San Francisco, Oakland sue major oil companies over rising seas

Kurtis Alexander SF Gate 20 Sep 17;

Rising seas are expected to test San Francisco’s infrastructure along the bay. Already parts of the Embarcadero experience flooding during high tides.

The cities of San Francisco and Oakland are suing some of the world’s largest oil companies over climate change, joining an emerging legal effort to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the damages wrought by rising seas.

The suits, filed separately in Superior Court in San Francisco and Alameda County and announced Wednesday, claim that a slate of oil, gas and coal producers not only caused the heat-trapping gases that drove sea level rise but knowingly did so, a challenge akin to litigation against big tobacco companies in the 1990s.

Both cities are asking the companies, which include Bay Area-based Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP, to pay billions in compensation for past and future flooding, coastal erosion and property damage resulting from climate change.

“The bill has come due,” said San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. “It’s time for these companies to take responsibility.”

The lawsuits, filed Tuesday, come two months after the counties of Marin and San Mateo, as well as the San Diego County city of Imperial Beach, filed similar challenges amid a growing push to use the courts to go after individual corporations for their contribution to global warming.

Earlier legal attempts to tie specific companies to the problem have been scant and largely ineffective. But as scientific advancements make it increasingly possible to pinpoint the causes of climate change, and with the Trump administration sidelining the issue, law experts say both the number of suits against the fossil fuel industry and their chances of success are bound to grow.

“With the federal administration pulling back, it doesn’t surprise me that more people are turning to the courts,” said Sean Hecht, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. “It’s possible that the courts will be more sympathetic to claims when there isn’t concurrent federal regulatory action moving forward.”

Representatives from the oil industry, including Chevron officials, said the legal action was not productive.

“Chevron welcomes serious attempts to address the issue of climate change, but these suits do not do that,” said company spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie in an email. “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global issue that requires global engagement and action.”

Eric Wohlschlegel, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute trade group, said the oil and natural gas industry had already made climate change a priority and will “play a leading role in driving down U.S. greenhouse gas and other emissions.”

Like the challenges in Marin and San Mateo counties, the lawsuits in San Francisco and Oakland argue that the oil producers constitute a public nuisance.

The suits claim the extraction and development of fossil fuels prompted a significant increase in global warming, which melted ice sheets and heated sea water so that it expanded, raising ocean levels nearly eight inches in California over the past century. As much as 10 additional feet of sea level rise may occur by 2100, according to the suit.

“As a city surrounded by water on three sides, San Francisco would be devastated,” Herrera said.

In the short term, San Francisco officials expect to pay $500 million to fortify the 3-mile seawall along the Embarcadero to prevent roads, homes and businesses from being submerged. Long-term upgrades are projected to cost $5 billion.

City officials also anticipate paying $350 million to safeguard the city’s sprawling sewer and storm-water system, much of which is housed near Ocean Beach, where shoreline erosion and lapping ocean water threaten to undermine underground treatment and pumping facilities. If the pipes and plants need to be moved, the costs will be even greater.

All told, about $10 billion of public property and as much as $39 billion of private property are at risk, according to the city.

In Oakland, officials are worried about high water at several points along the city’s bay shore, including Jack London Square and Oakland International Airport. Already, the city is planning major floodwall and dike projects to the tune of $56 million. A disproportionate number of people living in these low-lying areas, officials say, are lower-income, minority residents.

“The harm to our cities has commenced and will only get worse,” said Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker.

Both the San Francisco and Oakland lawsuits argue that the oil companies have known since at least the early 1980s that their business was causing this type of damage, yet sought to convince the public it wasn’t.

“Defendants stole a page from the Big Tobacco playbook and sponsored public relations campaigns, either directly or through the American Petroleum Institute or other groups, to deny and discredit the mainstream scientific consensus on global warming, downplay the risks of global warming and even to launch unfounded attacks on the integrity of leading climate scientists,” the San Francisco suit reads.

A similar case was filed by the Alaskan village of Kivalina in 2008. It targeted about two dozen energy companies for their purported role in causing flooding through greenhouse gas emissions, while claiming they conspired to distance themselves from the problem. A federal judge ruled that the public nuisance argument didn’t apply because government regulations, in this case the federal Clean Air Act, already existed and took precedent.

The cases in California, however, are proceeding in state court, where legal experts say judges are less inclined to dismiss lawsuits because of other laws on the books. At the state level, public nuisance cases have been more common and successful.

“I don’t think there’s any question that these state law claims are going to be valid,” said Hecht at UCLA. “The question is whether the courts will conclude that there is causation, and that the harm outweighed the benefits provided to the public.”
Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

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Melting Arctic ice cap falls to well below average

* This summer’s minimum is the eighth lowest on record
* Shrinking ice cap increasingly linked to extreme weather events around the world, say scientists
Damian Carrington and agencies The Guardian 20 Sep 17;

The Arctic ice cap melted to hundreds of thousands of square miles below average this summer, according to data released late on Tuesday.

Climate change is pushing temperatures up most rapidly in the polar regions and left the extent of Arctic sea ice at 1.79m sq miles at the end of the summer melt season.

This is the time when it reaches its lowest area for the year, before starting to grow again as winter approaches. The 2017 minimum was 610,000 sqmiles below the 1981-2010 average and the eighth lowest year in the 38-year satellite record.

Scientists from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) said the rate of ice loss this summer had been slowed by cool mid-summer weather over the central Arctic Ocean. The record minimum came in 2012, when the ice area fell to 483,000 square miles below the 2017 extent.

Ted Scambos at NSIDC said the Arctic sea ice had set a record for the smallest winter extent earlier in 2017 and was on track to be close to the 2012 record minimum until July. But a cloudy and cooler than normal August slowed the melting.

“Weather patterns in August saved the day,” Scambos said. The fast shrinking Arctic ice cap is increasingly thought to have major impacts on extreme weather patterns much further south, due to its influence on the jet stream. Floods, heatwaves and severe winters in Europe, Asia and North America have all been linked to the Arctic meltdown. “It’s bound to have an impact on global climate,” Scambos said.

The 2017 sea ice level fits with an overall steady decline over the decades, but one that varies from year to year, Scambos said. “It’s not going to be a staircase heading down to zero every year,” he said. “[But] the Arctic will continue to evolve towards less ice. There’s no dodging that.”

Rod Downie, head of polar programmes at WWF, said: “From space, the loss of Arctic sea ice is the clearest and most visible sign of climate change, and human beings are responsible for most of it. We are engineering our planet and its climate.”

“That’s not good for the people of the Arctic who depend upon sea ice for their traditional way of life and for people across the world who depend on a stable climate,” he said. The Arctic could be virtually free of ice in summer within people’s lifetimes, he warned, and called for more action on climate change by reducing carbon emissions.

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Climate Change Is Already Making People Sicker

Alexandra Sifferlin, Time Yahoo News 21 Sep 17;

Climate change is a central issue at this year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), with multiple high-level meetings on the issue happening amid several devastating natural disasters. Hurricane Irma recently swept through the Caribbean and into Florida, only to be quickly followed by Hurricane Maria.

“Climate change casts a long shadow over the development efforts of our country,” said Darren Henfield, the minster of foreign affairs of the Bahamas, during a UNGA meeting on Hurricane Irma. “The implications of rising sea levels and atmospheric temperatures signal dire consequences for low-lying island states like the Bahamas.” Henfield said that the costs of rebuilding after Irma will be “exorbitant, in the tens of millions,” and he estimates similar damage related to Hurricane Maria.

The impact of climate change on global health is also becoming increasingly clear. At the end of last week, the United Nations released a report showing that global hunger is on the rise; 38 million more people were affected in 2016 than in 2015. Climate change and the spread of violent conflicts are responsible, the report says. Other research has linked climate change to increased respiratory problems, poor nutrition, the spread of infectious disease and even anxiety.

Leaders at the UN say that while more countries are explicitly calling out these risks to health now than in the past, there’s still more work to do. “I think it’s clear quite a few countries, particularly in the developing world where air pollution is high, see that there is an opportunity to reduce climate change and improve health,” said Nick Nuttall, spokesperson for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) during an interview Wednesday. “But the issue still has a ways to go.”

The recent tragic weather events have provided an opening for those conversations. “These hurricane or flooding events have huge implications for water quality,” says Nuttall, citing the risk for things like sewage and other chemicals to get into floodwater and spread. The risk for mosquito-borne diseases ranging from dengue fever to Zika can increase as floods recede, leaving breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other insects.

“Major health benefits come from acting on climate change, both direct and indirect,” says Nuttall. Preventing deforestation limits flooding, which cuts back on the number of pests like mosquitoes that can accumulate and spread diseases, he says.

The issue affects the oceans, as well. “If we lose our coral reefs, we lose revenue for countries, but also fish, which is an important source of protein,” says Nuttall.

Climate change has been a popular subject at this year’s UNGA, and many leaders have publicly reaffirmed their commitment to tackling the problem. But the U.S.’s position on the issue has changed from last year. In June, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Other U.S. leaders, including California governor Jerry Brown and former vice president Al Gore, took part in UNGA meetings about climate change and assured attendees that other leaders are still addressing the issue.

“We are a country of diverse power centers, and mobilizing those power centers that are not controlled by the President is still a very worthwhile goal and very powerful,” said Brown during a high-level stakeholder meeting on climate change on Monday. “Mayors, governors, presidents and CEOs of companies: they have real power.”

“It would be great if the President would join in the movement,” Brown said, but “he’s not there yet. He believes this whole thing we’re talking about, all the scientists publishing thousands of papers, is all a hoax.”

There are signs that UN leaders are open to engaging with other leaders beyond the U.S. federal government. “The decision [by the U.S.] to withdraw was disappointing for many, including people in the United States,” says Nuttall. “But so many people are moving on this.”

“Now, time is the constraining factor,” he adds. “We need to move very, very fast.”

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Best of our wild blogs: 20 Sep 17

8 Oct: Swapaholic at Marina Barrage
Green Drinks Singapore

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A BYO campaign kids can happily get stuck on

Samantha Boh Straits Times 20 Sep 17;

Seven-year-old Emmalyn Jonatan makes it a point not to take a plastic bag when she buys a fishcake - her favourite snack during recess.

It is a habit she has picked up at her school, which gives pupils a sticker each time they avoid using disposable packaging, be it a plastic bag or straw.

"I will tell the aunty (who runs the canteen stall) that I don't want a plastic bag. I've already collected two stickers," the Primary 1 pupil at Bukit Panjang Primary School told The Straits Times excitedly.

Pupils will get a certificate of achievement once they collect 10 stickers, and stand the chance to win one of three sets of tickets to visit the S.E.A Aquarium at Sentosa.

This initiative is part of green group Zero Waste SG's new Bring Your Own Schools campaign, which was launched at the school last week, and will last a month.

So far, the initiative has been launched at one other primary school, with 11 more schools, including two secondary schools, to follow next year.

"We hope to inculcate good (bring your own) habits among the young and encourage them to reduce (the use of) plastic disposables and protect the marine environment," said Zero Waste SG's executive director, Mr Eugene Tay.

He said the programme aims to help schoolchildren find out more about plastic disposables and marine litter through assembly talks and exhibitions, and to encourage them to bring their own reusables, such as bottle, container, utensils or bag.

Mr Bucktha Seelan, Bukit Panjang Primary School's principal, said: "The kids love the stickers. Sometimes you need to incentivise as we educate, because educating kids takes a while. While a number of them are excited about the prizes, we want to spread the message beyond that."

Currently only Primary 1 and 2 pupils get to participate in the programme. Mr Seelan said he will assess the results of the programme before he considers expanding it to the other levels.

The programme is part of a wider effort to go green at the school, which already encourages its pupils to recycle newspapers, drink cans and plastic bottles. This year it also held its first flea market, where it sold old clothes contributed by its pupils and their families.

"We don't think about just educating kids, we also use kids to educate their parents," added Mr Seelan.

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NParks opens two more healing gardens

TOH EE MING Today Online 20 Sep 17;

SINGAPORE — Two new therapeutic gardens — designed to provide respite and improve the mental well-being of visitors, especially seniors — were opened yesterday at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park and Tiong Bahru Park.

With three such gardens, including the first one at HortPark, and a fourth slated to open in Choa Chu Kang Park next year, the National Parks Board (NParks) said the network of such gardens is one of the key initiatives under the Action Plan for Successful Ageing announced by the Ministerial Committee on Ageing in 2015.

The 900 sq m therapeutic garden at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park has different plant zones, such as a fragrance zone, colours and textures zone, and a biodiversity zone, to help slow down the progression of dementia in elderly people.

For instance, fragrant-smelling herbs, such as lemongrass, have been picked to evoke memories in the elderly; brightly coloured plants like creeping daisies to help uplift their moods; and ixora and lantana plants attract butterflies and bees.

The garden also has raised planter beds of different heights, so that wheelchair users can interact with plants and flowers at a lower height. For seniors who find it difficult to bend down, they can use the planter beds which have been raised higher to do their gardening.

NParks has also developed customised therapeutic horticulture programmes to help increase social interaction among seniors and improve their well-being, such as propagating edible plants, making scent bags, leaf collages, as well as flower and leaf pressing on cards.

Speaking at the launch of the garden at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee said that he knew of many seniors who would “love to get back to the soil and grow plants, vegetables and fruit trees”.

Currently, eight in 10 households in Singapore live within a 10-minute walk from a green space, and the Government hopes to raise this to nine in 10 by 2030.

“These green spaces are wonderful areas for recreation, relaxation and enjoying the peace of mind that only verdant and green spaces can provide … The journey to create a city in a garden for Singaporeans of all ages is one that we have to take together,” said Mr Lee, who is also the Second Minister for National Development.

Retiree Loy Boon Ngeow, 71, who spends more than five hours doing gardening daily at the herb and community gardens at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, said that he contributed some herbs, such as Indian borage and coleus plant, to the new therapeutic garden.

“I (love gardening) because it helps me pass the time, and you feel happy doing it,” he said.

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Malaysia: Empurau - The fish which could save our sharks

AVILA GERALDINE New Straits Times 19 Sep 17;

KOTA KINABALU: Empurau fish is set to become the most sought-after item for those who take pride in serving lavish dishes at special occasions such as weddings and banquets.

Priced at RM2,000 per kilogramme, the freshwater fish — native to Borneo, particularly Sarawak — will be a tough contender for the old-school shark fin soup.

Currently, it is the most expensive fish in Malaysia.

Not many have the opportunity to taste empurau but for those who have an acquired taste for such a gastronomic delight, it will surely show off one’s status.

On Nov 11, skilled professional chefs from 16 hotels and restaurants will convene to create their signature dishes featuring the finest empurau fish at the Alternative To Shark Fin Soup Exhibition at Imago Mall, here.

Co-organised by the Sabah Shark Protection Association (SSPA) and Go Seafood Sdn Bhd which owns the Royal Empurau brand, the exhibition is a move to shift the demand for shark fin to more sustainable patterns.

The event is supported by the Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environmental Ministry.

Go Seafood chief executive officer Mikhail Razak Harris said the company came up with the idea to work with executive chefs from five-star hotels and restaurants to create a suitable soup which can serve as a better alternative to shark fin.

“We care about shared community values and sustainable development. We’d like to lead by example by taking an economic approach to conservation.

“We are offering the Royal Empurau brand and raising awareness of its culinary versatility in an effort to attain the overall goal of diverting demand for shark fins in a way that it is culturally appropriate and sustainable.

“We are actively engaging with people and organisations in pursuit of improving our understanding of what influences the choices that they make so we can effectively fight the demand for shark fin.

“We are coming up with something that will surprise a few people. However, we will only reveal that during the exhibition,” he said.

What makes empurau a special fish is its unique diet. The fish has a pallet for fruits and Sarawak’s ‘engkabang’ fruit or illipe nut gives it a rich taste.

Go Seafood executive director Chua Hua Beng, whose family has been farming empurau fish in Sarawak for 11 years, said farmed empurau taste better than wild ones as they are fed with illipe nuts all year long.

“In the wild, these fruits are seasonal but we collect these fruits from natives and in that way, we are helping the community. So, we go to long houses across Sarawak and ask the community to collect ‘engkabang’ fruits.

“We purchase the fruits from them to feed the empurau fish in a controlled environment,” he said, adding that the farm has been adopted by the Sarawak Agriculture Department.

According to a report, an engkabang tree bears fruit every four to five years. The Forest Research Institute of Malaysia describes the fruit as “butter from the rainforest” as it has a buttery texture when cooked in bamboo.

Chua claimed that even though the empurau can be found from Borneo up to Nepal, the ones from Sarawak are the best to be used in dishes.

He said the empurau fish population in the rivers are decreasing but the farming programme helps to repopulate by releasing them back into the wild.

Empurau, he said, should be an icon of Borneo just like the orang utan, proboscis monkey and hornbill bird among others.

“The only difference is that this (empurau) is the icon of Borneo that you can take home and eat because we farm it in a sustainable manner,” he said.

Meanwhile, SSPA chairman Aderick Chong said he hoped the exhibition would be successful in convincing shark fin soup lovers into shifting their consumption behaviour.

“Now that empurau is available, it will make the people think about having empurau as an alternative to the usual shark fin,” he said, adding that SSPA was continuously trying to encourage people to stop consuming shark fin soup.

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Malaysia, Johor: Flash floods forced over 400 out of their homes

Ahmad Fairuz Othman New Straits Times 20 Sep 17;

JOHOR BARU: Over 400 people were forced to evacuate, when their homes were inundated in waist-deep waters in Kampung Tuah Jaya, Perling after a two-hour downpour that began about 5.30pm yesterday.

The village has about 160 houses that is located on low lying ground near Taman Perling and Sungai Danga. The flash flood receded about one-and-half hours later.

A Civil Defence Force spokesman said that as of 2am, 443 people from 51 families were relocated to temporary flood relief centres at the Hidayatul Muktadhin surau and Kampung Tuah Jaya balai raya.

Housewife Maizah Ahmad, 54, said the heavy downpour lasted for two hours before the water began to rise in her house.

"The heavy rain was beginning to stop, when it started to flood. I could only salvage some of the important items as the water rose quickly.

"It happened so fast. I was alone at home as my husband and my children were away at work.

"I experienced flash flood three years ago, but this time it was worse as the flood water reached my waist," said Maizah, who was staying the night at the balai raya with other residents.

Factory worker Saleha Sidek, 42, said she returned home from work at 11pm to discover her furniture and belongings scattered around the house.

"I saw some my belongings floating in the flood waters. By the time I reached home the flood was receding but all my belongings were either damaged or destroyed," said Saleha.

Johor Health, Environment, Education and Information Committee chairman Datuk Ayub Rahmat said the heavy rain starting yesterday caused water to flow from nearby housing estates into Kampung Tuah Jaya, which is a low-lying area.

Pulai Member of Parliament service centre secretary Datuk Abd Rashid Kasman, who visited the victims, said that about 120 houses or about 80 per cent of the total homes in the village were affected by the flash flood.

Pengkalan Rinting assemblyman Cheo Yee Haw also posted a video of himself visiting and helping to scoop out water from a house that was inundated.

Meanwhile, netizens posted photos and videos of a flooded carpark at the Aeon Bukit Indah mall and at Jalan Danga Sutra, Taman Nusa Bestari at about 4.30pm yesterday.

However the flood in these two locations receded after about two hours.

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Indonesia: Floods submerge over one thousand homes in Sintang, West Kalimantan

Antara 19 Sep 17;

Sintang, W Kalimantan (ANTARA News) - Floods have submerged over one thousand homes in Serawai Sub-district, Sintang District, West Kalimantan, on Tuesday.

The floodwaters reached a height of up to 1.7 meters, submerging homes and shops, Oktavianus Harsumpeda, the sub-district head of Serawai, noted here, Tuesday.

A total of 400 homes were flooded in Nanga Serawai Village, 320 houses in Batu Ketebung Village, and some 200 residences in Tanjung Raya Village.

Several elementary and high school buildings as well as shops were also affected by flooding that has halted school activities.(*)

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Indonesia: Six new sponge species and new symbiotic associations from the Indonesian coral triangle

PENSOFT PUBLISHERS EurekAlert 18 Sep 17;

Comprising more than 17,000 islands, the Indonesian archipelago is one of the world's most biodiverse places on Earth.

Sponges, aquatic organisms whose bodies consist of numerous pores to allow the ingress of water, are key components of this richness and play a fundamental role in the survival of coral reef habitats. Furthermore, they are also known for their medicinal benefits.

Unfortunately, due to the paucity of taxonomic expertise, the sponges from the Indonesian reefs are often ignored in monitoring surveys and conservation programmes, while their diversity is largely underestimated.

Researchers from the Italian Università Politecnica delle Marche and Università degli Studi di Genova, PharmaMar, Spain, and University of Sam Ratulangi, Indonesia, describe six new species in their paper in the open access journal, ZooKeys.

Inspired by their extraordinary biodiversity, the researchers teamed up with the pharmaceutical company PharmaMar to conduct several expeditions in the waters of North Sulawesi Island.

The authors reported a total of 94 demosponge species belonging to 33 families living in the North Sulawesi Island. Amongst them, there are six species new to science and two previously unknown symbiotic relationships.

Seven of the recorded species were collected for the very first time since their original description.

However, these findings are still scarce, given the abundance of the sponges in similar localities in the Indonesian archipelago.

In conclusion, the authors note that the marine diversity in Indonesia is still far from being well known.

"Thanks to this impressive diversity, these areas are important spots for diving tourism and require the urgent development of sustainable tourism practices," they say.

###

Original source:

Calcinai B, Bastari A, Bavestrello G, Bertolino M, Horcajadas SB, Pansini M, Makapedua DM, Cerrano C (2017) Demosponge diversity from North Sulawesi, with the description of six new species. ZooKeys 680: 105-150. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.680.12135

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Philippines: Coral reefs crisis

Editorial Business Mirror 18 Sep 17;

By next year the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) would be finished with their nationwide coral reef assessment, a joint project they call the National Coral Reef Status.

What they have gathered so far, though, does not seem promising.

Their studies seem to indicate only 20 percent of all coral reef systems in the country are alive, while 80 percent are dead coral because of illegal fishing and water pollution. According to local scientists, Tubbataha Reef remains the only largest coral reef system in the country that is alive.

A BusinessMirror story quoted equally dismal results of another study. Dr. Porfirio Alino of the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute found that only 5 percent—equivalent to just around 1,000 square kilometers—of the country’s total reef area remain in good condition in the face of wanton destruction of our coral reefs by poachers.

Our coral reefs are endangered. This is old news. It’s easy to rant about how awful and terrible all this is but what are we going to do? This is the real question.

In a country that has one of the largest reef areas in the Southeast Asia region and which is supposedly the center of marine biodiversity in the world, the horrifying degradation of our coral reefs is downright unforgiveable; especially since, on paper, it seems we’ve got enough laws and regulations to protect our marine environment.

Local government units under the Local Government Code are authorized to protect the waters within their jurisdictions. We’ve got the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act, as well as a National Marine Policy that complies with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Philippine Fisheries Code has established fish sanctuaries or marine-protected areas (MPAs) all over the country. We also have the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), which is responsible for the development, improvement, management and conservation of the country’s fisheries and aquatic resources.

However, despite all these duly constituted government authorities, all these laws and regulations, enforcement has been found severely wanting, quite obviously. Why is that? Do we need to amend laws and introduce new ones that have more teeth? Do we lack the political will to implement these laws without interference or manipulation?

We urge Congress to provide government agencies mandated to protect our marine environment more funds so that they could do their jobs well and to strengthen laws protecting our country’s biodiversity.

We urge President Duterte to strongly take action before our life-supporting coral reefs are lost forever.

The country’s coastal and marine resources require investments of at least 1 percent of GDP to improve efforts to safeguard them and ensure their sustainable development.

Alino pointed out, for instance, that of the more than 600 MPAs that have been established in the country, only around 10 percent were actually being managed effectively. He said the capability of national government agencies to act decisively on marine problems appears to have diminished in recent years. He said there’s a need to provide more support “to enhance their capacity to provide technical assistance and improve their capability to fight crimes against our natural heritage”.

More funding would not only provide for better law enforcement and regulation but, just as important, would boost our resource managers’ capability to start rebuilding damaged coral reefs, which science says is doable.

Coral reefs are considered the “rainforests of the sea” and are integral to the livelihoods and well-being of our people. They not only provide protection from erosion and storm damage but could also generate income through ecotourism and fishing.

The government with the help of our people and the private sector could still reverse the destructive impacts of overfishing, water pollution, poaching and climate change.

Hopefully, it is not too late to prevent the extinction of our coral reefs.

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Biggest and smallest creatures at top risk of extinction: study

AFP Yahoo News 19 Sep 17;

Miami (AFP) - Animals on both the large and small side of the spectrum face the most risk of extinction -- but for very different reasons, each with vast consequences for the planet, researchers said Monday.

For big creatures -- including whale sharks, Atlantic sturgeon, Somali ostriches, Chinese giant salamanders and Komodo dragons -- people are the top threat to their survival, said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US journal.

Large vertebrates -- or animals with a backbone -- are often fished, hunted, trapped, poached or killed as unintentional bycatch.

"Many of the larger species are being killed and consumed by humans," said lead author William Ripple, a distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University.

"About 90 percent of all threatened species larger than 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) in size are being threatened by harvesting," he said.

Meanwhile, threats to the smallest animals -- those weighing less than about three ounces (77 grams) -- are also quite high, mainly due to loss of habitat.

Some of the most vulnerable little ones include the Clarke's banana frog, sapphire-bellied hummingbird, gray gecko, hog-nosed bat and the waterfall climbing cave fish, said the report.

"Small species that require freshwater habitats are especially imperiled."

Losing the largest and smallest species can affect entire ecosystems.

Unless things change, human-driven activities will eliminate big and small creatures in such a way that "fundamentally reorder(s) the structure of life on our planet," said the report.

Knowing which creatures are at risk can help focus conservation efforts, researchers said.

The study was based on an examination of more than 27,000 vertebrate animal species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.

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