Constantine Alexander's blog

One in ten natural World Heritage Sites in Danger

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee’s annual meeting, which starts in St Petersburg on Sunday, will see a total of 36 new sites considered for inscription as natural and cultural sites, and a series of monitoring reports on the sites already listed. But if IUCN’s recommendations to add four World Heritage sites to the Danger List are accepted, 21 out of the 211 –one in ten- natural World Heritage Sites will be officially “in danger.”

“World Heritage Sites are icons of global conservation, but even these places are coming under increasing pressures,” says Tim Badman, Director of IUCN’s World Heritage Programme. “The Convention is 40 this year, and it will need to do much more to protect its listed sites in the next ten years, and especially those that are in Danger, if the gold standard of World Heritage listing is to be retained. This fortieth anniversary year of the Convention is celebrating communities, and we consider greater benefits from World Heritage to people will be a key requirement for conservation success.”

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), World Heritage’s advisory body on nature, will present its expert recommendations for four new natural areas and its findings about World Heritage Sites with imminent threats to their values. IUCN recommends four natural sites for inscription: Sangha Trinational - shared between Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo, Lakes of Ounianga in Chad, Chengjiang fossil site in China and Rock Islands Southern Lagoon in Palau. In addition, reports will be made on 56 other iconic sites, including on the issues facing Galapagos Islands, Great Barrier Reef and Serengeti. IUCN is recommending Lake Turkana National Parks in Kenya, Pitons Management Area in Saint Lucia, Virgin Komi Forests in Russia and Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroun to be added to the Danger list.

Natural World Heritage sites in West and Central Africa face the most serious threats, mainly from mining, oil and gas exploration, poaching and armed conflicts. Iconic places such as Niokolo-Koba National Park in Senegal and Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park in CAR are in imminent danger of losing their Outstanding Universal Value. 10 out of 16 natural and mixed (natural and cultural) sites in the region are on the Danger list.

“The need for urgent action to save what is left of these parks is evident,” says Mariam Kenza Ali, World Heritage Conservation Officer at IUCN. “In Niokolo-Koba in Senegal for example, the elephant population is almost gone, very few lions remain and the population of most of the antelopes’ species have been decimated. The situation is the same in Comoé National Park, Ivory Coast and is equally critical in many other protected areas in the region. The funding to make rescue plans work is difficult to find, and sometimes the political willingness is missing dramatically.”

Mining and oil and gas exploration within World Heritage Sites is also on the rise, according to IUCN. Such activities are already causing irreversible damage to places of unique natural value such as Virunga in DRC and Virgin Komi Forests in Russia. An independent report on World Heritage sites and the extractive industries will be launched during the World Heritage St Petersburg meeting. Its recommendations will include the establishment of a level playing field for all parties so that policies related to extractive industries are as uniform as possible, regardless of the country in which the World Heritage Site is located.

Related Links

• World Heritage Programme of IUCN
• UNESCO World Heritage Convention

Contact: Borjana Pervan, IUCN Media Relations

 

Earth observation for us and our planet

The Rio+20 summit on promoting jobs, clean energy and a more sustainable use of our planet's resources closed today after three days of talks. During the summit, the role of Earth observation in sustainable development was highlighted.

In 1992, a blueprint to rethink economic growth, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Now, 20 years later, the Rio+20 Summit brought participants from governments, the private sector, non-govermental organisations and other stakeholders once again to Brazil to evaluate the progress being made.

During a side event organised by ESA, the significance of observing Earth from space came into focus, in particular how it improves the assessment and the monitoring of essential climate change, biodiversity and land degradation variables.

Earth-observing satellites allow for efficient, reliable and affordable monitoring of our planet from global to local scales. In many cases, it is the only way to obtain trend information on essential environmental variables.

The large volume of data acquired from over 30 years of satellite observations gives scientists a unique and detailed view of the changing physical characteristics of the Earth surface, sampled at a rate impossible to obtain with only in-situ observations.

The strong contributions that space observations can bring to environmental monitoring have now been recognised by the Rio Convention bodies: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

ESA began collaborations with these Rio Conventions 10 years ago.

For example, satellite data at national and local scales help the implementation of UNFCCC protocols and assist the Contracting Parties in their reporting duties.

The CBD develops national strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. Earth-observing satellites are seen as promising instruments for the systematic observations of essential biodiversity variables such as ecosystems status and trends.

The UNCCD is the centrepiece in the international community's efforts to combat desertification and land degradation in drylands. The Convention is currently developing a monitoring and assessment process of the world's drylands, where satellite observations will play a key role.

During the side event, representatives from all three Conventions reiterated that the collection of Earth observation data needs to be sustained.

ESA plans to continue to provide operational data delivery to these Conventions as well as for many other applications with the upcoming Sentinel family of satellites being developed under Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme.

At the conclusion of the summit, the Rio+20 Declaration stressed the need for the continuation of a regular review of the state of Earth's changing environment, as well as access to reliable, relevant and timely data in areas related to sustainable development.

It also recognised the relevance of global mapping and recognise the efforts in developing global environmental observing systems.

Rio+20 saw additional side events on Earth observation organised by the Group on Earth Observations, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.

Contact: Robert Meisner
robert.meisner@esa.int
European Space Agency

 

First paternity study of southern right whales finds local fathers most successful

Southern Right Whale. Photo courtesy of the Auckland Islands Team. All Rights Reserved

The first paternity study of southern right whales has found a surprisingly high level of local breeding success for males, scientists say, which is good news for the overall genetic diversity of the species, but could create risk for local populations through in-breeding.

Results of the study, by researchers at the University of Auckland, Oregon State University and the New Zealand Department of Conservation, have just been published in the journal Molecular Ecology.

The study found that most of the right whales born near the remote sub-Antarctic islands of New Zealand were fathered by males from the same local population, according to lead author Emma Carroll, who recently completed her doctorate at the University of Auckland.

"This finding gives us information on the breeding behavior of right whales, but more importantly it shows that the New Zealand population is relatively isolated from other populations in the region, including that of neighboring Australia," Carroll said.

In other words, male southern right whales don't get around much – and that kind of behavior is surprising.

"In other species of mammals, males usually disperse from their place of birth to seek new mating opportunities," said Scott Baker, associated director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, and co-author on the study. "But with right whales, it seems that local fidelity to breeding habitat is strong – for both males and females."

Southern right whales were hunted to near-extinction by commercial whaling, but some populations around New Zealand and Australia have slowly started to recover. Baker, who works out of OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore., initiated the genetic study of right whales in the region in 1995 in part to assess the likelihood that they could recover.

The New Zealand right whale population had plummeted to fewer than a hundred animals by 1920, from more than 30,000 before Europeans arrived in the late 18th century. The authors estimate that by 1998, the population had increased to about 1,000 individuals. Their newest study sought to determine the connectivity, or isolation, of the regional populations so as to better monitor and manage right whales, which are listed as a "Nationally Endangered" species in New Zealand.

The paternity analysis has also helped to explain the right whale mating behavior observed in the Auckland Islands, which is also a primary habitat for calving and nursing.

"It is difficult to distinguish social interactions from actual mating in southern right whales," said Carroll, who did her Ph.D. studies under Baker. "When and where individuals breed has been difficult to judge in this migratory species. By using DNA profiles from mothers and calves to identify likely fathers among males sampled in New Zealand, we now think mating takes place locally rather than during migration or on distant feeding grounds."

Carroll, Baker and colleagues gathered DNA from small skin samples collected during a 15-year period from 34 mother-calf pairs, and more than 300 males – about 30 percent of the male right whales in New Zealand.

Although they didn't match all of the calves with fathers, the proportion that did match was also 30 percent, consistent with the number of males sampled from the population. The authors then showed that it was highly unlikely that this many paternities would be assigned to local males if males from outside the New Zealand population were fathering calves.

"It is possible, but unlikely, that males from the Australian population have fathered some of the other calves," Carroll said. "We cannot exclude the possibility of the occasional visiting suitor."

Baker, who frequently provides advice to the International Whaling Commission on cetacean conservation genetics, said that although in-breeding could be a problem at very low numbers, local fidelity also has advantages.

"Along with preserving greater overall diversity, local fidelity may allow for habitat specialization and the transmission of cultural memory," he pointed out. "It becomes easier to pass along such things as locations of breeding and feeding grounds."

Although right whales demonstrate fidelity to their own population, the researchers say, they are anything but monogamous. Males compete in "sperm competition" through multiple mating encounters with different females, rather than physical confrontations with each other, as do males in most other species of mammals. This may be why male right whales have the largest testicles in the animal kingdom, the researchers noted in their study – up to six feet in diameter and weighing as much as a ton.

Contact: Scott Baker
541-272-0560
Oregon State University