It seems like every blog have published at least one post about republican vice president candidate Sara Palin. I therefore thought I would write a few words about her policy and history in relation to environmental protection, something that likely is important to all those who read this blog.

I am sorry to say that Palins record in regard to environmental protection is less than stellar and if she is elected it can be a disaster for the environment if the history says anything about the future. Why do I say this? This is why!

She advocated AGAINST pollution control

She supports aerial hunting of wolves even though it was outlawed by Congress and is using a loophole in the law to allow it.

She fighting to prevent Belugas from being listed as endangered.

She is supporting hunting black bear sows and cubs.

She is trying to get polar bears delisted as a threatened species.

She wants to permit oil drilling in the Arctic national wildlife refuge. An action that might threaten to destroy 1.5 MILLION ACRES all though oil companies claim only 2000 acres will be effected.

I normally don’t post about political issues here but I thought I would make an exception in this case as it is frightening to think about what she might do to conservation efforts on a national scale if she was to become vice president or even president considering her actions so far in Alaska. The other candidates might not have the best environmental platforms but Palins record makes the other three involved in the race at this stage (McCain, Obama, and Biden) look like saints. She might have other qualities but it seems to me that McCain would have had a hard time to choose a worse vice president candidate if you look at environment alone.

A group of scientist from UK, Australia, the US, Sweden and France are arguing that we need to rethink how we protect our marine environment if we want to protect our reefs. The way we protect vulnerable areas today will not suffice to save the coral reefs from the threat of global warming.

The type of small protected areas that we use today were designed by researchers in the 60s and 70s and is good to prevent species from going extinct due to fishing etc but are not enough to protect against the treats reefs are facing today like global warming. This is the conclusion they have reached after extensive studies carried out in over 66 sites across seven countries over more than a decade. The team has published their result in the journal PLoS ONE. The study is the biggest of its kind done to date.

It is however important to stress that they don’t think the present protected areas are to be removed or that new such areas shouldn’t be protected. What they are saying is that this work has to be complemented with a new type of protected areas that need to be located in the right places.

Lead researcher Nick Graham, of Newcastle University’s School of Marine Science and Technology, said: “We need a whole new approach – and we need to act now.

The research the scientist did shows that the location of the protected areas are very important and that many of the world’s existing protected areas are in the wrong place to protect the reefs. New protected areas need to be setup in new locations and the focus need to change from protecting small areas to protecting entire reef systems. It is important to minimize the human impact on the reefs from actions such as over-fishing, pollution and sedimentation as coral dies if they are put under to much stress. If we remove other sources of stress the reef becomes more likely to survive the stress caused by increased water temperature caused by global warming.

Although the research seems to show a grim future with a lot of reef being damaged and showing signs of long-term degradation there were also good signs with some reefs remaining healthy or even recovering from earlier damages.

Sharks are facing extinction on large parts of the Great Barrier Reef as well as in other parts of the world. The reason for this is ruthless fishing to provide the Asian markets with shark fins. The fins are removed from caught fish while they are still alive and the sharks are then flung back into the sea where they sink towards the bottom and to their death. Most shark species need to swim to be able to breathe and drowns after they have been thrown back without their fins. A very high number of sharks fall victim to Asian shark fishing vessels and end their life this way each year. This doesn’t just threaten the world’s shark populations but also constitutes an enormous waste of resources as most of the sharks (everything except the fins) is simple flung back into the sea without being used.

Many sharks fishing vessels ignore fishing rules and fish in protected areas and marine preserve which have led to plummeting shark populations in marine preserves as well. This does not only leave us without protected shark populations that might help restock the populations outside the preserves but also put stress on the eco system within the preserves. This might put other species in the preserves at risk as well.

An example of this illegal fishing was recently reported in north Queensland were a research trip done by Richard Fitzpatrick and his team showed that it was hard to find and catch sharks on the reefs off Cairns and Port Douglas.

Mr Fitzpatrick says the decline is the result of over-fishing on the reef.

The team found dead sharks thrown back into the sea in protected areas in the Cairns and Port Douglas, area like the cod hole which might indicate that shark fishing vessels fish within protected areas. They also found sharks that simply had their tail fins cut of and most likely had been killed by people who don’t like sharks and that simply wanted to kill them. It is however possible that they where fished for their tailfins and that they where caught for commercial reasons but if that was the case it is likely that the other fins would have been harvested as well.

The shark fin trade is to a large extent a black market and no one has a good overview of it and how big it really is. This is making it extremely hard to take actions against this fishing and the only way to create effective shark preserves might be to create large patrolled areas that are off limit to all non authorized vessels. A more desirable method to target the problem would be campaigns designed to limit the demand for shark fins. The question is how and if an effective campaign like that can be created,

European Union

In December 2007, the EU commission presented their suggestion for a new law that would force car manufacturers to decrease the average carbon dioxide emissions from new cars down to 130 grams per kilometre by 2012. This draft does however come with one gigantic loop hole – the new law would only target cars weighing less than 2,610 kg (5,754 lbs). This could actually prompt car manufacturers to start building even heavier cars than today, just to avoid the new law. Another possible escape route is to make slight alterations to the cars in order to make it possible for them to be registered as light trucks. When a similar law was put into action in the United States during the 1970s, car manufacturers immediately responded by producing large quantities of SUVs that could evade the law by registering as work vehicles. The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) is now urging the EU parliament and the national governments to take action and remove these loop wholes from the final draft of the law.

Compared to just over a century ago, the pH-value of the sea’s surface water has gone down by 0.1 (i.e. 25 percent). This has caught the attention of Jon Havenhand and Michael Thorndyke, researchers at the University of Gothenburg, and they have together with colleagues in Australia studied if and how this decrease affects marine animals.

spatangus purpuerus – Sea urchin

As part of the study, Havenhand and Thorndyke used sea urchins of the species Heliocidaris erythrogramma to study reproduction. Sea urchins reproduce by releasing eggs that are fertilized out in the open water. In the study, Havenhand and Thorndyke studied breeding sea urchins in water where the pH-value had been lowered from its normal 8.1 down to 7.7. This might not sound as a significant drop, but a change from 8.1 to 7.7 means that the water becomes three times as acidic as before.

Havenhand and Thorndyke found out that in this changed environment, the sea urchins’ ability to reproduce was decreased by 25 percent. The low pH-value made the sperm swim slower than normally and move less effectively, which lowered the fertilization rate. But the problems didn’t stop here; when an egg was fertilized, the low pH-value could interfere with larval development and this too decreased the amount of eggs that actually developed into healthy sea urchin larvae.

More research is now needed to find out if these reproductive problems linked to acidification can be observed in other marine animals as well.

By moving from the surface of the sea down to deeper layers, Antarctic krill transport carbon down from the surface to the depths of the ocean. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Scarborough Centre of Coastal Studies at the University of Hull have now discovered that Antarctic krill venture between the surface and the deep sea several times per night. Earlier, they were believed to do so only once per night. The more times they head for the deep with their bellies filled, the more carbon they will remove form the surface, so this is interesting news for anyone worried about too much carbon in the atmosphere and upper ocean. According to Dr Geraint Tarling from BAS, Antarctic krill transport an amount of carbon equivalent to the annual emissions of 35 million cars.

Krill swims to the surface to feed on phytoplankton (which must stay fairly close to the surface since they rely on photosynthesis) but they do not spend all their time close to the surface because that would make them easy targets for predators. Instead, krill regularly sink down to greater depths where the risk of being eaten is lower. When krill excrete carbon rich waste products at such depths, the waste will sink down to the ocean floor.

Other studies have shown that adding iron to the water could allow the krill populations to increase in size which would cause them to remove more CO2 from the atmosphere. Adding iron can also help trigger algae growth that further removes CO2 from the atmosphere and can help fight global warming. We do however know too little about the potential side effects of adding iron to the water to make it a viable alternative at this time.

Scuba diving tourists are an important source of income for Egypt, but now the tourism sector might be sawing off the branch on which they’re sitting by over-exploiting the sensitive coral reefs of the Red Sea. According to a study by Hasler and Ott, heavily dived dive sites near the town of Dahab have a significantly lower level of coral cover compared to areas without recreational diving.

Located off the south-eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula, the reefs of Dahab is one of Sinai’s most treasured and well visited diving destinations. Dahab is still a fairly small town, but it is situated no more than 80 km (50 miles) from Sharm el-Sheik, a bustling tourist hub which attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year. Some of the dive sites off Dahab are among the world’s most heavily dived sites with over 30,000 dives per year.

According to Hasler and Ott, heavily dived sites in the studied area exhibited a reduced coral cover compared to non-dived sites and there were also significantly higher levels of broken and damaged corals. Differences could also be observed within the same reef, with coral communities located on reef crest areas being significantly more damaged than coral communities growing on reef slopes.

Divers are not only causing trouble by damaging corals directly; they can also stir up the sand around the reefs, thereby promoting sedimentation on top of the corals. Attached corals cannot free themselves of sediment particles and being covered in sand is therefore very dangerous for them.

In order to combat the problems faced by heavily exploited reefs, Hasler and Ott have suggested implementing ecologically sustainable dive plans for individual sites and limiting the total amount of dives per year. According to the authors, it is also very important to educate dive guides and divers.

For more info, read the results of the study which are due to be published shortly in Marine Pollution Bullentine. “Hasler H and JA Ott (2008) – Diving down the reefs? Intensive diving tourism threatens the reefs of the Northern Red Sea. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 2008 Aug.”

The June sucker, Chasmistes liorus, is a critically endangered fish endemic to Utah Lake and the Provo River. The fish was once plentiful within its range but is now facing problems with pollution, turbidity, drought, alteration of water flow, loss of native vegetation, and the introduction of new species, primarily the European carp (Cyprinus carpio) and the walley (Sander vitreus vitreus).

Grass Carp

The European carp was introduced to the lake as a food fish during the late 19^th century and is causing severe problems for the June sucker by ripping out weeds while feeding along the bottom. Without these weeds, June sucker fry have no place to hide and end up in the stomach of predatory fish like walley and bass.

During recent years, about 100,000 June suckers have been raised in a hatchery and released into the lake, but the state of Utah are now saying that they have to do something about the carp problem if they want the June sucker population to survive in the long run. “It’s probably the biggest barrier to June sucker recovery,” says Mike Mills, the local coordinator for the recovery program.

Wildlife officials are now planning on removing roughly 1 million pounds of European carp from the lake each year during the next coming six years in an effort to make the environment more favourable for the June sucker. But what do you do with 6 million dead carps?

As of now, a substantial amount of dead carps has been turned into compost, and there is also talk about using them for international humanitarian missions. Other suggestions include converting them into bio-fuels and garden fertilizer, or use them as a protein source in imitation crab meat for the food markets of Central Europe and Asia. The old fashion solution of turning fish into fish sticks, canned fish, fish sauce, fish meal and pet food is naturally also an option.

Some have suggested that the carps should be tossed out to rot away in a landfill or placed in a hole in the desert, but Wildlife officials are not very keen on that idea. “It’s hard to see a fish wasted when there are people in the world that are starving and could use the food,” says Mike Mills. “It’d be great if we could find a market for these fish and that market could fund the whole effort.“

Source: msnbc.msn.com

On August 25, a memo to members of his Cabinet revealed that United States president Bush is interested in creating two protected areas in the Pacific Ocean. One of these would be situated around the Central Pacific Islands and be almost as large as Alaska. If Bush goes through with the plan, this would become the largest protected area in the world. The second proposed protected area would cover parts of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific, including the famous Mariana Trench. Both areas are located in U.S. territorial waters.

In the memo, Bush did not specify what type of protection that he is interested in for the two areas, only that he would protect the rights of the Department of Defense (which has active bases within the proposed locale). As the president of the United States, Bush can order environmental protection in several different ways. Depending on which type of protection Bush chooses, a long row of activities may still be allowed within the protected areas, such as deep sea mining and commercial fishing.

In June 2006, Bush created the currently largest conservation area in the world, a marine monument protecting the Northwestern Islands off Hawaii. This new conservation effort could be put in action before Bush leaves office. “The president is on the cusp of conserving more territory than any leader has ever done. That’s an amazing legacy to leave the nation.” says Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement.

Located in the western North Pacific Ocean, the Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the world’s oceans and the deepest location on the surface of the Earth’s crust. The most accurate measurement of its depth is believed to have been taken by the Japanese unmanned probe Kaikō which descended to the bottom of the trench in 1995 and recorded a maximal depth of 10,911 meters (35,798 feet). The Mariana Trench is found where the Pacific tectonic plate subdues beneath the Philippine tectonic plate.

Source: msnbc.msn.com

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has temporarily suspended shellfish harvesting from a portion of the Delaware Bay. The suspension began at August 19 after health officials had confirmed two cases of illness linked to oysters harvested from the bay. The illness was caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a bacterium that can cause symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and, less frequently, headache, fever and chills. On rare occasions, an infection in the bloodstream can occur. Vibrio parahaemolyticus is especially prone to cause problems for people with compromised immune systems. Vibrio parahaemolyticus occurs naturally in coast waters. Since it thrives in warm waters, a majority of the cases occur during warm summer months when people consume sea food contaminated with the bacterium.

Delaware Bay is a large estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the Atlantic coast of the United States. The bay is bordered by the states New Jersey and Delaware. The entire bay is 782 square miles (2,030 km²) in area, but only about 130 square miles (337 km²) of Delaware Bay is affected by the suspension. If you wish to see a map of the affected area, take a look at this PDF-file:

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/wms/bmw/Closures_Revocations/HarvSusp20080818signed.pdf

The public notice has been posted on the DEP website: http://www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2008/08_0042.htm