It has been 70 years since Rothschild giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi), aka Baringo giraffes, disappeared from the Lake Baringo area of Kenya that gave them one of their names. But now eight of these critically endangered animals have returned to the lake, and with them comes an unexpected bonus: a promise of peace.
According to a report from Kenya's The Standard, the Pokot and Njemps peoples have been at war for centuries "in endless fights over cattle, pasture and water," resulting in "blood-spilling orgies of violence."
Elders from the two communities met recently, conducted unity prayers, and promised to end the violence between them. Their incentive: tourism and jobs. Lake Baringo is a popular destination for bird-watchers, but constant conflict has kept tourists away from what is known as the Baringo District where the Pokot and Njemps people live. The elders say that they hope the presence of the endangered giraffes will bring more visitors to the area.
Already, the presence of the giraffes has created jobs. More than 100 people have been employed to provide security for the animals.
Rothschild giraffes disappeared from the area in the 1940s following an extended drought and a history of poaching. It was the Njemps elders who came up with the idea to bring giraffes back to Lake Baringo four years ago. They approached the nearby Ruko Community Wildlife Conservancy (RCWC), a 19,000-acre wildlife sanctuary which is already home to numerous other species and had already relocated a herd of impala to the area.
With the help of the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Northern Rangelands Trust, the RCWC acquired eight giraffes from the Soysambu Conservancy, also in Kenya, and began the difficult task of relocating the giraffes. It wasn't easy: it started with a six-hour truck ride, then an hour-and-a-half ferry across Lake Baringo, with the latter marking the first time that giraffes have traveled by water in Kenya.
The four male and four female giraffes now have been at Lake Baringo since February 7 and are reportedly adapting well to their new environment. Rothschild giraffes are critically endangered, with only about 670 of the animals left in the world. RCWC hopes the eight giraffes will start breeding and give birth to a new population at their historic Lake Baringo home.
On Friday, March 11, Japan was rocked by an earthquake. People were displaced, a nuclear reactor was in trouble, and the world watched as a tsunami flooded Japan, threatened the islands of the Pacific, and ultimately hit the western coasts of North and South America. Chris Rowan pointed out that very little of the devastation resulting from this earthquake was from the initial shaking. This is partly because of Japan's stringent building codes. But mainly because any damage from the seismic waves that sent skyscrapers in Tokyo swaying was dwarfed by the impact of the 10 metre tsunami that hit the Japanese coast less than an hour later."Most of the reporting (both good and bad) that has been done on the earthquake, the tsunami, and the resulting fallout from both has focused on their effects on humans. But humans are just one species affected by these sorts of disasters. I wondered: what happens to animals when faced with such a massive tsunami?
Slowly, a bit of information about various scaley, furry, or feathered critters has begun to trickle out of the affected areas. Kazutoshi Takami, a veterinarian at the Osaka Municipal Tennoji Zoological Gardens, reported last week that several zoos and aquariums were suffering shortages of gas, heater fuel, and food and drinkable water for humans as well as for animals. Also, according to Takami, the Fukushima Aquarium made plans to move their sea mammals and birds to Kamogawa Sea World.
M. Sanjayan of The Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Virginia, told ScienceInsider that the biggest impact on wildlife would be on shorebirds nesting on small islands throughout the Pacific, rather than on the Japanese mainland. Indeed, the majority of wildlife-related news of the tsunami has come from small Pacific islands such as those in the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
On Saturday, March 12, Pete Leary, a wildlife biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service who is stationed at Midway, blogged extensively on the tsunami and subsequent animal rescue operations: "We had all 67 island employees/visitors up here watching the news on BBC and watching our tide gauge data over the internet. We saw that we had about a 5 foot rise in the tide gauge level, but were glad that we couldn't see any water when we looked out the windows.
After looking at a bit of the washover on Sand Island, and setting a crew to work on digging albatross chicks and petrels out of the debris, Greg and I took the boat over to Eastern Island. On the way, we passed thousands of albatross adults and petrels that had been washed into the water and lost their ability to stay dry. Their feathers were messed up by being tumbled over the island and through the vegetation. We pulled some into the boat, but needed to get to Eastern Island, so we had to hope that most of them would paddle to shore.
Eastern Island was mostly washed over, so 10's of thousands of chicks were washed away. I'll have to look at our count numbers from Dec. to figure out how many chicks were in the affected areas. There were dead fish by the hundreds up in the middle of the island. The short-tailed albatross chick must really be wondering what kind of place it lives in because it was washed away from the nest for the second time this year already. This time, it was about 40 yards away from the original nest. It was easy to spot because all the other chicks were washed away in a previous storm. I didn't want to pick the chick up, because it was already stressed and upset, but the parents may not have found it that far from the nest. I put out a sheet of plastic and when it stepped onto it, I gave it a sled ride the 40 yards back to its nest. I hope that's all the excitement that it has for the rest of the season.
There were a lot of chicks and adults buried in debris (mostly dead vegetation). Greg and I were digging out stuck birds all day. We took our volunteers and some people from the visitors group over yesterday and dug out another hundred or so birds. We also found 2 turtles that were washed quite a way up onto the island, which were then carried back to the beach and seemed glad to get back in the water. At least we didn't find any injured Hawaiian monk seals or Laysan ducks. The seals were back resting on the beaches on Friday. Although we lost a lot of wildlife, all of the people who are here because of the wildlife are safe."
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is now estimating that the Midway refuge sustained losses of more than 110,000 Laysan Albatross chicks – representing approximately 22% of chicks born this year – along with an estimated two thousand adults. In addition, thousands of Bonin petrels were buried alive, and thousands of fish were washed ashore where they suffocated. Thankfully, Pete and his staff were able to rescue a handful of birds and turtles, but this is small comfort compared to the loss of entire shorebird nesting sites.
Darwin’s famous Galapagos Islands fared a bit better. Despite the fact that the tsunami struck during high tide, the water rose over 1.7 meters beyond normal levels, flooding buildings along the coastline. UNESCO has reported that the Southwest side of San Cristobal Island, home to a nesting site for marine iguanas, was among the most affected areas of the Galápagos Islands World Heritage site. While some mortality is expected among the iguanas, officials do not expect extensive damage.
What Can We Expect? While some of the reports are heartening, and many are devasting, more in-depth research into the short- and long-term effects of the tsunami on marine and coastal ecosystems will take much longer. But the 2004 magnitude 9.15 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, and the resulting tsunami that rippled across the Indian Ocean have been extensively studied, and allow us to speculate regarding possible outcomes of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
The Wildlife Trust of India, along with the International Fund for Animal Welfare initiated several investigations following the earthquake and tsunami to assess their impact on wildlife. Overall, they found that damage to wildlife populations was generally limited on the mainland, and slightly worse on the islands. Particularly hard-hit, however, were coral reef systems. Several beaches were washed away, and freshwater habitats were inundated with saltwater. While most of these ecosystems were eventually able to rebound, problems did occur.
For example, one mainland wildlife sanctuary became flooded with saltwater and covered with sand, making is impossible for the various plant-eating ungulates (hoofed animals) to graze. Even worse, with seawater comes toxic pollution.
According to the Wildlife Trust report: Other grave problems stem from the onslaught of seawater laden with sediments and toxins. Aquifers, the primary source of drinking water, have been contaminated by saltwater, raw sewage, oil, and other pollutants. On the coasts of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, paddies and farm fields are smothered under a crust of salt and silt. Some areas may never recover, for others irrigation and one or more rainy seasons may be enough to flush out the soil. For now farmers are being encouraged to plant salt-tolerant crops, like pumpkins and kale.
In other areas, rather than covering plants with saltwater, the tsunami simply washed all plants away, making it possible for invasive species to take root, quite literally. The change in plant life wasn’t problematic for some species, such as the fan-throated lizard (Sitana ponticeriana), which were able to survive in the new ecosystem. Other species, surely, were not so lucky, but little information is available.
And there were probably other invaders, as well. Furry ones. Large dead trees from distant islands were found washed up on mainland beaches. While there was no danger to beach ecosystems from the trees themselves, since they were dead, they may have carried some critters with them that would eventually colonize mainland coasts. It is well-known that rodents, reptiles, and insects are quite capable of setting up camp in new environments after rafting across the sea.
As we can already tell from the Japan earthquake, birds are particularly vulnerable to tsunamis. But in the 2004 tsunami, it wasn’t all bad news for the birds! In fact, after the seawater receded, it left quite a bit of silt and sediment behind. Some of that sediment settled into pre-existing lagoons and creeks, making them much shallower. This would be bad news for most inhabitants of those lagoons, but great news for wading birds, who now had new places to nest. In one ironic example, the tsunami actually helped reverse human damage to a particular creek: This creek used to be a local birding area that attracts a large number of migrant waders and the blackwinged stilt (Himantopus himantopus). A few years ago, the Chennai Corporation as part of an effort to beautify the city had dredged and deepened the creek. The waders that had since left the creek had made a re-appearance after the tsunami brought back all the silt!
Other birds didn’t fare so well. A group of birds called the megapodes, which require external sources of heat to incubate their eggs, are found in the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Because they prefer to lay their eggs on sandy ground, over 90% of megapode nests were located within thirty meters of the waterline, prior to the tsunami. Several of the islands that are home to the megapodes were completely washed over, and others very nearly so. As with any bird species, maintaining constant temperature is critical for proper development of the birds within the eggs. Since these birds use external heat, however, the flooding of the nests by cold seawater became problematic for those nests that were closest to the water. Many of the birds that did survive relocated into the interior of the island, settling into evacuated villages. But when the villagers began to return, they were not happy to find the birds nesting around their homes. Even worse, the main source of income for these villagers came from coconut plantations, were were almost entirely washed away. As a result, the villagers turned to hunting and fishing in order to survive. One scientist noted "Each tribal family has one to four airguns. The Nicobar megapode was found to be the most favoured targets of these airguns."
As for shallow water fish, it was initially assumed that the tsunami would be beneficial for them as well. Researchers hypothesized that the dead and decaying material in the sea would result in a huge growth in plankton populations. This hypothesis was later confirmed, when scientists observed massive increases in plankton-feeding fish species, like sardines. Increases in fish populations, coupled with reductions in motorized boats in the area, brought more dolphins to the coastal waters as well.
There was more good news, for the sea turtles of Sri Lanka. Initial reports had confirmed that there was extensive damage to nesting sites, hatcheries, and adult foraging habitats due to the tsunami. However, the number of nesting females, at least at one site, remained unchanged in the following year. It is possible that the adults were simply at sea when the tsunami hit. The good news for these turtles should be understood in context, however. The researchers were quick to note that most sea turtle species in the region were already endangered, and that "the fate of sea turtles in the region is more likely to be determined by long-term human influences than by infrequent natural catastrophes."
When it came to non-human primates, the outcomes were mixed. In 2000, 40 groups of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis umbrosa), comprising 814 individuals were observed, with group size varying from 7 to 98 animals. While the groups that lived mostly in the interior of the islands were relatively unaffected, coastal groups were not as lucky. In particular, these groups lost quite a few juvenile macaques. In 2000, the adult to juvenile ratio was approximately 1:1, but following the tsunami, it had dropped to 1:0.4. The reduction in the proportion of juveniles will have long-term consequences for the social organization and popluation structure of those groups, as fewer juvenile females means fewer baby monkeys in subsequent generations. It is possible, that the reduction in macaque numbers wasn’t due to the tsunami itself, but rather came about as a result of the washing away of coastal fruit trees, leaving fewer resources and food for the macaque groups.
If the outcome of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami for wildlife can be at all predictive of what is to come for the Japanese tsunami, there may be a few lessons to learn. First, coastal ecosystems were, in general, worse off than interior ecosystems. Second, islands fared far worse than the mainland. Already, data from Japan and the Pacific islands has begun to display this pattern. Third, many species seem to be able to either benefit from or at least persevere through such natural disasters. And where one species suffers, another might benefit.
Fourth, even if a given species isn’t directly affected by a natural disaster, there are often repercussions due to the complex interactions among different species, between plants and animals, and between predators and prey. Rather than asking about the outcome for a specific species, it makes more sense to ask about the health of larger ecosystems, in the wake of a tsunami.
And humans are a fundamental part of most ecosystems – which brings us to the final, and most important lesson. Human behavior can help ecosystems rebound following a tsunami, or it can continue the destruction. It was partially due to a moratorium on fishing – one that people generally respected – that allowed the sardine populations to thrive in the plankton-rich water, which allowed the dolphin populations to thrive, in turn, on the sardines. On the other hand, the hunting of the megapodes in the Nicobar Islands made it even harder for those birds to survive. And the tsunami might not have been terrible for the sea turtles, but they were endangered to begin with, thanks to human activity. As devastating as natural disasters can be to natural ecosystems, they are nothing compared to the long-term effects of human behavior.
The Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, Beijing's Forbidden City, and hundreds of other world landmarks will be abruptly blacked out Saturday night.But the 60-minute power outages—scheduled for 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., local time—won't be the results of a terrorist plot, natural disaster, or massive solar flare. They're all part of Earth Hour 2011.
The organizers behind the fifth annual Earth Hour urge people to turn off lights and other nonessential appliances in a symbolic show of support for action against climate change and for energy conservation in general. In 2010, 128 countries and territories took part in Earth Hour. Eighty-nine national capitals participated, as did nine of the world's ten biggest cities, thousands of other communities, countless businesses, and hundreds of millions of individuals, according to WWF, the international conservation nonprofit organisation, which organizes Earth Hour.
Earth Hour 2011 may be even larger, thanks in part to promotion by world leaders such as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "Let us join together to celebrate this shared quest to protect the planet and ensure human well-being," Ban said in a statement. "Let us use 60 minutes of darkness to help the world see the light."
Earth Hour 2011 to Be Extended? Earth Hour itself doesn't have a significant impact on actual energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming. After all, even if electricity use stopped completely during Earth Hour, the event covers just 1 of the 8,766 hours in a year. Of course not everyone participates, and even in areas officially observing Earth Hour, plenty of essential lights and power-consuming appliances are left on.
But Earth Hour isn't about immediate energy impact, organizers say. Rather, it's about demonstrating commitment to change and serving as a jumping-off point for everyday actions. That's why this year's event introduces "Beyond the Hour" an effort to challenge Earth Hour 2011 participants to choose an action that will help the environment and implement it over the coming year. So far on the site people have pledged to recycle more, upgrade their light bulbs, ride bicycles, and give up meat, among other actions.
The Addax (Addax nasomaculatus), also known as the screwhorn antelope, is a critically endangered species of antelope that lives in the Sahara desert. As suggested by its alternative name, this pale antelope has long, twisted horns. It is closely related to the oryx, but differs from other antelopes by having large square teeth like cattle and lacking the typical facial glands. Although extremely rare in its native habitat due to unregulated hunting, it is quite common in captivity. They are sometimes hunted as trophies on ranches in the United States.
The Addax stands about 1 metre (3.3 ft) at the shoulder and its weight varies rom 60 to 120 kilograms (130 to 260 lb). The coloring of their coat varies with the season. In the winter it is greyish brown with white hind quarters and legs. In the summer, the coat turns almost completely white or sandy blonde. Their head is marked with brown or black patches that form an X over their nose. They have a scraggly beard and prominent red nostrils. Long black hairs stick out between their curved and spiraling horns ending in a short mane on the neck. Horns, found on both males and females, have two to three twists and can reach 80 centimetres (31 in) in females and 120 centimetres (47 in) in males. Their tail is short and slender, ending in a puff of hair. The hooves are broad with flat soles and strong dewclaws to help them walk on soft sand.
Addax live in desert terrain where they eat grass, and leaves of what shrub and bushes are available. They are amply suited to live in the deep desert under extreme conditions. Addax can survive without free water almost indefinitely, because they get moisture from their food and dew that condenses on plants. Scientists believe that the addax has a special lining in its stomach that stores water in pouches to use in times of dehydration.
Addax herds contain both males and females and have from two to twenty animals, though they had more in previous times. They will generally stay in one place and only wander widely in search of food. Addax have a strong social structure, probably based on age, and herds are led by the oldest male. Herds are more likely to be found along the northern edge of the tropical rain system during the summer and move north as winter falls. Addax are able to track rainfall and will head for these areas where vegetation is more plentiful. Interestingly, Addax are nocturnal and rest during the day in depressions they dig for themselves.
In ancient times, addax occurred from Northern Africa to Arabia. Pictures from Egyptian tombs show them being kept as domesticated animals in around 2500 BC. The population of addax is today a mere fraction of what it once was and this dramatic decrease is mainly attributed to over-hunting. These slow-moving animals provide easy targets, particularly with motorized vehicles and automatic weapons, and their meat and leather are prized by local people. Other factors involved in the decline include desertification, drought and habitat encroachment by pastoral expansion and subsistence agriculture. It is estimated that fewer than five hundred individuals survive in the wild today, with the bulk of these lying between the Termit area of Niger and the Bodélé region of Western Chad. The addax is listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), thus prohibiting international trade. Provided effective protection is granted for the last remaining pockets of populations, it is possible that the species can increase. With this in mind, the Sahara Conservation Fund has developed a regional strategy that when implemented will protect the remaining wild populations and facilitate the recolonisation of neighbouring suitable habitats.
A protected population exists in the Yotvata Hai-Bar (Wildlife Preserve) Nature Reserve in Israel, to the north of Elat. The reserve was set up in 1968 with the view to bolster populations of endangered desert species. In Niger, a vast protected area is being established in the Termit region to protect the largest remaining addax population in the wild. There are currently around 2,000 individuals in captive populations around the world and these are being used in reintroduction programmes for the species in Tunisia and Morocco.
Mangroves are tangled orchards of spindly shrubs that thrive in the interface between land and sea. They bloom in muddy soil where the water is briny and shallow, and the air muggy. Salt marshes and sea grasses also flourish in these brackish hinterlands. Worldwide, these coastal habitats are recognized for their natural beauty and ability to filter pollution, house fish nurseries and buffer shorelines against storms.
Less known is their ability to sequester vast amounts of carbon—up to five times that stored in tropical forests. Dubbed "blue carbon" because of their littoral environment, these previously undervalued coastal carbon sinks are beginning to gain attention from the climate and conservation communities.
Because they hold so much carbon, destroying them can release substantial amounts of CO2. People around the world wreck coastal habitats through aquaculture, agriculture, timber extraction and real estate development. To date, human encroachment has destroyed more than 35 percent of mangroves, 30 percent of sea grass meadows and 20 percent of salt marshes.
Stopping such destruction could therefore become an important element in confronting climate change. "Blue carbon is a source of emissions that hasn't been addressed by the climate community and therefore creates an opportunity to reduce emissions," says Roger Ullman, executive director of the Linden Trust for Conservation in New York City, which promotes the use of conservation finance and environmental markets. "These fabulous ecosystems…don't cover a very large expanse of territory, yet still provide enormously important services to humanity and are being destroyed three or four times faster than the rate of tropical forests."
Emissions from wetlands destruction
Case in point is California's Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, explains Dan Laffoley, marine vice chairman of the World Commission on Protected Areas at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Over the last 100 years, 1,800 square kilometers of wetlands were drained, emitting two gigatons of CO2 that had been accruing in the plants and soils for thousands of years. Between 10 million and 15 million tons of CO2 continues to be released from the Sacramento Delta each year, an amount equivalent to around 3 percent of California's total greenhouse gas emissions.
At the global scale, coastal wetland destruction could account for 1 to 3 percent of industrial emissions; a number that will increase along with coastal wetland destruction. "In 2011 we have a reason why mud is important," Laffoley says.
Even so, almost all coastal and marine system research and exploration is about a decade behind its terrestrial counterpart. People have focused on understanding the surrounding lands, rather than the unseen animals, plants and processes below the ocean's surface, explains Emily Pidgeon, director of the Marine Climate Change Program for Conservation International. The ocean is more dynamic and its systems generally more complicated to access and understand than land-based ecosystems, such as forests.
Take remote sensing, for example. Most approaches, including satellite-based systems, cannot see underwater. So whereas these methods very effectively provide data that enable scientists to estimate the amount of carbon in forests, they cannot get the equivalent information on the carbon load of sea grasses or other submerged marine ecosystems, especially in sediment where most of the CO2 in blue carbon systems is stored. Instead, scientists are required to go to sites and dig up meters of the sediment to measure how much carbon it holds—a thankless task, to be sure.
"Mangroves are as unsexy as you get, since you ride a boat through them and get covered in mosquitoes," Pidgeon says.
Green cash for blue carbon
Getting local communities to save their mangroves will depend on economics. Land managers, farmers and other developers often opt to control these watery landscapes, thereby transforming them into income-generating acreage, such as a shrimp farm or rice paddy. The carbon markets, with their carbon credits selling between $15 to $20 per ton, could offer an alternative. The fees would encourage land conservation, which would prevent the release of carbon into the atmosphere, and the markets would reward them for mitigating climate change.
Whereas many of these programs are at least three to five years in the future, the preliminary economics looks like it could work, especially in certain cases to preserve these fragile ecosystems, such as avoiding the conversion of mangroves to shrimp farms in the Indo-Pacific region.
Still, the main hope for conserving these coastal habitats lies in a combination of economics and science. The first step is recognizing the importance of coastal carbon pools as a significant tool for climate mitigation, says Stephen Crooks, a wetlands expert who is climate change program manager of ESA PWA, a San Francisco–based environmental consulting and engineering firm.
Even without carbon markets nations have obligations to manage their greenhouse gas emissions, which means that the carbon in these coastal habitats can be tallied in national accounts as a way of contributing to their management of global greenhouse emissions. This would be especially helpful in the Coral Triangle (an oceanic area between Southeast Asia and northern Australia that encompasses Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands) as well as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China, where coastal habitats are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Companies could also start volunteering to launch socially and environmentally friendly coastal habitat projects in the name of climate protection.
The final prong would be the creation of international carbon markets. As Crooks puts it: "One day the biggest bang for your buck may come from conservation."
A member of China's parliament has proposed a ban on the trade in shark fins, state press said Wednesday -- a move that would likely face huge opposition from the nation's culinary traditionalists.
Shark fins are used to make a soup that is a staple at high-end restaurants throughout China, and is often served on special occasions. But scientists blame the practice of shark-finning -- slicing off the fins of live animals and then throwing them back in the water to die -- for a worldwide collapse in shark populations. "Only legislation can stop shark fin trading and reduce the killings of sharks," Xinhua news agency quoted Ding Liguo, a billionaire delegate to the National People's Congress (NPC), as saying.
Enormous profits generated by the shark fin trade have led to over-fishing and the brutal slaughter of sharks, with some 30 species near extinction, he said. China should lead the world in banning the trade because 95 percent of the world's shark fins are consumed in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, he added. It was not immediately clear if Ding, the executive chairman of Delong Holdings Limited, filed a formal written proposal to the NPC, China's rubber-stamp parliament now in session, or just lodged a verbal request. In any event, any law banning shark fin trade would likely take years to review and come into force if adopted.
A ban would face strong opposition from Chinese fishermen and restaurant owners, especially as rising incomes have led more and more Chinese to seek the health benefits traditionally attributed to a diet of shark fin. "People are mistaken by the supposed nutritional value of shark fin," Ding countered. "Research shows the nutritional value of shark fin is similar to that of poultry, fish skin, meat and eggs. It is tasteless and its low level nutritional value is hard to absorb by the body." According to Shark Savers, a global organisation seeking to ban the trade in shark fins, over 100 million sharks are killed a year, mostly for their fins. In some parts of the world's oceans, shark populations have decreased by up to 90 percent over the last 20 years, the group said.
Over the past twenty years Indonesia lost more than 24 million hectares of forest, an area larger than the U.K. Much of the deforestation was driven by logging for overseas markets. According to the World Bank, a substantial proportion of this logging was illegal.
While deforestation rates have dipped since the late 1990s, illegal logging remains a problem in Indonesia. In fact it is seen as one of the biggest challenges for Indonesia in meeting the greenhouse gas reductions targets pledged by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: in 2009 the Indonesian President pledged to unilaterally cut the country's emissions 26 percent from a projected 2020 baseline.
Curtailing illegal logging may seem relatively simple: hire more forestry police to conduct more patrols, strengthen fines, prosecute cases, and implement better tracking systems for legitimate timber. But at the root of the problem of illegal logging is something bigger: Indonesia's land policy. The bulk of Indonesia's forest is owned by the state, which historically has doled out large concessions — often tens of thousands of hectares in extent — to logging companies. Local communities mostly lose out, leaving some to seek opportunities from illicit timber harvesting. Without clear ownership rights to land, communities have little incentive to reject illegal logging or manage forests for the long-term. The model — which has contributed to the abandonment of traditional land stewardship in many areas — has driven large-scale devastation of Indonesia's rich forest ecosystems.
Can the tide be turned? There are signs it can. Indonesia is beginning to see a shift back toward traditional models of forest management in some areas. Where it is happening, forests are recovering. For example "people's forests" in Java are, for the first time in generations, regrowing. Given a stake in forest ownership, communities in Java have an interest in reforestation for timber production and other benefits afforded by forests.
Telapak, a membership organization with offices on several Indonesian islands, understands the issue well. It is pushing community logging as the "new" forest management regime in Indonesia. Telapak sees community forest management as a way to combat illegal logging while creating sustainable livelihoods.
Telapak's interest in community logging emerged out of its advocacy and campaigning work against illegal logging. After a series of high profile campaigns — including one which resulted in co-founder Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto ("Ruwi") being kidnapped and tortured by thugs hired by a local timber baron — Telapak decided it need to not just highlight environmental problems, but promote solutions. Telapak has since expanded its goals to include securing and protecting local community ownership and management rights of forests. The broader scope is inherently more complex than advocacy work. Telapak must now work to build technical capacity on the ground, push legal reform, delve into politics, and build business models that sustain and nurture community forest management. The path promises to be a challenging one, but Telapak is growing: its members now manage more than 200,000 hectares of forest land across Java, Lombok, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Papua. It is also working in areas outside the forest sector, including fisheries, the ornamental fish trade, and mass media. All the while, Telapak continues its campaigning efforts, including a recent exposé on illegal logging and palm oil plantation development in Indonesian New Guinea: Papua and West Papua.
Earthlings is a documentary about the abuse and maltreatment of animals by our species. It is produced by Nation Earth and narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, and is available to stream online FREE in it's entirety on the website.
If you want to support the cause however, you can buy the DVD. It's a truly heartbreaking film and has a very poignant message that should give food for thought to anyone watching it. Hopefully it will encourage more of us to take action and demand change.
Project Borneo is looking for 10 adventurous, passionate and courageous leaders (aged 18 - 35) to feature in a 3D documentary and a 6-part TV series. These 'real life action heroes' will live in a Dayak house in Borneo for 5 months and work with acclaimed scientist Dr Willie Smits and Orangutan Outreach to combat deforestation and conserve the remaining orangutan population.
Award-winning Queensland production company Virgo Productions, in collaboration with National Geographic Entertainment, is making this 3D Action documentary entitled Project Borneo 3D.
To feature in the film, you will have to submit a ninety second video explaining what deforestation means to you and why you want to save forests and orangutans. Any previous conservation experience would be particularly useful. They're not just looking for pretty faces!
The world's biggest and fastest growing mud volcano, Lusi sprang to life in May 2006, and it and may continue to spew hot mud for another 26 years, according to a new study. Lusi could expel the equivalent of 56,000 Olympic-size swimming pools of mud before it finally simmers down, say scientists from the U.K.'s Durham University.
Mud volcanoes, which can appear on land or underwater, form when underground layers of silt or clay become pressurized either by tectonic activity or by a buildup of hydrocarbon gases.
To calculate Lusi's future mud flow, the team observed water pressure in a borehole near the volcano and combined that data with knowledge of the rocks' properties and mudflow volumes since 2006.
"The calculation should enable a better assessment of the final impact of the disaster and gives the inhabitants of East Java an indication of how long they can expect to be affected by mud from the volcano," study leader Richard Davies said in a statement.
In the nearly five years since Lusi reawakened, villages have disappeared under the mud, which is 60 feet (18 meters) deep in places, according to a 2008 article in National Geographic magazine. Thirteen people have died and at least 10,000 families have been forced from their homes, according to the Durham University scientists.
Meanwhile, trucks and backhoes work relentlessly to contain the damage, fortifying dikes against the 600,000 barrels of mud that continue to surge out each day.
The cause of Lusi's 2006 eruption is still disputed: Many blame the company Lapindo who were drilling for gas in the area. The same Durham University team released a report in 2007 that said the upwelling began when an exploratory gas well punched through a layer of rock 9,300 feet (2,800 meters) below the surface, allowing hot, high-pressure water to escape.
One online writer states: "Lapindo Brantas, an oil exploration company, was drilling a natural gas well when hot mud started flowing out of one of the wells. Efforts to plug the well only resulted in more and more surface connections leading to more and more mud flow. From the strata below the earth, hot mud and water at 60 °C, high in Hydrogen Sulphide and at great pressures, started spewing out. This flow of hot mud continues even after three years and now not from a few points, but from more than ninety points."
Local media has continually reported the event, but the human cost is often highlighted more than the massive environmental impact. The latest report comes from the Humanitus Sidoarjo Fund on 17th February, which stated that a fifty meter section of retaining wall had begun to collapse. Apparently the Sidoarjo Mudflow Management Agency will be working with the state railway to ensure the nearby railway won't be affected by the situation. They didn't mention if they are working to minimise the impact on anything other than the railway.
The Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is endemic to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is often known colloquially in North America as the Prong Buck, Pronghorn Antelope, or simply Antelope, as it closely resembles true antelopes. It is the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae. During the Pleistocene period, 12 species existed in North America. About 5 existed when humans entered North America 13,000 years ago; and now all but A. americana are extinct.
Males have a prominent pair of horns on the top of the head, which are made up of an outer sheath of hairlike substance that grows around a bony core; the outer sheath is shed annually. Males have a horn sheath with a prong. Females have smaller horns, sometimes barely visible; they are straight and very rarely pronged. Males are further differentiated from females in that males will have a small patch of black hair at the angle of the mandible. Pronghorns have a distinct, musky odor. Males mark territory with a scent gland located on the sides of the head. They also have very large eyes, with a 320 degree field of vision.
It can run exceptionally fast, being built for maximum predator evasion through running, and is generally accepted to be the fastest land mammal in the New World. The top speed is very hard to measure accurately and varies between individuals; but has been cited as up to 86 km/h. It is often cited as the second-fastest land animal, second only to the cheetah. It can, however, sustain high speeds longer than cheetahs. University of Idaho zoologist John Byers has suggested that the Pronghorn evolved its running ability to escape from extinct predators such as the American cheetah since its speed greatly exceeds that of surviving North American predators.
Pronghorns live primarily in grasslands but also in brushland and deserts. They eat a wide variety of plant foods, often including plants that are unpalatable or toxic to domestic livestock though they also compete with these for food.An ongoing study by the Lava Lake Institute for Science and Conservation and the Wildlife Conservation Society shows an overland migration route that covers more than 160 miles. The migrating pronghorn start travel from the foothills of the Pioneer Mountains through Craters of the Moon National Monument to the Continental Divide. Dr. Scott Bergen of Wildlife Conservation Society says, "This study shows that pronghorn are the true marathoners of the American West. With these new findings, we can confirm that Idaho supports a major overland mammal migration--something that is becoming increasingly rare in the U.S. and worldwide."
By the 1920s, hunting pressure had reduced the Pronghorn population to about 13,000.Protection of habitat and hunting restrictions have allowed their numbers to recover to an estimated population of between 500,000 and 1,000,000.There has been some recent decline in a few localized populations,due to blue tongue disease which is spread from sheep; however the overall trend has been positive since conservation measures were put in place.
Pronghorn migration corridors are threatened by habitat fragmentation and the blocking of traditional migration routes. In a migration study conducted by Lava Lake Institute for Science and Conservation and the Wildlife Conservation Society, at one point the migration corridor bottlenecks to an area only 200 yards wide.
Pronghorns are now quite numerous and outnumbered people in Wyoming and parts of northern Colorado until just recently. It is legally hunted in western states for purposes of population control and food, the meat is rich and lean. There are no major range-wide threats, although localized declines are taking place, particularly to the Sonoran Pronghorn, mainly as a result of, among others, livestock grazing, the construction of roads, fences and other barriers that pose barriers to historical habitat, illegal hunting, insufficient forage and water, and lack of recruitment. The Pronghorn is Classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List and listed on Appendix I of CITES. Subspecies: Antilocapra americana mexicana, Antilocapra americana peninsularis and Antilocapra americana sonoriensis are listed on Appendix I of CITES. To find out more about conservation efforts, please try US Fish & Wildlife Service or the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Hollywood love to create action movies with heroes "saving the world", but they're only focused on the survival of one species. They seem to forget the real heroes out there in tropical rainforests, working unpaid to save species on the brink of extinction. They are saving our earth every day. Friends of the Earth are one of those organisations who are making real change and they now need your help. There are many of us sitting at home wanting to get involved in conservation, but don't see how we can. Or perhaps we don't feel we can make a difference. Well, if all those people who said they can't make a difference wrote an email or signed a petition in a worthwhile cause, then that would be making a huge difference.
And that's where the Cyberactivists initiative comes in. Friends of the Earth are backing causes that need names to push through certain legislation that will make real change where it matters. If you would like to support, please click the link below and you can start tilting the balance in the Earth's favour straight away.
The United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.
If you would like to know more, you can check the website as the program develops.
Pavan Sukhdev, leader of the Green Economy Initiative for the United Nations Environment Programme, talks in the video about the importance of preserving forests to help minimise global warming.
Pavan Sukhdev is a senior banker at Deutsche Bank and is currently on secondment to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to lead the agency’s Green Economy Initiative, which includes The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study (TEEB), the Green Economy Report and the Green Jobs report.
