Alex Brandon/AP

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin pauses while speaking during a media briefing at the Pentagon, Nov. 17, 2021. In February, with images of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol still fresh in the minds of Americans, he called for commanding officers to institute a one-day stand-down to address extremism within the nation’s armed forces.

As the Pentagon was reeling from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot one year ago – with current or former members of the U.S. armed forces ultimately accounting for 1 in 10 of those charged in the attack – military officials began putting together a plan to battle extremism in the ranks.

They decided the first order of business should be to define some terms for their troops. 

Long before the storming of the Capitol, the Department of Defense prohibited “active advocacy” of “supremacist, extremist, or criminal gang doctrine, ideology, or causes.”

But it turns out that service members may have been unsure what, exactly, “active participation” or even “extremist activities” meant, senior defense officials said. It’s a claim that contains some measure of wishful thinking, critics countered, as if a simple restating of the rules could set errant troops straight. 

Still, officials averred, the stunning events of Jan. 6 “demonstrated a need to clarify” matters.

The Pentagon’s new plan, released in December, does this, and also puts a finer point on what activities are prohibited for U.S. troops who support white supremacy. Newly banned actions include, among other things, “liking” racist content and social media posts advocating a violent overthrow of America’s government.

While welcoming this added clarity, defense analysts say big questions remain about whether the new measures go far enough and can be successfully put in place. The outstanding needs, they say, range from better civics education and mental health services to tamping down notions of people with military credentials as a superior class in society.

A key challenge, they add, will now rest with officers in the ranks, who are being tasked with making the new rules operative.

“In some respects this reflects a lot of trust [in] unit commanders to basically be implementers of this policy. But there are some serious conflicts of interest here,” says Andrew Mines, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Yet, he adds, “any sane person looking at this sees that Jan. 6 is clearly prohibited.”

New rules for troops

The new guidelines prohibit essentially any show of support for racist groups, including donating money, time, or training to them. Troops are also barred from “actively demonstrating or rallying in support of extremist activities,” said a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity during a background briefing for reporters.

In the online realm, “we went from having absolutely no policy on social media rules” to making some, the official noted.

One thing the Pentagon doesn’t ban is membership in extremist groups, including the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan or the paramilitary Oath Keepers, whose members have been charged with helping organize the storming of the Capitol building. These groups recruit service members for the perceived street credibility, as well as equipment, they might bring with them.

“It was really important to us that we preserve First Amendment rights to the extent we could, and that we focus on an individual’s action, regardless of whether they did that on their own or as part of an organization,” the defense official said. “[Yet] you’ll see that any way that someone could sort of actively become a member of an extremist organization, we’ve accounted for those. So we don’t think that there is any way for someone to be a member of an extremist organization in any meaningful way.” 

Mr. Mines, at George Washington University, says banning membership in extremist groups would amount to playing “whack-a-mole” with organizations that routinely change their names. The FBI doesn’t maintain a list of domestic extremist groups, either. 

Still, “would you want to occupy a foxhole with a guy who’s a member of the KKK, even though he can’t march with the KKK? No, I would not,” says retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who commanded the mission to train Iraqi troops early in the war and rejects the Pentagon’s First Amendment arguments in this case.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP/File

Members of the Oath Keepers on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Members of the group, which recruits people connected to the armed services for their perceived street credibility, have been charged with helping organize the storming of the Capitol building.

“You surrender a whole lot of civil rights when you elect to come into the armed forces, and when you accept the oath” of enlistment, in which troops swear to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, he adds. “The argument that [troops] have freedom of speech – well, not really.” 

Mr. Eaton decided to make a public plea for the military to get a better handle on extremism in its ranks in part, he says, after 124 other retired U.S. generals “put out a letter that basically bought into the Republican attack on the validity of the election, and also put in doubt President Biden’s capacity to serve as the president of the U.S.” 

Appalled, he teamed up with two co-authors, also retired generals, to publish an opinion piece in The Washington Post. Above all, they wanted to warn their fellow Americans, he says, that “what used to be an article of faith – that any threat to the U.S. is going to come from outside the U.S. – is no longer true.” 

They urged, among other things, better civics education. “No service member should say they didn’t understand whom to take orders from during a worst-case scenario,” they wrote.

The Pentagon report concurred with this assessment and proposed beefing up discussion surrounding the oath that personnel take. It said officials should also examine “the role of mental and behavioral health in extremist activities.” 

A key role for unit commanders

Looking forward, enforcement looms as a difficulty – partly because defense officials have made clear that addressing rule-breakers shouldn’t be centralized at the Pentagon.

“Commanders will have to make that call on their own in terms of what they believe is the right thing to do,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said. “That’s not something that the department would dictate at this level. And not everything has to be punished, either.” 

Depending on where commanders’ sympathies or ambitions lie, this approach could prove problematic, defense analysts say, since reports of racist behavior, particularly if pervasive, have the potential to reflect badly on unit leadership.

“If I’m a unit commander and I don’t think the Proud Boys are that bad, then I’m not going to report anything,” Mr. Mines says. He adds that the “we trust our unit commanders” ethos will tend to emphasize nonpunitive disciplinary measures as an initial response. 

The Pentagon, for its part, would get beefed-up offices to field whistleblower complaints under the new plan. What it doesn’t have is any means to police the social media accounts of individual service members. And “that’s not the intent,” Mr. Kirby said.

But maybe it should be, Mr. Eaton and his co-authors suggest: “The goal should be to identify, isolate and remove potential mutineers” and “guard against efforts by propagandists who use misinformation to subvert the chain of command.” The new measures “don’t go nearly far enough to address a developing problem.” 

What allows extremism to take root?

The good news in all this, Pentagon officials have taken pains to emphasize, is that extremist threats within the forces appear to be relatively small. Of some 2.2 million active-duty personnel and reservists, roughly 100 of them were found to have taken part in extremist activities in 2021, according to Pentagon officials.

The numbers represent an increase over 2020, when that figure was “in the low double digits,” Mr. Kirby said. 

This could portend an increase in extremist behavior or simply be a sign that reporting is getting a bit better – the latter being the Pentagon’s preferred explanation. In either case, tackling the problem requires understanding how some veterans develop grievances and become radicalized, says Scott Cooper, a Marine Corps veteran for whom the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was a seminal event. 

“Some of that rhetoric that [bomber and Army vet Timothy McVeigh] consumed is now becoming mainstream,” Mr. Cooper, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said last month during a Brookings Institution discussion on extremism in the military. “When it becomes patriotic to be against your government, there’s a problem there.”

For the vast majority of veterans, “If you think about it, joining the military is one of the great acts of trust. You’re trusting that your country will use your life well,” he said. “And yet what we have right now is a number in the veteran community that have been duped into believing other conspiracy theories that have come to really resonate with them.”

Understanding why, he added, involves acknowledging that Americans promiscuously place veterans on a pedestal. This elevated status may be giving some vets the idea that they, more than others, know what’s best for the country. 

This is not the case, Mr. Cooper said – a conviction that reminded him of a letter that Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, a former prisoner of war and later commander of the 4th Army, sent his troops as many of them were being discharged after World War II. 

Mingled with Wainwright’s praise was a hint of warning: “You have seen what happens when [people] follow false leaders. You have seen what happens when a nation accepts hate and intolerance. ... Make your individual voices heard, not for selfish things, but for honor and decency among men, for the rights of all people.” 

Mr. Cooper’s conclusion: “Yes, I served eight tours overseas, seven of them in combat. But my sister who teaches elementary school back in Wyoming I think has done more for our community and our country than I ever have done. And I think it’s important that as veterans we don’t try to put ourselves above the rest of society.” 

In the effort to avoid U.S. military troops’ involvement in any sort of repeat of the Jan. 6 insurrection, analysts say, that may be the most important lesson of all.

In the 1990s, you couldn’t talk about logging in the Pacific Northwest without talking about the spotted owl. 

The medium-sized, dark-brown owl was at the center of a fierce conflict between the powerful timber industry and environmentalists trying to protect old-growth forests. The owl, which prefers such forests, was barreling toward extinction due to logging and other habitat destruction. 

Environmentalists fought a successful campaign that led to federal protection from logging for millions of acres of forest. But today the spotted owl’s population is still falling rapidly, with continued logging and larger wildfires sharing much of the blame.  

And there’s another culprit: the barred owl that is invading old-growth forests in Oregon, Washington, and California, putting it in scientists’ crosshairs – literally. 

Scientists have spent more than a decade testing whether killing barred owls, which are considered invasive in the Northwest, might prevent the extinction of the northern spotted owl (the subspecies that lives in this region). Research teams led by David Wiens, a U.S. Geological Survey wildlife biologist, released results last May showing that culling almost 2,500 barred owls in Northwest forests helped to stabilize spotted owl populations, which had stopped reproducing after their larger cousins showed up. 

The controversial experiment could become federal policy as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maps out a large-scale management plan in the Pacific Northwest for barred owls. That would represent an official imprimatur for a policy of culling one species – the barred owls – to save another. But it may not be the last as a warming planet stresses ecosystems in ways that threaten disaster for North American birds including the spotted owl. 

Conservationists and animal welfare groups remain torn on the practice of culling barred owls so that their vulnerable cousins survive. Could it be the lesser of two evils? 

“There’s a growing reception to this as a necessary evil,” says Tom Wheeler, executive director of Environmental Protection Information Center, an advocacy group in Northern California. Mr. Wheeler supports expanding the practice to other Northwest forests and is building bridges with other conservationists to ensure that they’re not a roadblock to removing barred owls.  

He will need to convince activists like Kristen Boyles, a managing attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm, who has worked for decades on spotted owl issues. Although Earthjustice didn’t legally challenge the experimental cull of barred owls, she says federal scientists are scapegoating barred owls when the real problem is continued loss of spotted owl habitat.  

“Which doesn’t mean that barred owls aren’t a problem, it’s just that they’re not the core problem,” Ms. Boyles says. “If you shoot all the barred owls, and there’s no place for the spotted owls to live, then it doesn’t make much of a difference, right?” 

Jon G. Fuller/VWPics/AP/File

A barred owl rests in a tree in the Atchafalaya Basin in southern Louisiana. Long familiar in Eastern states, the barred owls are spreading to the Pacific Northwest, where they are considered invasive. One study found that when scientists culled the number of barred owls, it helped to stabilize spotted owl populations.

An Audubon Society report found that two-thirds of North American bird species are at risk of becoming extinct by the end of this century as rising temperatures alter habitats. Bob Sallinger, conservation director at Portland Audubon, warns that will push more species into conflict with one another, spurring ethical dilemmas like the one over barred owl management. 

“We’re very likely to be faced with many, many more of these decisions at a rapid pace,” he says. “I don’t think we have our heads wrapped around that yet. It may require an entire paradigm shift of how we manage wildlife at some point.”

Highly adaptive owls

When biologist Mark Higley began surveying a portion of forest in the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in Northern California in 1991, he found two spotted owl couples living there. 

That was likely the same time barred owls arrived here, he says. The species, which is beloved in its native East Coast range, expanded west during the 20th century.

Spotted owls are sensitive: They need old-growth forests and a tailored diet to survive. Barred owls, on the other hand, are a highly adaptive species. They can live in cities, swoop at joggers, and eat virtually “anything that moves and will fit in their mouth,” says Mr. Wiens, the USGS biologist. They’ll enter old-growth forests and aggressively drive away many spotted owls. Those that remain can’t easily reproduce because they stop calling to potential mates for fear of alerting their rival. 

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that spotted owl numbers in the Northwest plummeted by up to 85% between 1995 and 2017, a period when barred owl populations exploded.

For 20 years, Mr. Higley couldn’t find a single spotted owl in the surveyed portion of the Hoopa reservation until 2013, when the tribe’s wildlife agency began killing barred owls as part of Mr. Wiens’ study. In total, scientists killed almost 600 barred owls on the reservation between 2013 and August 2021.

Mr. Wiens’ team found that in areas where no culls of barred owls took place, spotted owl populations declined by an average 12% each year, putting them on a path to extinction. But when barred owls were hunted, spotted owl populations stayed level. 

Killing in the name of preservation

Land managers often kill species in the name of ecological health, especially invasive species. The brown tree snake, for example, has wreaked havoc on native bird populations in Guam; scientists have tried dropping drug-filled mice in the jungle to kill the snakes, so far without success. 

That approach sometimes hurts more than helps. A case in point is the federal government’s attempt to protect salmon in the Pacific Northwest by killing one of their predators, the double-crested cormorant. The strategy didn’t boost salmon runs, which are threatened by dams, pollution, and warming rivers, but it decimated the bird’s largest colony in the world. 

Mr. Sallinger of Portland Audubon says there are many such examples of land managers creating unforeseen results when culling a species. Portland Audubon is waiting to see the details of the federal government’s barred owl plan before taking a stance, he adds. 

Michael Harris, director of the wildlife law program at Friends of Animals, which sued the federal government unsuccessfully to stop the barred owl cull, says officials are shortchanging a complex problem – declining spotted owl populations – with a “cruel” solution that scapegoats its larger cousin. “I don’t see it as a sustainable solution to the problem,” he says.

Conservationists and animal welfare advocates say that regardless of what happens with the barred owl cull, more critical habitat for spotted owls needs protection. Logging and development has destroyed almost three-quarters of the spotted owl’s old-growth habitat, which can take more than a century to restore. 

In a win for the species, the Fish and Wildlife Service recently moved to protect huge swaths of owl habitat placed on the chopping block in the waning days of the Trump administration. But even that proposal would still shave off 200,000 acres of previously protected habitat. 

Mr. Wiens emphasized that the experiment he led culled only a tiny portion of barred owls in the Pacific Northwest. And while scientists in California are still killing barred owls on public and private lands, the practice is now on hold in Oregon and Washington, pending federal guidance. As a result, says Mr. Wiens, forests are already being “overrun” by barred owls. 

When Daniel Sarmu was growing up in eastern Sierra Leone, his family had two ways of making money: finding diamonds and growing coffee.

Both were grueling, uncertain kinds of work. Diamonds were, well, as rare as diamonds. Coffee, by contrast, grew hungrily in the region’s steamy, tropical rainforest climate. But the only kind of coffee that farmers like Mr. Sarmu’s family could grow was a variety called robusta. That’s the cheaper, lower-quality cousin of arabica coffee, which requires a milder climate. Sierra Leone was simply too hot. 

“The price of robusta went up and down – sometimes you couldn’t even recoup the cost of your harvest,” Mr. Sarmu remembers. 

Little did he know he would one day become part of a team that would hunt down a “forgotten” species of coffee that some say could change the game for farmers: stenophylla. 

Stenophylla has the smooth, rich taste of the coveted coffee arabica but can grow at far higher temperatures. Since the search began in 2018, it’s been something of a botanical detective drama, with the team slashing its way through the Sierra Leone rainforest with machetes to find the elusive variety. 

As the climate warms, scientists and development experts hope that hardier coffee species like stenophylla will help farmers in coffee-growing nations adapt and prosper. 

“This is something unique that Sierra Leone can present to the world,” says Mr. Sarmu, now a coffee expert and development worker in Sierra Leone. 

Jeremy Haggar/University of Greenwich/Courtesy of RBG Kew

Aaron Davis (left) from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and John Brima from the Sierra Leone Forestry Department rediscover stenophylla coffee in the wild in Sierra Leone. Researchers have been working to climate-proof coffee for over a decade.

And the stakes of the project go beyond coffee. 

“We may think, this is just a drink that we could – arguably – learn to live without,” says Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London. “But worldwide there are 100 million people involved in farming coffee. It’s their livelihood, their culture. There are entire countries that would fail if not for coffee.” 

If scientists can find ways to help the small-scale farmers on the front lines of climate change thrive, they say the benefits will ripple across the world, from the global food supply to patterns of migration. 

Dr. Davis has worked on the puzzle of how to climate-proof coffee in some form for more than a decade. A major part of that quest has been to find species of wild coffee that mimic the taste of those we already drink but grow more easily. 

Although there are about 130 known species of coffee in the world, almost all of what we consume comes from the beans of just two – arabica and robusta. 

Of those, arabica is by far the higher-value crop, powering most of the world’s cappuccinos and espressos. But it’s also a fickle plant. Originally found in the highlands of South Sudan and Ethiopia, it likes to grow in temperatures that hover around a mean of 66 degrees Fahrenheit. And in Central and South America it is susceptible to a blight called coffee leaf rust, which in recent years has destroyed massive harvests and at times triggered migrations from affected countries. 

Robusta, on the other hand, is easier to grow in warmer climates but is particularly sensitive to drought.

So several years ago, Dr. Davis and his colleagues began trekking through coffee’s natural habitats – mostly scattered throughout Africa, with a few in South Asia – and poring over historical records and old plant samples. There, they came across stories of stenophylla, which had been grown in Sierra Leone until the turn of the 20th century. The last recorded sighting had been in the southern part of the country, in 1954. 

Teaming up with Mr. Sarmu, they created a kind of “wanted” poster for the lost coffee and distributed it to farmers near the last known sighting.

Courtesy of RBG Kew

Coffee plants take four to seven years to fruit. Before researchers rediscovered stenophylla, the last recorded sighting of the plant was in 1954.

A few thought they’d seen it, but when the scientists followed up, “nothing,” Dr. Davis says. The team turned up one lonely stenophylla plant near the last recorded sighting spot from the 1950s. But it wasn’t enough to work with. 

So they headed across the country, to a spot near Mr. Sarmu’s hometown of Kenema where he thought conditions might be right. Then, they hacked their way through the forest with machetes for six hours. “We crossed streams and rivers, moving from hill to hill,” Mr. Sarmu says. “And then we saw the trees.” 

But once they’d found the elusive coffee, there was still a major question. 

Would it taste any good?

More than a year later, they got their chance to find out. Mr. Sarmu collected enough beans to roast a few cups’ worth of the stuff. Then he sent it to London, where it was put in front of a panel of coffee experts at Union Hand-Roasted Coffee. 

Stenophylla passed their taste test with flying colors, rating as highly as specialty arabica blends.  

C. Cornu, Cirad/Courtesy of Kew Press Office

A researcher sorts stenophylla beans before roasting them at a sensory analysis laboratory. Stenophylla passed a London taste test with flying colors, rating as highly as specialty arabica blends.

“Arabica is currently our only specialty coffee species, and so this score, particularly from such a small sample, was surprising and remarkable,” Jeremy Torz of Union Coffee told Kew. 

The next steps are to grow more of the stuff – coffee plants take four to seven years to fruit – and continue looking for the hardiest varieties. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Davis and others are investigating other minor coffee species, hoping they’ll show similar potential, and also searching out hardier versions of arabica and robusta. 

“Our coffee farmers are working in highly environmentally stressed conditions,” says Catherine Kiwuka, a conservationist with the National Agricultural Research Laboratories of Uganda, who did her Ph.D. research on drought-resistant varieties of robusta. “And when their crops fail, the consequences trickle through their society.” 

She sees making coffee farming more resistant to warming weather as a moral imperative.

“People here don’t have any other options,” she says. 

Courtesy of Mônica Francisco

Rio de Janeiro state congresswoman Mônica Francisco raises her fist as a symbol of Black Power in Borel, the favela where she grew up, in Rio de Janeiro. Ms. Francisco is an evangelical Christian fighting to protect Candomblé heritage.

Mônica Francisco and Mãe Seci Caxi do not see eye to eye about God.

Ms. Francisco, a Rio de Janeiro state congresswoman, practiced Catholicism until she joined an evangelical church at 18. She is among the 65 million Brazilians – approximately one-third of the population – who consider themselves evangelicals.

Ms. Caxi was born into a family of Candomblé – a minority Brazilian religion of African origin that has historically been discriminated against, including by evangelicals.

But when Ms. Caxi needed help in saving a space sacred to the adherents of Candomblé, she turned to the evangelical politician, who is also a pastor. United by their African heritage, the two have become unlikely allies against deep-seated religious intolerance in Brazil and for recognition of their shared culture.

“We must fight religious intolerance so that we can preserve our ancestry. We must preserve our oral traditions and African mythology as a religious practice because this reaffirms our Afro-Brazilian identity and its roots,” Ms. Francisco says. 

“Our past includes an enslaved family, who probably worshipped African gods, who had to use syncretism,” she adds. “Although I am a Christian, a pastor, and have embraced the evangelical faith, it is impossible not to recognize this presence in our ancestors.”

Message of justice 

An abandoned structure outside Rio de Janeiro that a local mayor wanted to raze brought Ms. Francisco and Ms. Caxi together. Called the Terreiro da Goméia, it’s sacred land in Afro-Brazilian worship and a national symbol of Afro-Brazilian culture. It was established by the late Joãozinho da Goméia, a pai-de-santo, or high priest, who was also known as the King of Candomblé because he brought the religion out of obscurity. Gay and mixed race, he was often harassed and once imprisoned, as he fought against entrenched attitudes and prejudices.

Before his death 50 years ago, the site attracted journalists, artists, and high-ranking politicians who sat high in balconies to watch its elaborate festivals and ceremonies.

“He welcomed nonbelievers just as much as he welcomed believers,” says Ms. Caxi, who was chosen to be a Candomblé priest when she was a baby. She established the Goméia Commission in 2003 to preserve the memory of Mr. Goméia and calls his lifework “a true social project.” 

His message of justice resonated with Ms. Francisco too. She grew up in Rio de Janeiro’s Borel favela, a majority-Black hill settlement where most residents live in precarious housing and have limited access to public services. When a massive landslide in Rio killed dozens in her community in 1988 when she was a teen, she spent sleepless days and nights helping families. She calls this moment the birth of her activism. From then on, she fought for housing rights in favelas. 

When Ms. Francisco converted and began serving in various roles in the evangelical church, her activism expanded: fighting against police violence against poor Black men and for economic and political rights for women. Eventually she started her own church in Borel. When her friend Marielle Franco, an activist and politician, was assassinated in 2018, Ms. Francisco ran for political office, easily winning a seat for the left-wing Socialism and Liberty party.

When asked how her faith and desire for justice interconnect today, Ms. Francisco points to Matthew 5:6 in the Bible: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” 

Religion under attack

Candomblé is considered one of the strongest vestiges of African heritage in a country where 50% of its 212 million people are Afro-descendants. It’s estimated that only 1.5% of all Brazilians practice Candomblé, but the religion’s symbolism and imagery can be found in festivals, holidays, and carnivals.

Still, society has not always been open to Candomblé – and at times downright hostile. In recent years Candomblé practitioners have come under increasing attacks from adherents of evangelical Christianity, who helped lift right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro to office. In 2019, local media tallied 201 Candomblé religious facilities destroyed or ransacked nationwide, the majority in Rio de Janeiro. The Terreiro da Goméia in the town of Duque de Caxias came under threat by Mayor Washington Reis, who announced he wanted to build a day care on the sacred site. He called such temples “corners of witchcraft” just this year.

But attitudes are shifting. “African spirituality has always been satanized by Christian movements,” says Lêmba Dyala, coordinator of the Goméia Commission and also a high priest. “But today we can report [abuses], move freely, and fight without being criminalized.”

In fact, the Goméia Commission fought for the temple’s remains by pushing to have the site turned into a historic landmark. In 2019, its members initiated a heritage process through Rio de Janeiro’s State Institute of Cultural Heritage (INEPAC). In the middle of the pandemic, with the INEPAC process delayed, Mayor Reis reiterated the city’s plans to turn the site into a nursery. So on July 21, 2020, Ms. Francisco and two other state congresspeople proposed a bill that would make the land where Mr. Goméia’s Candomblé terreiro once stood a state heritage site. 

It noted the site is not just fundamental to the religious practices of Candomblé, but to “the struggle and resistance of the black population and for the dissemination of African and Afro-Brazilian culture in the country, ensuring the right to identity and memory,” it reads.

Amid this bill and mounting media attention and demonstrations, Mayor Reis backed down a week later. But Ms. Francisco didn’t stop there. She also proposed another bill to make March 27, Mr. Goméia’s birthday, the State Day of Awareness Against Religious Racism and Joãozinho da Goméia Day. (Evangelical politicians attempted unsuccessfully to amend the bill with a proposal to remove Mr. Goméia’s name.)

“Putting his name on the day not only represents the fight against religious racism, but also against racism, against homophobia, against prejudice,” says Ms. Francisco. “It’s defending territories that are occupied and built by Black people.”

In April of this year, both bills were passed, paving the way for the complete landmark status of the terreiro in September by INEPAC. It is only the second Candomblé site to receive such status in Rio de Janeiro. 

“I believe that Terreiro da Goméia has a cultural and symbolic relevance on a national level,” says Leon Araújo, director of the Department of Intangible Heritage at INEPAC. 

While the Goméia Commission plans how to use the landmarked site to properly pay homage to Mr. Goméia, Ms. Francisco continues her political work against religious racism through a state committee investigating all religious intolerance.

“This was an episode; tomorrow comes another and we will fight it again,” Ms. Francisco says. “With my militancy, I couldn’t be far from this fight. I would be there whether or not I was a politician. Coming from where I come from and with my journey, I have a responsibility to do everything I can.”

This article was produced with the support of the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture, the John Templeton Foundation, and Templeton Religion Trust. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.

In a tract of countryside outside the ancient walls of Rome, amid verdant fields and hedgerows reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Shire, a mossy sunken lane overhung with alder trees leads down to a metal gate.

Beyond it is one of Rome’s largest but least known wonders: a labyrinth of tunnels that were hacked out of solid rock by the Romans 2,000 years ago. And this subterranean realm can now be explored by bicycle.

Guides have recently started taking small groups of visitors on bike tours of the Great Quarry of Rome, which holds 22 miles of twisting, underground passageways.

The labyrinth is well suited to two wheels – the tunnels are lined with hard-packed earth which forms a relatively flat surface to negotiate by bicycle. A mountain bike is ideal but even a city bike will do the job.

“It’s a pretty unusual experience, even for Rome,” says Luigi Plos, a guide with Sotterranei di Roma (Underground Places of Rome), a group of speleologists and historians who specialize in exploring the city’s subterranean places. “It is the only underground tour by bike in Rome.”

Biking in the dark

The Great Quarry of Rome, which is unknown to most Romans, lies beneath the Parco della Caffarella (Caffarella Park), a large wedge of countryside located just a few miles from the Colosseum, near the ancient Appian Way Roman road.

The origins of the quarry lie with the Romans’ quest for a much-prized building material. The area is rich with pozzolana, a volcanic rock which the Romans pulverized and mixed with lime to create a type of ancient concrete.

It was used in the construction of vast edifices such as the Pantheon temple and several huge baths complexes, including the Baths of Caracalla, located close to the Circus Maximus chariot-racing track of “Ben-Hur” fame.

Nick Squires

Cyclists' headlamps illuminate tunnels winding through an underground, Roman quarry. Without the artificial light, darkness would be total.

“The reason the Romans dug this underground quarry so close to the city was because transportation was so expensive. Building materials are heavy and if you want to bring them from far away, you have to pay the workers, you need to feed the beasts of burden, [and] there is the danger of brigands. It was much cheaper to excavate right here, close to the city,” says Alessandro Placidi, another guide with Sotterranei di Roma.

The bike tours, which can include around 40 cyclists, travel through tunnels that were used to grow mushrooms as recently as the mid-1990s. Strands of electrical lighting dangle from the ceilings and sheets of translucent plastic are still attached to the walls – the sheets enabled the mushroom growers to create just the right temperature and humidity for the cultivation of fungi.

Visitors cycle past a chamber in which there is a long table and benches – it was the underground canteen of the mushroom growers. At one point, Mr. Placidi asks the tour group to turn off all bike lights and mobile phones. The darkness is absolute – not a single shape or shadow can be made out.

One section of the quarry was burrowed beneath a large catacomb that was dug by the early Christians to bury their dead. Holes have been hacked in the walls of the quarry to try to access the catacombs.

“It was the 1920s, and the mushroom growers who worked down here had heard of the amazing finds made by archeologists in ancient Egypt,” says Mr. Placidi, referring to the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb by Howard Carter. “They thought there might be similar treasures waiting to be discovered in the catacombs. But they found nothing – just skeletons.”

Mushroom cultivation was abandoned in the 1990s, and the quarry was largely forgotten, until being opened to the public recently.

Beneath Claudius’ temple

Along with Sotterranei di Roma, the similarly named Roma Sotterranea (Underground Rome) is also trying to open up Rome’s many intriguing subterranean spaces to exploration. The two maintain a friendly rivalry.

This summer, Roma Sotterranea began taking visitors to another subterranean quarry, this one burrowed into a hill just a few minutes’ walk from the Roman Forum and the Colosseum.

The quarry, which is accessed by a tiny door, lies beneath the remains of a huge temple that was built in honor of Claudius, the emperor who invaded Britain in A.D. 43.

The extraction of stone began after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and continued for more than 1,000 years, until the 17th century. In places, workers dug beneath the water table, and some chambers now contain limpid pools of pure, crystalline water.

“To have underground pools and quarries just a few hundred meters from the Colosseum is an incredible thing,” says Marco Gradozzi, a Roma Sotterranea guide.

AP/File

Desmond Tutu speaks to University of Oklahoma graduates in Norman, Okla., after receiving a honorary degree in 2000.

Amid a gradual erosion of liberalism around the world, the life of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu offers a reminder of the powerful effect of persistent good.

So far in this young decade, each year has opened with an event reflecting the state of democracy somewhere in the world. In 2020 Hong Kong police clashed with protesters, who rallied in the hundreds of thousands on New Year’s Day to champion universal suffrage. 

Last year supporters of President Donald Trump mounted a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 to try to block Congress from certifying an election that he had lost.

This year the trend continued – not with tear gas and batons but rather with a quieter opportunity to ponder the long arc of humanity’s pursuit of democratic ideals. Amid warnings that the world is tilting more and more toward autocracy, even in democracy’s strongholds, tributes from around the globe marked the passing of Archbishop Tutu, an exemplification of persistent good.

One of the champions of justice and human rights during South Africa’s long struggle against apartheid, Archbishop Tutu understood that no human system based on hate and exclusion could withstand the power of moral courage. 

“He knew in his soul that good would triumph over evil, that justice would prevail over iniquity, and that reconciliation would prevail over revenge and recrimination,” said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. “He knew that apartheid would end, that democracy would come. ... He was convinced, even to the end of his life, that poverty, hunger, and misery can be defeated – that all people can live together in peace, security, and comfort.”

In the days since Mr. Tutu’s death Dec. 26, the question has been posed whether anyone today, in South Africa or elsewhere, is equal in stature to those like Archbishop Tutu, whose lives were forged by the great crucibles of justice in the 20th century – men and women such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Andrei Sakharov, and Helen Suzman.

The desire for new champions is understandable in the face of the challenges of climate change, an erosion of democratic norms, persistent racial injustice, and ongoing threats to human rights. History will surely record new names such as Alexei Navalny and Greta Thunberg. More will emerge.

For Mr. Tutu, who matched undaunted moral courage with an equal measure of humility, the cause of human progress found its deepest reservoirs of hope and strength in taking action, even modest steps. 

“Do your little bit of good where you are,” he said. “It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

The coming year holds significant challenges for democracy. Elections in places like the United States, Hungary, India, South Korea, Brazil, and France will test the durability of constitutional norms, fair ballot practices, and the allure of authoritarian populism. There may be forward steps here and backward steps there. 

The assurance that humanity’s progress toward greater equality and universal dignity will continue will always reside most safely in each individual’s capacity for self-government, reason, and conscience.