers, for leaders, whether it's in the private sector, in the, in the public sector, to look at real solutions that benefit all of us.
Marielena Hincapié: Again, I think Amanda and I both have talked about this throughout the last hour about the importance of how do we, how do we take a more interdependent view of society where we are creating policies that actually improve the lives of everybody in a particular community or in a particular country, rather than.
Marielena Hincapié: Addressing the need for housing or the need for quality jobs that pay a living wage, et cetera. Oftentimes what happens is the rhetoric by politicians is to use immigration as a way to deflect and blame immigrants for society's problems and for the lack of political and leadership and, and rather than solving problems.
Marielena Hincapié: And so that's one thing. And, you know, we've seen In the United States, most recently this playing out in a tiny town in Ohio, Springfield, Ohio, where there's misinformation, particularly from one political candidate talking about people, particularly of Haitian migrants, supposedly eating people's pets and all of that, and it's been denounced and you see, you know, it being used and, you know, the, the, the pain, for example, of a father in Springfield, Ohio, who is being begging the country to not use the death of his son who had was injured who died as of a bus accident, not to use his son and his son's name for political purposes and so we are we're experiencing a real I would say low point in society again globally not just in the united states States where immigration is being used as a wedge issue resulting in very real human consequences for all of us.
Chris Wofford: So let's ask, let's look at it from the other side if we could for a moment. So as natural as it is migration, are there particular negatives or downsides to the movement of people? Let's be honest and talk about that. Amanda, I'll kick it over to you.
Amanda Rodewald: Right, well, I could talk on the bird side to write more like, even from from that.
Amanda Rodewald: So, I mean, I think if we, well, I guess on the, the non human side, let's say so there are there are cases we know of people who are involved in conservation. You probably heard us talking about invasive species, right? Invasive species are a major issue, you know, and a threat to many ecosystems, you know, and so, so there are negative.
Amanda Rodewald: Consequences that can happen in those cases, you know, where it's like, taking over over systems you know, and eroding our ability to maintain kind of the, the ecosystem services that are provided in different areas. We also have pandemics right that we're aware of, like. The moving of different new viruses, you know, among animals and, you know, like the zoonotic diseases, right?
Amanda Rodewald: Animal borne vectors, you know, as as mosquitoes are moving northward again, we're finding we're exposed increasingly to malaria or to dengue fever, those kinds of things. What I would say that overwhelmingly in these cases where you have these genuinely negative outcome, the problem starts where these species are moving from.
Amanda Rodewald: They're starting from changes to the system, right? But they're starting with either. You know, sloppy sort of trade that we're not being careful and we're moving, you know, moving species around the planet that have problems or worse were deforesting areas. We're putting roads into areas where previously they weren't you know, there that are allowing new animals, animal viruses, other products to come out and to be.
Amanda Rodewald: You know, transmitted elsewhere. So it's really changes to the systems, you know, whether it's degrading areas that are forcing the movement of species into new places. Yeah, we can think of, like, right predators sometimes moving into another area and causing, like, you know, human wildlife, human conflict.
Amanda Rodewald: Well, that's because we're degrading and eliminating the habitats that they once depended on in most cases. So I would say again, focusing on in most cases by focusing on movement as the problem actually reducing our capacity to avoid negative outcomes because we're focusing on the wrong place, right?
Amanda Rodewald: We're not focusing on the reasons why they're that way, there is that movement. And I would say and again, in most cases, if we focus on those reasons that are driving movements. So let's say I'm really worried about a negative outcome of a particular movement in our migration. I can, if I focusing on what's driving that, I address that problem.
Amanda Rodewald: Maybe that negative outcome. But I'm also having even other positive outcomes because by improving environments by, you know, if we have healthy environments, we're more likely to have, you know, healthy ecosystems that are productive and support people and non human species and support their livelihoods.
Amanda Rodewald: I mean, over half of the world's GDP is moderately or highly dependent upon nature's services, right? This is not, this is not an altruistic sort of proposition. If we are taking the steps to ensure that environments are healthy, you know, we're actually supporting ourselves and other species and eliminating some of the negative outcomes from, from movement and some cases.
Chris Wofford: Marielena is right there with you. I see her nodding. Thinking the whole time because you very well could have been talking about human beings the entire
Marielena Hincapié: Absolutely.
Chris Wofford: Yeah,
Marielena Hincapié: No, I mean, look, I'll just really briefly about it where I'll say two things. One is human migration can have profound social, economic and cultural impacts on both the country of origin as well as the destination.
Marielena Hincapié: And that includes everything from the impact on labor markets, demographic changes, cultural dynamics and all of that. But the most important question we should always ask ourselves is why, why is that person leaving their home country, right? What is it about what's happening in their local community, where they were born, right?
Marielena Hincapié: Where they have their entire infrastructure. Most people do not actually want to have to migrate to another country. And just think about the grit, the risk, like the, the stamina, the perseverance that it takes for someone to leave everything they know, the language, the culture, their loved ones, their stability, et cetera, to go to a foreign land where often they don't know the language, they don't know anyone, they don't know where they will live, how they will make a livelihood, et cetera.
Marielena Hincapié: And the dangerous trajectory that sometimes people make across oceans or across land. And so it is really about what is it about our economy? Is it about our society that has created rather, it's an extraction economy that has created the lack of jobs, right? That creates people having to leave. Trade policy, right?
Marielena Hincapié: When the North American Free Trade Act was passed, you know, that resulted in many people in Mexico, in rural communities and agricultural communities ,having to leave because there was no farming jobs available. And it just people start traveling. And so again, that importance of what Amanda, I mean, I just would just say plus one to everything Amanda just said, replace all of the times she said birds or other species and just think about people.
Marielena Hincapié: But it is about the, the reason. And, and we don't do enough, frankly both as in academia, in government and nonprofits to think about the root causes of migration of all species. And that has to be part of the way we, we think and to do so at a global level as well.
Chris Wofford: So Marielena, I want to stick with you.
Chris Wofford: So what do you hope our viewers take away from a conversation like this? What would you like to see?
Marielena Hincapié: Yeah. So first of all, just thank you again, Chris, to you and your team at eCornell and to all of the viewers. You know, look, as we mentioned earlier at the outset, our motivation for this was to get the message out, right?
Marielena Hincapié: From two very different perspectives, but hopefully everybody has seen that actually, we really do need to start changing and reimagining and rethinking migration of all species. And today we're focusing primarily on people and birds. But that migration is a global phenomenon, a natural phenomenon that people and all birds and species will continue to migrate.
Marielena Hincapié: And that what we need to do is to really look at, as Amanda said, migration, not as the problem, but really look at the underlying causes and reasons and then also look at this from a global perspective. How do we across countries, both nation states and local governments and all of us from our different perches.
Marielena Hincapié: How do we contribute to building a more equitable society, a more sustainable society where all of us, right? The planet, all living beings, birds and people get to thrive.
Chris Wofford: Amanda, when I kick it over to you we're, let's talk about how we can make more friendly bird bird friendly communities rather just kind of, you know, getting to some resources here, some action steps for our viewers.
Chris Wofford: So you've got some recommendations. What have you got?
Amanda Rodewald: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you'll be sharing a link for the 7 simple actions that we can take that to give people some ideas. And so there are many simple steps you can take, right? Providing habitat in your backyard, planting, you know, certain species, especially like swans.
Amanda Rodewald: species that are needed to a particular area. And so the animals have evolved with those. We can you can make bird friendly sort of choices with housing. Design, you know, put decals up so birds aren't going to hit your windows and die. Reduce collision threats. Keep your cats inside by bird friendly products.
Amanda Rodewald: You know, so there's a bunch of different actions you can list. And I would say too, you know. The choices you make, you know, about, you know, how to engage civically, you know, civic engagement is really important. You know, the choices of local, you know, state, federal elections do actually have. You know, serious outcomes.
Amanda Rodewald: And yeah, thinking of that and conservation organizations you support. Those are other ways to really amplify the efforts that you're taking at home. And to, for those of you into migration, you can check out bird cast tonight that that shows like real time for and 3 day. Windows forecasting where you're going to see a lot of migration, and we send out alerts, these lights out alert so you can actually turn out lights.
Amanda Rodewald: Cities can turn out lights to reduce threats to migrating birds. So those are two kind of some fun ways you can you can engage.
Chris Wofford: Marielena tipped us to two ways we can create more people friendly communities through some links to Welcome Week. Any quick words on that Marielena?
Marielena Hincapié: Yeah, no, just serendipity that we have this event today that we're talking here, and it happens to be welcoming week across the globe.
Marielena Hincapié: And that is an event that or a series of events all over the world, but especially in the United States. It's being led by an organization called Welcoming America. And you can click on the map on this link and find a location near you where you can find one of these events. It's a really great way. And then Bye.
Marielena Hincapié: There's also welcome. us that is focusing particularly on how people can become sponsors of refugees who are coming to the United States as well.
Chris Wofford: You have a story for us about art and creativity as it relates to what we've been discussing today. Tell me about this.
Marielena Hincapié: Yeah, so I wanted to close. I think, you know, as we talk about these global issues and talk about all species, etc, just to bring it home to an individual.
Marielena Hincapié: And so I wanted to share the story of Juan, who is a teenager who arrived about three years ago at the U. S. Mexico border. He was a really smart boy back then. With great musical and artistic skills, he was escaping gang violence and threats to both his life and his family's life in El Salvador and made the dangerous journey north in search of safety.
Marielena Hincapié: He was detained in Arizona and while he was waiting to be reunited with some family members here in the United States he was in detention. And he used coffee grounds to create paint to paint this beautiful little bird. I think it's a little duck. And once he was reunited, his family gifted this painting to my sister, Gloria, who was assisting his family in Florida and You know, every time I look at this, especially when I visit her and I can see the actual little painting I'm just blown away and, and just really touched by Juan's ingenuity, his creativity and the skills and, you know, makes me wonder, you know, here's this teenager in, you know, In detention, in immigrant detention, away from anyone and everything, probably petrified about what his future holds and found the resilience to, and the creativity to use coffee grounds to paint and it just makes me wonder, like, what if we had the moral imagination to envision a world where we see people's human potential as a society.
Marielena Hincapié: And what if we set everyone to have the freedom to thrive, right? Whether they're born here or coming by temporarily or, or coming permanently. And what if we saw newcomers, right? Whether they are our new neighbors who moved from across town or from another state or another country. What if we saw them with an abundance and generous lens rather than one that is based on fear?
Chris Wofford: Thank you for listening to Cornell Keynotes and check out the episode notes for info on eCornell's online immigration law certificate from Cornell University. There's also links to Cornell Law's Migration and Human Rights Program, the Cornell Migrations Initiative. And of course the lab of ornithology.
Chris Wofford: Thanks again, friends, and please subscribe to stay in touch.