Australian birds face grim future

The University of Queensland Science Alert 2 Mar 12;

A newly published study shows Australians must work with international partners if they are to save all of Australia's birds.

The joint study by The University of Queensland (UQ), Charles Darwin University and BirdLife Australia shows that the status of Australian birds was declining faster than elsewhere in the world.

The Australian Research Council funded study, which was published in the journal Biological Conservation, reports on changes in the Red List Index for all Australian species and subspecies of birds since 1990.

The Index is used by the world's governments to assess performance under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

One of the paper's authors and UQ School of Biological Sciences researcher, Professor Hugh Possingham, says the new study is the first time the Index has been applied at a national level.

“The Red List Index can be considered the Dow Jones index of birds,” Professor Possingham said.

“It is important that we track it so that we can determine the impact of past and future policies on Australia's biodiversity, an asset that generates billions of dollars a year for the economy.”

Charles Darwin University (CDU) Research Fellow Dr Judit Szabo said research showed that the status of Australian birds was declining faster than elsewhere in the world.

“The main reason is a rapid decline in migratory shorebirds coming here from Asia and ongoing threats to oceanic seabirds,” Dr Szabo said.

Developer of the Red List Index, BirdLife International's Dr Stuart Butchart said that the status of birds in Australia would have been much worse if it weren't for the work being done to prevent extinctions.

“Nearly 30 species are better off than they would have been if it weren't for effective investment of time and money into threatened species conservation,” Dr Butchart said.

“The analysis shows that targeted investment can produce measurable improvement.”

The analysis also compared States and Territories. While the Index has declined in all jurisdictions, the Australian Capital Territory has the best score and Tasmania the worst. Tasmania is also the place where bird status is declining fastest.

CDU's Dr Szabo said that Island species, even those on islands as big as Tasmania, are always worse off than mainland species.

“Small oceanic islands have been the hardest hit,” she said.

“However these are also areas where investments can really pay off – a big rat and rabbit eradication program on Macquarie Island could even turn the Red List Index around next time we calculate it.”

The biggest causes of decline in Australian birds have been invasive species, like rats and cats, and changes in fire regime. Overseas the losses have been caused by ongoing coastal development in Asia and deep sea fishing.

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Thais accused of dam deceit

Mary Kozlovski Phnom Penh Post 1 Mar 12;

The Thai government is defying a regio-nal decision-making process by proceeding with the implementation of a controversial US$3.8 billion hydropower dam project in northern Laos, an environmental group said yesterday.

“Recent oversight hearings by the Thai Senate and the National Human Rights Commission confirm that the government has joined Laos in concluding that the regional process is complete, thereby allowing Thai developer Ch. Karnchang to proceed with construction,” International Rivers said in a statement.

In April, at a meeting of the Mekong River Commission, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam raised concerns about the potential trans-boundary impact of the proposed dam.

At an MRC council meeting in Siem Reap in December, the four countries agreed “in principle” to seek support from the Japanese government and other partners for further impact studies of hydropower projects on the Mekong mainstream.

The International Rivers statement said the Thais were flouting that informal pact.

An investigation International Rivers conducted last week had revealed “preliminary construction” on the dam was continuing, the statement said.

It also said the Thai Energy Minister had informed a Senate committee in a letter dated January 30 that “the Ministry of Natural Resources confirms that the [MRC] Prior Consultation process has completed” and that the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand had signed a power-purchasing agreement with the project developer in October.

Thai government representatives and MRC communications officer Surasak Glahan were not available for comment late yesterday.

Asked about the letter quoted in the statement, Te Navuth, secretary-general of the Cambodia National Mekong Committee, said it was “internal” and did not represent the four countries.

He said the Lao delegation to the December meeting had told development partners that action had been taken to “prepare the [dam] site”, but construction would not proceed unless member countries reached an agreement.

Lao government representatives could not be reached.

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Leatherback Turtle Migration Study Identifies Pacific Danger Zones for Endangered Species

ScienceDaily 1 Mar 12;

The majestic leatherback turtle is the largest sea turtle in the world, growing to more than 6 feet in length. It is also one of the most threatened. A major new study of migration patterns has identified high-use areas -- potential danger zones--in the Pacific Ocean for this critically endangered species. This new understanding could help inform decisions about fishing practices to help reduce further deaths of this fragile species.

"The study shows that leatherbacks can be found throughout the Pacific Ocean and identifies high-use areas that are of particular importance to their survival," said lead author Dr. Helen Bailey of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "This information on their movements is essential for identifying hot spots and assessing where limiting fishing at particular times of year may be effective for protecting leatherbacks."

Leatherbacks are the widest-ranging marine turtle species and are known to migrate across entire ocean basins. Female leatherbacks lay their eggs on tropical nesting beaches, but then migrate to foraging areas to feed on jellyfish. These long-distance migrations are likely to increase the risk that these animals may be caught in fishing gear, undermining conservation efforts to protect turtles on their nesting beaches. Interaction with fisheries is believed to be a major cause of death, which is of particular concern in the eastern Pacific Ocean, where the number of leatherback turtles has dropped by more than 90% since 1980.

"Leatherback turtles are long-lived animals that take a long time to reach maturity, so when they are killed in fishing gear it has a huge impact on the population," said study coordinator Dr. James Spotila of Drexel University. "Their numbers are declining so rapidly it is critical that measures are taken quickly to ensure these animals don't go extinct."

Leatherback turtles can travel enormous distances between their nesting and feeding sites. In the Pacific Ocean there are two populations of leatherback turtles that nest in the eastern and western Pacific. The study used state-of-the art satellite tracking, the largest satellite telemetry data set ever assembled for leatherbacks, to track 135 turtles. Leatherbacks in the eastern Pacific were tagged at the nesting sites in Costa Rica and Mexico. The western Pacific population was tagged at two nesting sites in Indonesia and at foraging grounds off the coast of California. The tracks were combined with oceanographic satellite data provided by NOAA, NASA, and a number of international partner space agencies to provide important insights into their long distance migrations.

The study found that the western Pacific population nesting in Indonesia traveled to many different feeding sites in the South China Sea, Indonesian seas, southeastern Australia, and the U.S. West Coast, mainly in highly productive coastal areas. This wide dispersal allows for a greater likelihood to find food. It also means that the turtles are more vulnerable to being caught unintentionally by fishing gear in coastal and offshore areas.

The eastern Pacific population had a very different migration pattern, traveling from their nesting sites in Mexico and Costa Rica to the southeast Pacific. These turtles migrated south and tended to feed in offshore upwelling areas where their food, almost exclusively jellyfish, may be concentrated. The more limited feeding areas of the east Pacific turtles makes them more vulnerable to any changes that occur to the distribution or abundance of jellyfish in this area. Deaths caused by human activities, such as being caught in fishing gear, also pose a greater risk of causing this population to go extinct because they have a smaller range than the western Pacific leatherbacks.

Experts from around the world joined together to work on this landmark study of leatherback turtle migration. The collaboration included Helen Bailey of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; James Spotila of Drexel University; George Shillinger and Barbara Block from Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University; Stephen Morreale of Cornell University; Frank Paladino of Indiana-Perdue University; Scott Eckert of the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network; Rotney Piedra of Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas; Creusa Hitipeuw of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature-Indonesia; Ricardo Tapilatu of The State University of Papau; and Peter Dutton, Scott Benson, Steven Bograd, Tomoharu Eguchi and David Foley of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The study, "Identification of distinct movement patterns in Pacific leatherback turtle populations influenced by ocean conditions," appears in the March issue of Ecological Applications.

The study was supported by funding the from Lenfest Ocean Program, the Leatherback Trust, the Tagging of Pacific Predators program of the Census of Marine Life, and the NOAA-Fisheries Service.

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A balanced kettle of fish – IUCN suggests a novel approach to fishing

IUCN 1 Mar 12;

An IUCN study published in the journal Science suggests major rethinking of fisheries management that could increase food security and minimize the negative impacts of fishing on the environment.

The new approach, put forward by a group of fisheries and conservation scientists of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM), introduces a fundamental change to the way fisheries have been managed so far.

“For centuries, it has been believed that selective fishing that avoids young, rare and charismatic species and focuses on older and larger individuals, is key to increased harvest and reduced impacts on the environment,” says François Simard, IUCN’s Senior Adviser for Fisheries. “But old individuals largely contribute to reproduction and removing them distorts the environment’s structure and functioning. It can also have serious ecological and evolutionary side effects.”

On the Eastern Scotian Shelf for example, the use of conventional, selective fishing practices has altered the food chain structure of the environment and in the North Sea, it has led to a shift from large to smaller species.

The new approach proposed by IUCN, called ‘balanced harvesting’, involves targeting all edible components of the marine environment, in proportion to their productivity.

With fishing targets spread over a higher diversity of species and sizes, this approach makes full use of the ecosystem’s production capacity. It maintains the ability of marine resources to contribute to our food security while minimizing the negative impacts of fishing on the environment. As it requires reducing the exploitation of fish stocks, it fundamentally changes our current approach to fisheries management, which aims at full exploitation of individual populations and often results in over-exploitation.

“Balanced harvesting is a selective approach to fishing but, in line with the ecosystem approach adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Food and Agriculture Organization, this selectivity has a much broader perspective than what has been used until now,” says Serge M. Garcia, Chair of the Fisheries Expert Group of IUCN’s CEM. “Instead of focusing solely on optimizing the catch taken from selected target species and sizes, it aims at maintaining the structure and productivity of the ecosystem as a whole.”

The paper is based on a comparative study of various types of selectivity using 36 different models of ecosystems. Some examples of fishing strategies coming close to balanced harvesting have also been found in African inland artisanal fisheries.

“This new thinking about fisheries management may be seen as utopian, as human capacity to manage ecosystems is limited”, says Jeppe Kolding, member of the Fisheries Expert Group. “But it’s a utopia that allows energies to be focused in the right direction. We now have sufficient evidence that this new approach could make fishing much more sustainable, reducing its impact on the ecosystem and benefitting the marine environment and food security.”

Issues involving fisheries management will be discussed further at IUCN’s World Conservation Congress in Jeju, Republic of Korea, 5-15 September 2012.

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Ocean acidification may be worst in 300 million years: study

AFP Yahoo News 2 Mar 12;

High levels of pollution may be turning the planet's oceans acidic at a faster rate than at any time in the past 300 million years, with unknown consequences for future sea life, researchers said Thursday.

The acidification may be worse than during four major mass extinctions in history when natural pulses of carbon from asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions caused global temperatures to soar, said the study in the journal Science.

An international team of researchers from the United States, Britain, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands examined hundreds of paleoceanographic studies, including fossils wedged in seafloor sediment from millions of years ago.

They found only one time in history that came close to what scientists are seeing today in terms of ocean life die-off -- a mysterious period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum about 56 million years ago.

Though the reason for the carbon upsurge back then remains a source of debate, scientists believe that the doubling of harmful emissions drove up global temperatures by about six degrees Celsius and caused big losses of ocean life.

Oceans are particularly vulnerable because they soak up excess carbon dioxide from the air which turns the waters more acidic, a state that can kill corals, mollusks and other forms of reef and shell organisms.

"We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out -- new species evolved to replace those that died off," said lead author Barbel Honisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

"But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about -- coral reefs, oysters, salmon."

Honish and colleagues said the current rate of ocean acidification is at least 10 times faster than it was 56 million years ago.

"The geological record suggests that the current acidification is potentially unparalleled in at least the last 300 million years of Earth history, and raises the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change," said co-author Andy Ridgwell of Bristol University.

The UN Environment Program released a report in 2010 that warned carbon emissions from fossil fuels may bear a greater risk for the marine environment than previously thought.

Rising acidity levels have an impact on calcium-based lifeforms, ranging from tiny organisms called ptetropods that are the primary food source, to crabs, fish, lobsters and coral, it said.

The UN report called for cuts in human-made CO2 emissions to reduce acidification and support for further work to quantify the risk and identify species that could be most in peril.

Oceans' acidic shift may be fastest in 300 million years
Deborah Zabarenko Reuters Yahoo News 2 Mar 12;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, scientists said on Thursday.

Looking back at that bygone warm period in Earth's history could offer help in forecasting the impact of human-spurred climate change, researchers said of a review of hundreds of studies of ancient climate records published in the journal Science.

Quickly acidifying seawater eats away at coral reefs, which provide habitat for other animals and plants, and makes it harder for mussels and oysters to form protective shells. It can also interfere with small organisms that feed commercial fish like salmon.

The phenomenon has been a top concern of Jane Lubchenco, the head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who has conducted demonstrations about acidification during hearings in the U.S. Congress.

Oceans get more acidic when more carbon gets into the atmosphere. In pre-industrial times, that occurred periodically in natural pulses of carbon that also pushed up global temperatures, the scientists wrote.

Human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels, have increased the level of atmospheric carbon to 392 parts per million from about 280 parts per million at the start of the industrial revolution. Carbon dioxide is one of several heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming.

To figure out what ocean acidification might have done in the prehistoric past, 21 researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain reviewed studies of the geological record going back 300 million years, looking for signs of climate disruption.

Those indications of climate change included mass extinction events, where substantial percentages of living things on Earth died off, such as the giant asteroid strike thought to have killed the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.

The events that seemed similar to what is happening now included mass extinctions about 252 million and 201 million years ago, as well as the warming period 56 million years in the past.

The researchers reckoned the 5,000-year hot spell 56 million years ago, likely due to factors like massive volcanism, was the closest parallel to current conditions at any time in the 300 million years.

To detect that, they looked at a layer of brown mud buried under the Southern Ocean off Antarctica. Sandwiched between layers of white plankton fossils, the brown mud indicated an ocean so acidic that the plankton fossils from that particular 5,000-year period dissolved into muck.

During that span, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere doubled and average temperatures rose by 10.8 degrees F (6 degrees C), the researchers said. The oceans became more acidic by about 0.4 unit on the 14-point pH scale over that 5,000-year period, the researchers said.

That is a fast warm-up and a quick acidification, but it is small compared with what has happened on Earth since the start of the industrial revolution some 150 years ago, study author Baerbel Hoenisch of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory said by telephone.

EXTINCTIONS ON THE SEAFLOOR

During the warming period 56 million years ago, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, and occurring about 9 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs, acidification for each century was about .008 unit on the pH scale, Hoenisch said.

Back then, many corals went extinct, as did many types of single-celled organisms that lived on the sea floor, which suggests other plants and animals higher on the food chain died out too, researchers said.

By contrast, in the 20th century, oceans acidified by .1 unit of pH, and are projected to get more acidic at the rate of .2 or .3 pH by the year 2100, according to the study.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects world temperatures could rise by 3.2 to 7 degrees F (1.8 to 4 degrees C) this century.

"Given that the rate of change was an order of magnitude smaller (in the PETM) compared to what we're doing today, and still there were these big ecosystem changes, that gives us concern for what is going to happen in the future," Hoenisch said.

Those skeptical of human-caused climate change often point to past warming periods caused by natural events as evidence that the current warming trend is not a result of human activities. Hoenisch noted that natural causes such as massive volcanism were probably responsible for the PETM.

She said, however, that the rate of warming and acidification was much more gradual then, over the course of five millennia compared with one century.

Richard Feely, an oceanographer at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was not involved in the study, said looking at that distant past was a good way to foresee the future.

"These studies give you a sense of the timing involved in past ocean acidification events - they did not happen quickly," Feely said in a statement. "The decisions we make over the next few decades could have significant implications on a geologic timescale."

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Ocean Acidification Rate May Be Unprecedented, Study Says
ScienceDaily 1 Mar 12

The world's oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period.

"What we're doing today really stands out," said lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out -- new species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about -- coral reefs, oysters, salmon."

The oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon dioxide from the air; the gas reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. But if CO2 goes into the oceans too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that corals, mollusks and some plankton need for reef and shell-building.

That is what is happening now. In a review of hundreds of paleoceanographic studies, a team of researchers from five countries found evidence for only one period in the last 300 million years when the oceans changed even remotely as fast as today: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, some 56 million years ago. In the early 1990s, scientists extracting sediments from the seafloor off Antarctica found a layer of mud from this period wedged between thick deposits of white plankton fossils. In a span of about 5,000 years, they estimated, a mysterious surge of carbon doubled atmospheric concentrations, pushed average global temperatures up by about6 degrees C, and dramatically changed the ecological landscape.

The result: carbonate plankton shells littering the seafloor dissolved, leaving the brown layer of mud. As many as half of all species of benthic foraminifers, a group of single-celled organisms that live at the ocean bottom, went extinct, suggesting that organisms higher in the food chain may have also disappeared, said study co-author Ellen Thomas, a paleoceanographer at Yale University who was on that pivotal Antarctic cruise. "It's really unusual that you lose more than 5 to 10 percent of species over less than 20,000 years," she said. "It's usually on the order of a few percent over a million years." During this time, scientists estimate, ocean pH -- a measure of acidity--may have fallen as much as 0.45 units. (As pH falls, acidity rises.)

In the last hundred years, atmospheric CO2 has risen about 30 percent, to 393 parts per million, and ocean pH has fallen by 0.1 unit, to 8.1--an acidification rate at least 10 times faster than 56 million years ago, says Hönisch. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that pH may fall another 0.3 units by the end of the century,to 7.8, raising the possibility that we may soon see ocean changes similar to those observed during the PETM.

More catastrophic events have shaken earth before, but perhaps not as quickly. The study finds two other times of potential ocean acidification: the extinctions triggered by massive volcanism at the end of the Permian and Triassic eras, about 252 million and 201 million years ago respectively. But the authors caution that the timing and chemical changes of these events is less certain. Because most ocean sediments older than 180 million years have been recycled back into the deep earth, scientists have fewer records to work with.

During the end of the Permian, about 252 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Russia led to a rise in atmospheric carbon, and the extinction of 96 percent of marine life. Scientists have found evidence for ocean dead zones and the survival of organisms able to withstand carbonate-poor seawater and high blood-carbon levels, but so far they have been unable to reconstruct changes in ocean pH or carbonate.

At the end of the Triassic, about 201 million years ago, a second burst of mass volcanism doubled atmospheric carbon. Coral reefs collapsed and many sea creatures vanished. Noting that tropical species fared the worst, some scientists question if global warming rather than ocean acidification was the main killer at this time.

The effects of ocean acidification today are overshadowed for now by other problems, ranging from sewage pollution and hotter summer temperatures that threaten corals with disease and bleaching. However, scientists trying to isolate the effects of acidic water in the lab have shown that lower pH levels can harm a range of marine life, from reef and shell-building organisms to the tiny snails favored by salmon. In a recent study, scientists from Stony Brook University found that the larvae of bay scallops and hard clams grow best at pre-industrial pH levels, while their shells corrode at the levels projected for 2100. Off the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the death of oyster larvae has recently been linked to the upwelling of acidic water there.

In parts of the ocean acidified by underwater volcanoes venting carbon dioxide, scientists have seen alarming signs of what the oceans could be like by 2100. In a 2011 study of coral reefs off Papua New Guinea, scientists writing in the journal Nature Climate Change found that when pH dropped to 7.8, reef diversity declined by as much as 40 percent. Other studies have found that clownfish larvae raised in the lab lose their ability to sniff out predators and find their way home when pH drops below 7.8.

"It's not a problem that can be quickly reversed," said Christopher Langdon, a biological oceanographer at the University of Miami who co-authored the study on Papua New Guinea reefs. "Once a species goes extinct it's gone forever. We're playing a very dangerous game."

It may take decades before ocean acidification's effect on marine life shows itself. Until then, the past is a good way to foresee the future, says Richard Feely, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was not involved in the study. "These studies give you a sense of the timing involved in past ocean acidification events -- they did not happen quickly," he said. "The decisions we make over the next few decades could have significant implications on a geologic timescale."

The study was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Journal Reference:

Bärbel Hönisch, Andy Ridgwell, Daniela N. Schmidt, Ellen Thomas, Samantha J. Gibbs, Appy Sluijs, Richard Zeebe, Lee Kump, Rowan C. Martindale, Sarah E. Greene, Wolfgang Kiessling, Justin Ries, James C. Zachos, Dana L. Royer, Stephen Barker, Thomas M. Marchitto Jr., Ryan Moyer, Carles Pelejero, Patrizia Ziveri, Gavin L. Foster, and Branwen Williams. The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification. Science, March 2, 2012 DOI: 10.1126/science.1208277

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Best of our wild blogs: 1 Mar 12

Living in a Cage
from My Itchy Fingers

Raffles Bulletin of Zoology Vol. 60 (1)
from Raffles Museum News

Job: 1-year Full-time Research Assistant for data collection and management
from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS

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New green corridor an opportunity for all

Straits Times Editorial 1 Mar 12;

THE Round Island Route, a seamless green corridor that will link heritage areas, coastal spots and rustic greenery, is very much a new aspect of Singapore's unfolding tapestry. On gaining independence in 1965, the country faced the task of surmounting monumental economic, security and social challenges. Hence the Government's relentless emphasis on growing the economy through industrial development, attracting investments, education, skills development; efforts at promoting social cohesion; developing the military and the like. So successful was the strategy that Singapore became a synonym for development. That ongoing process has meant new housing estates, more roads and highways, a shining business district, attractive shopping malls, a rail system - all representations of the pinnacle of material achievement and aspirations for a city that is global in its reach. But aspirations have also increasingly broadened to include softer aspects. Like making the city more lively and liveable; creating green and other spaces for rest and recreation - despite the needs and demands of economic development in a land-scarce country.

The importance of this cannot be over-estimated. Green spaces the world over invite and encourage people to step out of work and home routines, foster social contact, and have the important effect of improving emotional well-being. For a country enjoying higher living standards, these are intangibles that contribute to a higher quality of life. The Round Island Route is but the latest initiative which demonstrates that economic development does not mean unrelenting industrialisation and urbanisation. It offers Singaporeans more avenues for recreation and relaxation; excitement at the ability to explore less-seen corners of the island; and will provide links to heritage areas. It will bring the benefits of being able to recharge body and mind, opportunities for families to bond more closely through outings, and create a sense of community over and above that which comes from living in housing estates. But for the initiative to prove its worth, Singaporeans must make use of the opportunities on offer. Community and sporting events can be held along its route; neighbourhoods can volunteer to take ownership of sections and give emphasis to features that are unique to that part of the island.

The scope for involvement is limited only by the imagination of those who are interested and willing to play a part. The route - more than three times the length of Singapore - will connect more than 3.5 million residents. It would be a pity if it were to end up as the preserve of a few. All Singaporeans should take up the opportunity to get outdoors, and to get involved.

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Indonesia: Stopping Orangutan Poaching a Matter of Enforcing the Law

Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 29 Feb 12;

Last December, wildlife activists discovered that the family of a military officer in Aceh was keeping a baby orangutan as a pet.

“When we tried to confiscate it, the family wouldn’t allow it,” Panut Hadisiswoyo, founding director of the Orangutan Information Center, told the Jakarta Globe in a recent interview.

When they checked back a few days later, the OIC team discovered that the regional military headquarters in Medan knew about the issue, even though the law does not allow people to own orangutans.

“This is proof of just how difficult it is to enforce wildlife protection laws,” Panut said.

“The authorities don’t consider orangutans to be important, so there’s very little being done to follow up on cases of people trading in them.”

Orangutans that live with humans are either captured as they’re driven out of their ever-shrinking habitats, which are increasingly under siege by logging and plantation interests, or specifically targeted by poachers for sale into the illegal wildlife trade.

Only 20 to 35 of the animals are seized from human owners each year, according to the OIC. When found out, the owners are only admonished.

The threat is particularly acute for the Sumatran orangutan, which is listed as critically endangered. Only around 6,600 of them are left in the wild, mostly in the Leuser forest ecosystem that straddles North Sumatra and Aceh.

Bornean orangutans are more numerous, with 45,000 of them left in their habitat. Still, the species is listed as endangered.

For illegal traders, however, the days of acting with impunity might be coming to an end, as highlighted by a recent case in Kabanjahe, North Sumatra.

On Feb. 9, the Kabanjahe District Court sentenced Samsul, a local resident, to eight months in prison and fined him Rp 7 million ($780) for conspiring to sell an orangutan stolen from the Gunung Leuser National Park, a protected part of the Leuser ecosystem.

The punishment was lighter than the one-year sentence and Rp 10 million fine sought by prosecutors, and far more lenient than the punishment proscribed under the 1990 Natural Resources Conservation Law.

But that the case even went to court, Panut said, was a huge breakthrough.

“On one hand, it’s a big concern because the law stipulates a maximum sentence of 10 years and fine of Rp 100 million,” he said.

“But on the other hand, it’s a relief because this is the first time ever that a court has tried someone for the illegal trade of Sumatran orangutans.

“This marks an important milestone for conservation in Indonesia and in Sumatra. [The sentence] may be lenient, but we hope people will become aware of this forest crime and that it will have a deterrent effect.”

He said he hoped authorities would follow up on the case and go after the people Samsul was dealing with.

Ian Singleton, director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program, also welcomed what seemed to be a step forward for the state.

“It’s just fantastic, although a bit late,” he said.

“I hope that Sumatra’s law enforcement [officials] can really enhance their enforcement efforts to prevent the extinction of the species.”

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Unlocking the Secrets of Sea Turtle Migration

ScienceDaily 29 Feb 12;

Sea turtles have long and complex lives; they can live into their 70s or 80s and they famously return to their birthplace to nest. But new research suggests this isn't the only big migration in a sea turtle's life.

"We're starting to realize that developmental migrations -- ones that sea turtles make before they mature -- are even more amazing," says Dr. Peter Meylan, professor of natural sciences at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. "They only do it one time, but it can be much longer than the reproductive migrations they do as adults and may involve tens of thousands of kilometers."

Meylan has been tagging and tracking sea turtles with his wife, Anne Meylan of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Research Institute, and Jennifer Gray and other colleagues from the Bermuda Aquarium. They have compiled the results of long-term capture programs in Caribbean Panama (17 years) and Bermuda (37 years) in a summary paper, "The Ecology and Migrations of Sea Turtles: Tests of the Developmental Habitat Hypothesis," in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.

"Bermuda is a place where young turtles go to grow up," Meylan says. "They arrive there after living out in the ocean. In Bermuda waters they grow from about the size of a dinner plate to the size of a wash tub, and then move on to different, adult habitats."

For example, some green turtles hatched in Costa Rica were spending their "growing up" years thousands of kilometers away in Barbados, North Carolina and Bermuda before heading off to spend their adulthoods near Nicaragua.

Young turtles have already survived hatching from their untended eggs, escaped hungry predators on their rush to the ocean, and have avoided marine predators once there. This research points to developmental migrations as another vulnerable time for sea turtles.

"Tag-return data from this study suggest that this may be another dangerous time for these turtles, and protection as they move into their adult foraging ranges could be a productive objective of policy change for effective marine turtle conservation," says Meylan.

Journal Reference:

Meylan, Peter A. (Peter Andre); Meylan, Anne Barkau.; Gray, Jennifer A. The ecology and migrations of sea turtles. 8, Tests of the developmental habitat hypothesis. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 357, http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/6126

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India: Olive Ridley turtles start mass nesting in Odisha

The Times of India 29 Feb 12;

BERHAMPUR: Setting aside all speculations, the Olive Ridley sea turtles started their annual mass nesting on Wednesday near Rushikulya river mouth in Odisha's Ganjam district.

Over 1000 female Olive Ridley, an endangered species, climbed the shore and laid eggs in the sandy beach, about 50 km from here.

The marine creatures, however, selected the two-km long stretch from Purunabandh to Podampeta this time as suitable place to lay eggs. This new rookery is just near the traditional rookery of Gokharakuda to Podampeta, which is now submerged.

Wildlife experts had earlier expressed doubt about mass nesting as the four-km long site of the rookery was submerged due to the diversion of the river Rushikulya. The experts are now excited as the turtles started to lay eggs in the new site, just near the traditional rookery.

The mass nesting of the Olive Ridley was followed by sporadic nesting in the rookery, considered as the second largest after Gahiramatha. "The mass nesting started in time and we expected to continue the phenomenon for next some days," Divisional Forest Officer, Berhampur AK Jena.

The entire area was divided into 30 sectors. Forest personnel and local volunteers were deployed in each sector. Wildlife activists and forest officials provide protections to the eggs in absence of their mother turtles. After laying eggs, the female turtles go into deep sea without waiting to see the hatchels, which generally emerge 45 days of the nesting.

"People in the area are cooperating with the forest personnel to protect the eggs," said Rabindra Nath Sahu, secretary of Rushikulya Sea Turtles Protection Committee.

Several research scholars from Wildlife Institute of India ( WII) and Indian Institute of Science ( IISc) also thronged the nesting site to witness the unique phenomenon.

Besides the river Rushikulya mouth and Gahiramatha, the Devi river mouth in Odisha coast is also the famous mass nesting sites for the Olive Ridley.

The sea turtles, however are yet to be started mass nesting in other two sites, sources said.

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India: State confirms coking coal killed Sewri mangroves

Snehal Rebello, Hindustan Times 1 Mar 12;

Coking coal, which is soft bituminous coal, is heated to produce
coke — a hard, grey, porous material — used to blast furnaces for extracting iron from the iron ore, steel-making and power generation.

On Wednesday, a team led by deputy conservator of forest GT Chavan inspected the site, which is located on Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) land.

Chavan said: “The coal stored in the open is entering the mangroves and leaching into the ground resulting in their death. We were told that new mangrove saplings don’t survive beyond six months.”

He is expected to submit a report to the MbPT commissioner and suburban collector today.

Environmentalists had earlier told HT that the damage was most likely caused due to pollution caused by coking coal stored a few metres away from the site. In 1996, the port trust with help from the Bombay Natural History Society had developed the site as a Sewri Mangrove Park.

Damage to mangroves and carrying out non-forestry activities near mangrove areas is prohibited by HC orders. The Sewri mangroves are yet to be declared as protected forests and transferred to the forest department as per a Bombay HC order.

“Unlike other trees, roots of the mangroves are above the ground. If coal particles get into these roots, the trees will not survive. There is a possibility that the residue may have blocked the water channels resulting in mangrove deaths,” said Rakesh Kumar, director, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Worli.

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Caribbean Hit Hard by Sargassum Seaweed Invasion

Desmond Brown IPS News 29 Feb 12;

ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Feb 29, 2012 (IPS) - When scientists speak of the Sargasso Sea, which occupies part of the Atlantic Ocean, there is usually little mention of things drifting out because of the immobile currents.

That is until now. Over the past few weeks, seaweed from the Sargasso Sea has been making its way towards the Caribbean, washing up en masse on beaches as surrounding currents change with weather and temperature patterns.

It's a situation that is posing serious problems for local ecosystems and critical industries such as tourism and fishing.

"It's the first time in history that I or anyone in the fishermen association have seen so much sargassum weed invading our shores," Gerald Price, communications officer for the Antigua and Barbuda Fishermen Association, told IPS.

He said the seaweed was clogging the engines of most of the boats used by the fishermen.

While it the cause remains unclear, the Antigua Fisheries Division notes that "strong and unusual currents from recent storms have probably brought the mass of seaweed from the Sargasso Sea to the Caribbean.

"It is anticipated that the masses of seaweeds could increase as more tropical storms are predicted for this hurricane season," it adds.

Changing currents and more powerful storms due to climate change are one possibility. Another is rising ocean temperatures, and the resulting effects on the growth rates of different marine species.

Vince Best, an environmental scientist and lecturer at Antigua State College, told IPS, "It is possible that climate change could be indirectly responsible for the proliferation of this particular weed which is currently affecting many global coastlines.

"Increased temperatures and the associated effects may be the precursor which is somehow affecting the overall physiology of the various species of this weed causing, maybe, excessive growth; hence the excessive amounts of the weed seen in aquatic environments."

The species being observed is a brown, macro-algae called Sargussum fluitans (sargassum seaweed), a free-floating algae found on the open sea surface and known to occur in this region. It is often found in association with Sargasso weed (Sargassum natans) that is native to the Caribbean.

"It's hard to tell the real reason why the sargassum weed is washing up on shores in the Caribbean without some kind of technical assessment," Sandra Prescod Dalrymple, environmental resource management specialist with ESP Consultants (Caribbean) Inc. told IPS.

"It could be as a result of strong winds that cause strong wave action, winter swells or a combination of things."

Regardless of the cause, she noted that that the effects are both immediate – such as flies and other vermin, putrid scent, and inconvenience for beach users – as well as long term, and that there could be serious health issues if the situation is not dealt with in a timely and effective manner.

"The tourism industry will be impacted since tourists usually come to the region primarily for its sea and sand," Dalrymple said, adding that "other longer term impacts could be seen in beach erosion since seaweed usually protects the beach by absorbing wave energy thereby reducing the impacts of waves on the ocean."

Marine environmentalist Eli Fuller urged governments to quickly develop a comprehensive plan to deal with the problem.

"A lot of the Sargasso weed is caught up in the regular currents bringing them back to Antigua, and we have found out that the west coast of Africa has it much worse than we do here in Antigua.

"I saw a photograph of Sierra Leone that showed that they have a serious problem with the weed. It's an event, this is a historical event which is unfolding," he added.

The Antigua and Barbuda government has been urging citizens to be cautious, assuring them in the process that there was no immediate health risk associated with the sargassum weed.

"The unusually large mats of algae in bays and on beaches could disrupt recreational, fishing and boating activities, disrupt the movement of marine turtles coming to beaches to lay their eggs, cause fishing gear and vessels to become entangled or obstruct general vessel traffic," the government said in a statement.

"The general public is advised that while this new invasion is a nuisance, it poses no immediate threat to human health but all must exercise due care and caution if working continuously and directly within its environs. The sulphurous odour associated with it is primarily a result of decaying processes once the weed becomes stagnant in an area and is allowed to die."

Price explained that the impact was also severe in the tourism sector after the sargassum weeds washed ashore, creating a "nasty stink" and driving tourists away from the beaches in a country which promotes itself as having 365 beaches – one for each day of the year.

The upscale St. James's Club Resort and Villas located on a 100-acre peninsula on the southeastern coast of Antigua was forced to close its doors for several weeks late in 2011 as management devised ways to cope with the sargassum weed that has overtaken many beaches on the east and southeast coasts.

The hotel's vice president, Alex Debretto, said the resort has employed more than two dozen people to clear the beaches.

Apart from Antigua and Barbuda, the seaweed has also affected other Caribbean islands, including Grenada, Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Bartholomew.

Dalrymple warns that while it's important to remove the seaweed, countries also have to be careful since grazers rely on these plants for food and in turn provide sustenance for other creatures in the food chain. In addition, she said that these plants provide natural habitats for many living organisms and these too would suffer.

"One could see a decline in near-shore fisheries but this depends on the extent of the damage and the ability of the seagrass beds to recover after such events," she said, adding "as such, the implications could differ depending on the coastal characteristics of the particular area and the state of the fisheries and seagrass beds prior to the event."

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