Land Reclamation Ruined Sentosa Reef

Photo Credit: Ria Tan

A really saddening photo. I’m sure many Singaporeans don’t even know of this offshore reef off Sentosa. It is surely much more diverse and much more dense than the more publicly known Chek Jawa on Ubin.

Coral Reef Loss in Southeast Asia to Reduce Food Supplies 80%: Strong International Action Needed

photo: sektordua via flickr

The effect that warming and ocean acidification will have on coral reefs will be devastating. At particular risk, a new report from World Wildlife Fund with the University of Queensland points out, is the Coral Triangle in Southeast Asia. Without strong action of constrain global temperature rise, coral in the region could be wiped out by 2100, leading to a decline in food production in the region by 80%, imperiling 100 million people:

The report, The Coral Triangle and Climate Change: Ecosystems, People and Societies at Risk, explains that though the Coral Triangle is just one percent of Earth’s surface, it contains 30% of all coral reefs, 76% of reef-building coral, 35% of coral reef fish species and is the spawning ground for many commercially-important fish species.

photo: Wikipedia

Food Loss, Rural-to-Urban Migration Increases
Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the University of Queensland, who led the study said that if we continue on the climate change trajectory we are on,

…people see the biological treasures of the Coral Triangle destroyed over the course of the century by rapid increases in ocean temperature, acidity and sea level, while the resilience of coastal environments also deteriorates under faltering coastal management. Poverty increases, food security plummets, economies suffer and coastal people migrate increasingly to urban areas.
Tens of millions of people are forced to move from rural to coastal settings due to loss of homes, food resources and income, putting pressure on regional cities and surrounding developed nations such as Australia and New Zealand.

Resource Loss Manageable if Strong International Action Taken
Though the report says that at this point some coral loss is probably inevitable, if strong emission reductions are made and the international community invests in strengthening the regions natural environment, there will be challenges for the region but they may well be manageable. How to do this?

Effective management of coastal resources through a range of options including locally-managed regional networks of marine protected areas, protection of mangrove and seagrass beds and effective management of fisheries results in a slower decline in these resources.

A copy of the report can be found  here:

The Coral Triangle and Climate Change

For other resources, visit Reports, Studies, Scientific Papers, Random PDF on the sidebar.

UNFAO & UNEP Report: The Tragedy of Ghost Fishing and the Solutions

Image from FAO, UNEP report

What is ghost fishing? Ghost fishing refers to the “catch” made by ghost nets, that is, fishing nets that have been abandoned or lost at sea.

From Wikipedia:

These nets, often nearly invisible in the dim light, can be left tangled on a rocky reef or drifting in the open sea. They can entangle fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, dugongs, crocodiles, seabirds, crabs, and other creatures, including the occasional human diver.

Acting as designed, the nets restrict movement, causing starvation, laceration and infection, and — in those that need to return to the surface to breathe — suffocation.

A new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) highlights information that should be pretty blatant: that ghost fishing has adverse effects on the marine environment, harming fish stocks to various degrees and may be hazardous to ships.

Lost or abandoned marine fishing gear makes up 10% of the marine litter, showing the significance of the problem. But there are some interesting solutions, including a clever buy-back program.

The Problem With Lost Gear
The very hefty report outlines the impact of lost and abandoned marine gear on wildlife and ecosystems. Some of the impacts include continued killing of the target species along with non-target species who come in to eat the trapped fish, harming species like sponges and corals as nets drag along the sea floors, and of course more plastic introduced into the food system.

Clean Up Efforts Not So Easy
Efforts for clean up of materials are expensive and impractical. Volunteer efforts are encouraging albeit dangerous, and not all that great an impact on the bigger picture.

Instead, the report suggests that all gear should be clearly marked so it can be linked back to the owner, as well as suggesting that the owners should utilize GPS technology so that any lost gear can be located.

Buy-Back Programs for Found Gear
Possibly more effective are buy-back programs, such as what was implemented in the North Sea, which effectively collected 450 tons of litter within the 3 year project.

The Waste Fishing Gear Buy-back project has been implemented successfully in the Republic of Korea since 2003, aiming at collecting fisheries-related marine litter (such as fishing nets, traps, lines, floats) deposited in the sea and on the sea bed. Since fishers used to collect waste fishing gear during fishing operation and throw it back into the sea, the buy-back project is especially designed to encourage fishers to bring ashore the litter collected, as part of fishing activities. This is achieved by providing large, hardwearing bags to the boats so that litter can be easily collected and deposited on the quayside. An economic incentive is also given to fishers: when they bring back waste fishing gear collected during fishing operation to the designated place, it is purchased at the cost of approximately US$10 per 100 litre bag. The budget for this programme is shared between central and local governments.

A buy-back program, if properly implemented and funded, has great potential. Not only is there a financial incentive for locals to retrieve the ghost nets as a source of income, inadvertently being part of the solution, but it might prove advantageous to fishermen who are already bringing up trash with their daily catches.

The full report is available on UNEP’s website.

But for your convenience, it is downloadable below.

UNEP & UNFAO: Abandoned, Lost or Otherwise Discarded Fishing Gear

Study: Mercury in Pacific to Rise by 50% by 2050

Simplified mercury biogeochemical cycle

According to a new study, if mercury levels continue to rise at the rate they’re predicted to rise, the amount of mercury in the Pacific will increase by 50% over the next 40 years. The study also shows just how the mercury in emissions from around the world wind up in the North Pacific Ocean.

“This unprecedented USGS study is critically important to the health and safety of the American people and our wildlife because it helps us understand the relationship between atmospheric emissions of mercury and concentrations of mercury in marine fish,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

So, how does the mercury get into the food stream?

[M]ethylmercury is produced in mid-depth ocean waters by processes linked to the “ocean rain.” Algae, which are produced in sunlit waters near the surface, die quickly and “rain” downward to greater water depths. At depth, the settling algae are decomposed by bacteria and the interaction of this decomposition process in the presence of mercury results in the formation of methylmercury. Many steps up the food chain later, predators like tuna receive methylmercury from the fish they consume…it appears the recent mercury enrichment of the sampled Pacific Ocean waters is caused by emissions originating from fallout near the Asian coasts. The mercury-enriched waters then enter a long-range eastward transport by large ocean circulation currents,” said USGS scientist and coauthor David Krabbenhoft.

Via Science Daily

Here’s an abstract for the scientific study:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GB003425.shtml

EPA Sued to Force Restoration of Degraded Chesapeake Bay Waters

Source: “EPA Sued to Force Restoration of Degraded Chesapeake Bay Waters“, treehugger.com, Matthew McDermott, 6th January 2009

photo: Andrew Bossi

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, along with a coalition of partners has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia which seeks to force the EPA to enforce laws requiring the reduction of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay to levels that the bay can be removed from the federal ‘impaired waters’ list.

Speaking on why the action was taken CBF president William Baker said,

EPA Has ‘Abdicated Leadership’ 

Over the last eight years the EPA, which has the responsibility to lead the effort to enforce the Clean Water Act, has abdicated leadership and weakened regulations that would have reduced pollution. The rule of science and the rule of law have been subjugated to political dogma and a policy of deregulation that has wreaked havoc from financial markets to environmental protection. Science has provided a roadmap for Bay restoration and EPA has the tools to get the job done. The Bay is still polluted due to the lack of political will.

 

Though there have been three agreements between the EPA and the states bordering the bay to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, going back as far as 1983, the EPA has acknowledged that the latest goal for cleanup of 2010 will not be met.

Efforts EPA Should Take
Among the efforts the CBF would like to the EPA to take are the following:

• Requiring EPA to commit to achieve 80 percent of the pollution reduction goal by 2012, with full implementation by 2015.
• Requiring EPA to take an active role in wastewater treatment plant permits to ensure compliance with pollution reduction goals and that there will be no net increase in pollution loadings.
• Requiring tough construction stormwater permits at sites that discharge into impaired waters.
• Requiring all power plants that generate air pollution that affects the region’s waterways to install existing technologies that would reduce that pollution.
• Requiring that new and existing agricultural conservation funding be geographically targeted to practices that achieve the most pollution reduction.
• Requiring that a portion of federal transportation funding be directed to stormwater management on highways.

 

According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, most of the waters of the bay are degraded, with much of the bay’s fish and shellfish population at historically low levels.

Partners in the lawsuit are the Virginia State Waterman’s Association, the Maryland Waterman’s Association, the Maryland Saltwater Sportfisherman’s Association, former Maryland Governor Harry Hughes, retired Maryland Senator Bernie Fowler, former Virginia legislator and Natural Resources Secretary Tayloe Murphy, and former Washington DC Mayor Anthony Williams

More: Chesapeake Bay Foundation and ENS

Water Pollution
Ocean ‘Dead Zones’ Increasing: 400 Oxygen-Deprived Areas Now Exist
California Commits to Significantly Reducing Stormwater Pollution
Bush Admin’s Parting Gift to the Factory Farms

EPA Ignores Own Scientists’ Advice, Makes a Gift to Coal Mining Interests

Source: “EPA Ignores Own Scientists’ Advice, Makes a Gift to Coal Mining Interests”, treehugger.com, Jeremy Elton Jacquot, 5th December 2008

Image from Jen SFO-CBN

In what’s become a depressingly predictable trend, the EPA’s higher-ups have once again chosen to consciously ignore the better advice of their scientists and reverse a long-standing rule banning the dumping of coal mining debris into mountain streams.ProPublica‘s Joaquin Sapien writes that the reversal will clear the new for a new measure that environmental groups are rightly calling a “gift to mining interests”: the ability to dispose of leftover rocks and dirt from mountaintop mining (a practice Bush officials have allowed to expand in recent years) by flagrantly violating the landmark Clean Water Act.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Even top EPA officials were at a loss to justify their deeply flawed decision, with Administrator Stephen Johnson simply telling Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that “nothing in the regulation is inconsistent with the provisions of the Clean Water Act.” (The Interior Department needed the EPA’s approval before finalizing the rule.) Big Coal and its allies in the Bush administration had spent years fighting a rule that required mining companies to obtain permits before dumping waste into rivers.

A few months ago, a number of environmentalists had met with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Interior Department officials to strongly urge them not to enact the new rules without considering their scientists’ recommendations. Just five days later, said OMB officials met with representatives of the National Mining Association. Need I say more?

As Sapien points out, the EPA had twice before found that dropping mining debris — or as it’s commonly referred to, “valley fill” — into rivers degraded water quality and killed the local aquatic wildlife. One of the studies in question determined that the water tested downstream from a dumping ground had excessively high levels of dangerous chemicals. A coalition of environmental lawyers cited this study and a related brief in submitting their comments to the EPA — comments that, of course, went unheeded.

The best part of this?

Johnson’s letter went on to suggest that the rule will help meet President Bush’s goal of promoting “the increased use of clean coal technology in order to reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”

Assuming the Obama administration decides to quickly reverse this and other Bush “midnight regulations,” it will have a tough road ahead. (As of now, the transition team has “no comment”.) For one thing, the process of repealing these rules can grind on for years because of all the legal theatrics (you can bet the coal companies will be fighting tooth-and-nail to ensure the Obama team does not succeed). The other problem is that the worst damage may well have already been done by the time Obama officials reverse these measures.

More EPA shenanigans
US Environmental Destruction Agency: Making National Parks Coal-Friendly
EPA Reforms Rule on Hazardous Waste, Boosts Recycling

Bush Administration to Open Public Lands Near Utah’s National Parks for Natural Gas and Oil Drilling

Source:”Bush Administration to Open Public Lands Near Utah’s National Parks for Natural Gas and Oil Drilling“, treehugger.com, Business & Politics, Jeremy Elton Jacquot, 9th Nov 2008

Image from jderuna

There is no doubt that the Bushies will go down in history as the administration with the least environmentally-friendly record (among other dubious distinctions). Having already gutted the Endangered Species Act, denied the existence of climate change and vehemently resisted efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, it is not as if the president has been trying especially hard to rehabilitate his dismal reputation. Last Friday, we learned of the Bush administration’s latest environmental hit job, courtesy ofThe New York Times‘ Felicity Barringer: a plan by the Bureau of Land Management to open tens of thousands of acres on or near the borders of three national parks in eastern Utah, including Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, to drilling.

Image from Wolfgang Staudt

Decision taken without consulting National Park Service
In light of the administration’s ongoing (and recently accelerated) efforts to ease regulations on its industry allies, this does not exactly come as a shock (see Greg Haegele’s list of top 10 “eco-horrors” for more recent coverage). What was perhaps a little surprising was that the BLM did not even bother to notify officials in the National Park Service (some of whom presumably adhere to the administration’s anti-environment philosophy); instead, the agency quietly released an updated lease proposal (the first one was also heavily criticized for giving the green light to further industrial activity) that included 40 – 45 new areas. It evidently hoped to attract as little attention as possible, releasing it on November 4.

Late auction date will hurt next administration’s efforts to reverse sales
The new tracts will be sold at auction on December 19. (Incidentally, this is the last lease sale before the president leaves office.) As a result, instead of having the customary 1 – 3 months to comment on the new proposal, top managers at the NPS will have precious little time to voice their concerns about the drilling’s impact on the parks’ water, air and wildlife. When asked if she would reconsider offering the tracts in December, Selma Sierra, BLM’s state director, pointedly refused, Barringer notes.

Those who believe an Obama administration would be able to easily reverse the sales are mistaken: Any effort by the new government to do so would likely result in the energy companies filing suit or taking other retaliatory action — moves that would likely drag out the process for several months or years.

Earlier this year I wrote about the NPS selling our parks short by inhibiting its own ability to purchase the estimated 1.8 million acres of land listed for acquisition (it only requested $100 million from Congress for fiscal year 2009 to buy $1.9 billion worth of land). The fact that this administration has even managed to take its own officials by surprise speaks volumes.

More about the Bush administration’s shenanigans
In this Week’s Bargain Bin: Our National Parks
10 Eco-Horrors That Should Have You Scared
A Return To Colorado Oil Shale?