Unique Sea Horse Species Threatened

We still have a long way to go until we find out the true and complete impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

This is from the University of British Columbia's "Project Seahorse."

A species of seahorse unique to the waters of the Gulf Coast could face extinction because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, warns marine conservation organization Project Seahorse. Without careful intervention, the dwarf seahorse (Hippocampus zosterae) could virtually disappear within a few years, while many other fish populations, including several other species of seahorse, face a similarly bleak future as cleanup continues.

“We’re very worried,” says Assoc. Prof. Amanda Vincent, director of Project Seahorse at the University of British Columbia and a leading expert on seahorse conservation “All of the seahorse populations in the area will be affected, but the dwarf seahorse is at greatest risk of extinction because much of its habitat has been devastated by the spill.”

Portugal Pursued by EU for Poor Environmental Policies

Oh, it's no surprise that the Portuguese are allowing rampant development for tourism. But I'm glad the EU is calling them on it.

From the Portugal News...

The European Commission said on Wednesday it is pursuing legal action against Portugal for breaching nature protection legislation. The Commission said it is sending Portugal a final warning over an inadequate impact assessment for a tourist resort development in the south of the country which falls under the Natura 2000 programme.

...The case concerns the Montinho da Ribeira resort at Algoceira in the Alentejo region. The resort falls within a site protected by the Habitats Directive and in the vicinity of a Special Area of Conservation for wild birds (Costa Sudoeste sites).

The resort includes 322 villas, 40 apartments and a hotel. It also foresees two golf courses, road infrastructure, a water treatment station and a waste water treatment plant. Four other resorts are also planned nearby.

Animal Diseases Poised to Spread to Humans

And people actually believe we've conquered nature?

The world is facing a growing threat from new diseases that are jumping the human-animal species barrier as a result of environmental disruption, global warming and the progressive urbanisation of the planet, scientists have warned.

At least 45 diseases that have passed from animals to humans have been reported to UN agencies in the last two decades, with the number expected to escalate in the coming years.

Dramatic changes to the environment are triggering major alterations to human disease patterns on a scale last seen during the industrial revolution. Montira Pongsiri, an environmental health scientist at the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, says that previous transitions in human history have had a devastating impact in terms of the spread of disease.

Another Company Plans to Make Money from Recycling Animal Carcasses

Waste not, want not. The company is Biosphere Technologies and the patented technology is Biorefinex. It takes all the inedible parts of the animal and makes it into an ooze that can be used as fertilizer or converted into biogas. It also keeps carcasses out of landfills and incinerators.

Again, being marketed as good for the environment. And again, I ask, what about all the human corpses sitting in all these cemeteries. Aren't these cemetaries a type of landfill too? Shouldn't we keep carcasses out of them as well? They are just taking up space? Will such technology be applied to them at some point, to render the raw material more useful?

Vile all around. When profits are made from death, what do you get? More and more incentives for more and more death.

Best Opinion Ever on Humans and Nature

At least to me. Read it yourself as I can't do it justice. It's by a Ugandan political scientist.

I'm sure it will make a lot of people angry. But it crystallizes the conclusions I've been heading towards for the last 40 years.

By the way, if you ever read Jared Diamond's Collapse, you'll understand why I also think this is the perfect response to his book. He wants to save the planet for humans alone. I believe we have not earned that privilege.

(Bea, I tried to email this directly to you, but your email kicked it back!)

Farmed Fish Are No Easy Solution

Many believe that the solution to our wild fish problems is to promote farmed alternatives. But, as with any kind of mass production, this is filled with all kinds of risks.

Here's an article spotlighting farmed fishing in Chile.

It's really damned if you do and damned if you don't. Eat wild runs and cause their extinction. Eat farmed fish and create other environmental perils.

Best not to eat either.

Reduce Plastics in Order to Save Marine Life

I am one of those people that will pick up disgusting plastic bags just lying on the streets and throw them away. First of all, it's gross (find your own planet to dump your trash on), but it's also dangerous for animals. A lot of this stuff just gets swept into storm drains, rivers, lakes, streams, the oceans, etc. And who ingests them? Marine life. One of the worst pictures I've ever seen is of a seal with its stomach cut open and a mess of plastic inside.

There are so many fronts on the war for animal rights (and I'm increasingly believing that "war" is the right word for it) and often times it's hard to know what to do. The protection of marine animals may fall under "environmentalism," but these are artificial divisions. Anything to do with an animal's survival or well-being, whether a species or an individual, should fall under animal rights.

Here's a short opinion piece on plastics and marine life.

Camels to be Culled in Australia

There are camels in Australia? Apparently so and they are considered feral pests...you know what that means.

UN Launches Projects to Help Mountain Gorillas

Habitat destruction is a very serious threat to the mountain gorilla. Desperately poor people are devastating Virunga National Park in search of wood. This pressure has only increased with refugees from the many wars that have raged over the years.

From the UN News Centre....

The 2009 Year of the Gorilla (YoG) partnership is supporting a project enabling local residents in areas endangered by increasing demands for fuel – not least the Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – to buy low-cost, fuel-efficient stoves.

Other measures needed to target the reduction of charcoal production include solar cookers, tree-planting on farms and the widespread use of fuel-efficient stoves, UNEP said in a news release.

Further cause for concern to the agency is the signing of land deals by many gorilla range States with foreign companies for agriculture, including bio-fuel production.

There is a certain irony in that last sentence. The much-lauded production of biofuel is actually creating its own environmental hazard.

Good News About Blue Whales

Looks like blue whales may be coming back to Alaska. Here's hoping Sarah Palin leaves them alone.

From the Associated Press:

Blue whales are returning to Alaska in search of food and could be re-establishing an old migration route several decades after they were nearly wiped out by commercial whalers, scientists say.

The endangered whales, possibly the largest animals ever to live on Earth, have yet to recover from the worldwide slaughter that eliminated 99 percent of their number, according to the American Cetacean Society. The hunting peaked in 1931 with more than 29,000 animals killed in one season.

The animals used to cruise from Mexico and Southern California to Alaska, but they had mostly vanished from Alaskan waters.

Marine Litter is Devastating Oceans

Abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear in the oceans makes up around 10 percent of all marine litter. And the problem is getting worse as we continue overfishing the oceans.

(It's easy to overlook ocean issues when there are so many other things to think about. But the oceans are also an ecosystem with living beings.)

Should the Military Force Protect the Environment?

Thought-provoking article in the Boston Globe.

...some green thinkers are now coming to a surprising conclusion: In exceptional circumstances, they say, the only effective way to protect the environment may be at the barrel of a gun. In some cases, notably in Africa, biodiversity is threatened by military conflict, or by well-armed gangs of poachers. These situations, some say, call for a response in kind - deploying the military to guard natural reserves, or providing rangers with military-style arms and training.

A few analysts go further, arguing that in certain cases of severe ecological harm, the international community may be justified in mustering troops to intervene, with or without the permission of the host country. For example, a government might refuse to protect - or even willfully destroy - its own natural treasure, as when, in the 1990s, Saddam Hussein's regime drained the wetlands that were home to the persecuted Marsh Arabs. Or, as resources grow scarcer, one nation's overexploitation of a forest or river could lead to dire consequences for other countries. In response to both kinds of scenarios, some have begun to raise the possibility of an "eco-intervention," analogous to humanitarian interventions.

Already, some conservation campaigns have taken on martial aspects. Over the past couple of decades, at least two paramilitary groups in the Central African Republic have operated with government approval, as reported recently in an article on "armed environmentalism" in The Ecologist, a British magazine. In some parts of Africa, rangers receive military training and equipment to defend animals (and themselves) from poachers in pursuit of elephants, rhinos, gorillas, and other endangered species. In Nicaragua, the army patrols beaches to protect sea turtle eggs.

But now there is increasing talk of more far-reaching action....

More Regulation Needed for Factory Farm Waste

The US General Accountability Office (GAO) is not happy with the EPA.They've issued a report that throws a negative light on the EPA trying to ELIMINATE EVEN MORE REGULATION of factory farms.

Deregulation is EVERYWHERE.

Some huge livestock farms produce more raw waste than cities as large as Philadelphia or Houston. But federal regulators are failing to control pollution from the gigantic operations or assess health risks from the enormous quantities of manure they produce, according to congressional investigators.

The Government Accountability Office report on the raw waste is to be released Wednesday to a House committee hearing on federal oversight of factory farms.

The conclusions fueled concerns about a proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule change that would eliminate one of the few federal oversight mechanisms over air and water pollution from big farms.

The rule would eliminate a requirement that farms report to federal, state and local officials when air emissions of hazardous substances like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide exceed certain levels.

Renewable Energy Push Threatens Portuguese Wildlife

I support the concern about climate change and global warming. I've had fights at work about it. But I believe that these issues have overshadowed the environmental agenda and become the cause du jour. In particular, it is overshadowing the increasing loss of biodiversity.

And here is another example.

The EU is investing in renewable energy in order to cut greenhouse emissions. This is important and I support that. But they are including hydropower as a renewable resource and I DON'T support that. As a resident of the Northwest, we get cheap power, but look at the damage done to our wildlife and salmon as a result of damming the Columbia and Snake rivers. Gargantuan impacts.

I'm afraid Europe is following the same mistaken path. And Portugal is a willing victim.

Portugal has long wanted to dam the Sabor, which runs from near the Spanish border to the Douro, the majestic river flanked by port vineyards. The 170 megawatt power station, costing €354m ($518m, £264m), is part of a €1bn hydroelectric investment by the Energias de Portugal power company.

While most EU countries have fully exploited hydro­electric potential, mountainous Portugal's is only half used. It is vital to meet the country's EU-assigned goal of lifting renewable generation from 20.5 per cent to 31 per cent in 2020.

But when the plans were unveiled a decade ago, environmental activists and 260 scientists opposed the move, fearing that western Europe's last wild river would be tamed. They brought a legal case, the European Commission backed them and work stalled.

In late August, Brussels suddenly shelved its enforcement action after EdP produced mitigation plans. Within days José Sócrates, Portugal's prime minister, and António Mexia, EdP chief executive, visited Sabor to announce that work would begin.

Bárbara Fráguas, who studies Bonelli's eagles, said: "This is a very, very important area because it is the last wild river in Europe. It is like a giant corridor connecting the north of Portugal ... The dam will divide the animal populations and they cannot survive. EDP says they will build bridges for the wolves to cross but animals don't use bridges."

Vegetation would become scarcer, she says, reducing the number of small animals that some of the last 1,000 Bonelli's eagles in Europe rely on for food.

Ms Fráguas admits that local politicians and residents support the project. For generations the young people of Trás-os-Montes, the spiritual heart of Portugal, have left to find work.

Of course, they support this dam. I'm a Luso-American and I love my heritage. But Portugal is a poor country that had a glorious past. Right now, after so many years of religious and dictatorial oppression, it is still evolving in national conscience to appreciate and understand the environment, nature, and values other than money and the Church. Wildlife was always a nuisance, never a benefit. But it also wants to be taken seriously as a cooperative and progressive member of the EU. And they want the EU's money. Based on what I've seen of my trips there, they will do what they can to get it. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes this is bad.

In this case, it's bad.

Photo by PEstevao.