Constantine Alexander's Journal

Who should have the right to fish?

 Photo Protected by Copyright. Please, do not use without permission. 

The Greens/EFA are organizing a public hearing on a key question in the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy: who should have the right to fish. The hearing will take place on 2 September from 9-12.30hrs in the European Parliament.

Participants will hear perspectives from fishermen from several member states, followed by a discussion.

Public hearing
European Parliament - Brussels

Thursday 2 September 2010 9.00-12.30

European Parliament - Room ASP 01G3 - 60, Rue Wiertz - 1047 Brussels - Belgium

Greens believe that the right to catch fish carries responsibilities, that men and women who are allowed to fish need to fulfill certain criteria - including minimizing the impact on the marine environment and providing as many jobs as possible. Those who have fished in the past should not automatically have the right to continue in the future.

Participation of Commissioner Maria Damanaki (to be confirmed), fishermen from several Member States, NGOs, officials from the Member States.

Co-organised by MEPs Isabella Lövin, Raül Romeva i Rueda and Jean-Paul Besset

Interpretation provided

For registration [email protected], if you need an entrance badge to the EP please indicate you name, first name, birthdate nationality and place of residence.

News in Brief (August 31, 2010)

Is genetically altered fish OK? U.S. to decide

U.S. health officials are set to rule on whether a faster-growing, genetically engineered fish is safe to eat in a decision that could deliver the first altered animal food to consumers' dinner plates. The fish, made by Aqua Bounty Technologies Inc, is manipulated to grow twice as fast as traditional Atlantic salmon, something the company says could boost the nation's fish sector and reduce pressure on the environment. …

Training same as always, Navy is insisting

Navy training exercises in waters around Hawaii and across the Pacific would be the same kinds of activities that have been under way for decades, including sonar training and the use of explosives under water, Navy officials said last week. The U.S. Navy brought its application to renew an environmental impact statement allowing its ships, submarines and planes to continue training in waters around Hawaii and Southern California to a lightly attended open house in Kahului on Friday. …

E.P.A. Turns Down Request to Ban Lead Bullets

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday rejected a request that it ban lead bullets, saying it does not have the legal authority to do so. The American Bird Conservancy and the Center for Biological Diversity had petitioned for the ban. …

Once-in-a-century salmon run hits Canada's West Coast

Every year Vancouver resident Stephen Ottridge takes hamburgers or steak to his street's annual summer block party. This year, against the backdrop of what looks to be the biggest sockeye salmon run in almost a century in the nearby Fraser River, he arrived with a salmon large enough to fill the whole barbecue. …

Activists ready to sabotage French bird-hunters

French ornithologists are waging an increasingly sophisticated war against the hunting of the ortolan, a songbird which is regarded by gastronomes – when eaten beak, bones and all – as the ultimate in sinful pleasure. …

Why failure of climate summit would herald global catastrophe: 3.5°

The world is heading for the next major climate change conference in Cancun later this year on course for global warming of up to 3.5C in the coming century, a series of scientific analyses suggest. The failure of last December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen means that cuts in carbon emissions pledged by the international community will not be enough to keep the anticipated warming within safe limits. …

IUCN’s alarm call for Eurasian steppes

Growing threats to Euroasian steppes such as climate change, land-use change, overgrazing, hunting and mining will be the focus of an international conference organized by IUCN from 9 to 12 September in the Hustai National Park in Mongolia. The meeting will be attended by experts on natural grasslands but also by politicians and people that rely on steppes in their everyday lives, such as pastoralists.

The Eurasian steppes stretch from the lowlands of Inner Mongolia to the west coast of the Black Sea and into the pusta of Hungary. They gave birth to the evolution of many animal species such as horses, sheep and camels. Plant species such as the tulip, iris and anemone also come from this area. But today the steppe landscape is highly affected by human activities: the grassland has been converted into agricultural land, and many of the original animal and plant species have disappeared. The only places where undisturbed steppe still remains is Hungary, Ukraine, a small area in Kazakhstan, as well as the Oeral, Tuva and Mongolia.

Although steppes have always faced numerous threats such as overgrazing and afforestation, climate change is currently placing additional, more severe pressure on the ecosystem. These threats result in an enormous loss of biodiversity and productivity in the area, which has a negative effect on the livelihoods of its inhabitants.

During the conference, the participants will discuss the ongoing projects that aim to improve local people’s livelihoods and help them adapt to climate change while developing sustainable pasture management. The meeting will also be an opportunity to give voice to groups protesting against afforestation of the last remaining original steppe areas in the Ukraine and to discuss the problem of hunting of the almost extinct Saiga Antelope in Kazakhstan.

IUCN hopes that the meeting will highlight the value of steppes both as our natural heritage and as a rich source of biological diversity.

Following the meeting, governments responsible for steppe conservation will receive policy recommendations and a book will be published based on scientific contributions from the conference.

For more information please contact:

Pat Hawes, IUCN Ecosystem Management Programme, e-mail: patricia.hawes@ iucn.org

Climate change implicated in decline of horseshoe crabs

Decline may affect at-risk shorebirds

A distinct decline in horseshoe crab numbers has occurred that parallels climate change associated with the end of the last Ice Age, according to a study that used genomics to assess historical trends in population sizes.

The new research also indicates that horseshoe crabs numbers may continue to decline in the future because of predicted climate change, said Tim King, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and a lead author on the new study published in Molecular Ecology.

While the current decline in horseshoe crabs is attributed in great part to overharvest for fishing bait and for the pharmaceutical industry, the new research indicates that climate change also appears to have historically played a role in altering the numbers of successfully reproducing horseshoe crabs. More importantly, said King, predicted future climate change, with its accompanying sea-level rise and water temperature fluctuations, may well limit horseshoe crab distribution and interbreeding, resulting in distributional changes and localized and regional population declines, such as happened after the last Ice Age.

"Using genetic variation, we determined the trends between past and present population sizes of horseshoe crabs and found that a clear decline in the number of horseshoe crabs has occurred that parallels climate change associated with the end of the last Ice Age," said King.

The research substantiated recent significant declines in all areas where horseshoe crabs occur along the West Atlantic Coast from Maine to Florida and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, with the possible exception of a distinct population along the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico

These findings, combined with the results of a 2005 study by King and colleagues, have important implications for the welfare of wildlife that rely on nutrient-rich horseshoe crab eggs for food each spring.

For example, Atlantic loggerhead sea turtles, which used to feed mainly on adult horseshoe crabs and blue crabs in Chesapeake Bay, already have been forced to find other less suitable sources of food, perhaps contributing to declines in Virginia's sea turtle abundance. Additionally, horseshoe crab eggs are an important source of food for millions of migrating shorebirds. This is particularly true for the red knot, an at-risk shorebird that uses horseshoe crab eggs at Delaware Bay to refuel during its marathon migration of some 10,000 miles. Since the late 1990s, both horseshoe crabs and red knot populations in the Delaware Bay area have declined, although census numbers for horseshoe crabs have increased incrementally recently.

"Population size decreases of these ancient mariners have implications beyond the obvious," King said. "Genetic diversity is the most fundamental level of biodiversity, providing the raw material for evolutionary processes to act upon and affording populations the opportunity to adapt to their surroundings. For this reason, the low effective population sizes indicated in the new study give one pause."

These studies should help conservation managers make better-informed decisions about protecting horseshoe crabs and other species with a similar evolutionary history. For example, the 2005 study indicated males moved between bays but females did not, suggesting management efforts may best be targeted at local populations instead of regional ones since an absence of enough females may result in local extinctions.

"Consequently, harvest limitations on females in populations with low numbers may be a useful management strategy, as well as relocating females from adjacent bays to help restore certain populations," King said. "Both studies highlight the importance of considering both climatic change and other human-caused factors such as overharvest in understanding the population dynamics of this and other species."

Horseshoe crabs are not crabs at all – in fact, they are more closely related to spiders, ticks and scorpions. While historically horseshoe crabs have been used in fertilizer, most horseshoe crab harvest today comes from the fishing industry, which uses the crab as bait, and the pharmaceutical industry, which collects their blood for its clotting properties. While the crabs are returned after their blood is taken, the estimated mortality rate for bled horseshoe crabs can be as high as 30 percent.

The research, Population dynamics of American horseshoe crabs—historic climatic events and recent anthropogenic pressures, was published in the June issue of Molecular Ecology and was authored by Søren Faurby (Aarhus University, Denmark), Tim King, Matthias Obst (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) and others.

The 2005 study, Regional differentiation and sex-biased dispersal among populations of the horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), was published in the Transactions of the American Fisheries Society and authored by Tim King, Mike Eackles Adrian Spidle (USGS) and Jane Brockman (University of Florida).

Contact: Catherine Puckett
[email protected]
352-264-3532
United States Geological Survey

Devastating psychological effects of BP Gulf disaster are explored in Ecopsychology journal

		Ecopsychology is an online-only journal published quarterly by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Anger, depression, and helplessness are the main psychological responses being seen in response to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and they are likely to have long-lasting effects, according to an interview in Ecopsychology, a peer-reviewed, online journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.  The interview is available free online.

The anger being expressed in response to the recent BP oil rig explosion and resulting spill of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is "a way of masking the really unfathomable and profound despair that is just under the surface as we watch this catastrophe unfold," says Deborah Du Nann Winter, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA). In an interview published in Ecopsychology and conducted by Editorial Board member Susan Koger, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Willamette University in Salem, OR, Winter predicts a great deal of chronic depression, withdrawal, and lack of functioning among not only people directly affected by the events in the Gulf, but also people nationwide and globally who identify or empathize with their circumstances.

Describing the oil spill as "the absolutely worst 'environmental' disaster" in the history of the United States, Winter discusses her own personal attempts to deal with the negative emotions she is experiencing by focusing at times on hopeful, positive feelings related to the "tremendous self-sacrifice and generosity of spirit" among those affected by the spill and those helping to contain it and clean up the oil.

With the hope that the BP spill, with all the damage and suffering it is causing, will stimulate renewed environmental activism and changes in attitudes and behaviors, Winter says, "this disaster is probably just the kick in the pants that the environmental movement has needed."

Ecopsychology is a peer-reviewed journal that explores the relationship between environmental issues and mental health and well-being. The Journal examines the psychological, spiritual, and therapeutic aspects of human-nature relationships, concern about environmental issues, and responsibility for protecting natural places and other species. It provides a forum for international dialogue among experts from a range of disciplines: psychology and healthcare; environmental conservation, sociology, anthropology, and environmental studies; and related areas such as ecology, landscape restoration, eco-spirituality, and social and environmental justice movements.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc, is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Sustainability: The Journal of Record, Environmental Justice, and Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 60 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available online.

Contact: Vicki Cohn
[email protected]
914-740-2156
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New study shows that oilsands mining and processing are polluting the Athabasca River

Inorganic elements known to be toxic at low concentrations are being discharged to air and water by oilsands mining and processing according to University of Alberta (U of A) research findings being published this month in one of the world's top scientific journals.

The 13 elements being discharged include mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium and several other metals known to be toxic at trace levels. The paper will appear in the August 30 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The results are not surprising according to corresponding author David Schindler – an internationally acclaimed researcher in the Department of Biological Sciences at the U of A – given the huge amounts of many of the same elements that the industry has reported discharging, according to Environment Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory.

"Given the large amounts of pollutants released, any monitoring program that cannot detect increases in the environment must be considered as incompetent," says Schindler, referring to the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program.

"The U of A study was deliberately designed to test claims by industry and Alberta politicians that all contaminants in the river are from natural sources," said Schindler.

This included examining patterns of deposition of pollutants in snow and releases to water both near to, and remote from, industry.

"Rather than pollutants increasing continuously downstream in the river due to natural sources, as government has claimed, concentrations of the majority of toxins were always highest near sites of industrial activity," Schindler says.

He notes however that concentrations of many contaminants remained above background levels right up to the Athabasca Delta. Elevated concentrations were in Lake Athabasca, near Fort Chipewyan.

"The releases are in clear violation of section 36, subsection 3 of the Fisheries Act, which prohibits discharge of toxins in any quantity into fish-bearing waters."

Schindler says much of the debate over the impact of oilsands has been based on a combination of conjecture and propaganda, which has not been peer reviewed or published in recognized scientific publications.

An earlier (December, 2009) paper by the research group documented the release by the oilsands industry of a number of organic carcinogens, similar to those released by the BP spill into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Exxon Valdez into the Gulf of Alaska.

Other members of the research group are: Erin Kelly, Charlene Nielsen and Roseanna Radmanovich (U of A), Peter Hodson (Queens University), Jeffrey Short (Oceana, Alaska).

Contact: David Schindler
[email protected]
780-492-1291
University of Alberta

Dramatic climate change is unpredictable

This is a schematic picture of the climate represented by the red ball. The climate can be located in two different states, the two valleys on each side of a hill. In the first scenario the climate is like a seesaw. If the outside influences increase or, for example, increased CO2 makes the weight heavier on the other side, the seesaw will tip forcing the climate over into the other state. The climate change would be predictable. In the second scenario, the hill is fixed and a series of small chaotic kicks from wind and weather could cause it to roll over into the other state. This climate change is unpredictable. Mathematically speaking, the first scenario is a "bifurcation" and the second scenario "noise-induced transition". By: Peter Ditlevsen

The fear that global temperature can change very quickly and cause dramatic climate changes that may have a disastrous impact on many countries and populations is great around the world. But what causes climate change and is it possible to predict future climate change? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen shows that it may be due to an accumulation of different chaotic influences and as a result would be difficult to predict. The results have just been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

For millions of years the Earth's climate has alternated between about 100,000 years of ice age and approximately 10-15,000 years of a warm climate like we have today. The climate change is controlled by the Earth's orbit in space, that is to say the Earth's tilt and distance from the sun. But there are also other climatic shifts in the Earth's history and what caused those?

Dramatic climate change of the past

By analysing the ice cores that are drilled through the more than three kilometer thick ice sheet in Greenland, scientists can obtain information about the temperature and climate going back around 140,000 years.

The most pronounced climate shifts besides the end of the ice age is a series of climate changes during the ice age where the temperature suddenly rose 10-15 degrees in less than 10 years. The climate change lasted perhaps 1000 years, then - bang – the temperature fell drastically and the climate changed again. This happened several times during the ice age and these climate shifts are called the Dansgaard-Oeschger events after the researchers who discovered and described them. Such a sudden, dramatic shift in climate from one state to another is called a tipping point. However, the cause of the rapid climate change is not known and researchers have been unable to reproduce them in modern climate models.

The climate in the balance

"We have made a theoretical modelling of two different scenarios that might trigger climate change. We wanted to investigate if it could be determined whether there was an external factor which caused the climate change or whether the shift was due to an accumulation of small, chaotic fluctuations", explains Peter Ditlevsen, a climate researcher at the Niels Bohr Institute.

He explains that in one scenario the climate is like a seesaw that has tipped to one side. If sufficient weight is placed on the other side the seesaw will tip – the climate will change from one state to another. This could be, for example, an increase in the atmospheric content of CO2 triggering a shift in the climate.

In the second scenario the climate is like a ball in a trench, which represents one climate state. The ball will be continuously pushed by chaos-dynamical fluctuations such as storms, heat waves, heavy rainfall and the melting of ice sheets, which affect ocean currents and so on. The turmoil in the climate system may finally push the ball over into the other trench, which represents a different climate state.

Peter Ditlevsen's research shows that you can actually distinguish between the two scenarios and it was the chaos-dynamical fluctuations that were the triggering cause of the dramatic climate changes during the ice age. This means that they are very difficult to predict.

Warm future climate

But what about today – what can happen to the climate of the future? "Today we have a different situation than during the ice age. The Earth has not had such a high CO2 content in the atmosphere since more than 15 million years ago, when the climate was very warm and alligators lived in England. So we have already started tilting the seesaw and at the same time the ball is perhaps getting kicked more and could jump over into the other trench. This could mean that the climate might not just slowly gets warmer over the next 1000 years, but that major climate changes theoretically could happen within a few decades", estimates Peter Ditlevsen, but stresses that his research only deals with investigating the climate of the past and not predictions of the future climate.

Peter Ditlevsen, climate researcher, PhD. Dr. Scient., Associate professor, Centre for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, +45 3532-0603, +45 2875-0603, [email protected]

Article in Geophysical Research Letters

Contact: Gertie Skaarup
[email protected]
453-532-5320
University of Copenhagen

Marine animals suggest evidence for a trans-Antarctic seaway

Image is credited to British Antarctic Survey

A tiny marine filter-feeder, that anchors itself to the sea bed, offers new clues to scientists studying the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – a region that is thought to be vulnerable to collapse(1).

As part of a study for the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) analysed sea-bed colonies of bryozoans from coastal and deep sea regions around the continent and from further afield. They found striking similarities in particular species of bryozoans living on the continental shelves of two seas - the Ross and Weddell - that are around 1,500 miles apart and separated by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

This new finding, published this month in the journal Global Change Biology, leads the science team to conclude that these animals could have spread across both seas only by means of a trans-Antarctic seaway through what is now a 2 km solid layer of ice. They suggest also that this seaway opened up during a recent interglacial (warm period between ice ages) perhaps as recently as 125,000 years ago when sea level was about 5 metres higher than today.

While some geological evidence suggests that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) collapsed at least once in the last million years, scientists are keen to determine the frequency of collapse and to understand the processes and connections between warm periods and deglaciation events. Elsewhere around Antarctica the marine animals that could help scientists estimate the date when West Antarctica was ice free, were obliterated during ice ages by advancing glaciers that bulldozed their fossil remains off the continental shelf.

This new biological evidence contributes to glaciological investigations focused on the future stability of the WAIS, which may have a major impact on the rate of sea level rise in the coming centuries. Scientists estimate that a complete collapse of the WAIS would raise global sea level by around 3.3 m to 5 m.

Lead author of the paper Dr David Barnes of British Antarctic Survey said,

"The West Antarctic Ice Sheet can be considered the Achilles heel of Antarctica and because any collapse will have implications for future sea level rise it's important that scientists get a better understanding of big deglaciation events. This biological evidence is one of the novel ways that we look for clues that help us reconstruct Antarctica's ice sheet history.

"Our new research provides compelling evidence that a seaway stretching across West Antarctica could have opened up only if the ice sheet had collapsed in the past.

"When we found groups of strikingly similar bryozoans hundreds of miles apart we knew we were onto something very interesting. Perhaps these species had survived the last ice age whereas in all other regions of Antarctica they were wiped out. We know that after the last ice age groups of bryozoans dispersed freely between many of the regions we studied. But because the larvae of these animals sink and this stage of their life is short – and the adult form anchors itself to the seabed – it's very unlikely that they would have dispersed the long distances carried by ocean currents. For the bryozoans on both the Weddell and Ross sea continental shelves to be more similar to one another than to any of those found in the waters in between is striking indeed. Our conclusion is that the colonisation of both these regions is a signal that both seas were connected by a trans-Antarctic seaway in the recent past."

Bryozoans (aquatic animals sometimes referred to as moss animals) feed on microorganisms suspended in the water column. Their larvae are benthic and short-lived but this is the dispersal stage - as adults they anchor themselves to the seabed. Many of the 500 species around Antarctica are restricted to shallows and particular continental shelves.

Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) is the International Polar Year 2007-08 component of the Census of Marine Life - a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The world's first comprehensive Census of Marine Life - past, present, and future - will be released in 2010.

1 The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is considered to be most vulnerable to global change. It has been suggested that the WAIS may be prone to collapse under warmer climatic conditions, which could raise global sea level by 3.3-5 metres. Some scenarios predict a collapse of the WAIS within the coming centuries, and others suggest a collapse within the next 4,000 - 7,000 years. Some geological data and ice sheet models suggest that the WAIS may have disintegrated at least once during the last million years, possibly as recently as 125,000 years ago. So far, geological data has not provided clear evidence for a collapse as recently as this. Scientists recognise the urgency in improving their understanding of this region of the Earth.

British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a component of the Natural Environment Research Council, delivers world-leading interdisciplinary research in the Polar Regions. Its skilled science and support staff based in Cambridge, Antarctica and the Arctic, work together to deliver research that underpins a productive economy and contributes to a sustainable world. Its numerous national and international collaborations, leadership role in Antarctic affairs and excellent infrastructure help ensure that the UK maintains a world leading position. BAS has over 450 staff and operates five research stations, two Royal Research Ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica.

Contact: Heather Martin
[email protected]
44-122-322-1414
British Antarctic Survey

California Sea Otters

California sea otters eat, sleep, mate and are born and raised in water. Bundled in the densest fur on the planet, otters rarely leave ocean or estuary during their 10 to 20 years of life.

The California Sea otter Alliance

The Otter Project

News in Brief (August 30, 2010)

Health testing way down at California beaches

The monitoring is at its lowest level since becoming law more than a decade ago, putting swimmers, surfers and divers at greater risk of exposure to contaminated water, a Times investigation shows. …

Return of the seals delights tourists in northern France

Victims of hunters, seals had almost disappeared from the coasts of northern France at the end of the 1970s, but in the past few years they have come back, to the delight of tourists. …

Canada's lost salmon found

Sockeye salmon, which mysteriously vanished last year prompting a government inquiry, are expected to return to Canada's Fraser River this month in numbers not seen since 1913, officials said Wednesday. …

Endangered sea turtles released off Singapore waters

Thirteen endangered sea turtles born and bred in Japan were released off Singapore waters Tuesday as part of efforts to conserve the species. The five one-year-olds and eight three-year-olds are the offspring of Hawksbill turtles donated by the Underwater World Singapore aquarium to the Port of Nagoya aquarium in 1997 and 2002. They were brought to Singapore earlier this year and kept at the Underwater World aquarium before the eventual release into their natural habitat. …

Fears for wildlife under threat in UK waters

The Firth of Clyde in Scotland was once known for its stocks of cod, halibut and herring, but scientists have warned that it faces ecological meltdown. The decline is echoed in many other seas around the UK that have suffered as a result of over-fishing. Richard Bilton has been investigating what is happening to the wildlife in UK waters. …

“Science should not have any mandate to define policy objectives, but to facilitate transparency”

Fisheries policies should not be left only to scientists, argues Poul Degnbol, head of the Advice Programme at ICES. Politicians must take the difficult decisions, but with full transparency, facilitated by science. All the possible options and trade-offs between economics and environment must be available to the public, he underlines, in the name of real democracy. …

Death in the Ferocious Isles: Sea Shepherd under Escort by the Danish Navy

What can be more horrific than the cruel and senseless slaughter of beautiful and intelligent dolphins in Taiji, Japan? The Academy Award winning film The Cove turned the international spotlight on the bloody carnage of dolphins screaming in pools of their own blood as Japanese fishermen speared them in the shallows of the cove. What can be more obscenely monstrous than the pitiful screams of impaled dolphins slaughtered without mercy for profit? There is something worse, far more cruel and wasteful, and it takes place in Europe. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s undercover ship, the Golfo Azzurro, is presently under pursuit by the Danish Navy after a month of covert surveillance operations in the Danish Protectorate of the Faeroe Islands. …