The Environment in the News

Oil spills off B.C. coast harming wildlife: researcher

The Vancouver Sun, July 26, 2010

Numerous small oil spills along B.C.'s coast might not cause the same level of damage as BP's massive oil spill in the southern U.S., but a University of Victoria researcher on Vancouver Island says they still pose a threat to wildlife.   Graduate student Norma Serra-Sogas examined data from Transport Canada surveillance flights that spotted what they believed to be oil. In the 10 years of data, there were more than 500 spills along B.C.'s coast. READ MORE

Global warming slows coral growth in Red Sea

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, July 16, 2010

In a pioneering use of computed tomography (CT) scans, scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have discovered that carbon dioxide (CO2)-induced global warming is in the process of killing off a major coral species in the Red Sea. As summer sea surface temperatures have remained about 1.5 degrees Celsius above ambient over the last 10 years, growth of the coral, Diploastrea heliopora, has declined by 30% and "could cease growing altogether by 2070" or sooner, they report in the July 16 issue of the journal Science. "The warming in the Red Sea and the resultant decline in the health of this coral is a clear regional impact of global warming," said Neal E. Cantin, a WHOI postdoctoral investigator and co-lead researcher on the project. In the 1980s, he said, "the average summer [water] temperatures were below 30 degrees Celsius. In 2008 they were approaching 31 degrees."   READ MORE

Biodiversity's 'Holy Grail' Is in the Soil : Soil-Borne Pathogens Drive Tree Diversity in Forests, Study Shows

ScienceDaily, June 28, 2010

Thirsty Pakistan gasps for water solutions

By Sahar Ahmed

The Globe and Mail, June 18, 2010

Pakistan is facing a “raging“ water crisis that if managed poorly could mean Pakistan would run out of water in several decades, experts say, leading to mass starvation and possibly war.

The reliance on a single river basin, one of the most inefficient agricultural systems in world, climate change and a lack of a coherent water policy means that as Pakistan’s population expands, its ability to feed it is shrinking.

“Pakistan faces a raging water crisis,” said Michael Kugelman, program associate for South and Southeast Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

“It has some of the lowest per capita water availability in Asia, and in the world as a whole.” READ MORE

Sea creatures flee oil spill, gather near shore

By Jay Reeves, John Flesher and Tamara Lush

Associated Press, June 17, 2010

GULF SHORES, Ala. (AP) -- Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water off Florida beaches, like forest animals fleeing a fire. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again. Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange phenomena. Fish and other wildlife seem to be fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast in a trend that some researchers see as a potentially troubling sign. READ MORE

Canadian forestry firms agree to curb boreal forest logging

By Michel Comte

AFP,  May 18, 2010

OTTAWA — Forestry companies announced Tuesday a pact with environmentalists to stop logging huge swathes of Canada's boreal forest and protect caribou herds in exchange for suspending protests. Twenty-one members of the Forest Products Association of Canada, who manage two-thirds of Canada's forests, agreed to suspend new logging on nearly 29 million hectares of the boreal forest. They also will adopt strict new environmentally-sensitive forestry practices in an area twice the size of Germany, or 72 million hectares, and develop conservation plans for endangered species in this region, including caribou. READ MORE

North Korea Logging in Protected Forest Discovered

With Google, NASA Data

By Jaymi Heimbuch

TREEHUGGER,  May 18, 2010

Busted! You just can't get away with anything these days, thanks to watchful eyes that utilize Google Earth. After looking at data from both Google and NASA satellite data, a student from Purdue University found evidence of North Korea logging in the Mount Paektu Biosphere Reserve, a 360,000 acre forest protected as a United Nations forest preserve.

According to Purdue, professor Guofan Shao started to notice something strange in their data. He studies this reserve to understand the impacts of biodiversity on the ecology, economy, and sociology and reduce biodiversity loss in 551 sites worldwide. Mount Paekdu has one of the world's highest levels of plant biodiversity and is home to the endangered Siberian tiger, which means he and his colleagues watch this area like hawks. So when NASA satellite data showed changes happening to the land, he turned to Google Earth to get high resolution images to see what was going on. READ MORE

Report: Despite Global Action, Biodiversity Is Declining

By Bryan Walsh

TIME, April 29, 2010

In 2002, environment ministers from around the world gathered in The Hague for a major summit on the Convention on Biological Diversity — an international treaty designed to protect the world's plants, forests and wildlife. With rainforests being clear-cut in tropical countries, endangered species nearing extinction around the world, and the seas steadily being fished out, the ministers agreed it was time to take action. In a declaration, they vowed to "strengthen our efforts to put in place measures to halt biodiversity loss, which is taking place at an alarming rate...by the year 2010."

At the summit's conclusion, its Dutch leader, Geke Faber, said it had "helped move us from policy development to implementation, from dialogue to action." READ MORE

Municipalities urged to save green spaces

Last refuge for many species, conference told

By Monique Beaudin

The Montreal Gazzette, April 28, 2010

MONTREAL - With native plants and animals disappearing or facing extinction, and continuing pressure to develop agricultural lands, forests and natural spaces, it is urgent for Montreal-area municipalities to act, speakers at a biodiversity conference said yesterday.

The United Nations has declared 2010 the international year of biodiversity, and speakers yesterday said there is great potential to preserve biodiversity - the variety of plants, animals and ecosystems - in the Montreal region.

Protecting those organisms - from bacteria to fish, plants and humans - is a challenge as important as climate change, said Guy Garand of the Comité régional de l'environnement de Laval.

He made the comments at the Sommet Biodiversité Montréal, a two-day conference organized by the Comité régional de l'environnement de Montréal, which represents more than 100 environmental and social groups on the island. READ MORE

Iceland's volcanic eruption threatens nation's agriculture

By Stephanie Dearing

Digital Journal, April 19, 2010

Iceland claims its farmers are being ignored while the world obsesses over how it might get around the airborne plume of volcanic ash disrupting travel in the northern hemisphere.

Maybe it's the enormous losses claimed by airlines by the grounded airlines, now reported to be up to $1 billion for European companies. Perhaps it is the news of hundreds of thousands of travellers stranded all around the world because of the Icelandic volcano. Or perhaps it is the attention being paid to Kenya's financial losses due to the volcano -- $3 million a day, it is said. Whatever the reason, the volcano's effects on the rest of the world has eclipsed the impacts of the eruption on Iceland.
The Farmer's Association of Iceland said

"Farmers in South Iceland are experiencing significant difficulties as a result of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. There are great quantities of volcanic material in the atmosphere and ash deposits on the ground. There is also a risk of lowland flooding due to the volcanic activity being under the glacier." READ MORE

Second Garbage Patch Confirmed in Atlantic Ocean

By Joshua S Hill

Planetsave, April 16, 2010

Planet Earth’s oceans now have a second confirmed garbage patch filled with plastic detritus. The discovery of the first garbage patch is credited to Charles Moore, an ocean researcher who discovered the large patch of plastic floating in the Pacific in 1997. Now, the Atlantic can lay claim to a human produced waste patch of its own. Wife and husband team Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in February between Bermuda and Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores Islands. In the middle of the Atlantic is the Sargasso Sea, an area surrounded by various ocean currents, including the well known Gulf Stream. The pair took samples ever 100 miles (160 kilometres) and each time they pulled up their trawl it was full of plastic.  READ MORE

Sixteen Percent of the World's

Mangrove Forests Threatened with Extinction

By Sara Novak

Treehugger, April 10, 2010

One of the fondest memories of my honeymoon was kayaking through the mangrove forests on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. The trees were mystical, something out of a fairy tale. That's why I was more than a little saddened to learn that forests of this kind all over the world are in serious decline. In fact, many of them are threatened with extinction. The first ever global assessment of the world's mangrove forests found that 11 of the 70 species of mangrove trees are threatened with extinction. They've been added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species™. According to the study, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America, where as many as 40 percent of mangrove species are found, have experienced the most serious declines. READ MORE

Earth Hour has an impact across Canada

By Bob Gordon

Digital Journal, March 29, 2010

Earth Hour, the celebration of energy conservation, held Saturday evening across Canada and the world, had a noticeable impact on energy consumption, in cities across Canada.

Cities across Canada made commitments to participate and the commitments had real value.
British Columbians reduced electricity consumption Saturday enough to reduce the province's electrical load by 1.04 per cent during Earth Hour and B.C. Hydro spokesperson Simi Heer was effusive, "Earth day is fun and interesting. It gets people talking about conservation. It's a big win for us, seeing what people can do." The small town of Burn's Lake with a population of 2,100 led all B.C. communities with a seven-per-cent drop.  Read more

Death of Coral Reefs Could Devastate Nations

By Brian Skoloff

The Associated Press, March 25, 2010

Coral reefs are dying, and scientists and governments around the world are contemplating what will happen if they disappear altogether. The idea positively scares them. Coral reefs are part of the foundation of the ocean food chain. Nearly half the fish the world eats make their homes around them. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide — by some estimates, 1 billion across Asia alone — depend on them for their food and their livelihoods. If the reefs vanished, experts say, hunger, poverty and political instability could ensue. "Whole nations will be threatened in terms of their existence," said Carl Gustaf Lundin of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.  Read more

Nations reject coral protections at wildlife conservation conference

By Juliet Eilperin

The Washington Post , March 22, 2010

Delegates at a global wildlife conservation conference voted Sunday to protect a coveted salamander but rejected a more sweeping proposal that would have regulated the trade of red and pink corals worldwide.

The latest round of voting at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) underscored nations' unwillingness to forgo immediate economic gains from exploiting natural resources, even when these activities are putting plants and animals under intense pressure. Read more

How Much Carbon Do Different Forests Store &

What Size Offsets Your Driving For a Year?

By Matthew McDermott

Treehugger, March 1, 2010

As any TreeHugger worth his or her epiphytes knows, preserving tropical rainforests is a major part of preventing the worst of climate change--deforestation itself causing nearly as many carbon emissions as the entire transportation sector. But over the past year there have been a number of studies all essentially claiming that one particular type of forest or another stored more carbon than rainforests and why aren't we trying hard to protect them too? Which is a fair enough question to ask. So let's quickly sort it out a bit and provide some context.  Read more

Why Conservation Matters in Conflict Zones

By Jennifer Hattam

Treehugger, Feb 24, 2010

It's easy to be cynical or pessimistic about the spotting of a rare type of bird, the creation of a national park, or the establishment of a protected species list in a country such as Afghanistan. Where violence and poverty are rife, why should time, money, and energy be spent protecting animals or landscapes? Isn't such work at best futile, at worst detracting from meeting real needs? To such questions, the founder of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)'s Afghanistan Program has offered a compelling defense. Read more

Mealy Mountains Labrador site of Canada's newest park

By Stephanie Dearing

Digital Journal, Feb 5, 2010

The last wilderness area of Labrador has been transformed into a National Park. The designation will nearly double Labrador's protected areas.

Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador - Already under threat by mining interests and the Trans-Labrador Highway, environmental groups have been asking for the Mealy Mountain area to be protected by the government. Today, they got their wish, although there are still two more formal steps to be completed before the park is formally created. By acting to protect one of the largest areas in Labrador that does not contain roads, the 10,700 square kilometer (2.65 million acres) park will become the largest park in Eastern Canada. In a press release, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said

Read more

Environment: Keeping Wetlands from Becoming Wastelands

By Stephen Leahy

Inter Press Service, February 05, 2010

Swamps, marshes and other wetlands are beginning to be recognised as a country's 'green jewels', even in a tropical paradise like Mahé Island here in the Seychelles, with its stunning beaches and dramatic granite outcrops.

'Wetlands are one of the world's richest ecosystems on the planet,' said Joel Morgan, minister for environment, natural resources and transport, Republic of Seychelles.

'We islanders live closer to nature than many others and we have long understood the importance of wetlands and environmental services and resources they provide us with,' Morgan said at the first-ever World Wetlands Week. Read more

Haiti's tragedy belongs to the environment

By Stephan Faris

Global Post, January 28, 2010

Most people wouldn’t consider an earthquake to be an environmental issue. But while the tremors that shattered Haiti early this month have nothing to do with the island’s degradation, the extent of the suffering they unleashed is a direct result of the country’s ecological woes. The reason can be seen from the sky. The devastated nation shares its island with the Dominican Republic, but misfortune always seems to strike on its side of a border that is demarcated by an abrupt shift from lush green to bare brown. While the Dominican Republic has largely managed to preserve its trees, Haiti has lost 98 percent of its forest cover. Read more

Intenational Year of Biodiversity

By Bob McDonald

CBC News, January 8, 2010

Following on the International Year of Astronomy, the United Nations is continuing its scientific theme this year with a salute to the hugely important, but often misunderstood, concept of biodiversity.

This term, also known as natural diversity, species richness, or natural heritage, is generally defined as the "totality of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region."

It’s a holistic concept that goes beyond the usual poster children for the environmental movement: polar bears, penguins, snowy owls or eagles. While protecting them is important, they only represent a small part of the food chain. What’s really important are all the other creatures needed to support them: the sea urchins, bacteria, tree fungus, rodents, bugs, the forms of life that don’t look so great blown up to poster size. It’s that entire web of life, the foundation, which is seriously crumbling because of the human tendency to prefer monoculture. Read more

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