Jessica Bearnot-Fjeld stands at her kitchen island, slicing green apples for an afternoon snack. Her two young children, just off the school bus, scan the cupboard for Nutella as a spread, but they come up short. No Nutella. “We ran out. Put it on the list,” Ms. Bearnot-Fjeld tells Tabitha, age 6.

Her son, Winfield, 8, reaches for the peanut butter. He’s in second grade at the same elementary school that Ms. Bearnot-Fjeld attended in this town of 4,000, to which she moved back last summer with her husband, a physician. Her sister is the school librarian and has two kids of similar age to their cousins.

Two families, four children. It’s a typical story of modern American family formation, of an ever-expanding population, each generation on average more affluent and living longer than the last.

But Ms. Bearnot-Fjeld’s family size is not as average as it appears. In fact, it’s well above average for her generation, one born in the 1980s that came of age in a new century and ran headlong into the 2007-09 recession. Since then, birthrates have slumped by 20%, putting the United States on a path of population decline, similar to the dropping birthrates in other rich nations.

Of all the political and social debates roiling the country, the decline in childbearing may prove the most momentous and far-reaching, even if it doesn’t present as a crisis today. The topic is intensely personal but also shapes our collective future, one in which children are no longer as abundant and the voices of childless people matter more.

Simply put, women in the U.S. are having fewer children, whether by choice or by circumstance, or deciding not to have any at all. The reasons for the slowdown are complex and don’t yield easily to empirical analysis. Nor is it clear that pro-natal government programs can reverse the trend, given the modest effects of such policies in other countries grappling with low fertility.

Some experts blame the economic pressures on families and the uncertainty couples face when trying to budget for a growing family. “People are waiting for a good time to have a kid, and the good time never seems to come along,” says Sarah Hayford, the Institute for Population Research director at Ohio State University.

Others say these economic stresses, while real, don’t fully explain the slowdown in births, adding that changing social norms mirror what’s already happening in Europe and Asia. Hands-on, time-intensive parenting may be reshaping ideals of family size. And priorities have also shifted: In a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, most American adults said that enjoying their work ranked higher than having children in “living a fulfilling life.” Only 26% said having children was extremely or very important to them.

“Young people, as they move to childbearing age, are looking for something different in their life experiences than they did historically,” says Phillip Levine, an economist at Wellesley College who studies fertility rates. “People are making different choices.”

Lowest population growth since the 1930s

The effects of these choices are already being felt. In 2020, the decennial U.S. census recorded the second-lowest decade of relative population growth since the first census was taken in 1790. Only the 1930s, roiled by the Great Depression, saw a slower growth rate. 

Had the U.S. birthrate stayed the same between 2007 and 2022, an additional 9.6 million children would have been born over that period, demographers estimate. Instead, these smaller cohorts will be the workforce that shoulders the fiscal burden of retirement by older generations. By 2028, 1 in 5 Americans will be age 65 or older. 

The fall in births has also forced demographers to redraw projections. In 2012, the Census Bureau predicted the U.S. population, then at 313 million, would reach 420 million by 2060. Last year, the bureau released new projections in which the population would start to decline this century because of lower fertility rates unless immigration increases. Its new forecast for 2060 is 364 million, a shortfall of 56 million people, or more than the current combined populations of Florida and Texas. The current U.S. population is 336 million.

SOURCE:

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Census Bureau

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Similar recalculations are happening globally: Analysts say the world population, currently 8 billion, may peak as early as the 2060s, then fall exponentially as families shrink. In fact, some population experts say global births per year already peaked in 2014 – and will never be as large again. 

Some have cheered the prospect of population deceleration on a finite planet scoured by resource extraction, saying fewer children would allow wealth to be spread more evenly. Some climate activists embrace low population growth as a boon for the environment. 

But the timing doesn’t add up for addressing climate change, given that emission cuts must happen now and be sustained to avert future catastrophic warming. “We’re not going from 8 billion to 4 billion in the next 30 years,” says Professor Levine.  

Like most economists, Dr. Levine doubts that a shrinking population would help over the long run as much as one that is growing. An aging society with fewer working-age adults also faces a short-term squeeze in funding public health and pension programs. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

Cars weave down Center Street in Brandon, Vermont, Feb. 5, 2024. While births across the country have been declining, Vermont has the lowest birthrate of all of America's 50 states, according to the CDC.

To Lyman Stone, a demographer at the Institute for Family Studies, a conservative think tank, the strain on public finances distracts from more profound questions raised by falling birthrates. He worries about what a baby bust portends for personal and shared aspirations and about what happens to societies in an era of fewer children and generational detachment.

“My concern is what happens to us as people when we become a society of ... foreshortened hopes in an area [childbearing] that is central to human life and human culture,” he says.

Balancing work and family life

Ms. Bearnot-Fjeld grew up as the eldest of four children. Her parents came from big families, and her cousins often came over, adding to the hubbub. “I remember we used to pick up the landline phone, and my dad would answer it, ‘Grand Central Station,’” she says. “It was a very happy, full life.

To her, four children seemed ideal. But life didn’t quite work out that way.

Ms. Bearnot-Fjeld studied poetry as an undergraduate, worked in publishing in New York, and then did a master’s in poetry before deciding to switch to law. At Columbia University, she met her future husband, a medical student. A year after their wedding, they graduated and moved to Boston for work. They bought a condo and began trying to have a baby.

Two years later, their first child was born. “I remember looking at Winfield as a newborn and being like, ‘You’re going to be a great big brother,’” she says.

Tabitha arrived in 2017. By then, the burdens of parenting while working full time had punctured their aspirations. The couple considered having a third, but then came the pandemic. 

“It made it really challenging to think about having a third child,” says Benjamin Bearnot-Fjeld, who grew up as one of three boys in his family and, like his wife, aspired to have “multiple children” of his own. 

“That’s the point at which we closed the books,” adds Ms. Bearnot-Fjeld.

In 1970, the average first-time mother was 21. Ms. Bearnot-Fjeld was 32 when Winfield was born. As more women enter professions requiring advanced degrees and training, childbearing has shifted to later in life, which usually means smaller families, even with fertility treatments becoming more available. 

Marriages are also happening later, if at all. While not all children are born to married couples, most still are; marriage remains a strong norm for childrearing for both men and women. So declining rates of young-adult coupling and of marrying – only one in two adults are currently married, a record low  – act as a drag on birth rates as couples wrestle with life choices. “It’s not just about what women want. Men are involved in this decision too,” says Professor Levine.

Another issue, says Brad Wilcox, who directs the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, is that women report difficulty finding men who seem able or willing to be good parenting partners, particularly in lower socioeconomic circumstances. “In today’s culture, a lot of teenage boys and young men are floundering, both in school, in college and the workplace, and so that affects their appeal when it comes to dating and marriage,” he says.

Surveys show that young women still aspire to have, on average, between two and three children, a hope that may go unfulfilled due to timing. “The age at which you have your first kid is strongly predictive of whether you’re actually going to hit your goal,” says Mr. Stone.

An economy that rewards highly educated workers who earn modestly in their 20s isn’t conducive to them having large families, he says. “If the life timeline does not allow young people to achieve a stable life until they’re 34, there won’t be a lot of babies.”

Declining births and replacement rates

For Ms. Bearnot-Fjeld, moving to central Vermont has relieved some of the pressures that put a third child out of reach. Her mother, Carol, can take the kids after school. Her sister lives down the road. She still lectures at Harvard, with a biweekly teaching schedule, and works remotely in the Victorian house the couple rents from family friends. “I played here as a kid,” she laughs.

Riley Robinson/Staff

Carol Fjeld talks about her family during an interview with the Monitor Feb. 5, 2024, at her daughter Jessica’s home in Brandon, Vermont. Vermont has the lowest birthrate in the United States, according to the CDC.

While her two children put her above the U.S. average of 1.6 children per woman, in Vermont, she’s even more of an outlier. The Green Mountain State has the lowest birthrate of all: 45 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age (15 to 44 years old), compared with a national average of 56, and a high in South Dakota of 69 births.

To stay constant, a population requires an average of 2.1 children per woman, a ratio known as the replacement rate. Some two-thirds of people already live in countries at or below that level. In East Asia, Taiwan and South Korea are closer to one child than two. 

Advocates for pro-natal policies say the U.S. could copy countries that invest more in childbearing since society has a collective interest in supporting parents, says Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina. But such policies aren’t a fix for sliding birthrates. “We know there’s always a lag between economic and policy changes and when people feel them and acknowledge them,” she says. 

Skeptics note that Scandinavian countries with generous child benefits and egalitarian parenting still have declining birthrates. Finland’s fertility rate has fallen by a third since 2010. And the kinds of programs debated in the U.S. Congress, such as expanded tax credits, pale when compared with incentives proffered to parents in Europe and Asia.

Still, Mr. Stone says fertility rates would be even lower without pro-natal policies in countries like South Korea, which recorded 250,000 births in 2022. At its current rate, its population would be halved to 24 million by the end of the century. “It’s the lowest in the world. It could go lower,” he adds.

Why the birthrates are falling

Inside a steakhouse in Hanover, New Hampshire, Jessica’s sister Kalle Fjeld scans the dinner menu. She just finished a 12-hour shift at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center where she’s in her third year of residency in the emergency department. Like her sister, Ms. Fjeld took a zigzag path to her career, including a post-college year teaching in France and a stint as a pastry chef, before starting medical school at age 27.  

Baking is just a hobby now. That day, she woke at 4 a.m. and made scones to bring to work. Whenever she brings in food or sews a quilt for a co-worker, she hears a familiar refrain: “Oh, you’ll be a great mother.” 

But Ms. Fjeld is single and has no plans for motherhood. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

Kalle Fjeld, a resident physician at Dartmouth, poses at the farm where she boards her horse, Mr., Feb. 10, 2024, in Brandon, Vermont.

Her hours in the emergency department are long and can involve stressful, life-or-death decisions. When she has downtime, she likes to cook and ride her horse, which she stables an hour’s drive away. Where she lives, “it’s not easy to date,” she says.

Once she’s completed her medical training, Ms. Fjeld knows her work-life balance as a doctor will improve. Perhaps then, marriage and motherhood would be an option. But “investing the time needed to build on that now is a low priority for me,” she says. 

Most young people don’t enter professions like medicine and law in which the traditional milestones of marriage, homeownership, and childbearing arrive later. Why, then, are birthrates falling among Americans at all income levels? 

One reason, says Professor Guzzo, is that non-college graduates are adopting the same social norms – and scrolling the same social media feeds – as those trying to finish multiyear academic and professional training. Across the board, the message seems to be: Don’t have children until you’re ready and can provide a good life. 

But they also see how much child care costs and are less likely to have paid parental leave or a solid career path, which can discourage starting a family. “Those are the folks I think we’re failing because [they] say, ‘I want to have children, too.’ But they don’t see a predictable future in which they will fulfill those prerequisites,” says Professor Guzzo.

Like her sister, Ms. Fjeld has halcyon memories of growing up in small-town Vermont and being part of a large family. When she does picture having children, she pictures two or more, never one. 

She’s thrilled that her two sisters are raising their kids in Brandon so she can see them regularly. Of her siblings, she’s the only one not to marry. Her brother lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, who is pregnant with their first child. Above all, she loves being an auntie, she says. “I get to have kids around me without having kids.”

This is the first in a three-part series on falling birthrates in the U.S. and the world. The second, about a county in Iowa where immigrants are powering population growth, is here. The third, about tumbling global birthrates and hard societal choices ahead, can be found here.

Sara Miller Llana/The Christian Science Monitor

Meti Basiri is part of the "Canadian dream." An international student from Iran, he as well as his brothers founded ApplyBoard, one of Canada's fastest-growing tech companies, and he eventually gained Canadian citizenship.

The bright headquarters of ApplyBoard effuses the spirit that has long defined Canada’s immigration narrative.

Founded in 2015 by three brothers from Iran who came to Canada as international students, the company has taken its place in the tech cluster here, touted as the second largest in North America after Silicon Valley. As the brothers seamlessly gained permanent residency and later Canadian citizenship, they built one of Canada’s fastest-growing tech businesses.

Unlike in the United States, where immigration politics often descend into dysfunction, Canada’s immigration program has been built on long-standing trust that it’s a win for all.

“We’re lucky to work in the most diverse company, I would say, in Canada,” says ApplyBoard CEO Meti Basiri. Around him are walls splashed in colorful murals and counters stocked with free snacks, including, on one, a giant slab of demolished yellow birthday cake.

But Canada is experiencing a population boom unlike any time since the 1950s. It’s the fastest-growing G7 country, almost all driven by immigration. It also faces the largest housing shortage in the G7.

Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press/AP

Canadian Minister of Immigration Marc Miller announced in January a two-year cap on international student permits to ease the pressure on housing, health care, and other services at a time of record immigration. He also announced in March upcoming targets to reduce the number of temporary residents.

And now, many here worry that the pace of arrivals of both permanent residents and foreign students and workers is overtaking the country’s capacity to house, care for, educate, and employ all.

As the number of foreign students has tripled in the past decade – a segment of the population that ApplyBoard has built its success on – the federal government recently issued a cap on study permits for the next two years. It also announced last week that it will, for the first time, set new targets for temporary residents overall. The moves are controversial. They’re also the largest indication so far of a larger rethink of the growing imbalance in the immigration system.

“Canada has historically been a model for the world of how to do immigration. And the best indicator of that is the long-standing, broad consensus on support for high immigration levels,” says Mikal Skuterud, a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo. “And I’m ultimately concerned because I think there’s a risk of undermining that. ... The system needs to go back to being something very predictable, very transparent.”

Trust in the system

Historically, newcomers have been trusted in Canada because the system carefully selects economic immigrants through a point system based on criteria like age and education. Most Canadians see permanent residents as highly skilled professionals – doctors, tech workers, university professors – who help the country prosper.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last year that 1.5 million new permanent residents will be welcomed by 2026, part of an increasing volume since he took office in 2015. At the same time, the number of temporary residents has surged, to 2.6 million according to new census figures released today. Many are incentivized by the prospect of permanent residence.

But now several recent polls capture mistrust brewing over the pace of immigration. According to a poll by Environics Institute, for example, 44% of Canadians say they agree that “there is too much immigration to Canada.” That’s a 17-point increase from the year before and the largest one-year change the group has seen since polling began in 1977. Among the groups expressing the highest jump in concern: first-generation Canadians, up by 20 points.

Sara Miller Llana/The Christian Science Monitor

Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe, shown here in her office, is worried about recent polling that shows growing distrust about the pace of immigration in Canada.

The Waterloo region, birthplace of the BlackBerry, exemplifies the best of Canada’s immigration story. Its universities, startups like ApplyBoard, and artificial intelligence industry rely on the “best and brightest” to drive innovation.

But questions over the pace of immigration are also swirling here.

The region received 27,840 immigrants between 2016 and 2021. That’s nearly double the previous five-year period, according to census data, making it one of the fastest-growing in Canada.

In the context of a national housing affordability crisis, residents like Gary Coulson, a car mechanic in Waterloo, say they are concerned. Five years ago, Mr. Coulson says, he had no complaints about immigration. Neither did the owner of the auto shop where he works, Romesh Dissanayake, who arrived from Sri Lanka in 2018 and is now a permanent resident. But today, both men complain of “uncontrolled immigration” that has put pressure on rents and jobs and leaves newcomers vulnerable to exploitation.

“There is not enough housing for who have already landed. And there are more coming,” Mr. Coulson says.

The housing crisis is far more complex than growing demand from immigrants. But Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe says building more housing is key to moving forward. And ultimately she is worried about how affordability pressures might shake Canada’s sense of immigration and itself.

“We do want to make sure that we remain a city and a region and a country that says immigrants, whether they’re refugees, [permanent residents,] or students, are welcome,” she says.

Sara Miller Llana/The Christian Science Monitor

Tanvi Mevada (left) and Digesh Patel, two Indian students studying at Conestoga College, say they hope to become permanent residents, but they’ll need to return home if they can't find jobs in their field after graduation.

Education in focus

The international student cap might seem hostile to international students on the face of it, but for many it’s a lesson in how Canada is trying to restore broken trust in its system.

International students, coveted by institutions facing tuition freezes, pay far more for their education than Canadian residents. That has spawned some fraud in the industry. Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in January that the cap – and other rules – would rid the industry of “puppy mill” colleges that offer subpar education with promises of fast-track permanent residence.

On a recent day, Digesh Patel mingles with friends at the Doon campus of Conestoga College. His college has been in the spotlight since the federal government announced the cap in January, which is expected to reduce foreign student enrollment nationwide by 35%. Conestoga College has, according to CBC News, received the most international student permits in the past five years.

Mr. Patel, from India, is in a 16-month electrical automation program in which none of the other students are Canadian. He funds his stay working as a security guard and at an Indian grocer, and counts himself fortunate to have found a job. He is the first to support the new rules because he says there are simply too many students for not enough jobs. “When we heard about Canada, it was completely different than what we found when we arrived,” he says.

But ApplyBoard CEO and Conestoga alum Mr. Basiri worries about how the cap will impact Canada’s brand. “It sends the message that we’re not as welcoming as we used to be,” he says. “Canada has been saying, ‘We want you. We value diversity. We care about you. Come to this country irrespective of where you are from.’

“Now, all of a sudden we send a message that international students are causing our housing issue. International students are affecting X, Y, Z.”

Sara Miller Llana/The Christian Science Monitor

Conestoga College, whose downtown Kitchener campus is shown here, received the biggest number of international student permits in Ontario, according to a CBC News analysis. The government just placed a cap on such permits.

How to restore trust

Dr. Skuterud criticizes the student cap as “politically expedient” and a “blunt instrument.” But he says Canada can course-correct, in both quantity and composition of immigration.

Particularly since 2021, the government has prioritized low-skilled workers to plug labor shortages – an economic policy he disagrees with because he says it puts downward pressure at the bottom and increases inequality. “Working people then start to look at immigrants not as people who are making their lives better, but people who are competing for housing and jobs,” he says.

That’s what polarizes the immigration debate in the U.S. and Europe.

He says policies that give pathways to students and foreign workers to gain permanent resident status – and allow students to work long hours while they study to subsidize stays – create bad incentives. Foreign students, unable to pay rents, have crammed into housing; some are accessing food banks.

Dr. Skuterud gets asked if he’s anti-immigrant. He is adamant that he feels the opposite: “If you care about immigration,” he says, “you should be concerned about the direction we’re moving in.”

Sociologist Anna Triandafyllidou, the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University, says Canada remains a global model when it comes to immigration. But Canada is not immune to anti-immigrant rhetoric – including disinformation – coursing through politics in the U.S. and Europe. And the dip in support here concerns her.

“Multiculturalism, I like to say, is like a marriage. If you want to make it work, you have to keep working on it. You can’t say, ‘Oh, we fell in love, we got married, and now we’re good.’ No, you have to keep it alive,” she says. “Migrant integration is a work in progress. And the proactive, positive narrative is a work in progress.”

Matt Rourke/AP

Recovery efforts continue for six construction workers presumed dead after a container ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 27, 2024, in Baltimore, causing the structure to collapse.

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore left six construction workers dead after a massive cargo ship collided with it on Tuesday, trapping about a dozen ships in the harbor, and diverting traffic and cargo. 

While some people voiced worry about future crashes, accidents like this are uncommon. “I don’t think it’s 1 in a million, but I do think it’s rare,” says Capt. Joseph Ahlstrom, a professor at SUNY Maritime College.

Emergency responders in Baltimore were still searching on Wednesday for remains of six people who had been repairing potholes on the bridge when it collapsed. Today, investigators recovered the Dali’s black box, which should help experts reconstruct the timeline of events leading up to when the ship hit the Key Bridge. 

Police said today that officials’ ability to stop traffic and close the bridge within two minutes of the container ship’s mayday call likely prevented more cars from being on the bridge during the collapse.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Wednesday that rebuilding the bridge will be a “long and difficult path.” Dozens of containers with hazardous materials remain on the ship, but they do not pose a threat to the public, said Vice Adm. Peter Gautier, deputy commandant for operations for the Coast Guard, at a White House press conference Wednesday. 

Secretary Buttigieg also said that a bridge built in the 1970s could not withstand a ship the size of the Dali. This year, ships also collided with, and destroyed, bridges in China and Argentina. The Dali, which measures nearly 1,000 feet long, is just one of many modern vessels that are much larger than ships were when bridges like the nearly 50-year-old Key Bridge were built. But there are still ways to make ship movements safer.

Who is responsible for maneuvering ships safely through ports?

Every ship is guided in and out of ports by a state-licensed pilot who takes the helm from the ship’s captain between the sea buoy and the dock. These local pilots go through a rigorous selection process and apprenticeship – and tests such as drawing out the diagrams for their local ports – before handling small ships. Gradually, they upgrade from smaller to larger rigs. There was a state pilot and an apprentice pilot aboard the Dali.

“We’re dealing with a lot of training here. These people are extremely well qualified,” says Captain Ahlstrom. “They know the harbor better than anyone else.”

The Coast Guard, meanwhile, is responsible for enforcing U.S. and international regulations. It oversees any vessel that enters U.S. waters and can spot-inspect any ship. “U.S. maritime safety standards are the highest in the world,” says Capt. Allan Post, a maritime safety expert at Texas A&M University at Galveston. “In this country, a bridge collision like this has not happened in over 40 years.”

What role do tugboats play?

Tugboats pulled the Dali away from the dock but did not escort it under the bridge. That raised questions for Captain Ahlstrom. “That bridge with its aged construction, you would think that a tug might have been useful to guide them.”

The Coast Guard can mandate the use of tugs in a certain body of water, and it often does for things like mechanical issues or narrow channels. When they are not required, companies can still request them – something Captain Ahlstrom himself recalls doing several times. “It’s cheap insurance,” he says.

The tugs that are large enough to guide a ship like the Dali are few and far between because they’re not widely required. “That’s something the industry needs to look at,” says Captain Ahlstrom. “It’s a good practice.”

Reports say that the Dali was stuck at port for two days with electrical problems that at times resulted in a total loss of power, including engine power.

“It’s not common for Panamax-style electrical ships to lose power,” says Captain Post, referring to a class of ship that can fit through the Panama Canal.

If a ship does lose power, backup generators should kick in. “Based on the preliminary information available, the Dali crew did everything they could with the time they had,” says Captain Post. 

What about the bridges themselves?

The Key Bridge was finished in 1977, before regulations were passed requiring barriers to be constructed around stanchions. The Key’s stanchions were fully exposed – and the Dali hit one. That highlights what Captain Ahlstrom says is a major issue in maritime engineering regulation. “Grandfathering is an issue. If it’s unsafe at this time for new construction, why is it safe for existing construction?”

It would take the length of five to six football fields to stop a drifting ship the size of the Dali, says Capt. Kurt Hallier, a maritime adviser to an oil shipping company. The anchors alone wouldn’t have been enough, says Captain Hallier.

“A bridge like this one, completed in the 1970s, was not made to withstand direct impact on a critical support pier from a vessel that weighs about 200 million pounds,” said Secretary Buttigieg today at a press conference. “It’s not just as big as a building. It’s really as big as a block.” 

The Key Bridge has passed its structural integrity tests in “fair” condition since 2008, but bridges built since the 1990s are required to have stronger supports. Near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, the nation’s largest and busiest ports, bridge support columns have been seismically retrofitted to help them withstand major earthquakes. Near the port of Houston in Texas, all three major local bridges have support legs and pillars with substantial bumpers that offer the bridge protection from a collision.

How do inspections work?

The Dali passed a port inspection in September 2023. While inspections are important, says Captain Ahlstrom, they can’t cover every piece of equipment. “There’s not enough time in the day to find out exactly what problems there are.”

Prior to sailing, a vessel does a gear test and the pilot does a master pilot brief anticipating possible issues and how to avoid them. For example, if a ship has a problem with automation, it should anchor immediately. Captain Ahlstrom, who is also a commissioner on the New York state board of pilots, says he’s seen a number of vessels experience automation issues. They’re only cleared once the root cause is determined. 

Despite reports of the Dali’s power problems while in dock, the Coast Guard’s Vice Admiral Gautier said today that this particular ship had a “fairly good safety record.” He described inspections generally as “a pretty thorough process.”

Panamax cargo ships have frequent inspections, usually annually, based on the port of registry and the flag they fly under. The Dali ship flew Singaporean flags, a country that’s known for “top-tier oversight and maritime experience,” says Captain Hallier.

There are latticed layers of maritime oversight and inspections, including at a vessel’s port of registry and port of call, and the Coast Guard’s own inspections. That hasn’t always been the case. Captain Ahlstrom recalls crewmates referring to the “flag of convenience” – ships flying a foreign flag to sidestep regulations of the port they happened to be in, when he began as a mariner in the 1980s. “Those days are over,” he says.

Pragathi Ravi

The thicket of this sacred grove in Venmony, India, provides a cool reprieve on a sunny January day, though locals say the forest used to be larger and denser.

Thick corded trunks snake upward from the ground, reaching toward an overhead lattice of branches splotched with green. If it weren’t for the precariously perched speakers blaring hymns, people may miss this entrance to the 500-year-old sacred grove known as Sharngakavu.

A deity revered locally as Vana Durga, whose name loosely translates to “forest goddess,” is believed to have been found in a stone within the forest. Because of that, surrounding communities have preserved the grove for generations.

“There is some [cosmic] attraction within the forest, due to which our community feels compelled to protect and conserve it,” says Anil Kumar, who works at the Sharngakavu Devi temple located within the 8-acre grove, where an absence of timber logging or hunting has allowed a rich ecosystem to flourish. It is home to the endangered bonnet monkeys and other species endemic to the Western Ghats mountains, which run down the western edge of India.

There are others like it, with 1,096 sacred groves scattered throughout Kerala state, each managed by local families or temples. Researchers have found that, in addition to housing vulnerable species, these virgin forest patches act as reservoirs, helping boost a community’s resilience to extreme flooding. As climate change exacerbates extreme weather and biodiversity loss, preserving these groves is critical. 

“Cultural beliefs and taboos continue to be the best conservation strategies against the exploitation of local sacred groves,” says Kavya Jeevan, co-author of a 2023 study in the Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge that found Sharngakavu housed vulnerable and endangered species.

Yet such strategies are far from perfect. As young Keralites’ interest in religious tradition declines, so too have the size and number of sacred groves, which in 1956 numbered around 10,000.

Pragathi Ravi

Nataraj Panicker unlocks the gate to a grove harboring a serpent shrine in Pandalam, India. It is one of a dwindling number of sacred groves managed by local families.

Changing social fabric

Dead leaves crunch under Natarajan Panicker’s feet as he steps into a grove dedicated to the worship of snakes, a common Kerala tradition. Inside, vines wrap themselves around a modest enclosure for the shrine of the grove’s goddess.

“The grove has reduced a lot,” says Mr. Panicker, head of the multifamily trust that manages the property. “People have sold the land and moved away.”

Fewer than half of South Indians (including those in Kerala) say they pray daily, according to a recent Pew Research study. While the grove was a significant part of the septuagenarian’s childhood, his children only visited during the annual new year festival in April.

Indeed, younger generations who migrate for work are not nearly as interested in keeping local traditions alive, often considering the groves and their upkeep a burden. Mr. Panicker routinely fields off his sons’ requests that he give up responsibility of the grove and move to the city of Pune where they have now settled.

Combined with an increased demand for land, these shifting attitudes have led to the disappearance of hundreds of family-owned groves in Kerala. Many families bypass lingering taboos by transferring a grove’s deity – as represented by a statue or stone – to a local temple before selling or clearing the property. 

Meanwhile, research has found that groves managed by temples, such as Sharngakavu, fare better.

A passive protection

A few years ago in Venmony, the government was pushing to clear a portion of Sharngakavu for a bridge project. But continued protests from the community forced authorities to tweak their plan to exclude the grove.

When asked, community members say they don’t do anything special to preserve the forest, just that they do not damage it for fear of invoking the goddess’s wrath. “The community’s protection [of the grove] is a passive one,” says N.U. Namboothiri, a practicing lawyer who grew up in the region and is part of a resident trust that oversees temple management. “They have attributed divinity to the temple and the kavu [sacred groves] behind it.”

Yet the grove has not gone untouched.

Over the past decade, auditoriums, toilets, and parking areas have been built in and around the temple, often at the expense of a stray tree or shrub, to maximize accessibility and ensure devotees’ comfort. 

Pragathi Ravi

This bridge in Venmony, India, was once intended to pass through the sacred grove, but continued protests from the local communities forced officials to alter their plan.

Those who grew up around the Sharngakavu talk of thicker foliage and denser paths. “When I visited the grove 36 years ago, it was difficult to walk down,” says Devaki, a temple devotee who goes by one name, as she ambles down recently constructed steps.

The additions underscore a key dilemma in sacred grove conservation. “When communities are posed with the question of whether the grove should be preserved or the temple, they will choose the temple,” says Dr. Jeevan. 

Harnessing sacrality

That’s not to say sacrality cannot work in tandem with environmental goals. In fact, most conservation groups still focus on temple-owned groves, rather than on those managed by families, because their local popularity offers a better shot at long-term conservation. 

The Venmony community has planted trees in the grove, though “species like sal and peepal that are commonly associated with Hindu beliefs are more likely to be conserved as opposed to wild and endemic species, which do not serve the temple’s purpose,” says Dr. Jeevan. 

Another intervention led by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, a nonprofit promoting science-backed rural development, populated sacred groves in Kerala’s Wayanad district with medically and culturally significant plant species, chosen based on the microclimate of the region. The organization was also able to weed out invasive species in the Wayabad groves – an issue that residents of Venmony have also recognized as a threat to their own sacred space.

But especially with religious beliefs fading, Dr. Jeevan says experts must build awareness about the importance of conserving groves for conservation’s sake. For researchers, this means an urgent need to understand and communicate the ecosystem services provided by groves.

They work barefoot all morning, each so intently that they hardly ever speak. In one small room of their home, Lin Zheng Yi kneads noodle dough by hand, and in another, his wife, Liao Li Mei, rolls a different batch onto two bamboo poles attached to a wall. The dough will stretch there before being hung out in the sun to dry like laundry – part of a centuries-old process that has been passed down through generations.

“Most people now make the noodles by machine,” Mr. Lin says. “But we will continue the tradition until we retire.”

The couple and Mr. Lin’s mother, who live in Fuxing on Taiwan’s western coast, are one of the last families on the island to prepare misua – a wheat vermicelli – mostly by hand. They use the same method that migrants from China’s Fujian province brought with them in the 17th century. As Ms. Liao explains, these long, extra-thin noodles – made only from wheat flour, water, and salt – used to be “eaten on holidays or to celebrate birthdays as a symbol of longevity, but nowadays they are eaten every day.”

The work starts daily by 5 a.m., beginning with the kneading and stretching. At midmorning, the couple take what they’ve prepared out to their courtyard, which soon becomes covered with noodles resembling giant hammocks made of fine threads, about 3 millimeters (one-tenth of an inch) thick and 5 meters (16 feet) long. The next step is to fold the noodles in half and hang them vertically, turning the hammocks into curtains 2 meters long. The following morning, the noodles cook for six hours in a wood-fired oven before they can be cut and packed for sale.

The couple’s grown children are not interested in continuing the long family tradition.

Gazing proudly at his daughter, Mr. Lin says he is glad that his children are dedicating themselves to other ways of making a living. Still, he explains, “I am sad to lose the trade I learned from my father and grandfather.”

Oscar Espinosa

Lin Zheng Yi sprinkles flour as he spirals dough out of a rudimentary machine he employs in making noodles, in Fuxing, Taiwan.

Oscar Espinosa

Lin Zhangyu Zhi Qi used to make noodles with her husband and today helps out her son in supervising production.

Oscar Espinosa

Working in a corner of the family room, Ms. Liao packs noodles while her mother-in-law watches a Taiwanese soap opera.

Oscar Espinosa

Ms. Liao holds bundles of noodles that will be sold to customers.

Oscar Espinosa

Mr. Lin makes strips of noodles, first by hand and then with the aid of simple machines.

AP/file

A woman rides an electric scooter in the British territory of Gibraltar.

Many people may know Gibraltar only by its wedge-shaped outcropping at the opening of the Mediterranean Sea or by the Beatles song about the marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Yet it may now be poised to show how perceptions of government malfeasance can lead to renewed public integrity.

An upcoming trial offers “a familiar scenario to those who study corruption: a scandal leading to reform,” noted Robert Barrington, a University of Sussex professor, in a recent post on The Global Anticorruption Blog.

The heightened concern about corruption in Gibraltar, a territory under British authority at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, dates back four years. In 2020, its top law enforcement officer, Ian McGrail, abruptly retired halfway through his term as police commissioner. Gibraltar has been on and off international watchlists in connection with illicit financial activity such as gambling, money laundering, and funding for terrorism. Mr. McGrail said he was forced to resign just as he was poised to expose fraud by senior officials.

The government subsequently launched an inquiry into Mr. McGrail’s departure. It also charged him with various crimes, including sexual misconduct and a breach of data relating to the inquest. Those allegations have since been dismissed, and the inquiry – set to start April 8 – has now effectively become a trial of government corruption.

There’s one final twist. In an apparent attempt to expand its oversight over the legal proceedings, the government rushed through a new law under emergency rules this week granting itself the power to either shut down official inquiries or conceal hearings from the public.

That may have been a salutary miscalculation. The new law has sharpened scrutiny from opposition leaders and global corruption watchdogs ahead of the trial. It may also improve the balance of power in a system in which the executive and legislative branches of government are deeply intertwined. The law is modeled after a 2005 reform in Britain that scholars say has strengthened judicial independence and has enabled more effective public scrutiny of government.

Responding to concerns by Transparency International that the new law may “fetter the independence of the inquiry, obstruct its timely progress or unduly influence witnesses,” the government has felt compelled to offer repeated assurances in recent days that it has no intention to interfere in or halt the inquiry.

A 2019 University of Leiden study of corruption in the Mediterranean island nation of Malta offered a granular view of how flows of illicit international finance exploit the unique vulnerabilities of small states or governates. Smaller electorates, found by the study, are prone to cozy patron-client relationships that result in cultures of impunity and undercut “the ability and willingness of citizens to hold politicians accountable.”

Yet it also found that in smaller settings, “citizens have greater opportunities to scrutinize the extent to which politicians actually deliver on their promises,” which can result in deeper public trust in democratic institutions and procedures.

A year ago, Gibraltar’s government passed legislation establishing a new anti-corruption authority. It has yet to follow through. The McGrail inquiry has now raised public expectations. “If the picture that emerges is of a corrupt government that is complicit with organised crime,” Professor Barrington noted, “there is an upside.” More accountability and transparency in Gibraltar would give global financial integrity another foothold.

*Editor's note: An earlier version of this editorial contained a misspelling of Mr. McGrail's name.