When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, they faced stiff resistance across the country’s north from ethnic-based paramilitaries that resented the southern Pashtun militants. That resistance would prove decisive in 2001 when the same ethnic minorities, backed by U.S. air power, ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul.

This time around, the Taliban had a new strategy: Enlist minorities in the north and turn a Pashtun-based insurgency into a pan-Islamic fighting force against foreign infidels.

Taliban commanders and fighters describe a decadelong effort to recruit among ethnic minorities, setting the stage for a lightning-fast victory over Afghan security forces in city after city, until Kabul capitulated on Sunday.

With victory now in hand, the Taliban say they have returned to power stronger than they were in the 1990s, not only armed with the captured U.S.-supplied military hardware of the Afghan army, but now with a nationwide network of loyalist fighters to use it.

“It is very easy to win the whole country right now,” says Mullah Aleem, a bearded ethnic Uzbek who commands Taliban forces in Faryab province in northwest Afghanistan.

Mr. Aleem, who wears a brown silk turban favored by Uzbeks, says the Taliban created a cadre of local leaders who were routinely sent to Pakistan for religious and military training.

“After 2008, the recruitment of young men from villages began in religious schools, which led the Taliban to have a mobile force among the people ... at a very low cost. It grew deep roots inside the indigenous people,” he told The Christian Science Monitor a week ago, before the Taliban took Kabul.

Mr. Aleem says he made three trips to Pakistan where, in addition to a religious curriculum, he studied battlefield tactics such as how to build roadside bombs. “Those who were educated in Pakistan played a key role in advancing the Taliban’s attacks.”  

The Taliban’s recruitment of ethnic Uzbek, Turkmen, and Tajik Afghans under a broader pan-Islamic banner was sweetened with promises of all-expenses-paid religious education in Pakistan – and a chance of martyrdom. Along with Islamic jurisprudence, these northern recruits learned guerrilla war tactics and skills, before returning home to serve as local Taliban leaders.

A northern sweep

The result has been spectacular, and it was a surprise to Western and Afghan analysts alike that the Taliban began their offensive to capture provincial capitals earlier this month by sweeping first across the north.

“Taking control of the north was very important, especially in the last days,” says an ethnic Turkmen Taliban fighter from Faryab who goes by the name Hanzaleh, about the Taliban’s military momentum in the north.

A decade ago, Mr. Hanzaleh began studying in a local madrassa at the age of 12. He was later sent by the Taliban to Pakistan to study for two years.

Mr. Hanzaleh may be ethnic Turkmen, but the Taliban’s rallying cry of defending Islam, reinforced repeatedly by Taliban-approved preachers and teachers in Pakistan, resonated with him. They “always spoke about the virtue of jihad, and said that whoever is martyred in the way of God, his whole family will go to heaven,” he says.  

On graduation day in Pakistan, he recalls that the religious scholars asked who was ready for jihad. Half of his classmates yelled affirmatively.

Ten days later, they were on a bus back to Afghanistan; at the border they received weapons. After three months of military training, the recruits went home with their commanders, as part of a Taliban network that was primed to advance when the call finally came this summer.

“Our commanders gave us the target, and all mujahideen groups were able to take control of the [north],” Mr. Hanzaleh says. “Why were we able to control more territory? Because we know the area and had information about the geography.”

“Deeply alienated”

The Taliban’s unlikely path to victory through the north reflects a deep understanding of local grievances, analysts say.

Not only did the militants tap into a growing Islamic and political radicalization, but they also took full advantage of deepening complaints over corruption, incompetence, and unpopular leadership appointments by the U.S.-backed Afghan government in Kabul.

“The ethnic minorities were deeply alienated. ... I can’t stress enough the effect this had on the north,” says Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied Afghan governance.

This provided fertile ground for indoctrination of minority youth via Taliban-controlled madrassas in the north and in Pakistan.

“You need something to fight for, not just fight against. And there was no vision from the central government that they could believe in,” says Ms. Murtazashvili. The Taliban provided a pan-Islamic banner for the north that could transcend its Pashtun roots.    

That was precisely the allure for Mr. Aleem, the Uzbek Taliban commander. He says he was among the first students from his madrassa to be chosen to travel to Pakistan.

“In the mosques they encouraged young people to study in religious schools,” he recalls. “The propaganda spread and made good progress in most of the villages in northern provinces, where after a couple years two or three young people from each household registered for religious schools.”

Along with other Afghans, Mr. Aleem – whose trimmed mustache curves down to the corners of his mouth, like the symmetrical tail fins of a great white shark – crossed the border to Pakistan and began his religious studies. He was instructed that his country was occupied and Islam was in danger.

Each time he returned from Pakistan, Mr. Aleem was given a higher rank. First, he led a group of 10 Taliban fighters in his home district of Almar. The second time back, he was appointed military chief in several districts for two years. After a third stint in Pakistan, his title was elevated from commander to teacher in a Taliban madrassa, where he keeps making recruits among northern Afghans.  

We “joined the ranks of the mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan for the sake of holy jihad and defense of Islam. I know hundreds of others who have joined our ranks from our villages,” he says.

A researcher in Kabul contributed to this report.

Reuters/File

Abdul Hakim Mujahid, Afghan ambassador to Pakistan and spokesman for the Taliban, is shown in Islamabad, Pakistan, in 1998.

Morning sunlight poured into the third-floor office of Abdul Hakim Mujahid as he stared down at the streets of Kabul. The onetime Taliban ambassador to the United Nations found himself in a reflective mood as he pondered Afghanistan’s future.

“It was wrong for the United States government to collapse the Taliban regime while totally ignoring that you needed the Taliban to be involved in forming policy or you would get this,” he said.

When we met in 2012, Mr. Mujahid belonged to Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, and “this” referred to the long-running stalemate between the U.S. military and the Islamist insurgency.

During the past week, as the Taliban seized Kabul and reclaimed the country, his words echoed in my memory, except “this” had gained new meaning: the rapid fall of the Afghan government, the large-scale surrender of its security forces, and a sudden, devastating return to the past. Twenty years erased before the world’s eyes.

My sense of foreboding about such a scenario deepened in the weeks after President Joe Biden announced in April that he would withdraw America’s remaining troops by Sept. 11. The looming conclusion of the country’s longest war would occur with the Taliban’s influence at its highest level since U.S. forces toppled the regime in 2001.

In December that year, Donald Rumsfeld, then the secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, rejected the Taliban’s offer to surrender. The chances of a peaceful resolution never again appeared so close.

Over the ensuing two decades, with the Afghan government struggling to assert its legitimacy, a saying attributed to Taliban fighters – “You have the watches, we have the time” – evolved from feeble taunt to thorny truth.

In less pithy terms, Mr. Mujahid, who with his dark beard and gold-rimmed glasses resembled a college professor, conveyed the same sentiment – even as the peace council ostensibly sought to end the war.

“In every district of every province, you have a Taliban governor, a military commander, and a judge,” he told me in fluent English. The city’s daily pulse rose with the sun as taxi cabs wove between buses carrying office workers, fruit vendors pushing wooden carts, and boys and girls riding bicycles to school. “People go to the Taliban because it is better known to them than the government.”

Better known and – left unsaid – more feared.

Repeating history

I first arrived in Afghanistan on May 2, 2011, landing in the pre-dawn darkness at Bagram Airfield. Hours later, news broke that U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden across the border in Pakistan. His death drew headlines around the world yet represented a false summit. The war had reached only its halfway point.

The number of American troops deployed to the country topped 100,000 that spring, capping a two-year buildup that began soon after President Barack Obama took office in 2009. The men and women in uniform I encountered in the following days and weeks held few illusions that either bin Laden’s death or the troop surge would deter the Taliban.

Deb Riechmann/AP/File

U.S. Army Spc. Natisha LeCount of Brunswick, Georgia, patrols the streets in Pul-e-Alam, the provincial capital of Logar province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan May 20, 2011. Afghan and coalition troops were stepping up patrols and clearing operations and also building more checkpoints in Logar, a gateway to the Afghan capital, to prevent insurgents from entering the city to stage attacks.

“The British came here, then the Russians, now us,” said Spc. Joshua Duren as night descended on Logar province, south of Kabul. “You wonder if we’re just repeating history.”

I had joined his Army unit on a five-day mission to “win hearts and minds,” a military phrase recycled from the Vietnam War, and one that retained its hollow resonance. Carrying assault rifles and clad in body armor, the soldiers walked through mud-hut villages, handing out candy and backpacks to children and gathering with tribal elders to encourage them to defy the Taliban.

The unit had come under fire earlier in the day from combatants hidden in the surrounding foothills. A helicopter airlifted two wounded soldiers to safety. In the evening, as his platoon mates prepared to sleep beneath an endless tapestry of stars, Specialist Duren assessed the war with a candor lacking in its architects and commanders.

“You’re basically trying to create a new country in a country that’s been around for centuries,” he said. In the fading light, he looked decades older than his 23 years, aged by the rigors of combat.

“If we’re not planning to stay forever, why do we think Afghans will side with us or the government they know we’re paying for? Whenever we leave, it’s going to fall apart.”

The war’s deep toll

Two months later, I embedded with an Army unit headed into the Pech Valley in Kunar, a province bordering Pakistan and beset by violence. The U.S. military had pulled out of the valley six months earlier, and in the interim, the Taliban had battered Afghan security forces.

Insurgents welcomed back the Americans by downing a Chinook helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade. Pilot skill and abundant luck spared the lives of the 15 soldiers and crew members on board.

I asked the region’s Afghan commander about the return of U.S. troops. “It is very important to us that we have support until we build our own capabilities,” Rahmdel Haidarzai said. His placid eyes and reserved manner suggested a bank teller more than a man of war. “We want to do this as quickly as we can, but it is something that requires time.”

Brennan Linsley/AP/File

The Afghan village of Nangalam is pictured from Forward Operating Base Blessing. The village is in the Pech Valley, Kunar province, northeastern Afghanistan, Jan. 29, 2010.

Ten years after our exchange, almost to the day, Taliban fighters captured the provincial capitals of Kunar and Logar as they swept back into power. The next day they entered Kabul.

The Afghan military offered limited resistance to the Taliban after U.S. troops abandoned Bagram Airfield without warning in early July. A series of negotiated surrenders with Afghan commanders in districts and provinces across the country enabled insurgents to march into the capital last weekend with few shots fired.

The swift collapse provoked criticism from U.S. officials, including President Biden, who in a national address earlier this week described Afghan forces as “not willing to fight for themselves.” He omitted mention of the deep toll of a war that had claimed the lives of 66,000 Afghan military and police personnel, and more than 47,000 civilians.

A final trip to the country in 2016 revealed to me the nearly impossible burden that Afghan soldiers carried. I spent time that summer with an army battalion trapped in a triangle of combat with Taliban and Islamic State fighters in the Hindu Kush mountains near Pakistan.

The pervasive corruption among military and government officials that siphoned away equipment, supplies, fuel, food, and wages from soldiers throughout the country had depleted the morale of the unit’s young men. They told of waiting in vain for resupply shipments during firefights, forcing them to retreat as they ran out of ammunition. They felt exploited, forgotten, expendable.

“It is hard to win a war without bullets,” Muhammad Yousuf said. At age 23, he had given five years of his life to the army, and he had seen too many of his comrades fall to ignore the cruelties of fate. He worried his infant son would grow up fatherless.

“How can we win if we are dying?”

Cast into uncertainty

The question shadowed me when I later visited an Afghan military hospital outside the eastern city of Jalalabad. Dozens of soldiers had switched to a uniform of blue pajamas as they rested in bed to recover from bullet and shrapnel wounds. White bandages swathed arms and legs, hands and feet.

A soldier with casts on his ankle and forearm moaned in his sleep. Another lay on his side in silence, eyes open and unblinking, the top of his head wrapped in gauze. He looked younger than 16, the minimum age to enlist.

The fallout of the war on children drew into sharper focus after I traveled to Kabul to meet with Dr. Habib Rahman at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health. As Afghanistan’s lone pediatric burn surgeon, he treats youngsters from across the country, most of whom are injured in household mishaps involving boiling water or cooking fires. He compared their plight to the nation’s.

“The parents have very little education, and many of the families live in poor conditions,” he said. “This is because of war. We have a bad economy and we don’t have enough schools. Children are unsupervised, and the parents sometimes are too young to know how to raise them. This is how accidents can happen.”

I spoke with Dr. Rahman on a video call earlier this week after the Taliban regained control of the capital. He had waded into the country’s bureaucratic morass in 2018 seeking to obtain visas for him, his wife, and their 10 children to move to the United States.

Their applications stalled as the Trump administration tightened restrictions on immigrant and refugee admissions. Three years later, with Western countries in the midst of a chaotic evacuation effort, the Taliban’s ascendance has cast the doctor and his family into uncertainty alongside tens of millions of Afghans.

“There is very much confusion,” he said, his voice as weary as his expression. He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses as one of his daughters appeared on the screen, smiling and waving, an innocent oblivious to war. “The most important thing is to make sure the children can be safe,” he said.

Expanded access to education for girls and greater business opportunities for women rank as two of the brightest points of progress in Afghanistan during the past two decades. Rangina Hamidi worked to embody that new entrepreneurial spirit when she returned to her homeland from Virginia in 2003 to promote women’s rights. 

Five years later, she founded Kandahar Treasure, a company that employs 350 women who produce embroidered handcrafts. We sat down for tea in Kabul in 2011, three months after the assassination of her father, then the mayor of Kandahar. She recalled her optimism in those first post-Taliban years.

“It was an undeveloped nation: no roads, no electricity, bombed-out buildings,” she said. “Yet there was still this energy of people wanting to do things. Everywhere you looked, people were trying to start a new life.”

Ms. Hamidi absorbed the sadness and disillusionment that followed her father’s murder, and in time, she rose to become the country’s first female education minister. Unlike Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled into exile, she has vowed to stay in Afghanistan. She wants to prevent the Taliban from reversing the advances of the past 20 years.

The United States will watch from afar.

When a 7.2 magnitude earthquake shook Haiti last weekend, it made many outside the country tremble as well.

The temblor kicked up memories of the tumultuous aftermath of Haiti’s 2010 quake, of tent cities rife with illness and sexual abuse and of an international humanitarian response that largely excluded local people from decision-making. Since 2010, Haiti has been held up as an example of all that can go wrong with international disaster assistance.

But this time, local and foreign aid workers say, things may be different.

That’s because last time around, “we learned a lot about community-driven support” and “how can the international system support local efforts instead of the other way around,” says Kirsten Gelsdorf, director of Global Humanitarian Policy at the University of Virginia.

Much has not changed in Haiti since 2010; government corruption, widespread hunger, and problems reaching the most affected areas persist. But there are signs of a new approach to disaster response, offering hope that lessons from past mistakes are informing today’s actions, according to local nongovernmental organizations, academics, and international aid practitioners.

These include a charter of minimum standards for aid organizations arriving in the country, drawn up by a coalition of Haitian-led NGOs, and moves to strengthen coordination among local civil society groups, international aid organizations, multinational bodies, and the government.

The death toll from Saturday’s quake has climbed beyond 2,000 people, and tens of thousands are homeless, largely in the southern part of the country. Delivery of emergency aid has been hindered by a tropical storm that arrived on the quake’s heels and a weak state that has allowed criminal gangs to take control of swaths of the country, including the only roads from the capital to the worst-hit areas.

Haiti’s president was assassinated last month – a still unsolved international scandal – adding a growing political crisis to the mix.

Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters

Doctors from the U.S. organization Medic Corps transfer a man injured in the 7.2 magnitude quake to a helicopter at the Ofatma Hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti, Aug. 19, 2021.

A “Haitian solution”?

There were widespread calls on social media this week for donors to seek out Haitian charities or to give directly to the government, in the light of what many saw as a misuse of funds by international groups in 2010.

A document written in Haitian Creole and English, composed by Haitian NGO professionals alongside U.S. peers and diaspora activists, underscores an increasingly visible effort to focus on a “Haitian solution” to the problems left by the Aug. 14 quake.

“Haitians living in the country and abroad are justifiably skeptical of foreign assistance,” the document reads. It’s now time to “support organizations that ... [build] a more equitable Haiti for Haitians.”

It goes on to lay out a series of “minimum standards” to prevent the same mistakes seen in 2010, inviting organizations that are soliciting donations for work in Haiti to pledge respect for Haitians.

“Haitian professionals are asserting themselves. There is a robust effort to say, ‘You need to work with us,’” says Mark Schuller, professor of nonprofit and NGO studies at Northern Illinois University and an affiliate faculty member at the State University of Haiti, who helped translate the document into English.

“That people are looking to Haiti for a Haitian solution is a good sign,” he says, expressing his measured optimism that this disaster response will be different from the past.

Listening to what local residents want and respecting them as human beings may sound like no-brainers. But in an emergency setting, where the priority is pulling people out of rubble, keeping people from starving, and curbing exposure to further danger, it’s not always easy, or natural, to stop and ask a community what it needs.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File

Children play soccer in an open area in the center of the Terrain Acra camp, one of the camps that sprang up after Haiti's 2010 quake, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Nov. 17, 2010.

There is a “natural inclination to say, ‘This is what you must need,’ because we’ve done this before and we know what is needed,” says Langdon Greenhalgh, co-founder of the disaster response organization Global Emergency Relief, Recovery & Reconstruction (GER3), who has worked in emergency response for more than two decades.

But “sitting down and listening, talking, and making sure the community feels at the forefront of the design and leading the actual response itself is so important for setting up recovery and reconstruction,” Mr. Greenhalgh adds.

He believes more organizations are taking similar approaches to local partnerships and collaboration today than in 2010.

Mouths to feed, or people with brains?

Thinking has changed over the past decade in other ways, too, which many expect will make this response different – and more effective – than in 2010. That includes “specialized” aid, which may have been viewed as a perk in the past but is now more widely accepted as key to recovery, such as schooling, trauma support, and opportunities for play for children under age 5.

Other methods, such as direct cash transfers, have also gained traction since 2010, and Ms. Gelsdorf expects them to play a major role in Haiti’s disaster response this time around. “Instead of just sending tarps, tents, bags of food, and clothing from overseas,” aid groups can funnel money directly to those in need, she says. “It’s not only more dignified, but more effective, and it stimulates local markets.”

That’s not to say the international community isn’t needed. Its capacity to mobilize funds and resources – particularly in the early days of vital search and rescue – far outstrips the government’s ability.

So far, the response feels pretty similar to 2010, says Tony Boursiquot, head of the Haiti office of Star of Hope, an NGO that focuses largely on access to quality education. International resources – from clean water to medical supplies to helicopters – seem to be flooding in. He’s OK with that.

“Right now everyone wants to help, and the response needs to be immediate,” he says, noting that even the best-equipped aid groups from the United Nations and the United States are finding it hard to reach those most affected by the earthquake. “We will see the real difference in what happens longer term,” once the initial emergency is over, Mr. Boursiquot says.

Though experts say the 2010 earthquake response taught the need to involve the Haitian government more closely, some locals have their doubts. There have been many complaints by quake victims that they feel abandoned by their government.

The authorities are promising to do more. “We will not repeat the same things that were done in 2010,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced this week. “A lot of donations were made to the country, and a lot of money was spent without seeing the impact.” But Haiti is still scrambling to coordinate its response, reportedly borrowing a plane from the neighboring Dominican Republic to survey damage.

Dr. Schuller says this shouldn’t be grounds to discount the government or its vital role in coordination.

“Treating people as mouths to feed instead of people with brains is unfortunately part of the impulse to do good. It’s not unique to Haiti,” he says. But “we can change the rules of the game.”

Burt Eno peers down through the surface of the Rainbow River, examining the sea grasses below. Even though the water has changed over the past mile from cobalt blue to deep green, it is still transparent enough to see the brown algae coating the waving foliage. 

He shakes his head.

“It’s covered,” he says of the underwater grass. “It shouldn’t be like this.”

The others on the pontoon boat nod in grim agreement. As volunteers with Rainbow River Conservation, an environmental group focused on protecting this unique waterway, they know how to spot trouble hiding in what looks, at first glance, to be a picture-perfect image of central Florida.

Alongside the kayakers and families on inner tubes – and the anhinga drying its spread wings on a Spanish-moss-draped branch – the conservation volunteers recognize the impact of some of Florida’s biggest environmental challenges: nitrate pollution, water shortages, and over-development. The spring that feeds the Rainbow River, where fresh water from the Floridian aquifer bubbles to the surface in swirls of blue, is releasing fewer gallons of flow each year – a sign of the severe pressures on the state’s underground water system.

But the volunteers see something else happening here as well.  

In a state where business interests regularly trump environmental concerns, the Rainbow River is a site where grassroots conservationists have fought against development – and won. Environmentalists here have joined forces with others who care about the unique springs ecosystems, and now the Florida Springs Council sends a lobbyist to Tallahassee. Longtime environmental activists say they are noticing a growing public recognition of the urgency to protect Florida’s water, spurred, perhaps, by a new documentary on state public television about threats to Florida’s aquifer. 

Stephanie Hanes/The Christian Science Monitor

Volunteers with Rainbow River Conservation inspect Rainbow River in central Florida. Although they recognize the impact of some of Florida’s biggest environmental challenges, including nitrate pollution, water shortages, and over-development, they're also noticing a growing public recognition of the urgency to protect Florida’s water.

“We’re seeing exponential growth in the number of people paying attention,” says Ryan Smart, the director of the Florida Springs Council, a nonprofit coalition formed in 2014 that coordinates advocacy efforts among more than 50 local conservation groups. “I don’t want to say that things are improving on the ground yet – we’re still a long way from that. But we have had successes.”

Some of this new focus has been sparked by recent environmental traumas, says Justin Bloom, founder of the Suncoast Waterkeeper conservation group. 

“I do think that there is a growing awareness and concern,” Mr. Bloom says. “Unfortunately, it seems that it is born of crisis.”

Development at the expense of water

Earlier this year, the operators of Piney Point, an abandoned phosphate plant in Manatee County, dumped more than 170 million gallons of radioactive wastewater into Tampa Bay to relieve pressure on the walls of a 77-acre holding pond that officials worried was about to break and flood surrounding neighborhoods. Over the past month, a red tide algae bloom has inundated the bay, killing aquatic life and leaving swaths of St. Petersburg reeking of dead fish. In June, Florida wildlife managers reported that 750 manatees had died so far this year, the most deaths ever recorded in a five-month period. Many of the animals, officials said, starved to death because the sea grass they eat has been dying off.  

For Florida conservationists, this spate of environmental disasters is unsurprising, yet still devastating. For a decade, many environmentalists claim, Florida officials have supported developers and other business interests at the expense of the state’s ecosystem – particularly its hydrology.  

Although Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has called protecting Florida’s “vital water resources … one of the most pressing issues facing our state,” and has proposed using some $625 million for restoration projects in the Everglades and elsewhere, critics say these are scant efforts in the face of policies that systematically create water and environmental problems. 

This is particularly apparent in Florida’s springs and connected waterways, like Rainbow River, says Bob Knight, founder of the Florida Springs Institute, an education and advocacy nonprofit. The state’s springs ecosystems – the glass-clear, 72-degree water and the unique aquatic life that lives in it – are a product of Florida’s geology. 

Not terribly long ago, in geologic time, Florida was itself underwater. Today, much of the peninsula is limestone, formed from the remains of ancient sea creatures. As sea levels retreated, scientists say, acidic rain bored holes in the rock, creating a formation regularly described as akin to Swiss cheese. Rainwater seeping into the ground filled up these pockets; as more rain came, some of the water was forced back to the surface and created springs. The springs then fed rivers, which, in turn, watered the state and supported other freshwater ecosystems, such as the Everglades.  

When Dr. Knight first saw these springs as a child in the 1950s, he was awed. The sites hadn’t changed much from the descriptions he’d read of them from a century earlier, he says: crystal clear, blue water surrounded by lush forests. All of the springs produced voluminous amounts of fresh water, with hundreds of millions of gallons bubbling up from the aquifer.  

Before Disney World opened in 1971, the more than 1,000 springs in north-central Florida were among the top tourist draws in the state. As early as the Civil War, visitors flocked to Silver Springs, taking glass-bottom boats across the aquifer-fed pool; later, movie makers used the springs for scenery in films such as Tarzan.

Stephanie Hanes/The Christian Science Monitor

The Marion County Sheriff's office patrols the Rainbow River near Dunnellon, Florida. Fed by one of central Florida's largest springs, Rainbow River is threatened by fertilizer, aquifer stress, and overuse, conservationists say.

But once air conditioners became accessible to everyday homeowners, Florida’s population boomed. Between 1960 and 2010, the state’s population grew from about 5 million to 19 million. Now, nearly 1,000 people move to Florida every day, according to state officials. The most recent census data puts Florida as one of the country’s fastest growing states by population – about 15 percent since 2010. Many of the fastest growing cities in the country are located in Florida – including Ocala, in the center of the state, near Rainbow River. And all of these new residents, of course, use water – not only to drink, but for landscaping.

“Florida has been very heavily developed,” Dr. Knight says. “And in the process, millions of wells have been put in the ground. … It’s like putting needles in a balloon or air mattress. The pressure in the aquifer fell.” 

When the aquifer is tapped in too many places, he and others explain, the flow of nearby springs decreases. That not only means less water, but less flushing of pollution, such as runoff from lawns and agriculture, and that can result in algae and other contamination. Some springs in the state have dried up completely.

“They do die,” says Mr. Smart, director of the Florida Springs Council. “They can die because the flow stops, or because they become so choked with algae.”

Jayantha Obeysekera, director of the Sea Level Solutions Center at Florida International University, notes that as the aquifer pressure decreases, not only does the spring flow lessen, but there is less resistance in the ground to what is called “saltwater intrusion,” ocean water pushing into the aquifer. Already, numerous wells in coastal areas have been made useless by seawater. 

All of this has created water shortages in the state, and residents are regularly reminded to conserve water. But homeowners are not the only ones tapping the aquifer. 

Agriculture draws thousands of millions of gallons from Florida’s aquifer every day; so do the mining industry and other industrial sectors. And while the state’s water-permitting process is supposed to protect river flow, environmentalists have long complained that local officials almost always approve water-use permits for developers and other businesses. Last year, for instance, a state water agency gave Mosaic, a large phosphate company, authority to pump 70 million gallons of water a day for the next 20 years out of a region whose residents have been under water restrictions. Earlier this year, community members protested a request by the company Nestlé to pump a million gallons of water each day from Ginnie Springs for its bottled water business. The state water board ended up approving the company’s plans.

The fight at Rainbow River

So when the Rainbow River Conservation volunteers heard that Jim Gissy, a senior executive with Westgate Resorts, had plans to develop a large swath of land he owned on the banks of Rainbow River into an eco-destination, they panicked, knowing that developers tend to get what they want in Florida. 

Stephanie Hanes/The Christian Science Monitor

Burt Eno, president of Rainbow River Conservation, an environmental group, looks out over the river. Dr. Eno was part of the group that fought against development of a new resort on the banks of Rainbow River – and won.

Along with others, Dr. Eno, president of the Rainbow River Conservation Board of Directors, decided to fight. Gretchen Martin, whose home is on the river, knocked on every door in Dunnellon, talking to residents about what the added traffic and pollution from the resort might mean for the water, not to mention the draw on the aquifer. 

“We didn’t believe that most people in our community knew what was going to happen,” she says. “And really, 98 percent of people either didn’t know about it or didn’t want it.”

More than a hundred protesters packed a city council meeting – a rare occurrence for a municipality with a population hovering around 2,000 people. The volunteers distributed yard signs and took to social media, working with the Florida Springs Council to spread the word about the development to environmentalists outside the area. Thousands of people signed a Change.org petition opposing Mr. Gissy’s plans. 

Late last summer, the developer withdrew his proposal. He has told media outlets that he had been assured by the city council that the potential for jobs would make the project popular, and that he was frustrated by the opposition. But he also told residents that if they didn’t want the resort, he wouldn’t build it.

Instead, he said, he would attempt to sell the land into conservation.

At the next election, in the fall of 2020, Dunnellon voters ousted two of the council members who had supported the development. The mayor, Dale Burns, also lost his reelection campaign.

“That whole episode probably has changed a number of minds,” Dr. Eno says. “People are more aware than they were. I think we changed the tide in some respects.”

He looks out over the water and sighs. “There is a lot more to do,” he says.

The open kitchen of New City Microcreamery looks as if it’s on fire. On the other side of the ice-cream serving counter, a white vapor begins to billow like smoke. Six children dash over to investigate. A chef is pouring a canister of liquid nitrogen into a massive mixing bowl. As soon as the clear liquid mixes with the base, it creates a white fog that floods the kitchen. It looks like dry ice at a rock concert. 

This is no ordinary ice-cream parlor, and not just because of the neat effects. New City Microcreamery is taking the sugar and, sometimes, cream out of ice cream. The chefs utilize an innovative process – using liquid nitrogen as a bonding agent so less sugar is required – for ice cream as well as confections made with coconut milk, tapping into a rising consumer trend for nondairy alternatives. 

“Vegan chocolate avocado is probably the most famous one,” says chef Alyssa Lieberman. “Nondairy stuff like that has always been something that we are committed to because we aim to be inclusive. ... And it certainly is something that is in high demand.”

Startups such as New City are leading a boom of nondairy alternatives to ice cream. These craft-style microcreameries are breaking new ground with products that are billed as not only good for you but also good for the planet (fewer dairy cows means less methane emissions). Their creativity comes in the form of recipes with sophisticated flavors that emulate the texture – and fun – of dairy desserts. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Katy Pietras uses liquid nitrogen to make malted milk ball ice cream at New City Microcreamery in Hudson, Massachusetts, on July 22, 2021.

“There is a unique surge of innovation in maybe the last three to five years in this realm,” says Scott Rankin, chair of the food science department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. One of its departments, the Frozen Dessert Center, provides technical expertise for producers in the nondairy sector. “Many of our clients are small, nimble, entrepreneurial,” he adds.

There are a lot of new players. Global Market Insights, a consumer research firm, predicts that dairy-free ice cream will become a $1 billion industry worldwide by 2024. But there’s intense competition in the sector and only so much space in the freezer. Successful companies will have to meet the growing demand by millennials and Generation Z consumers for animal-free products that closely replicate the texture and taste of ice cream. Unusual flavor combinations are a plus – maple is fine, but hold the bacon – as are lower calorie options.

Cajou Creamery in Baltimore claims to meet all those criteria. Husband-and-wife co-founders Nicole Foster and Dwight Campbell cater to health-conscious consumers by handcrafting pints made with cashew, almond, and hazelnut milks. They tout the products’ “responsibly sourced” ingredients and lack of sweeteners and additives. The baklava and kulfi recipes are beyond anything you’ll find among Baskin-Robbins’ 31 options. 

“What we’re finding is a lot of young people who are health conscious but adventurous want to eat something healthy, but they don’t want to sacrifice flavor and taste,” says Ms. Foster. “We want [Cajou] to stand for innovation, cultural exploration, and how to bring the world to you on a spoon.”

Courtesy of Nicole Foster

Husband-and-wife team Nicole Foster and Dwight Campbell are the founders of Cajou Creamery in Baltimore. Cajou’s products are available in stores in and around Baltimore and via shipping. The first retail shop is about to open in the Bromo Arts District in conjunction with four other Black-owned businesses, part of a bid to revitalize the downtown area.

Cajou’s products are available in stores in and around Baltimore and via shipping. It’s about to open its first retail store in the Bromo Arts District in conjunction with four other Black-owned businesses in a bid to revitalize the downtown area. 

The challenges of mass production and transportation mean it’s difficult for frozen dessert to scale up beyond regional markets. But it’s not impossible. NadaMoo!, a coconut-milk product that uses agave nectar in place of sugar, made the leap from Austin, Texas, to supermarkets nationwide in 2016. 

Brave Robot, a newcomer, is on course for similar market saturation. Less than a year since it first hit shelves, the Los Angeles-based dessert is already available at 5,000 retailers. Brave Robot’s product line incorporates animal-free whey protein developed in a lab by scientists at Perfect Day. Brave Robot says it’s identical to whey protein in regular milk.

“It’s dairy ice cream, just without the cow,” writes co-founder Paul Kollesoff in an email, noting that companies like his have to get it right. “We know from the data that 70% of shoppers who buy plant-based never come back for a second trip.”  

Mr. Kollesoff says that legacy brands still dominate the ice-cream pint category but nimble startups can gain traction. Numerous smaller entrepreneurs have launched products with bases such as chickpeas, soy, tahini, oats, coconut, and avocado. 

But the biggest players aren’t about to let new competitors chip into their lead. Last year, Ben & Jerry’s became the first company to offer nondairy frozen desserts made with sunflower butter. Virtually every brand-name ice-cream company now churns out vegan products. One even went so far as to embark upon an unconventional partnership with a nondairy startup.

Kylie Thompson/Cajou Creamery

Cajou Creamery makes dairy-free desserts from cashew, almond, and hazelnut milks.

“Graeter’s is a dairy company, but they just started making ice cream with Perfect Day’s animal-free whey protein,” says Anna Boisseau, managing editor of Dairy Foods magazine. 

“The fact that a dairy company themselves decided to make a product with that for their nondairy and frozen dessert was really interesting. So I predict we’ll see even more of that,” she says.

One area where smaller ice creameries believe they hold a significant advantage over Big Dairy is in labeling and eco-friendly packaging. The so-called clean label movement looks for simple and recognizable ingredient lists. That means cutting out additives and artificial sweeteners. It’s the rocky road less traveled. 

Rachel Geicke, founder of a frozen dessert called Snow Monkey, can attest to that. At age 20 she bought a blender at Bed Bath & Beyond and started trying to develop a plant-based frozen dessert with a banana purée. During the downtime of the pandemic, Snow Monkey teamed with a former senior product developer for Ben & Jerry’s to refine its recipes.

“Snow Monkey basically defied the traditional basis of ice cream, which is dairy, fat, and sugar,” she says. “[We] actually eliminated all three of those.” 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Alyssa Lieberman, pastry chef at the New City Microcreamery in Hudson, Massachusetts, says nondairy options are in high demand.

Consumers, especially in Gen Z, demand transparency for what’s in their food, she says. More than that, “it’s a generation calling you out if you’re not aligned with your mission statement and your values.”

Milleñea Román, a Gen Z artist and model in Atlanta, exemplifies that ethos. Since becoming vegan in early 2020, she has scrutinized the labels of a lot of nondairy frozen dessert products. “I have to make sure there’s no animal products, sugar,” says Ms. Román, who is particularly partial to Trader Joe’s strawberry oat milk flavor. “A big issue, honestly, is a lot of packaging, which is a contributor to climate change. That’s definitely another part of being vegan – helping the Earth.”

Back at New City Microcreamery, the liquid nitrogen clouds have dispersed and Ms. Lieberman is raving about the company’s Vegan Mounds flavor. It’s a combination of toasted coconut, dark chocolate chips, and coconut milk. Ever keen to appeal to vegan customers, she’s currently developing new products with other nondairy milks. 

“In the past, it was sort of easy to trick people who had a lot of special requirements into giving them just something that they could eat so that they felt included,” says Ms. Lieberman, who won a 2020 Boston Rising Star Award from StarChefs magazine. “But I think now we’re in a great place where there are so many options out there. They have the ability to be discerning and make choices based on what’s actually good.”

AP

People listen to speakers during the Redistricting Reform Rally Aug. 11 at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis.

Like a starting gun at a foot race, the U.S. Census Bureau released new data Aug. 12 on population shifts in each state based on its 2020 survey. The data dump has triggered a once-a-decade scramble by all 50 states to redraw their electoral boundaries, which will influence the makeup of state legislatures and the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Most states may finish by Jan. 1. This time around, however, a big spotlight will be on their work.

Normally too boring, complex, or hidden for voters to care, the 2021 process has attracted unprecedented interest in a highly polarized America. From town halls to county fairs, Americans are debating how to define the collective identity of each new district. At many public hearings on redistricting, hundreds of people have showed up.

In decades past, the process was highly partisan and behind closed doors. In most statehouses, both Democrats and Republicans used their respective majorities to “gerrymander” districts in favor of their party or particular groups. With the rise of sophisticated computers, the map drawing has often become more complex and partisan. But some states, such as Michigan and California, have shifted the task to neutral commissions or professional demographers. In many states, the goal is to become bipartisan, designing districts that are geographically compact, offer competitive contests, and help strengthen community bonds.

That’s particularly difficult in an era when political identities are sharply defined by race, gender, income, or other classifications that tend to divide rather than unite. Yet, ironically, it is the heightened activism among such social groups that has helped bring redistricting out of the shadows and make it more transparent and accountable.

In addition, voters have recently lost one channel for challenging gerrymandered districts: the federal courts. In 2019, the Supreme Court decided that the process of mapping new districts was too inherently political for the justices to intervene in cases of gerrymandering. The Constitution clearly leaves the decision to the states in how to define fairness for electoral boundaries.

The framers of the Constitution knew redistricting would be hard. James Madison warned against “the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” He hoped the Constitution would lead to “the cool and deliberate sense of the community” that would produce results that are not “adverse to the rights of other citizens.” Even recently, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned against the rise of “tribal-like loyalties” in American democracy.

Redistricting, like other wheels of government, need not simply be a way to aggregate the preferences of the majority or to balance competing interests. It can also locate the enduring bonds of a community and elevate its identity above personal interests to a greater good.

As new census data often reveals, today’s majority could easily be tomorrow’s minority. Defining political identities is far more than temporary political positions or number crunching every decade. It requires a recognition of every citizen’s inherent worth, which will ensure voting districts can yield the best public wisdom.