Global and Local Environmental Issues

[Orion]

Shrimp tuned to ocean temperature

Stocks of northern shrimp, the essential ingredient in the ubiquitous prawn cocktail, could be badly affected if ocean temperatures rise.

Researchers report, in the journal Science, that shrimp eggs hatch within days of each spring phytoplankton bloom - the main food source for the larvae.

They conclude that shrimp are adapted to local temperature, which determines how long eggs take to develop.

If seas warm, as predicted, shrimp stocks could decline, the team says.

The international team of scientists found that, throughout the north Atlantic - from Cape Cod in the US to to Svalbard in Norway - northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis ) eggs hatched, on average, in time with the bloom.

This is the period when food is abundant, so the larvae have a far better chance of survival.

But to get the timing right, the shrimp must mate during exactly the right period during the previous year.

"They don't do this on a year by year basis - deciding to mate a week later because the algal bloom will be a week later," said Peter Koeller, a researcher from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, who led the study.

"This is on evolutionary time scales - they have adapted to local conditions."

This means it would be impossible for the shrimp to adapt to a rapid change in temperature at the seafloor, where they live.

Shrimp boats

Dr Koeller's team collected samples of shrimp daily and counted the proportion of females that were still carrying their eggs. With satellite imaging, they were able to compare the timing of the algal blooms to the release of the larvae.

As Dr Koeller pointed out, an explosion in the northern shrimp population in the 1980s and 1990s was linked to a drop in sea temperatures at that time.

He said it was feasible that the opposite could happen "as the climate changes".

"As surface waters warm, this would eventually result in warmer water at the bottom, which would lead to faster development of eggs and earlier hatching," he explained.

"The larvae would be further removed from period of food abundance, which would mean poor survival rates and fewer shrimp."

Source

[Orion]

Key coral reefs 'could disappear'



The world's most important coral region is in danger of being wiped out by the end of this century unless fast action is taken, says a new report.

The international conservation group WWF warns that 40% of reefs in the Coral Triangle have already been lost.

The area is shared between Indonesia and five other south-east Asian nations and is thought to contain 75% of the world's coral species.

It is likened to the Amazon rainforest in terms of its biodiversity.

Temperature change

It's 2099, and across south-east Asia, a hundred million people are on the march, looking for food.
The fish they once relied on is gone. Communities are breaking down; economies destroyed.

That is what we can expect, says the new WWF report, if the world's richest coral reef is destroyed.

And that, it says, could happen this century.

It's billed as a worst-case scenario, but the report's chief author, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, says it is not as bad as the future we're currently headed towards.

"Up until now we haven't realized how quickly this system is changing," says Professtor Hoegh-Guldberg.

"In the last 40 years in the Coral Triangle, we've lost 40% of coral reefs and mangroves - and that's probably an underestimate. We've fundamentally changed the way the planet works in terms of currents and this is only with a 0.7 degree change in terms of temperature.

"What's going to happen when we exceed two or four or six?"

Climate change consequences

The Coral Triangle covers 1% of the earth's surface but contains a third of all the world's coral, and three-quarters of its coral reef species.

If it goes, an entire eco-system goes with it - and that, says Prof Hoegh-Gudberg, has serious consequences for its ability to tackle climate change.

"Pollution, the inappropriate use of coastal areas, these are destroying the productivity of ocean which is plummeting right now. That is the system that traps CO2 - 40% of CO2 goes into the ocean.

"Now if we interrupt that, the problems on planet earth become even greater," says Prof Hoegh-Gudberg.

Indonesia is hosting the World Ocean Conference this week because, it says, oceans have been neglected so far in global discussions on climate change.

It wants the issue to have a bigger profile at UN climate talks later this year.

Avoiding a worst-case scenario would need significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and better controls on fishing and coastal areas, says the report.

Source

[Orion]

Belgian city plans 'veggie' days

The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.

Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.

The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent's declaration of a weekly "veggie day".

Public officials and politicians will be the first to give up meat for a day.

Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own veggiedag in September.

It is hoped the move will cut Ghent's environmental footprint and help tackle obesity.

Around 90,000 so-called "veggie street maps" are now being printed to help people find the city's vegetarian eateries.


A poster advertising "Veggie Day" shows a sailor rowing an aubergine

Source

[Orion]

Beavers return after 400-year gap


A total of 11 beavers have been released into the wild in Argyll as part of a reintroduction programme.

Four more may join the Scottish Beaver Trial being run in Knapdale Forest.

The beavers have been brought to Scotland from Norway and their release marks a return to the UK after a 400-year absence.

The release will be studied to determine whether the trial should be extended and beavers reintroduced across Scotland.

Colin Galbraith, of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), has been an enthusiastic backer of the scheme.

He said: "I think this is a hugely exciting move and one in which we've got to take people with us.

"There's never been a reintroduction of a mammal back to the UK.

"We've done the red kite and the sea eagle - they've gone pretty well - people are now behind that.

"We've got to try to do this reintroduction of a mammal in a very scientific careful and monitored way."

But not everyone has been behind the scheme.

Alan Kettlewhite is a biologist with Argyll Fisheries Trust: "Potentially they can alter the habitats of fish, restricting access to spawning grounds.

"I think the concerns are based on studies in other countries where sometimes dam-building can prevent fish access to their spawning grounds, particularly in dry years where you don't get much rain in the autumn time."

But SNH's Colin Galbraith said he felt a duty towards the beavers: "For me the argument is very simple.

"They were here - we killed them out.

"I think we've got the moral obligation to bring them back."

Continuously tested

Project officer Jenny Holden said: "The main things people are concerned about are giardia and cryptosporidium.

"They are bacteria that can infect the guts of humans and make you feel really quite unwell - food-poisoning type bugs.

"The beavers that are released will have been tested continuously for six months and then throughout the five year trial to make sure they are clear of these bacteria.

"So if we find a few years down the line that the beavers are infected, they won't have brought it in, they will have caught it out in the environment here."

Darren Dobson is from the Carinbaan Hotel near the release site.

He is delighted at the prospect of beavers, and hopes they will prove to be a major tourist attraction.

He said: "Generally speaking it's all positive. I haven't met anyone myself who is negative to the idea.

"It's going to bring more tourists - and this is just one more thing to add to what this area's got."

Scottish Natural Heritage, (SNH), ()will monitor the relationship between beavers and woodland, water plants, river habitat, water levels, otters, dragonflies, damselflies and freshwater fish.

The beavers themselves will also be under close scrutiny, using tracking data.

SNH will co-ordinate the scientific monitoring work with a range of independent bodies, including Oxford University Wildlife Conservation Research Unit and the Argyll Fisheries Trust.

SNH is contributing £275,000 to the cost of monitoring the trial.

It is claimed the trial will be a major contribution to Scotland's Species Action Framework, which identifies 32 species, including European beaver, as the focus of new management action.

Source

[Red Phoenix]

As if it's not enough that most of the shoreline of the capital Beirut is only fit for a radioactive three eyed squid to live in, the other beaches up north a bit in Kesserwen and Jbeil have their fair share of human waste laid generously to bare on our god given sea shore..

So the deep soul searching question becomes, what possesses a good deal of the average lebanese population to turn our beautiful sea shore into their public toilet and/or their public trash can ?

Is it a deep feeling of internal exaltation and divine satisfaction in sharing with the world back one’s biggest personal contribution to it in the form of a trash bag ?

A lemon there, a plastic bottle there, a glass bottle there, all forms of useful none bio degradable rubber and of course X-Files looking garbage that only someone with the vivid imagination of x-file's Molder can possibly give a half brained explanation as to what it really is or was..

You step on them, u sit on them, u swim with them and when u finish sipping them by accident each time u swim u can sit back and relax and lay ur eyes down on their majestic sight as a multicolored heap of human trash. I'm talking about the trash here for the record not the humans although the description is interchangeable hehe

And so the second question remains, where are the baladiye and private resort owners from all this ? ya3ni i even saw a big sea shore resort only clean the expensive part of its beach and provide trash cans there, the other parts for peasant layman was encouraged to produce more trash and not a single trash bin was in sight let alone a cleaner.

And that's not the only problem, apart from greedy resorts run by weirdoes and useless baladiyet run by greedy idiots we got the perfect combination of fuel and sewage being pumped all around 24/7 to ensure that the next generation of lebanese fish in the sea will all look like godzilla while human swimmers here with time can all start to look like big human sea weed with fungus and god knows what else growing all over them.

And if our sea shore was a pile of ugly natural trash to start with than perhaps none of this mattered, but to look and see a beautiful breathtaking blue sea being pummeled none stop by all forms of garbage with divine lebanese indifference is altogether another matter.

Put simply, the next time a tsunami hits lebanon, the high killer waves will be the least of the worries of the surviving lebanese citizens on the shore cities, because their biggest concern would seriously be the pile of rubbish that they threw into the sea coming back to wash them over as if it’s payback..

So dear readers, please share ur thoughts and emotions and homicidal urges over this answerless topic back with us :)

(btw the answer is simple, just dont throw garbage around ppl unless u r crazy!)

[Dalzi]

The Lebanese are like that wherever they go. Take trash from any seashore you'll find their stamp on it. I don't understand, they probably think it's cool.

The only positive thing about the Israeli occupation was that it kept people away from southern beaches. They were so beautiful you'd want to build a tent on the shore and stay there forever. I wonder what they look like now... They probably met the same fate as the Khardali river.

[LebaneseGaL]

Southern beaches such as Rmeileh for example ... IT is beautiful indeed !
But i was there last weekend and yet the shore is dirty ; by dirty I dont mean garbage necessarily but you can see the Fuel on the shore ... you will walk on it and sit on it and eventually swim in it !

Throwing garbage is part of the Lebanese charachter except if he/she was brought up abroad. I believe people in Lebanon take for granted all those Sukleen workers , that they'll clean the roads eventually so they keep on throwing stuff on the streets ... same goes for the beaches ... So the habit stays a habit ! Hundreds of awareness campaigns may not be enough to stop this ... It's sad but true.

[Red Phoenix]

Originally Posted by LebaneseGaL

Southern beaches such as Rmeileh for example ... IT is beautiful indeed !
But i was there last weekend and yet the shore is dirty ; by dirty I dont mean garbage necessarily but you can see the Fuel on the shore ... you will walk on it and sit on it and eventually swim in it !

Throwing garbage is part of the Lebanese charachter except if he/she was brought up abroad. I believe people in Lebanon take for granted all those Sukleen workers , that they'll clean the roads eventually so they keep on throwing stuff on the streets ... same goes for the beaches ... So the habit stays a habit ! Hundreds of awareness campaigns may not be enough to stop this ... It's sad but true.

but how many awarness campaigns do we see ?

plus there should be a law against littering like baboons

and i'm sure a baboon can learn to stop littering if he gets fined 100$ for throwing down a cholocate bar cover on the ground regardless of whether or not the other baboons who work at the baladiye placed garbage cans yet around or not ;P

[JD06]

only beaches? you can take a walk in the most remote and beautiful forests in lebanon and then suddenly u see a mountain of trash or the village dump as they call it..

i think its part of our DNA becuz we either dont realise we do it or we are all hypocrites becuz whenever a lebanese sees trash thy complain but never admit to doing it themselves...

my father is like that, he complains about the trash next to his house but once he was in wadeh annoubine(probably one of the most beautiful places in leb) and he finished his sandwich and threw the paper on the ground with his bottle of water(hes a maronite kaman!).....

the beaches in Lebanon are a disgrace..thr are places like edde sands where u pay 20,000LL or 30,000LL to get in, and once ur in u cant actually reach the sand or sea becuz its so dirty....and we like to call ourselves civil (whatever tht means)..wer a bunch of 7ayawanat...u know i once threw a coke can on the floor in greek town and an old women(maybe 80) came and shouted at me thts how we need to be here, we have to start loving our country not just say we love it

[Red Phoenix]

Originally Posted by JD06

only beaches? you can take a walk in the most remote and beautiful forests in lebanon and then suddenly u see a mountain of trash or the village dump as they call it..

i think its part of our DNA becuz we either dont realise we do it or we are all hypocrites becuz whenever a lebanese sees trash thy complain but never admit to doing it themselves...

my father is like that, he complains about the trash next to his house but once he was in wadeh annoubine(probably one of the most beautiful places in leb) and he finished his sandwich and threw the paper on the ground with his bottle of water(hes a maronite kaman!).....

the beaches in Lebanon are a disgrace..thr are places like edde sands where u pay 20,000LL or 30,000LL to get in, and once ur in u cant actually reach the sand or sea becuz its so dirty....and we like to call ourselves civil (whatever tht means)..wer a bunch of 7ayawanat...u know i once threw a coke can on the floor in greek town and an old women(maybe 80) came and shouted at me thts how we need to be here, we have to start loving our country not just say we love it

hehe, u deserved it lol

u know, i was born like everybody else with this free spirit of throwing stuff on the floor

but since i was 16, i have never threw anything out in the public on the floor

i keep it with me regardless how annoying and uncomfortable it is until i find a garbage can, and oh lord does it take a while to find a garbage can just like u find water in the desert..

but i do it, i just do it, cuz in my head i know that i am not an animal, i am a human being, i dont litter in my bed nor do i do it on the sidewalk.

and sure, i got countless friends who preach about 'look at that garbage here!' and litter themselves

but let me tell u, do i make their miserable lives a living hell if i catch them hypocrites littering in front of me.. hehe

i make them as uncomfortable as that 80 year old lady did to u and i make sure they remember it so as to not easily repeat it, at least not in front of me hehe

but now with the beach, it's even more of an insult, it's clearly destroying beauty and 'swimming in it'