Constantine Alexander's Journal

Public consultation on the future EU financial instrument for the environment

Public consultation on the future EU financial instrument for the environment
	December 2010- January 2011 The European Commission has just launched an online public consultation to gather views on the next financial instrument for the environment, to succeed LIFE+ in the period 2014-2020. We welcome your opinions on its objectives, priorities and support modalities. This online consultation is one part of a wider public consultation, whose responses will be taken into account in the European Commission's proposal for a new instrument. We welcome contributions from national, regional and local administrations, environmental stakeholders, the private sector, and the general public. Please participate in this discussion as this is your opportunity to put your views across and help shape the only financial instrument exclusively dedicated to improving the environment. The consultation is in the form of a series of 19 questions, and you also have the possibility to give your opinions and suggestions. It is open until the end of January 2011. Full information on the current LIFE programme can be found on the LIFE website   Click here to access the online consultation
To find out more about the LIFE programme, visit the website at: http://ec.europa.eu/life

News in Brief (November 30, 2010)

Bluefin tuna still largely unprotected as conservation conference ends

Environmental groups criticise 'measly' 4% reduction in fishing quota, which they say will do little to protect declining stocks which are also under threat from illegal fishing. An international conservation conference in Paris made progress this Saturday on protecting sharks but didn't do anything to save the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which has been severely overfished to feed the market for sushi in Japan, environmental groups said. Delegates from 48 nations spent 11 days in Paris haggling over fishing quotas for the Atlantic and Mediterranean, poring over scientific data and pitting the demands of environmentalists against those of the fishing industry. …

A Dirge for the Bluefin Tuna

International fisheries negotiators dashed hopes for protection of the bluefin tuna over the weekend in Paris, agreeing to leave fishing quotas for the endangered fish essentially unchanged next year. Conservationists did claim small victories in measures to protect sharks and turtles, however. …

Invasive 'killer' shrimp found at two sites in Wales

A "killer" shrimp that feeds on native counterparts, young fish and insect larvae has been found at two sites in Wales, says the Environment Agency. The predatory Dikerogammarus villosus alters the ecology of habitats it invades, and can cause extinctions. It was found in the UK at a reservoir in Cambridgeshire in September. …

Global Climate Change Talks Begin in Cancún

Global talks on climate change opened in Cancún, Mexico, on Monday with the toughest issues unresolved and little expectation of a breakthrough on shaping an international treaty to curb emissions of the heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. …

Growing demand for resources 'threatens EU economy'

The growing global demand for natural resources risks undermining Europe's economy, a report has warned. The outlook, produced by the European Environment Agency, said the increases were driven by a need to satisfy changes in global consumption patterns. The agency said there were no "quick fixes" but called on businesses, individuals and policymakers to work together to become more efficient. …

Huge study of Breckland habitat reveals rare species

More than a quarter of the UK's rare species have been discovered by a large scale biodiversity study of farmland on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. The University of East Anglia said its Breckland study revealed a "nationally important biodiversity hot-spot". A huge variety of species were identified, from the smallest gnat to birds, plants and mammals. …

Robins and wrens: harsh winter hit resident UK birds

Resident British birds struggled in the 2009-2010 harsh winter, while migrating birds benefited from the break, says the British Trust for Ornithology. The latest results from bird-ringing studies co-ordinated by the BTO showed that many resident bird populations fell significantly after the harsh weather of last winter, while the numbers of many returning migrant species were higher than average. …

Sailing into the unknown

Patricia Yager, a microbiologist at the University of Georgia in Athens, has a penchant for exotic waters. Over the past two decades, she has travelled all over the world — from the Arctic to the Amazon to the Antarctic — to study the role of microbes in the global carbon cycle. Last Friday, a team of 46 scientists led by Yager left the Chilean city of Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of South America, on their way to the Amundsen Sea in the western Antarctic on board the research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer. This is the beginning of the multi-million-dollar Amundsen Sea Polynya International Research Expedition (ASPIRE), a project jointly funded by the US National Science Foundation and the Swedish Research Council. …

Climate change failure is moral outrage: Faith leaders

Scotland's religious leaders have described the West's failure to help developing nations cope with climate change as a "moral outrage". Senior members of the country's Christian and Islamic communities outlined their position in a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron. …

Greenpeace says Dow Chemical dug through its trash

Environmental activist group Greenpeace sued Dow Chemical on Monday, accusing the largest U.S. chemical maker and others of spying on it for three years to disrupt its activities. …

Rainforest collapse drove reptile evolution

Global warming devastated tropical rainforests 300 million years ago. Now scientists report the unexpected discovery that this event triggered an evolutionary burst among reptiles -- and inadvertently paved the way for the rise of dinosaurs, 100 million years later.

This event happened during the Carboniferous Period. At that time, Europe and North America lay on the equator and were covered by steamy tropical rainforests. But when the Earth's climate became hotter and drier, rainforests collapsed, triggering reptile evolution.

Dr Howard Falcon-Lang of Royal Holloway, University of London, UK explained: "Climate change caused rainforests to fragment into small 'islands' of forest. This isolated populations of reptiles and each community evolved in separate directions, leading to an increase in diversity."

Professor Mike Benton of the University of Bristol, UK added: "This is a classic ecological response to habitat fragmentation. You see the same process happening today whenever a group of animals becomes isolated from its parent population. It's been studied on traffic islands between major road systems or, as Charles Darwin famously observed in the Galapagos, on oceanic islands."

Ms Sarda Sahney, also of the University of Bristol, UK said: "It is fascinating that even in the face of devastating ecosystem-collapse, animals may continue to diversify through the creation of endemic populations." However, she warned that: "Life may not be so lucky again in the future, should the Amazon rainforest collapse."

To reach their conclusions, the scientists studied the fossil record of reptiles before and after rainforest collapse. They showed that reptiles became more diverse and even changed their diet as they struggled to adapt to rapidly changing climate and environment.

The new findings are published today in the journal, Geology. 

Paper Rainforest collapse triggered Carboniferous tetrapod diversification in Euramerica by Sarda Sahney, Michael J. Benton, and Howard J. Falcon-Lang in Geology.

Contact: Hannah Johnson
[email protected]
44-117-928-8896
University of Bristol

Ancient wind held secret of life and death

New study explains remarkable preservation of African fossils

		This is a Eurypterid (sea scorpion) from the Soom Shale, South Africa. This fossil is approximately 440 million years old. It is so well-preserved that you can see its muscle blocks, gills and paddles that it used for swimming.

The mystery of how an abundance of fossils have been marvellously preserved for nearly half a billion years in a remote region of Africa has been solved by a team of geologists from the University of Leicester's Department of Geology.

They have established that an ancient wind brought life to the region – and was then instrumental in the preservation of the dead.

Sarah Gabbott, Jan Zalasiewicz and colleagues investigated a site near the Table Mountains in South Africa. Their findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Geology.

Sarah Gabbott said: "Near Table Mountain in South Africa lies one of the world's most mysterious rock layers. Just a few metres thick, and almost half a billion years old, it contains the petrified remains of bizarre early life-forms, complete with eyes and guts and muscles.

"We investigated why these animals are so marvellously preserved, when most fossils are just fragments of bone and shell? The answer seems to lie in a bitter wind, blowing off a landscape left devastated by a massive ice-cap."

		This is a reconstruction of eurypterid (sea scorpion) chasing a condont (early vertebrate). The Soom Shale is one of only two deposits world-wide that preserves complete conodont animals including their muscles, eyes and notochord (stiffening rod). Conodonts are some of our earliest vertebrate ancestors. (artist credit: Alan Male).

Gabbott and Zalasiewicz added that microscopic analysis of the shale layers using a specially designed 'Petroscope', obtained with funding from the Royal Society, revealed remarkable and so far unique structures – myriads of silt grains, neatly wrapped in the remains of marine algae.

The authors state: "The silt grains are sedimentary aliens - much bigger than the marine mud flakes in which they are embedded. They could only have been blown by fierce glacial winds on to the sea surface from that distant landscape. Arriving thick and fast, they carried nutrients into the surface waters, fuelling its prolific life. The deep waters, though, were overwhelmed by rotting, sinking vegetation, becoming stagnant and lifeless – ideal conditions to preserve the animal remains, down to their finest details. A cold wind, here, was key to both life and death."

This study is published in: Gabbott, S.E., Zalasiewicz, J., Aldridge, R.J. & Theron, H. 2010. Geology 38, 1103-1106.

Contact: Dr. Sarah Gabbott
[email protected]
University of Leicester

Air above Dead Sea contains very high levels of oxidized mercury

First such levels measured outside polar regions

		Instruments for measuring atmospheric mercury are on a balcony facing the Dead Sea.

Measurements show that the sea's salt has profound effects on the chemistry of the air above its surface.

The atmosphere over the Dead Sea, researchers have found, is laden with oxidized mercury. Some of the highest levels of oxidized mercury ever observed outside the polar regions exist there.

The results appear in a paper published on-line November 28th in the journal Nature Geoscience.

In the research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), scientist Daniel Obrist and colleagues at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, and at Hebrew University in Isreal measured several periods of extremely high atmospheric oxidized mercury.

Mercury exists in the atmosphere in an elemental and in an oxidized state. It's emitted by various natural and human processes, and can be converted in the atmosphere between these forms.

High levels of oxidized mercury are a concern, says Obrist, because this form is deposited quickly in the environment after its formation.

Atmospheric mercury deposition is the main way mercury, a potent neurotoxin, finds its way into global ecosystems.

After it's deposited, mercury can accumulate through the food chain where it may reach very high levels. "These levels are of major concern to humans," says Obrist, "especially in the consumption of mercury-laden fish."

Fish caught in oceans are the main source of mercury intake in the U.S. population.

		This is the west coast of the Dead Sea, Israel, at an elevation of 415 meters below sea level.

Observations of high naturally-occurring oxidized mercury levels had been limited to the polar atmosphere. There, oxidized mercury is formed during a process called atmospheric mercury depletion events.

During mercury depletions, elemental mercury is converted to oxidized mercury, which is then readily deposited on surfaces.

These events may increase mercury loads to sensitive arctic environments by hundreds of tons of mercury each year.

Now, Obrist says, "we've found near-complete depletion of elemental mercury--and formation of some of the highest oxidized mercury levels ever seen--above the Dead Sea, a place where temperatures reach 45 degrees Celsius."

Such pronounced mercury depletion events were unexpected outside the frigid poles. High temperatures were thought to impede this chemical process.

"Elemental mercury is somewhat resistant to oxidation, so it's been difficult to explain levels of oxidized mercury measured in the atmosphere outside polar regions," says Alex Pszenny, director of NSF's Atmospheric Chemistry Program, which funded the research. "These new results provide an explanation."

The mechanisms involved in the conversion of mercury above the Dead Sea appear similar, however, to those in polar regions: both start with halogens.

Halogens, or halogen elements, are non-metal elements such as fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine.

Observations and modeling results indicate that at the Dead Sea, the conversion of elemental mercury is driven by bromine.

The new results show that bromine levels observed above oceans may be high enough to initiate mercury oxidation.

"We discovered that bromine can oxidize mercury in the mid-latitude atmosphere," says Obrist, "far from the poles. That points to an important role of bromine-induced mercury oxidation in mercury deposition over the world's oceans."

What goes into the ocean, he says, may eventually wind up in its fish. And in those who eat them.

Obrist's co-authors are Xavier Fain of the Desert Research Institute and Eran Tas, Mordechai Peleg, David Asaf and Menachem Luria of Hebrew University.

Contact: Cheryl Dybas
[email protected]
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation

Bird-brained? Birds' personalities are correlated with their hormone levels

The Great Tit is a common garden bird of many countries in Europe and Asia. Great Tits are generally thought of as fairly inquisitive but it has long been known individuals vary considerably in their willingness to explore new surroundings. Some birds – known as "fast" or "proactive" – are quick explorers and are comparatively aggressive, whereas "slow" or "reactive" birds are more cautious. The differences are at least in part genetically determined and as a result scientists in Holland, with whom the Vienna group has been collaborating closely, have been able to use this behavioural trait as a basis for selecting lines over several generations.

Stöwe measured the breakdown products of glucocorticoid hormones in the droppings of great tit nestlings of both "fast" and "slow" lines. She found that slow nestlings excreted more glucocorticoids than "fast" ones. She also notived that subjecting nestlings to stress caused an increase in the amounts of glucocorticoids they excreted. The rise was far more dramatic in fast nestlings than in slow ones, showing that the more proactive birds respond more intensely to stress than less curious individuals.

Stöwe's results indicate for the first time that birds that have been genetically selected on the basis of their levels of curiosity show pronounced differences both in their baseline levels of stress hormones and in their reactions to stress. Interestingly, these factors are known to be important indicators of the young birds' future survival and the novel findings would suggest that the "fast" birds might have certain advantages over slower individuals. Clearly, however, environmental factors are also important in determining survival and there must be circumstances that favour less inquisitive birds: when a large number of predators are around, fortune may no longer favour the bold. Variation in the behaviour of the "bird-brained" Great Tit is presumably important in helping the species cope with a range of different conditions.

Because higher glucocorticoids are thought to be associated with more intense begging activity, Stöwe also examined the begging behaviour of the "fast" and "slow" nestlings. She found no differences between the lines but did observe an interesting difference between the sexes, with male nestlings begging significantly more often than females. Intriguingly, the difference disappeared when the birds were stressed. As Stöwe says, "male nestlings beg more to ensure they obtain enough food to meet their higher nutritional needs. But when they are frightened they are much less forward and actually behave just like female nestlings."

The paper Selection for fast and slow exploration affects baseline and stress-induced corticosterone excretion in Great tit nestlings, Parus major by Mareike Stöwe, Balázs Rosivall, Pieter J. Drent and Erich Möstl is published in the xxx issue of the journal Hormones and Behavior (Vol. 58, 864-871). Balázs Rosivall contributed to the statistical analysis of the data: his work was funded by a grant from the Hungarian Research Fund (PD75481).

The University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna is the only academic and research institution in Austria that focusses on the veterinary sciences. About 1000 employees and 2300 students work on the campus in the north of Vienna, which also houses the animal hospital and various spin-off-companies. 

Contact: Dr Mareike Stoewe
[email protected]
43-664-454-1904
University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna

Research highlights the 'human face' of climate change

Arctic communities forced to adapt their work, diet and decision making

Five years of social science research in Canada's arctic has taught one University of Guelph geography professor a thing or two about climate change's "human face."

Barry Smit is the Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Change, and since 2005 he's studied how Arctic communities have tried to adapt to the rising temperatures caused by major shifts in global weather patterns.

The human dimension of climate change has long been understudied, says Smit, who is taking part this week in a panel discussion on the environment and economy at the first ever Canada Research Chairs conference in Toronto.

Over the course of two research projects – one with ArcticNet and another with the International Polar Year project – Smit has seen first-hand how Canada's Inuit have dealt with changing ice levels, wind speed, migration routes, and so on.

"It's already affecting the people who live there," says Smit about the impact of global warming.

"And they're having to figure out ways of adapting their livelihoods to face the changes caused by these changing conditions."

Some communities are seeing their dietary patterns evolve because the animals they've traditionally hunted have shifted their migratory patterns, says Smit. That shift has caused those communities to rely on grocery stores for their food – and since the groceries found in Canada's arctic are often no better than "what we in the south would generally characterize as junk food," that's led to teeth problems and higher rates of diabetes, says Smit.

Part of the goal of his research, says Smit, is to challenge the idea that physical and social environments are completely unrelated. That's certainly not true, he says, if you look at how many Inuit relate to the ice they live on.

"The ice is their highway. And one of the thing they've noticed is that their highway is collapsing in places its never collapsed before," he says.

Smit's work has involved partnerships not only with researchers from other Arctic countries but also stakeholders in the communities themselves. His team's research, he says, has been incorporated into the communities' day-to-day decision-making – in the setting of hunting quotas, for instance, or in the construction of buildings on the melting permafrost.

And he points out that the research isn't just a one-way exchange, one where his team bestows its wisdom upon the Arctic communities. Instead, the Inuit communities have helped refine his own research – by pointing out, for example, that it's not so much the warmer temperatures that create the most significant social problems, but the changing winds that move the ice to places it's never been before.

Smit has also been involved with similar research into the relationship between social and environmental outcomes in Chile and Ghana. He adds that he's working on a co-operative project with researchers and community members in the South Pacific and on Haida Gwaii off the coast of British Columbia to study the social impact of rising ocean levels.

All that work, he says, is concerned with bringing about a more "holistic analysis" of climate change.

"The human face of climate change isn't often recognized," he says.

Contact: Ryan Saxby Hill
[email protected]
613-894-7635
Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Environmental Benefactor Richard Goldman Dies at Age 90

One of the nation's most munificent benefactors, Mr. Goldman was president of both the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund and the Goldman Environmental Foundation. Through annual grants totaling approximately $40 million, Mr. Goldman's philanthropic reach extended into a variety of social issues, including the environment, democracy and civil participation, Jewish affairs, Israel and improving the quality of life in his hometown of San Francisco. In 1990 Mr. Goldman and his late wife established the Goldman Environmental Prize, dubbed the "Green Nobel Prize." The individual $125,000 awards are presented annually to recipients living in each of six geographic areas: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America and South and Central America.

Born in San Francisco and educated in the city's public schools, Mr. Goldman graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Following a year in law school, he served in the United States Army during World War II and shortly afterwards founded Goldman Insurance Services, an insurance brokerage firm headquartered in San Francisco.

Mr. Goldman had a long history of charitable giving dating back more than 50 years. He and his wife Rhoda, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who passed away in 1996, had their own philosophy on philanthropy, believing that foundations should not exist in perpetuity. As such, current plans call for the complete disbursement of the assets of Mr. Goldman's foundations by the 10th anniversary of his death.

Mr. Goldman had been active in many academic pursuits. He and his wife made a $10 million gift to their alma mater's graduate school of public policy, which has since been renamed in their honor, and their $1 million donation to San Francisco State University helped endow the school's first Chair in Jewish Studies and Social Responsibility. He also established the Goldman Honors Program on the Environment, Science, Technology and Policy at Stanford University.

A generous global citizen whose heart eclipses even the magnitude of his philanthropy, Richard Goldman has touched the lives of countless citizens and made a lasting difference toward our understanding of the world around us.

Richard Goldman passed away on November 29th, 2010.

Statement of Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope

Today, the environmental movement has lost a dear friend and champion.

For decades my favorite day of the year was the Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony.  The prize was a high-bar, high wire challenge that recognized citizens around the world who took great personal risks to protect their neighbors and the natural world. Goldman Prize winners were, quite simply, the bravest of the brave. 

No part of the globe is untouched by Richard's work, and all are better for it. 

His departure reminds us that there is a better angel of our natures, just waiting to be inspired.

News in Brief (November 29, 2010)

 

Fishing nations criticised over deal on bluefin tuna

Fishing nations have agreed a small cut in Atlantic bluefin tuna quotas, after meeting in Paris. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) set the 2011 quota at 12,900 tonnes, down from 13,500 tonnes. ….

Group Votes to Keep Fishing Levels of Bluefin Tuna Stable

International fisheries negotiators agreed Saturday to maintain the 2011 catch of endangered Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna at essentially the same level as in 2010, eliciting a stinging rebuke from conservationists, who had been calling for a fishing moratorium. …

Επικρίσεις περιβαλλοντιστών για τα νέα όρια αλιείας ερυθρού τόνου

Ανεπαρκή θεωρούν οι περιβαλλοντικές οργανώσεις τη μικρή μείωση στα όρια αλιείας για τον σπάνιο ερυθρό τόνο, στην οποία κατέληξαν έπειτα από διαπραγματεύσεις 48 αλιευτικές χώρες. …

Green groups criticise tuna quota deal

Conservationists have denounced as “business-as-usual” an agreement on bluefin tuna after fishing nations opted for a minimal reduction in quotas for the endangered Mediterranean fish. …

Atlantic Ocean sharks get new protections

International delegates Saturday adopted new protections for seven species of shark in the Atlantic Ocean but rejected restrictions for bluefin tuna and swordfish, leaving the future of some of the world's most imperiled marine predators uncertain. …

Protection for seven species of sharks and for bluefin tuna sushi lovers

International delegates have adopted new protections for seven species of shark but rejected ones for bluefin tuna, signaling that fisheries managers are willing to safeguard some of the world's most threatened marine predators but not others. …

The French Elephant in the Room

There is an issue here at ICCAT that is rarely mentioned on the floor of the formal discussions and yet dominates the economics – and therefore the politics – of the bluefin tuna discussions. It offers interesting insights into the rivalries and power struggles among the European institutions. It is known in the jargon as the French payback and has caused headaches for the EU for weeks. In 2005 and 2006, the EU exceeded its quota for bluefin. Under both ICCAT procedures and EU law, the EU should have had its quota for bluefin in the following year reduced by the amount of over-fishing. But the EU argued so eloquently about the harm that this would cause to the industry that ICCAT forgave the over-fishing and the EU did not have its quota reduced. …

Designing a network of marine reserves in the Mediterranean Sea with limited socio-economic data

The present study is the first to determine priorities for the location of marine reserves using spatial prioritization software in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. We used biophysical data from visual census surveys on: fish species abundance, presence of various habitat types, and percent coverage of seagrasses and canopy algae. Efficient conservation planning requires spatially explicit information on how proposed management will affect stakeholders, which in this region was very limited. We created novel socio-economic cost indices to account for fisheries and tourists. Our fishing metrics were based on fisher behaviour including information on the location of ports and areas often inaccessible to fishers due to high wind exposure. We developed a cost index for tourism based on the availability of beds for tourists. We examined how the spatial priorities for marine reserves varied using different combinations of these socio-economic cost metrics. We found about 17% of sites were a high priority regardless of which cost metric was used. We also compared, for the first time in the Mediterranean, our results devised using systematic conservation planning approaches with priorities developed by two non-systematic methods, the Natura 2000 proposed marine reserves and sites that local fishers proposed for protection. Only a few sites identified by our approach were the same as those recommended as part of Natura 2000 or the fishers’ proposals. This suggests that much more work is needed to harmonise existing proposals with the principles of efficient systematic conservation planning. …

Boston aquarium rescues dozens of rare sea turtles

More than two dozen rare sea turtles who were cold, hungry and lost were rescued over the Thanksgiving holiday after having washed ashore on Cape Cod, a spokesman for the New England Aquarium said on Friday. …

From Estonia to Poland – one of Europe’s largest predators relocated for survival

WWF plans to introduce lynx from Estonia into the Polish forests of Piska and Napiwodzko-Ramuckie in order to combat the declining population in the country. The first felines should be relocated by February 2011. Bobcat numbers have been decreasing dramatically in Poland in the past 20 years resulting in the listing of the species, mainly threatened by hunting and habitat loss, in the Polish red Book of Animals in 1995. …

Expectation proves elusive as UN climate talks convene

This year's UN climate summit opens on Monday in Mexico, with expectations of significant progress generally low. In contrast to last year's summit in Copenhagen, there is a general belief that no new global deal will emerge. The basic divisions are as stark as ever, and some nations and observers are arguing that smaller, less formal pacts are the way forward. …

Modest Climate Change Steps Are Goal of Meeting in Mexico

Nearly 200 nations were to meet in Mexico on Monday to try to agree on modest steps to slow climate change, a United Nations gathering overshadowed by global economic problems and strains between the top two emitters, the United States and China. The 12-day meeting, in a heavily guarded resort, will seek to revive negotiations stalled after last year’s Copenhagen summit meeting fell short of a binding United Nations treaty to slow global warming. …

Cancún must be about more than climate change

In order to succeed, we need to think holistically and recognise how climate change, poverty and conflict are intertwined. Twelve months ago I stood up in front of heads of state at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen and told them that they could not negotiate with the climate; they would have to negotiate with each other. And as leaders prepare to meet again in Cancún next week, I repeat my plea. …

Margaret Atwood interview: 'Go three days without water and you don't have anyhuman rights. Why? Because you're dead'

With almost 50 books to her name, the formidably intelligent Margaret Atwood is a force to be reckoned with. But one year on from the Copenhagen Summit, not even her dark imagination could have predicted the bleak situation the world now faces. Here, she talks about cowardly politicians, her love of birds and why she's joined the Twitterati. …

 

United States Leads Push for Strong Measures to Protect Sharks and Sea Turtles

The 17th special meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) ended today with successes in some important areas and room for improvement in others. The United States met many of its important objectives this year, including the adoption of measures to address the bycatch of endangered sea turtles, conservation measures for shortfin mako sharks, a recommendation on scientific observer programs, and continued progress toward a more robust compliance system.

In adopting these measures, ICCAT was acting in accordance with scientific advice and building on many steps already taken by American fishermen. The United States also successfully maintained its 2010 quota level for North Atlantic swordfish, a fully rebuilt stock that is important for U.S. commercial and recreational fisheries from New England to Florida.

The United States was disappointed that in other areas ICCAT did not fully act in accordance with the scientific advice of the ICCAT scientific body. For example, nations only agreed to minor quota reductions for bluefin tuna fisheries, and didn’t take the precautionary steps necessary to accelerate stock growth. The levels of catch approved in the eastern and western stocks are expected to support some improvement in the eastern and western stocks, although the United States had hoped to reduce catch levels to improve the health of the resource for the long-term benefit of U.S. fishermen. U.S. fishermen have sacrificed significantly to begin the rebuilding of this stock. The United States believes that it is important that ICCAT act to ensure that future fishing does not result in overfishing that undoes these successes.

“The United States pushed hard for parties to adopt science-based management measures for bluefin tuna and other species, applying a precautionary approach where needed and taking into account impacts to the ecosystem,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., the U.S. under secretary for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “While we met with mixed success at this meeting, we will continue to push for sustainable management to support the long-term stability of jobs associated with the recreational and commercial fishing industries.”

The final measure for eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna stock reduces the quota from 13,500 metric tons to 12,900 metric tons and improves monitoring and control of the fishery through new reporting requirements, measures that seek to reduce overcapacity and rationalize the fishery, and establishment of a more robust compliance program. Underreporting and illegal fishing has been a persistent problem in this fishery, although there have been significant improvements in the last few years. The quota for the western Atlantic stock (which the U.S. fishes on) was reduced from 1,800 metric tons to 1,750 metric tons.

“The United States succeeded in protecting the gains in conservation we achieved last year while making significant progress in other areas,” said Russell F. Smith, III, deputy assistant secretary for international fisheries, who led the U.S. negotiating team, along with Ellen Peel, U.S. recreational fisheries commissioner, and Randi Parks Thomas, U.S. commercial industry commissioner.

ICCAT members adopted a U.S. proposal, co-sponsored by ten other countries, to reduce the impact of ICCAT fisheries on sea turtles through more responsible fishing practices and mandate reporting of interactions with sea turtles in ICCAT fisheries. Parties also agreed to prohibit retention of the oceanic whitetip shark, a species considered to be highly vulnerable to fishing pressure. Retention of hammerhead sharks that are caught in association with ICCAT fisheries will also be prohibited, with a limited exception for developing coastal states that retain hammerheads for food. Conservation measures for bigeye tuna, blue marlin and white marlin were extended through next year.

Finally, the parties agreed to develop an improved system for tracking Atlantic bluefin tuna to combat illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. An electronic system will require detailed documentation of bluefin tuna beginning at the point of landing, and following the product through international trade. This will enable verification in near real-time and reduce the burden on the seafood industry that is associated with a paper-based system.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Visit the NOAA on Facebook.