内容摘要：“What we need is to be just allowed (to work). We need that blockade lifted,” he said.

“What we need is to be just allowed (to work). We need that blockade lifted,” he said.

In 2023, Stats NZ, a government agency, said New Zealand in 2022 dipped below five sheep per person for the first time. The national flock had lost a million more sheep in Tuesday’s figures, which recorded livestock numbers as of June 2024.Toby Williams, a spokesperson for sector lobby group Federated Farmers, said sheep farmers have switched to more lucrative pursuits — dairy, or the conversion of land from farming to pine forestry

“If I’m really honest, the wool industry is almost at that tipping point, if not already there, of not having a wool industry anymore,” he said.The government has drawn up measures intended to slow the decline, including an announcement in 2024 that they will place limits on the scale of farmland that can be converted to carbon forestry.New government procurement guidelines launched in April urge the use of New Zealand wool products — such as carpets and insulation — in newly constructed or refurbished public buildings. But those measures are not expected to halt declining sheep numbers.

Some sheep-farming countries are recording similar trends. New Zealand’s closest neighbor Australia — the source of most of the sheep jokes about New Zealanders — is also home to more sheep than people, but the national flock is shrinking there too.The gap is slimmer: There are about three sheep per Australian.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Wednesday he would try to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend

this week with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid suspense over whether Putin would take part in the proposed meeting in Turkey.with Indigenous customs.

Researcher and bullfighting fan Antonio Rivera lives in, a southeastern state where bullfights reflect ancient Mayan traditions.

“In local celebrations, the roots of bullfighting are sacrificial rites,” Rivera said. “Ancient cultures believed the gods requested sacrifices and blood fertilizes the earth.”Every year, the Yucatán peninsula celebrates about 2,000 events featuring bulls, he said.