Constantine Alexander's Journal

Poaching Operations in Sicily Stopped by the Sea Shepherd

By the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Operation Siracusa is Sea Shepherd Global's first Italian Campaign. The aim is to protect the delicate ecosystem of the Plemmirio Marine Reserve, located in Sicily, by documenting poaching activities in this protected marine reserve and reporting to the local law enforcement authorities, with whom Sea Shepherd is cooperating in order to stop illegal fishing. The sea urchin and the Dusky Grouper are among the most at-risk species in the area. They are listed as highly threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The Plemmirio Marine Reserve is divided into three zones, each having a different level of protection relevant to the marine ecosystem — from the A-Zone, where the most inflexible protection measures apply, to the C-Zone, where provisions are the least rigid. The A-Zone enjoys complete protection. No boats can sail in it or drop their anchor within its boundaries; it is forbidden to fish, to gather marine wildlife, and to dive. Underwater fishing is prohibited in all three zones; this also applies to gathering sea urchins, both using aqualungs and free-diving.

Moreover, a nationwide preservation period has been instituted and will be in force until June 30th, 2014. This means that sea urchins and other species may not be gathered during their reproductive season, in order to allow the animals to have a safe span of time for reproducing, growing and repopulating the area.

Dusky Grouper

On the morning of May 27th, the eighth day of Sea Shepherd’s Operation Siracusa, a poaching operation was halted in the B-Zone of Plemmirio Marine Reserve. This was the fourth illegal operation quickly blocked since the start of this anti-poaching campaign.

The Polizia Ambientale (Italy’s Environmental Police) intervened promptly and two divers carrying spearguns were caught in flagrante delicto (“red-handed”). The two poachers were fishing illegally, and the intervention by the Polizia Ambientale saved 500 sea urchins from certain death.

These sea urchins, along with the 500 confiscated from poachers and released back into the sea earlier in the week, make a total of 1,000 sea urchins saved during just the first eight days of Operation Siracusa.

Catching sea urchins is forbidden year-round throughout the entire Reserve. The fact that this poaching activity was carried out in the current preservation period constitutes an aggravating circumstance.

“The sea deserves the same level of protection that cathedrals are granted, and this is even more relevant in a seaside town such as Siracusa, a town which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site,” said Captain Peter Hammarstedt.

Andrea Morello, National Coordinator of Sea Shepherd Italia and Leader of Operation Siracusa, added: “Thanks to the liberation of 1,000 urchins in a time-span of eight days and to three interventions against illegal fishing in cooperation with the Guardia di Finanza, the Coast Guard and the Polizia Ambientale, the sanctity of life within the Marine Reserve has at long last been given protection.”

The Plemmirio Marine Reserve.

On May 28th, Sea Shepherd’s crew disrupted another poaching operation – bringing the total to five since the campaign began only nine days earlier.

During the night, Sea Shepherd volunteers spotted a poacher onboard a boat with no lights on. The boat came to a stop in the B-Zone of the Plemmirio Marine Reserve, and then proceeded to the A-Zone. When the boat was just a few meters off the coast, the poacher set a longline into the water.

The Operation Siracusa team immediately alerted the Coast Guard, which responded with prompt intervention, stopping the poaching activity and escorting the poacher to the Port Authority Office. Once again, direct action made it possible to bring illegal activities to a halt in the Plemmirio Marine Reserve.

"Just as the Sea Shepherd Australia crew who took part in Operation Relentless were indeed relentless in saving 784 whales from poachers in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, the crew of Operation Siracusa is relentless in enforcing the law to preserve life in the Plemmirio Marine Reserve”, stated Andrea Morello, Campaign Leader and National Coordinator for Sea Shepherd Italia.

This week, a youth sadly lost his life in the Plemmirio Marine Reserve. The Sea Shepherd volunteers taking part in Operation Siracusa on the ground lent their assistance in the search-and-rescue operation. A second youth was saved, thanks to the deployment of naval and aerial rescue units of the local authorities.

Sea Shepherd's direct intervention sends a clear message to the poachers who operate illegally within the Marine Reserve. They now know they are being watched and that the law will be enforced.

Related articles

Why We Defend Oceans - Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (Video)

Cloud formation & rainfall affected by pollutant oxidation of biodiesel emissions

Cloudy sky over Brest, France. Photo by Llorenzi (CC)

A study into how organic molecules in the atmosphere affect cloud formation has found that a main component of biodiesel, methyl oleate, reacts with ozone surprisingly fast. This process may counterbalance the growth of water droplets resulting from emissions, which would in turn inhibit cloud formation and therefore affect the water cycle in a highly complex way.

The research, published in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, was performed by an international team of scientists working at the ILL (Institut Laue-Langevin) in Grenoble, France. Methyl oleate is an organic material that is being produced in larger amounts today due to the increasingly popular FAME (Fatty Acid Methyl Ester) biodiesels. The widespread use of these materials potentially raises their concentration in the atmosphere. They accumulate naturally on the surface of water, and therefore can lower the surface tension of water droplets. Such surfactants are important in cloud formation as the reduced surface tension allows droplets to grow larger, producing clouds and rainfall. Without any surfactants at all these droplets could only grow large enough to form clouds higher up in the atmosphere.

The team performed neutron reflectometry experiments on the powerful FIGARO instrument at the ILL where intense beams of neutrons were skimmed off single layers of methyl oleate molecules floating on water as they were exposed to gas phase ozone. Measurements of the intensity of reflected neutrons during the reaction allowed the scientists to determine how the concentration of the molecules on the surface changed over time and therefore how susceptible this organic material was to oxidative attack.

The research used neutrons to address two important questions - how quickly the oxidised methyl oleate was lost from the air-water interface and if the products of methyl oleate remained on the surface of the droplet, entered the water or evaporated into the air.

The study found that the methyl oleate degraded ten times quicker than oleic acid, a molecule found in the atmosphere generated from cooking meat. It also showed that the initial surfactant layer at the air-water interface was efficiently eradicated from the surface when exposed to ozone. The mechanism was attributed to the reaction of ozone with a carbon-carbon double bond in methyl oleate, breaking its backbone and thus shearing the molecule in half. This oxidation reaction causes the methyl oleate almost to lose completely its surfactant properties. In the atmosphere this would result in water droplets growing more slowly.

"Neutrons showed that that the surfactant disappears from the air-water interface surprisingly quickly" said Reading University's Dr Christian Pfrang, the lead author of the paper. "The surfactant isn't stable at the surface in the presence of ozone which means surface tension is increased and droplet growth could be slowed down, making it more difficult to form clouds. Furthermore the products aren't stable at all at the droplet surface and this would not have been predicted from the results of previous studies."

Richard Campbell, instrument leader, said "The ILL is the world leading neutron facility for kinetic studies due to its very stable and intense reactor source, and FIGARO is the optimum neutron reflectometer in the world where this research can be performed due to its very high intensity for surface excess studies. We were able to take scans every one to five seconds - necessary for the timescales we were working with - whereas instruments at other facilities would generally require much longer. This capability allowed us to reveal the reaction mechanisms of an oxidation decay of an organic monolayer with greater time resolution and sensitivity than ever before."

The next step in the research is to examine the behaviour of different surfactants and their mixtures when exposed to ozone and other oxidants found in the atmosphere. "We're combining neutron reflectometry with computational modelling" said Federica Sebastiani, an ILL PhD student who worked on FIGARO. "We have models to examine more complex systems with multiple surfactants and we're going to look at these systems in greater detail than ever before."

Citation: Christian Pfrang, Federica Sebastiani, Claire O. M. Lucas, Martin D. King, Ioan D. Hoare, Debby Chang and Richard A. Campbell; Ozonolysis of methyl oleate monolayers at the air–water interface: oxidation kinetics, reaction products and atmospheric implications; Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014; DOI: 10.1039/C4CP00775A. 

Contact: Dr Richard Campbell
Institut Laue-Langevin

Ecosystem services: Looking forward to mid-century

Two papers by Bren professor Andrew Plantinga projecs land-use changes up to 2051 and examine options for auctions that provide incentives for landowners.

Policies need to balance various land uses to preserve valuable ecosystem services. Credit: UCSB

As population grows, society needs more — more energy, more food, more paper, more housing, more of nearly everything. Meeting those needs can lead to changes in how land is used.

Native grasslands, forests and wetlands may be converted into croplands, tree plantations, residential areas and commercial developments. Those conversions can, in turn, diminish the health of natural ecosystems and their ability to provide an array of valuable services, such as clean air and water, wildlife and opportunities for recreation, to name a few.

In two papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UC Santa Barbara's Andrew Plantinga addresses how to strike a balance between providing for humanity's growing needs and preserving the natural systems that make it possible to meet those needs. In one paper, Plantinga, a professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, and colleagues model the future of land-use change in the United States under various scenarios and possible effects on the provision of some important ecosystem services. In a related publication, the researchers develop incentive structures to best encourage landowners to provide ecosystem services.

The work of the first paper explains a new land-use model for the contiguous U.S., which forecasts trends from 2001-2051 using two baseline scenarios and three policy alternatives designed to encourage forest cover and the preservation of natural landscapes as well as the reduction of urban expansion.

"The 1990s Trend" baseline scenario assumes land-use trends will continue as they did during the 1990s, resulting in less cropland, pasture and rangeland and more forests and urbanization. The "High Crop Demand" model accounts for significant growth in the demand for agricultural commodities as well as related pressures to expand agricultural lands. The researchers used these scenarios as alternative baselines against which they analyzed the effects of the three alternative land-use policies: forest incentives, natural habitats and urban containment.

The first policy provides incentives for reduced deforestation and for afforestation — moving land into forest, whether by converting cropland to natural forest or by establishing commercial timber operations. The second provides incentives for conserving natural habitats, and the third restricts urban land expansion.

The key takeaway, Plantinga explained, is that there are tradeoffs for every policy regardless of which baseline scenario is applied. "Projected land-use changes by 2051 will likely enhance the provision of some ecosystem services and decrease the provision of others," he said. In this application, ecosystem services are defined as the goods and services provided by nature that are of value to people.

A panoramic view from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park in California, United States. Photo by Diliff (CC)

In the end, land use is not the most important component, according to Plantinga. "The point is to identify which types of ecosystem services are provided as land use changes," he concluded. "Food and carbon sequestrations are fine and may even rise under the various scenarios, but you may need strong incentives to limit declines in the provision of other ecosystem services."

Incentive Structures for Landowners

Plantinga collaborated with many of the same co-authors on another paper which identifies the best auction structure for securing ecosystem services, particularly those provided by private landowners. Building on established auction theory, the paper breaks new ground in structuring an auction that addresses three key challenges to inducing private landowners to provide optimal levels of ecosystem services.

These include the spatial component of ecosystem services. For example, adjoining parcels of land may be more valuable from the perspective of providing habitat than three fragmented parcels adding up to the same size. Additional challenges include asymmetric information, which refers to the fact that landowners know the opportunity cost of their land while the government agency does not, and the requirement to use voluntary incentives or what are often called payments for ecosystem services.

Because forests, clean rivers, climate regulation and other ecosystem services are freely available to everyone, landowners often receive nothing for actions they take on their own land that contribute to the pool of ecosystem services. Those services may be underprovided due to a lack of price incentives for private activities taken for the public good.

The researchers designed an auction that would elicit the optimal enrollment of lands —and the optimal provision of ecosystem services — in situations defined by asymmetric information and spatially dependent benefits.

Citations:

• Joshua J. Lawler, David J. Lewis, Erik Nelson, Andrew J. Plantinga, Stephen Polasky, John C. Withey, David P. Helmers, Sebastián Martinuzzi, Derric Pennington, and Volker C. Radeloff; Projected land-use change impacts on ecosystem services in the United States; PNAS 2014 111 (20) 7492-7497; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1405557111. 
• Stephen Polasky, David J. Lewis, Andrew J. Plantinga, and Erik Nelson; Implementing the optimal provision of ecosystem services; PNAS 2014 111 (17) 6248-6253; DOI:10.1073/pnas.1404484111. 

Contact: Julie Cohen
805-893-7220
University of California - Santa Barbara

 

New tools help protect world's threatened species

The Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) is a threatened species. Photo by Dave Pape (CC)

New tools to collect and share information could help stem the loss of the world's threatened species, according to a paper published today in the journal Science. The study—by an international team of scientists that included John L. Gittleman, dean of the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology—was led by Stuart L. Pimm of Duke University and Clinton N. Jenkins of the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas in Brazil.

"As databases coalesce and policymakers have access to greater information, we see real and improving successes for conservation science," Gittleman said.

The paper's authors reviewed recent studies in conservation science, looking at rates of species extinction, distribution and protection to determine where there were crucial gaps in knowledge, where threats to species are expanding and how best to tailor protection efforts to be successful.

By combining studies of the fossil record and of molecular analyses, they found the current rate of extinction—driven primarily by human activity—was roughly 1,000 times higher than the natural, background extinction rate—an alarming number that is likely to grow, they said.

"Online databases, smart phone apps, crowd sourcing and new hardware are making it easier to collect data on species," Pimm said. "When combined with data on land-use change and the species observations of millions of amateur citizen scientists, they are increasingly allowing closer monitoring of the planet's biodiversity and threats to it.

"For our success to continue, however, we need to support the expansion of these technologies and develop even more powerful technologies for the future."

The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, a global database that assesses the threat status of the world's known plant and animal species, is one of the chief sources of biodiversity information. It covers approximately 71,000 species today, but with greater investment could expand to its target of 160,000 species.

Projects that allow the general public to collaborate with scientists are becoming useful sources of knowledge on a large scale. Online databases such as iNaturalist.org and DiscoverLife.org—based at UGA—rely on amateur observers to contribute photographs for identification by scientists, providing valuable information about species distributions.

"One of the most exciting opportunities made possible by new technology is that we can combine existing databases such as the Red List with constantly updated maps of where species live, maps of areas that are protected, maps of land-use change, human impacts and threat and the species observations of amateurs," Pimm said. "Rather than rely on local snapshots of biodiversity, we can fashion a detailed global perspective of Earth's biodiversity, the threats to it and how to manage them."

One factor playing a role in extinction is the way species are distributed across the globe.

Species with naturally small geographic ranges are more common than those with large ranges, but they are also more vulnerable to threats such as loss of habitat. Many small-ranged species also tend to cluster together in the same areas. Those areas not only harbor the highest numbers of species, they also happen to suffer very high rates of habitat destruction—a sort of double-whammy that puts many species at risk for extinction.

But the fact that many vulnerable species are located together also offers an efficient way to target scarce conservation resources.

"This knowledge offers the hope that we can concentrate our conservation efforts on critical places around the planet," Pimm said.

New tools for mapping and data collection, analysis and sharing are helping scientists determine where those critical places are. However, major conservation challenges remain.

There are still enormous gaps in knowledge about how many species there are, where they live and their risks of extinction. Only about 13 percent of the world's land area and roughly two percent of its ocean area are currently under any sort of legal protection. And for aquatic species, whose threats often come from activities taking place on land far from where they live, land use management may prove just as important as protecting their habitat.

"The gap between what we know and don't know about Earth's biodiversity is still tremendous, but technology is playing a major role in closing it and helping us conserve biodiversity more intelligently and efficiently," said coauthor Lucas N. Joppa, a conservation scientist at Microsoft's Computational Science Laboratory in Cambridge, U.K.

"The bottom line question is, are we doing better at protecting and saving threatened biodiversity?" Gittleman said. "The answer is a resounding 'yes,' and we can do even more by embracing the new opportunities advancing technologies provide."

Citation: S. L. Pimm, C. N. Jenkins, R. Abell, T. M. Brooks, J. L. Gittleman, L. N. Joppa, P. H. Raven, C. M. Roberts, J. O. Sexton. The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science, 2014; 344 (6187): 1246752 DOI: 10.1126/science.1246752. 

Contact: John Gittleman
706-542-2968
University of Georgia

International research group documents unique songbird diversity of the Eastern Himalayas

Article in the scientific journal Nature describes the relevance of ecological niches to the evolution of new bird species

The Himalaya golden-spectacled warbler (Seicercus burkii) lives in the Eastern Himalayas. There are several closely related species of the same genus in Central and South China. They can be distinguished by their vocalizations and genetic makeup. Photo by Jochen Martens.

The Eastern Himalayas are home to more than 360 different songbird species, most of which are to be found nowhere else on the planet. This makes the region extending from eastern Nepal to the borderlands of China, India, and Myanmar unique and one of the most important hot spots for biological diversity in the western hemisphere. A recent research paper describes how this impressive bird community came about millions of years ago, emphasizing both the uniqueness and biological significance of this remote area. "As the Himalayan mountain range was formed, a profusion of completely different ecological niches were created," explains Professor Jochen Martens of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). "A wide variety of different songbird species were able to colonize these niches. The majority of these species did not evolve there but emigrated from the eastern and south-eastern regions of the Himalayas." Martens has been conducting research in the Himalayas for 45 years and is the co-author of the article "Niche filling slows the diversification of Himalayan songbirds" published in the eminent scientific journal NATURE.

The team of researchers from India, the US, Germany, and Sweden was able to sample and analyze the DNA of all songbirds found in the Himalayas. Team members such as Martens compiled some of the genetic material over the course of decades; some was found in old collections in European and North American museums or was taken from individual feathers collected by field workers. The scientists were surprised at the relatively large differences in the genetic makeup even between species which are apparently closely related and that often have an extremely similar appearance. On average, each bird species separated from their closest relative six to seven million years ago. The time is roughly equivalent to the period separating human beings from chimpanzees, the animal most closely related to humans.

Over the past million years, new bird species have evolved such as those found in Southeast Asia, China, and Siberia. However, almost none of these have emigrated to the Eastern Himalayas. The team of researchers headed by Professor Trevor Price of the University of Chicago and Dhananjai Mohan of the Indian Forest Service believe that emigration has not taken place because of the difficulty of integration into the already tightly packed bird communities of the Eastern Himalayas.

"The capacity for new species to evolve appears to depend to a large extent on whether enough room for colonization is available," explains Martens. The Eastern Himalayas offered unique conditions for the development of an enormous diversity of songbird species. The research team concluded that the habitats have since been saturated so that barely any new niches were available for new species.

The findings from the DNA analyses essentially confirm those made by Martens after his many years spent examining bird songs. The various types of song show how acoustic properties, usually in the form of dialects, contribute to species evolution and how the individual species are distributed in an area with extreme elevation stratification, such as the Himalayas. Over the years, Martens has recorded more than 10,000 individual sounds from numerous species for his research, which he compiled in Europe and many parts of Asia.

Martens and his international research colleagues agree that the Eastern Himalayas on the borderlands of India, China, and Myanmar is an area of unique genetic diversity with regard to birds. They hope that their findings on songbirds will help stimulate research into other groups of animals, such as reptiles and mammals, in this impressive location. "It will only be possible to protect this natural heritage once it has been researched as thoroughly as possible," adds Martens.

Citation: Trevor D. Price et al., Niche filling slows the diversification of Himalayan songbirds, Nature, 30 April 2014, DOI:10.1038/nature13272. 

Contact: Dr. Jochen Martens
49-613-139-22675
Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz

Global survey: Climate change now a mainstream part of city planning

Portland, Ore. (pictured here), developed incentives, training, and regulations to help sustainable construction firms grow, while a pilot program called Clean Energy Works Portland employed 400 workers to reduce home energy use, reducing carbon emissions by 1,400 metric tons annually. Photo: Thinkstock

By Peter Dizikes, MIT

An increasing number of cities around the world now include preparations for climate change in their basic urban planning — but only a small portion of them have been able to make such plans part of their economic development priorities, according to a unique global survey of cities released today.

The Urban Climate Change Governance Survey (UCGS), based on responses from 350 cities worldwide, underscores the extent to which city leaders recognize climate change as a major challenge — even as they are trying to figure out how their responses can create jobs, growth, and cost savings in areas ranging from cities' transportation networks to their distribution of businesses.

"Climate change isn't an isolated issue," says Alexander Aylett, a postdoc in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), and the lead author of today's report. "It has large implications for all other aspects of urban life. What we are seeing is cities starting to build it into the DNA of how they approach urban planning."

According to the findings, 75 percent of cities worldwide now tackle climate-change issues as a mainstream part of their planning, and 73 percent of cities are attempting both climate mitigation and climate adaptation — that is, they are trying both to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and to adapt to long-term changes that are already in motion. But only 21 percent of cities report tangible connections between the response to climate change and achieving other local development goals.

Aylett calls it a "cliché" that environmental and economic progress cannot coexist, citing a number of cities where jobs and growth have derived from climate-change efforts. Portland, Ore., he observes, developed incentives, training, and regulations to help sustainable construction firms grow, while a pilot program called Clean Energy Works Portland employed 400 workers to reduce home energy use, reducing carbon emissions by 1,400 metric tons annually.

Urban planners in Alberta, as Aylett notes, have studied the cost savings associated with limiting metropolitan sprawl and concluded that denser development could save $11 billion in capital costs over the next 60 years, and $130 million in annual maintenance. But most cities, he suggests, have simply not yet identified ways to link climate planning and economic development in the first place.

"It isn't so much that it's hard to reconcile economic and environmental priorities," Aylett says. "It's that we're not trying."

Regional differences remain

The new report is a companion to a survey conducted in 2012. This year's results revealed continuing regional disparities in urban climate planning. Compared with the global average of 75 percent, U.S. cities lag in planning for both mitigation and adaptation, with just 58 percent of cities addressing both. This echoes the 2012 survey, which revealed that a smaller portion of U.S. cities were doing basic climate-change planning, compared with those in other regions — 59 percent in the U.S., for instance, compared with 95 percent in Latin America.

Globally, 63 percent of cities say they have between one and five employees dedicated to climate-change planning; North American cities are most likely to have just one staff member focused on the topic. As the report's executive summary notes, "A lack of funding to hire sufficient staff to work on climate change is a significant challenge for 67 percent of cities."

On a different note, about 85 percent of cities have conducted an inventory of local greenhouse-gas emissions, and 15 percent, as part of that effort, have tried to track the emissions that stem from goods and services consumed within that city. As Aylett points out, "Beginning to address these upstream emissions is crucial if cities are really going to help bring down global emissions."

The results also reveal that local industries and businesses are relatively disengaged with urban responses to climate change: About 25 percent of cities say that local businesses have been crucial to creating and implementing their climate mitigation plans, whereas 48 percent of cities report that local civil-society groups, such as nonprofits or other organizations, have been involved in climate planning.

The survey is a collaboration between DUSP and ICLEI, the world's largest association of cities. Today's report is being released in conjunction with an ICLEI-backed conference on urban planning, being held in Bonn, Germany. To conduct the survey, questionnaires were sent to officials in more than 700 cities worldwide, with 48 percent of them responding to a set of 69 queries.

Contact: Sarah McDonnell
617-253-8923
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Melting Arctic opens new passages for invasive species

Scientists say early action could protect coasts

Ursus maritimus, Polar bear with cub. Photo by Scott Schliebe (CC)

For the first time in roughly 2 million years, melting Arctic sea ice is connecting the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans. The newly opened passages leave both coasts and Arctic waters vulnerable to a large wave of invasive species, biologists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center assert in a commentary published May 28 in Nature Climate Change.

Two new shipping routes have opened in the Arctic: the Northwest Passage through Canada, and the Northern Sea Route, a 3000-mile stretch along the coasts of Russia and Norway connecting the Barents and Bering seas. While new opportunities for tapping Arctic natural resources and interoceanic trade are high, commercial ships often inadvertently carry invasive species. Organisms from previous ports can cling to the undersides of their hulls or be pumped in the enormous tanks of ballast water inside their hulls. Now that climate change has given ships a new, shorter way to cross between oceans, the risks of new invasions are escalating.

"Trans-Arctic shipping is a game changer that will play out on a global scale," said lead author Whitman Miller. "The economic draw of the Arctic is enormous. Whether it's greater access to the region's rich natural resource reserves or cheaper and faster inter-ocean commercial trade, Arctic shipping will reshape world markets. If unchecked, these activities will vastly alter the exchange of invasive species, especially across the Arctic, north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans."

The first commercial voyage through the Northwest Passage—a carrier from British Columbia loaded with coal bound for Finland—occurred in September 2013. Meanwhile, traffic through the Northern Sea Route has been rising rapidly since 2009. The scientists project that at the current rate, it could continue to rise 20 percent every year for the next quarter century, and this does not take into account ships sailing to the Arctic itself.

Photo by Ludovic Hirlimann (CC)

For the past 100-plus years, shipping between oceans passed through the Panama or Suez Canals. Both contain warm, tropical water, likely to kill or severely weaken potential invaders from colder regions. In the Panama Canal, species on the hulls of ships also had to cope with a sharp change in salinity, from marine to completely fresh water. The Arctic passages contain only cold, marine water. As long as species are able to endure cold temperatures, their odds of surviving an Arctic voyage are good. That, combined with the shorter length of the voyages, means many more species are likely to remain alive throughout the journey.

Though the routes pose major risks to the north Atlantic and north Pacific coasts, the Arctic is also becoming an attractive destination. Tourism is growing, and it contains vast stores of natural resources. The Arctic holds an estimated 13 percent of the world's untapped oil and 30 percent of its natural gas. Greenland's supply of rare earth metals is estimated to be able to fill 20 to 25 percent of global demand for the near future. Until now the Arctic has been largely isolated from intensive shipping, shoreline development and human-induced invasions, but the scientists said that is likely to change drastically in the decades to come.

"The good news is that the Arctic ecosystem is still relatively intact and has had low exposure to invasions until now," said coauthor Greg Ruiz. "This novel corridor is only just opening. Now is the time to advance effective management options that prevent a boom in invasions and minimize their ecological, economic and health impacts."

Citation: A. Whitman Miller, Gregory M. Ruiz. Arctic shipping and marine invaders. Nature Climate Change, 2014; 4 (6): 413 DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2244. 

Contact: Kristen Minogue
443-482-2325
Smithsonian

Sea turtle bycatch: Atlantic at-risk areas located

Photo by Projeto Tamar (CC)

By Science for Environment Policy

Nine areas in the Atlantic where leatherback turtles are at higher risk of bycatch have been identified in a recent study. To help protect this important species less damaging fishing practices could be used in these areas, the study concludes, and some could be candidates for marine protected status.

Large migratory marine species, such as the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), play an important role in ecosystems, but many populations are threatened and accidental capture by fisheries contributes to their decline. The leatherback turtle migrates thousands of kilometres to feeding areas at sea, before swimming to nesting beaches to mate and lay eggs. The significant distances they travel greatly increase the chances of encountering fishing gear.

This iconic species is of conservation concern. While it has been reported that Atlantic populations are now stabilising in numbers, or even growing, there is concern that bycatch could undo these positive changes.

This study compared data on turtles' movements in the Atlantic with data on fishing activity, to map where these overlap. Data on migration routes and feeding areas were taken from previous studies that used satellites to track 106 turtles between 1995 and 2010.

The researchers focused on bycatch in pelagic longline fishing. In this method of fishing, thousands of baited hooks hang from a suspended line, many kilometres long. Turtles can be accidentally entangled and even hooked in these longlines. In a collaborative effort to address this issue, data on the location and intensity of this fishing activity between 1995 and 2010 were provided by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna.

Nine high-risk areas emerged, which were used intensively by both turtles and longliners. Two areas were in waters that affect EU Member States: one was offshore Spain's Canary Islands, and the other was near Ascension Island. This remote southern Atlantic island falls within the UK's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Five areas fell within, or partially within, the EEZs of another 10 countries and territories: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Namibia, Senegal, the US and Western Sahara. The last two areas were located exclusively in 'international waters', for which no single country has direct responsibility.

These results highlight the need for a multinational, coordinated effort to design and monitor protective measures for leatherback turtles, the researchers say. This includes efforts from nations who fish in the affected areas, as well as from those in charge of the EEZs.

The best protection measures depend on the area. The researchers suggest that small at-risk areas, such as that around the Canaries, could be considered for marine protected status, or temporarily closed to fishing. Changes to gear and fishing practices may be more effective in larger areas, such as those in the Guinea and Angola basins.

The study did not measure actual cases of bycatch in the identified areas. However, there have been separate reports of turtle bycatch in eight of the identified areas, which support its findings. The researchers point out that other forms of fishing also cause turtle bycatch. These include gillnet and trawl fishing, as well as illegal fishing, but the data to assess these were not available.

Citation: Fossette, S., Witt, M. J., Miller, P. et al. (2014). Pan-Atlantic analysis of the overlap of a highly migratory species, the leatherback turtle, with pelagic longline fisheries. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 281(1780): 20133065. DOI:10.1098/rspb.2013.3065. 

Contact: Sabrina Fossette

Climate adaptation: can vulnerable countries cope with the costs of extreme weather?

By Science for Environment Policy

Following extreme weather events, many countries are unable to afford the costs of providing relief to communities and repairing infrastructure, a new study suggests. The researchers estimate that providing relief on a global scale for events which recur every 10 to 50 years would cost US$3.3 billion (€2.37 billion) annually.

Extreme flooding or drought can cause substantial damage to communities and infrastructure, with severe consequences for a nation's economy.

To understand how countries meet the costs of responding to extreme weather events, this study first calculated the direct risks and public-sector liability for losses. Events considered by the researchers included storms, flooding or drought, which may occur at intervals of 10 to 500 years, in 161 countries around the world. Extreme events that occur relatively often tend to be less destructive, and therefore less costly to recover from, compared with events that are much less frequent.

They also calculated the financial vulnerability of the countries included in the study and identified the gap between their available funding and the amount required for recovery from events with different recurrence periods, termed the 'resource gap'.

According to the calculations, developed nations experience resource gaps for more destructive, less frequent events but they are generally able to meet the costs of relief for less destructive, more frequent events. However, 70 countries assessed were financially vulnerable to events that occur every 50 years. Of those, 57 would also experience a resource gap for once-every-30-year events. Small Island Developing States and countries already in debt are the most financially vulnerable.

Globally, it would cost US$3.3 billion (€2.37 billion) annually to cover those resource gaps for 10-to-50-year events, the study proposes. Including events up to a 250-year return period would increase annual costs to around US$22 billion (€15.8 billion).

These estimates were based on current weather events and at present the results represent the upper limit of costs. This is because the public dataset used may overestimate some losses as it is based on estimates made immediately following an extreme event, rather than later more considered estimates, which tend to be lower.

However, if extreme events increase in frequency or severity due to climate change, as predicted, then costs will rise. In addition, the researchers highlight that their findings may be interpreted as a baseline estimate for what may be to come, if emission reductions and adaptation to climatic risks are not better managed.

Citation: Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Mechler, R., Pflug, G. & Williges, K. (2014). Funding public adaptation to climate-related disasters. Estimates for a global fund. Global Environmental Change. 25: 87-96. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.01.011. 

Contact: S. Hochrain

Bathing water disease risk may increase under climate change

Sand beach of Skala, Angistri, Greece. Photo by Panagiotis Botsis (CC)

By Science for Environment Policy

Climate change may increase the amount of pathogens entering bathing waters in some areas, finds a new study. The research, carried out in a lagoon in the Baltic Sea, found that, although higher temperatures can reduce microorganism populations, this is likely to be outweighed by contamination due to runoff caused by increased rainfall. The authors are currently developing a system for alerting local authorities and the public to potentially hazardous bathing water.

Even when bathing waters meet the microbiological standards of the EU's Bathing Water Quality (EBWQ) Directive, many potentially disease-causing microorganisms could still be present, and may thrive under climate change.

This study, conducted under the EU GENESIS project, focused on the Szczecin lagoon, in the southern Baltic Sea. Tourism is the main source of income in the area, but the lagoon is a pollution hotspot, and dangerous waterborne microorganisms have forced beaches to close.

The majority of these closures were due to E. coli and Enterococci bacteria from poorly treated sewage. The situation has improved following €288 million of investment in sewage treatment plants and continued monitoring, but beach closures still occur. This highlights the need for a system to alert authorities and the public to hazardous waters. More generally, understanding how climate change might affect pathogenic microorganisms and bathing water quality is of increasing concern.

The researchers modelled the effects of local rainfall and river floods on pathogen contamination in the lagoon. They considered different climate change scenarios, including heavy local rains, river floods and warming of 2°C. The study focused on two bacterial indicators from the EBWQ of faecal pollution - Enterococci and E. coli.

The model indicated that under flood conditions more E. coli would be washed far into the lagoon. This would cause water quality to drop, even at beaches distant from the river mouth. This was partly due to increased runoff from city surfaces and agricultural land.

Agricultural runoff water after heavy rains contains high concentrations of faecal bacteria from local cattle farming. This water enters the lagoon rapidly without much die-off of bacteria, and although such events would be short-term, they are hard to predict.

A rise in water temperature of 3°C would reduce the survival of both bacteria, especially for E. coli, however the reduction is not substantial. This model suggests that the other negative effects of climate change, such as increased rainfall and river floods, are likely to have a greater impact. These are also predicted to become more frequent in this region in the future.

The researchers used the model to develop a prototype of a local alerting system for use by local authorities and the public. They hope to combine their model with local environmental data, such as wind speed and physical sensors, to predict pathogen levels in the rivers. This would allow automatic online updates of predicted bathing water quality to safeguard the public, and could be communicated via email or newsletter.

Further research is needed to examine whether these results are replicated in different areas; however, the model developed in this study could be used for this analysis and would also provide a valuable starting point for regional alerts systems, say the researchers.

Citation: Schernewski,G., Schippmann, B., & Walczykiewicz, T. (2014). Coastal bathing water quality and climate change – A new information and simulation system for new challenges. Ocean & Coastal Management. 1–8. DOI:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.01.004.

Contact: Gerald Schernewski