tagged w/ Migration
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This exciting new strand features volunteer’s stories of migration. Natascha’s story interweaves lessons from history with contemporary political insights. Under apartheid South Africa her mother married a white man at a time when mixed race relationships and marriage were illegal, hence they moved to Germany. Returning to South Africa and to a new school, she was asked what race she was, she wasn’t sure. Racial classification maybe a thing of the past, but today’s border controls are classifying people by place of birth preventing the freedom of movement we need to realise our potential.This exciting new strand features volunteer’s stories of migration.... more
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Climate change, largely abstract in the United States, is already shaping conflicts around the world – and not for the better.
Energy security and climate change present massive threats to global security, military planners say, with connections and consequences spanning the world.
Some scientists have linked the Arab Spring uprisings to high food prices caused by the failed Russian wheat crop in 2010, a result of an unparalleled heat wave. The predicted effects of climate change are also expected to hit developing nations particularly hard, raising the importance of supporting humanitarian response efforts and infrastructure improvements.
"There are going to be Darfur's all over the place."
- Bob Corell, Global Environment & Technology Foundation
Here's a look at several geopolitical hotspots that will likely bear the unpredictable and dangerous consequences of climate change and current energy policies.
By Joshua Zaffos
More at the linkClimate change, largely abstract in the United States, is already shaping conflicts... more
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The challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as millions of people will either move into or be trapped in areas of risk by 2060, rather than migrating away, a British government report showed on Thursday.
The report, by the government-backed Foresight Program, examined the likely movement of people both within and between countries to 2060. It found the greatest risks will be borne by people who are unable or unwilling to relocate.
Those risks may also be made worse by policies which seek to prevent migration.
"We have assumed mass migration away from affected areas, but millions of people will also migrate into vulnerable areas and there will also be those who cannot migrate out," John Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the British government, told reporters.
"They pose different challenges to the international community," he added.
The United Nations estimates there were 210 million international migrants in 2010. A further 740 million were internal migrants in 2009.
An average 25 million people a year have been displaced due to weather-related events since 2008, which will likely rise as such events become more extreme and frequent, Beddington said.
The report estimates there will be between 154 and 179 million people living in rural coastal floodplains by 2060 who will be unable to move away due to poverty.
These trapped communities will need to be made more resilient to environmental events.
Up to 192 million people will also move into urban coastal floodplains in Africa and Asia by 2060 in search of work and a better economic situation.
This kind of migration could be beneficial by opening up new sources of income which help people become stronger and more resilient, enabling households to stay in a place for longer, the report said.
Migration should be considered when funds are being allocated at U.N. climate talks in November in Durban, South Africa, the report said.
The cost of doing nothing will be higher than the cost of measures to tackle migration, especially if they reduce the likelihood of displacement, it added.
"I would hope to see initiatives on migration, forestry and agriculture to follow the Durban meeting," said Beddington, adding that he does not expect a universally binding emissions reduction agreement to emerge this year.
More at the linkThe challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as... more
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With political will to dramatically cut the world's greenhouse gas emissions failing to materialise, a multi-pronged approach is needed to protect the millions of people who are being displaced as a result of environmental factors driven largely by climate change, experts say.
"Climate change is looming as a potentially very serious and underappreciated complicating factor when it comes to international displacement," said Erika Feller, the assistant high commissioner for protection in the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
More is needed from the international community to address this challenge "in a coordinated and pragmatic manner", she told IPS.
Of paramount importance is that national authorities play a central role in developing appropriate responses to both the internal and external dimensions of climate-related displacement, while affected persons and communities must be made fully aware of their rights and given opportunities to participate in decision-making, Feller said.
"Decisions about where, when and how to relocate communities, for example, must be made in consultation with the affected populations and be sensitive to cultural and ethnic identities and boundaries to avoid possible tensions and conflicts," she added.
Last to Pollute, First to Suffer the Consequences
That the poor are always hardest-hit by natural disasters is a fact recently underlined by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Report 2010, which says that these nations "will be disproportionally affected by changing climatic conditions".
This despite the fact that LDCs account for less than one percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for heating up the atmosphere and altering rainfall and weather patterns.
The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in these regions are five times higher now (519 events in 2000-2010) than during the 1970s (116). In the last decade, about 40 percent of all casualties related to natural disasters were found in the poorest countries of the world, the report says.
Climate change affects LDCs in different ways. While Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are facing droughts and floods, some Asian LDCs, together with Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific, are at risk particularly from rising sea levels and storms.
The 2009 "Human Impact Report - Climate Change" by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum estimated that 2.8 billion people are living in areas prone to one or more of the physical manifestations of climate change.
"The global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but different responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions," declared the Istanbul Programme of Action agreed to at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) in Turkey in May and which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly.
The list of necessary actions outlined in the programme, especially by so-called development partners, hinge on an urgent demand for promised financial and technical support – which critics say the world's richest countries, and those most culpable for climate change, have been dragging their feet on.
Staying close to home
The overwhelming majority of people who are displaced by environmental factors become internally displaced persons (IDPs) within their own countries. Just a fraction will likely cross international borders, said Michele Klein-Solomon, director of the Migration Policy, Research and Communications Department at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
"[The latter group tends to move] from countries in the South, in the developing world, to other countries in the 'less emitting world', and it is also not likely to be the most vulnerable who move," she explained.
More frequent and severe floods, storms, landslides or land degradation, droughts and water shortages – so called slow-onset natural and human-made disasters – can all be triggers for migration.
Those most in need of protection tend to lack sufficient resources to adapt to the new living conditions, and that can include an inability to move away or migrate to other countries.
Speaking at a conference at Columbia Law School in May on migration and climate change, Klein-Solomon stressed that it was important to grasp these facts to counter "the overwhelming fears of the developed world being awash with people who are coming into their countries, taking jobs and burdening social security mechanisms".
Even under worst case scenarios, in which some 250 million people could be displaced due to climate change over the next 25 to 30 years, it still would be "a tiny portion of the world's population", she said.
"We are really not talking about enormous numbers relative to global populations and we are not talking about hordes of people flooding into the Western, industrialised, developed countries. We do not need further repressive legislation and xenophobic debates as a result of this discussion," she added.
Few legal protections
Rapid-onset disasters attract far more attention from the media, policymakers and researchers than gradual environmental changes – such as the human consequences of rising sea levels, soil salination, deforestation and desertification.
Precise estimates on climate-induced migration are hard to come by. However, recent events such as last year's nationwide flooding in Pakistan, severe mudslides following heavy rainfall in Brazil and Colombia this spring, and the ongoing humanitarian disaster in drought-hit Somalia show that millions of people are already being driven from their homes and property due to extreme weather patterns.
International protection strategies are often marked by a humanitarian focus on "the immediate need of the person without necessarily looking at the causes of the phenomenon nor to a response in a longer term," said Paola Pace, acting head of the International Migration Law Unit at IOM's International Cooperation and Partnerships Department.
When emergencies occur, immediate funding is provided which lasts about three to six months, but for the subsequent "recuperation phase" it is very difficult to find donor support. This wastes the knowledge acquired in the initial months and squanders an opportunity to "really tackle the causes that brought about that emergency", Pace stressed in an interview with IPS.
The lack of a long-term strategy is a major problem for those seeking to protect and support affected populations. A better approach would go beyond basic needs – food, water, shelter – to address trauma and stress-induced illnesses, and provide opportunities for sustainable development in a new environment, she said.
The climate-displaced also face an uncertain legal situation. Neither international humanitarian law nor international refugee law has a legal definition for this group, making it difficult to hold governments responsible for their wellbeing.
Often, there are multiple, complex, interconnected factors at work, from extreme weather events to land degradation or sea-level rise, and identifying the exact culprit is impossible.
"[I]t is a bit like the straw that broke the camel's back," said Jane McAdam, an expert on refugees and international migration law at the University of New South Wales.
"Climate change is never the only reason why people move, there are always other factors like underlying socioeconomic conditions, for example," she told IPS.
Finding appropriate legal and policy responses requires a combination of strategies, "rather than an either/or approach", she said.
More at the linkWith political will to dramatically cut the world's greenhouse gas emissions... more
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Warming ocean waters are causing the largest movement of marine species seen on Earth in more than two million years, according to scientists.
In the Arctic, melting sea ice during recent summers has allowed a passage to open up from the Pacific ocean into the North Atlantic, allowing plankton, fish and even whales to into the Atlantic Ocean from the Pacific.
The discovery has sparked fears delicate marine food webs could be unbalanced and lead to some species becoming extinct as competition for food between the native species and the invaders stretches resources.
Rising ocean temperatures are also allowing species normally found in warmer sub-tropical regions to into the northeast Atlantic.
A venomous warm-water species Pelagia noctiluca has forced the closure of beaches and is now becoming increasingly common in the waters around Britain.
The highly venomous Portuguese Man-of-War, which is normally found in subtropical waters, is also regularly been found in the northern Atlantic waters.
A form of algae known as dinoflagellates has also been found to be moving eastwards across the Atlantic towards Scandinavia and the North Sea.
Huge blooms of these marine plants use up the oxygen in the water and can produce toxic compounds that make shellfish poisonous.
Plankton sampling in the north Atlantic over the past 70 years have also shown that other species of plankton, normally only found in the Pacific ocean, have now become common in Atlantic waters.
The scientists, who have been collaborating on the Climate Change and European Marine Ecosystems Research project, found the plankton species, called Neodenticula seminae, traveled into the Atlantic through a passage through the Arctic sea ice around that has opened up a number of times in the last decade from the Pacific Ocean.
Larger species including a grey whale have also been found to have made the journey through the passage, which winds it’s way from the Pacific coast of Alaska through the islands of northern Canada and down past Greenland into the Atlantic Ocean, when it opened first in 1998, and then again in 2007 and 2010.
Professor Chris Reid, from the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, said: “It seems for the first time in probably thousands of years a huge area of sea water opened up between Alaska and the west of Greenland, allowing a huge transfer of water and species between the two oceans.
“The opening of this passage allowed the wind to drive a current through this passage and the water warmed up making it favourable for species to get through.
“In 1999 we discovered a species in the north west Atlantic that we hadn’t seen before, but we know from surveys in the north Pacific that it is very abundant there.
"This species died out in the Atlantic around 800,000 years ago due to glaciation that changed the conditions it needed to survive.
“The implications are huge. The last time there was an incursion of species from the Pacific into the Atlantic was around two to three million years ago.
"Large numbers of species were introduced from the Pacific and made large numbers of local Atlantic species extinct.
“The impact on salmon and other fish resources could be very dramatic. The indications are that as the ice is continuing to melt in the summer months, climate change could lead to complete melting within 20 to 30 years, which would see huge numbers of species migrating.
"It could have impacts all the way down to the British Isles and down the east coast of the United States.”
He added: “With the jellyfish we are seeing them move further north from tropical and subtropical regions as a result of warming sea temperatures."
Researchers say the invading plankton species is likely to cause widespread changes to the food web in the Atlantic ocean as the invading species are less nutritious than native species, which are eaten by many fish and large whales.
Changes in populations of tiny animals called copepods, which are an essential food source for fish such as cod, herring and mackerel, are already being blamed for helping to drive the collapse of fish stocks as the native species of copepods have been replaced with smaller less nutritious varieties.
This has resulted in declines in North Sea birds, the researchers claim, while Harbour porpoises have also migrated northwards North Sea after sand eels followed the poleward movement of the copepods they ate.
Scientists taking part in the project from the Institute for Marine Resources & Ecosystem Studies, in the Netherlands, found that warmer water would also lead more species in the North and Irish sea as species move from more southerly areas.
But they found that the Atlantic ocean west of Scotland would have fewer species.
Dr Carlo Heip, director general of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, which led the project that is a collaboration of more than 17 institutes in 10 different countries, said: “We need to learn much more about what’s happening in Europe’s seas, but the signs already point to far more trouble than benefit from climate change.
“Despite the many unknowns, it’s obvious that we can expect damaging upheaval as we overturn the workings of a system that’s so complex and important.
“The migrations are an example of how changing climate conditions cause species to move or change their behaviour, leading to shifts in ecosystems that are clearly visible.”
The researchers conclude that these changes will have serious implications for commercial fisheries and on the marine environment.
More at the linkWarming ocean waters are causing the largest movement of marine species seen on Earth... more
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Global sea level rise has put a handful of nations at risk of extinction -- small island states in the Pacific and Indian oceans. But this week, a collection of international lawyers and politicians have begun work to ensure that doesn't happen.
They can't prevent what many scientists see as the physical inevitability: a rise in ocean levels of 1 to 2 meters (3 to 6 feet) by 2100, even if all greenhouse gas emitting into the atmosphere were to cease tomorrow. Rather, they are exploring ways to use existing formal and informal rules that would allow many nations to continue as legal entities entitled to ocean fishing and mineral exploration rights, even if their entire populations were forced to relocate elsewhere.
The tiny nations of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and more are among those at most risk in the Pacific. These atoll nations are among the lowest-lying in the world, and should their archipelagos not completely submerge, it's likely that rising sea levels and extreme saltwater flooding will permanently damage freshwater supplies and destroy agriculture, making them uninhabitable. The Maldives and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean face the same risks.
But at a three-day discussion on their legal options at Columbia University, wrapping up today, scholars are pointing out ways that these states can still maintain an identity and international legal authority, even as they lose all their habitable territory.
"It's important to maintain a government that can defend its interests in the international arena," advised international law expert Jenny Grote Stoutenburg of the University of California, Berkeley.
Creating a new field of law
Conceived last year by the government of the Marshall Islands, this week's three-day seminar on "Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate" is the first to gather experts together to develop a formal body of knowledge that can guide the most vulnerable nations, should their worst fears become reality.
Hosted by Columbia Law School, the event drew hundreds of international law experts, maritime lawyers, government officials and diplomats from distant island states and representatives from the United States, Australia, South Korea and more. The United Nations has yet to take up the sensitive topic, but the large number of U.N. officials participating in the talks suggested that the world body eventually will.
"There's been a certain amount of academic discourse on some of these issues, and certainly at the U.N. climate negotiations there is some talk of them, but the General Assembly hasn't taken any action on these questions," noted Michael Gerrard, head of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
The questions are serious ones, and at the same time intellectually interesting.
What happens to the people forced to relocate, and what is their citizenship status? Do their governments survive, and if so, do they retain their full seats at the United Nations, even though they have no habitable land to control? And do they still control the fisheries and mineral rights to the surrounding seas they now enjoy, or do those become international waters?
Nations have disappeared before. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the governments of both Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic were dissolved, and both states instantly lost their U.N. memberships. Those were special cases, but they were highlighted here as examples of how a country could simply cease to exist should it fail to keep up any of the trappings of a state, let alone lose all or most of its landmass.
Some in attendance argued that they shouldn't be discussing these issues at all, and instead should focus attention on obtaining new binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments from the world's largest emitters.
But between the hand-wringing, vulnerable nations did get some valuable advice that could help them remain U.N. member states, with legal defined ocean territories and allotted resource exploitation rights, all while they maintain sovereign government status.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/05/25/25climatewire-island-nations-may-keep-some-sovereignty-if-63590.htmlGlobal sea level rise has put a handful of nations at risk of extinction -- small... more
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Climate change threatens far more than our environment. It's already led to the spread of infectious diseases and respiratory ailments across the globe and contributed to thousands of deaths through heat waves and other extreme weather events. It's even fueled recent revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.
That's according to Dan Ferber and Dr. Paul Epstein, the authors of a new book, Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It (University of California Press, April 2011).
The health of all humans is directly tied to how we, as communities, nations, and a global population, respond to the growing climate threat, says Ferber, a science journalist and Epstein, Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
Ferber and Epstein spoke with Reuters Health Thursday about how malaria, Lyme disease, and cholera, as well as food shortages and malnutrition, are all becoming increased risks with steadily rising temperatures. (See the live blog from the discussion here: bit.ly/lJnshE)
While getting out of the corner humanity has backed itself into will take a worldwide effort, they say that effort may be led by a surprising player: industry.
"Changing finance is a critical part of ... rewriting the rules" on climate management, Epstein said.
For the financial industry, there's a lot at stake, Epstein continued.
"With the uptake in extreme events -- particularly as it's affecting food security globally and food prices -- we're going to see a renewed interest on the part of the investors and insurers in the stability of society," he said. Already, "the financial industry has at times in the last several decades been acutely aware of the dangers and risks of climate change."
MANY THREATS, ONE CAUSE
Climate change is hitting human health -- and political and social stability -- from all sides, Epstein and Ferber said. On a daily basis many of those impacts are hidden from view -- until you take a step back.
Even slight increases in temperature -- a couple of degrees -- can broaden the habitat of pests that cause infectious diseases, from malaria in Kenya to Lyme disease in Maine, they said.
And the claim that regions saturated with infectious disease will just shift, rather than expand, isn't helpful because it misses other key points, Epstein said.
For example, in parts of Honduras it's gotten too hot for malaria-carrying mosquitoes to thrive. "But it's been so dry and hot that the people have moved as well, and they've moved into the northern area, into the forest, where there's plenty of malaria," he explained.
Pests also target wildlife, wiping out forests and increasing the risk of fires, such as in the Rockies and Cascades, where it used to be too cool for those pests to venture to high altitudes.
Another result of a changing climate: heat and carbon dioxide magnify the effects of asthma and allergies, particularly in cities where more and more children are developing respiratory problems.
And a combination of heat waves -- such as the one that killed thousands of Russians last summer -- and droughts not only causes immediate local health crises but also threatens global public health by destroying crops and driving up food prices, the authors said.
Food availability may be the most pressing issue of all.
"Our food, our air, our water, these are the issues that really underlie our public health," Epstein said. "These are the life support systems. These are the ones that ultimately are most critical and most sensitive to climate instability."
An unstable climate, Epstein explained, is directly linked to social and political unrest. "I think we're looking at increasing damages and social disruption from the climate instability and extremes," he said. "The earth itself can go to a new equilibrium, but we need to back off. We're pushing it hard
cont.Climate change threatens far more than our environment. It's already led to the... more
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The exodus of migrants streaming out of Libya due to ongoing unrest has highlighted the heavy dependence of some countries on remittances from their citizens working abroad. In several countries this flow has now become choked.
http://simbarusseau.com/migration-libyan-exodus-shrinks-remittances/The exodus of migrants streaming out of Libya due to ongoing unrest has highlighted... more
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The people of Bangladesh have much to teach us about how a crowded planet can best adapt to rising sea levels. For them, that future is now.
We may be seven billion specks on the surface of Earth, but when you're in Bangladesh, it sometimes feels as if half the human race were crammed into a space the size of Louisiana. Dhaka, its capital, is so crowded that every park and footpath has been colonized by the homeless. To stroll here in the mists of early morning is to navigate an obstacle course of makeshift beds and sleeping children. Later the city's steamy roads and alleyways clog with the chaos of some 15 million people, most of them stuck in traffic. Amid this clatter and hubbub moves a small army of Bengali beggars, vegetable sellers, popcorn vendors, rickshaw drivers, and trinket salesmen, all surging through the city like particles in a flash flood. The countryside beyond is a vast watery floodplain with intermittent stretches of land that are lush, green, flat as a parking lot—and wall-to-wall with human beings. In places you might expect to find solitude, there is none. There are no lonesome highways in Bangladesh.
We should not be surprised. Bangladesh is, after all, one of the most densely populated nations on Earth. It has more people than geographically massive Russia. It is a place where one person, in a nation of 164 million, is mathematically incapable of being truly alone. That takes some getting used to.
So imagine Bangladesh in the year 2050, when its population will likely have zoomed to 220 million, and a good chunk of its current landmass could be permanently underwater. That scenario is based on two converging projections: population growth that, despite a sharp decline in fertility, will continue to produce millions more Bangladeshis in the coming decades, and a possible multifoot rise in sea level by 2100 as a result of climate change. Such a scenario could mean that 10 to 30 million people along the southern coast would be displaced, forcing Bangladeshis to crowd even closer together or else flee the country as climate refugees—a group predicted to swell to some 250 million worldwide by the middle of the century, many from poor, low-lying countries.
"Globally, we're talking about the largest mass migration in human history," says Maj. Gen. Muniruzzaman, a charismatic retired army officer who presides over the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies in Dhaka. "By 2050 millions of displaced people will overwhelm not just our limited land and resources but our government, our institutions, and our borders." Muniruzzaman cites a recent war game run by the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., which forecast the geopolitical chaos that such a mass migration of Bangladeshis might cause in South Asia. In that exercise millions of refugees fled to neighboring India, leading to disease, religious conflict, chronic shortages of food and fresh water, and heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed adversaries India and Pakistan.
Such a catastrophe, even imaginary, fits right in with Bangladesh's crisis-driven story line, which, since the country's independence in 1971, has included war, famine, disease, killer cyclones, massive floods, military coups, political assassinations, and pitiable rates of poverty and deprivation—a list of woes that inspired some to label it an international basket case. Yet if despair is in order, plenty of people in Bangladesh didn't read the script. In fact, many here are pitching another ending altogether, one in which the hardships of their past give rise to a powerful hope.
For all its troubles, Bangladesh is a place where adapting to a changing climate actually seems possible, and where every low-tech adaptation imaginable is now being tried. Supported by governments of the industrialized countries—whose greenhouse emissions are largely responsible for the climate change that is causing seas to rise—and implemented by a long list of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), these innovations are gaining credence, thanks to the one commodity that Bangladesh has in profusion: human resilience. Before this century is over, the world, rather than pitying Bangladesh, may wind up learning from her example.
cont.The people of Bangladesh have much to teach us about how a crowded planet can best... more
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107 Pilot Whales Die On New Zealand Beach
AP
02/20/11 11:36 PM AP
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — All members of a pod of 107 pilot whales that stranded on a remote New Zealand beach have died, including 48 that were euthanized, the government's conservation department said Monday.
The stranded whales were discovered by hikers Sunday near Cavalier Creek on Stewart Island, off the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island.
Conservation department staff flew to the area and found that about half of the group were already dead and the others were dying, the agency said in a statement. The whales were well up the beach and the tide was receding, leaving little chance of keeping them alive until more rescuers could arrive.
"Euthanasia is a difficult decision, but is made purely for the welfare of the animal involved to prevent it from prolonged suffering," said Brent Beaven, the official who led the team at the site.
Pilot whales are about 13 feet to 20 feet (4 meters to 6 meters) long and are the most common species of whale in New Zealand waters.
Whale strandings are common in New Zealand. Last month, 24 pilot whales died after stranding on the North Island. In December 2009, more than 120 whales died in two separate beachings near Golden Bay and on the east coast of North Island.107 Pilot Whales Die On New Zealand Beach
AP
02/20/11 11:36 PM AP... more
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Hawaii pilot spots badly injured whale
Birds in Paradise owner-flight instructor Gerry Charlebois photographed this mortally injured humpback whale off the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
February 9th, 2011
12:06 PM ET
A humpback whale with an apparently broken back has been spotted in waters near Hawaii, a newspaper reports.
Gerry Charlebois, who takes student pilot/tourists for coastal excursions in ultralight aircraft, spotted the injured whale from the air Monday in shallow water near Kauai.
"He wasn't moving his fluke and was just staying near the surface and sort of limping down the coast," he said. "It's kind of sad to see a full adult whale in that condition. ... It's definitely something he's not recovering from."
"This is one of the most disturbing sights I've ever experienced while photographing whales," Charlebois, the owner of Birds in Paradise Flight School, told The Garden Island Newspaper. "It was freaky. The whale was bent in half. Obviously some kind of blunt force trauma on the side. The poor guy was in trouble."
A large boat or ship must have struck the whale, which hasn't been seen since Monday, he said. Humpbacks normally are pretty agile, so this one may have been old or sick an unable to move out of a ship's way, he said.
Birds in Paradise manager Kirk Johnson said Charlebois and others on the flight first thought they'd seen an albino whale, but when they came around to take another look, they could see that it was discolored instead.
Ed Lyman of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary on Maui told the paper the whale appeared to be in poor health - emaciated, shedding skin and surrounded by parasites - and there is no established method for euthanizing a large whale.
These big whales tend to die slowly, Charlebois said. When they do, they sink to the bottom until decomposition gases make them float to the surface, where they attract large numbers of hungry sharks, he said.
"It's amazing to see these 15-foot sharks all feeding on a whale," Charlebois said. "You don't want to be snorkeling around there. You don't want to be in that neighborhood."
Charlebois said he and his three other pilots would look for signs of the injured whale again today.
About 2,000 humpback whales live in the waters off Alaska, and many of them migrate to Hawaii's warm waters between November and May, according to Earthtrust.org. Whale watching is a major part of Hawaii's tourism industry. Adult humpbacks range in size from 35 to 48 feet, and weigh about 1 ton per foot.Hawaii pilot spots badly injured whale
Birds in Paradise owner-flight instructor... more
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Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Sweden, Millions Of Dead Fish Found In Maryland, Brazil, New Zealand
The Huffington Post | Travis Walter Donovan First Posted: 01- 5-11 09:11 AM | Updated: 01- 5-11 06:16 PM
UPDATE: Wildlife officials say that even more previously unreported dead birds were found in Kentucky last week.
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Millions of dead fish surfaced in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay in the U.S., Tuesday, while similar unexplained mass fish deaths occurred across the world in Brazil and New Zealand. On Wednesday, 50 birds were found dead on a street in Sweden. The news come after recents reports of mysterious massive bird and fish deaths days prior in Arkansas and Louisiana.
The Baltimore Sun reports that an estimated 2 million fish were found dead in the Chesapeake Bay, mostly adult spot with some juvenile croakers in the mix, as well. Maryland Department of the Environment spokesperson Dawn Stoltzfus says "cold-water stress" is believed to be the culprit. She told The Sun that similar large winter fish deaths were documented in 1976 and 1980.
ParanaOnline reports that 100 tons of sardines, croaker and catfish have washed up in Brazilian fishing towns since last Thursday. The cause of the deaths is unknown, with an imbalance in the environment, chemical pollution, or accidental release from a fishing boat all suggested by local officials.
In New Zealand, hundreds of dead snapper fish washed up on Coromandel Peninsula beaches, many found with their eyes missing, The New Zealand Herald reports. A Department of Conservation official allegedly claims the fish were starving due to weather conditions.
While all three events are likely unrelated, they come after recent reports of mysterious dead birds falling from the sky in both Arkansas and Louisiana. Thousands of dead birds were found in Beebe, Arkansas on New Year's Eve, and a few days later, around 500 of the same species were found 300 miles south in Louisiana. A Kentucky woman also reported finding dozens of dead birds scattered around her home. In the days prior to New Year's, nearly 100,000 fish surfaced in an Arkansas river 100 miles west of Beebe. Officials are now saying that fireworks likely caused the Arkansas bird deaths, and power lines may be to blame for the death of the birds in Louisiana.
Some remain skeptical of the explanations. Dan Cristol, a biology professor and co-founder of the Institute for Integrative Bird Behavior Studies at the College of William & Mary, told the AP that he was hesitant to believe fireworks were to blame unless "somebody blew something into the roost, literally blowing the birds into the sky."
Wednesday, officials in Sweden reported the finding of 50 dead birds on a street, suggesting that cold weather or fireworks were the likely culprit.
Bird deaths and fish kills at smaller numbers aren't all that uncommon, though the size and proximity of some of the recent events have led people to allege their relation, though officials deny the frequency of these wildlife deaths as being anything other than coincidence.
In August of 2010, tens of thousands of dead fish were reported washing ashore in two separate occasions, 200 miles apart on the East Coast.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------... more
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December 10, 2010
Tragedy in Black and White
By ELIZABETH ROYTE
FRASER’S PENGUINS
A Journey to the Future in Antarctica
By Fen Montaigne
Illustrated. 288 pp. A John Macrae Book/Henry Holt & Company. $26
In the austral summer of 2005-6, the veteran magazine journalist Fen Montaigne traveled to Palmer Station in Antarctica to work with the highly regarded polar ecologist Bill Fraser. For nearly five months, Montaigne gamely weighed and banded Adélie penguins and their predators, attached radio tags to feathers, dodged shooting streams of gack (giant-petrel vomit), sifted through guano in search of silverfish otoliths and reveled in the sensory delights of “the most alien and beautiful place on the planet.”
But this is no straightforward work of natural history with Fraser as heroic guide. It’s a morality tale, in which Fraser plays an unsociable Cassandra who’s entrusted his tidings to a sympathetic messenger. Luckily for readers, Montaigne has wrapped his portrait of a place on the brink of oblivion inside a penguin love fest.
Bill Fraser has been closely observing and recording the habits of birds near Palmer Station for 35 years. Such depth of experience allowed him to notice some troubling changes. Adélie penguin colonies, and the brown skuas that depend on them for sustenance, were rapidly declining; chinstrap penguins were moving in; and the population of fur seals and leopard seals was on the rise. What was going on?
Laboriously pondering factors biological and meteorological, Fraser eventually linked local Adélie declines with the cascade effects of warmer winter air and sea temperatures along the peninsula. Higher temperatures bring more snow, which delays the start of mating and nesting season, which results in smaller penguin chicks and a higher mortality rate. Warmer seas reduce the extent of sea ice, which krill (penguin food) depend on and Adélies rest upon before launching foraging trips into the Southern Ocean.
It gets worse: with adult penguins traveling farther to fill their bellies, chicks are left vulnerable to those skuas. Predators from hell, skuas rule Adélie colonies with “Mafia-like domination,” Montaigne writes, ripping the heads off chicks and eating the krill from their stomachs while they’re still alive.
Climate change is warming the poles faster than many other places on the planet, which means that polar scientists are coming to grips with these changes sooner than most anyone else. “Fraser’s Penguins,” portions of which appeared in The New Yorker, warns that what’s happening on the Antarctic Peninsula now is a taste of unsettling changes, elsewhere, to come. Should the West Antarctic Ice Sheet continue to melt, global sea levels could rise dramatically, in one NASA scientist’s opinion inundating Washington — and other coastal cities — by the end of this century.
For Fraser, the warming has a moral dimension. The Antarctic has been virtually untouched by man, and it’s a place where humans are, as many visitors over roughly 200 years of exploration have noted, entirely inconsequential. But now, the long carbonic reach of industrialized society is quickly wiping out one of the toughest creatures on earth, a species that’s hard-wired to the polar desert and cannot adapt.
Montaigne is a controlled writer, offering careful and clear explanations of matters technical and lexicographic, biologically microscopic and meteorologically global. But it’s his descriptive prowess, his ability to evoke lavender — and cobalt, magenta and violet — without waxing purple, that most impresses. Sounds and smells are skillfully conveyed: the flippers of two fighting Adélies sound like “the thumping of a stick on a carpet being cleaned.” While some team members compare the smell of a newly hatched penguin to Doritos, Montaigne associates the aroma with “the scent of my dog’s paws.” After being stalked and nearly pounced upon by a killer whale, Montaigne writes, “I was so amazed by this performance that I cannot remember exactly what the orca looked like.” Sometimes telling less reveals more. At other times, Montaigne gives thrilling, blow-by-blow accounts of bird battles and breakups.
Drama-wise, the penguins put the resident biologists to shame. This reader was slightly disappointed that Montaigne only briefly discusses cocktails served over thousand-year-old ice, diving into 34-degree water and celebrating an engagement with a four-foot-long penis ice sculpture that ejaculates cheap Champagne. The birding team is “collegial and free of tension”; one Andy of Mayberry type habitually says “We’re done-dee” when a field task is completed.
Instead, Montaigne lets the Adélies chew up the scenery — their epic migration, territorial squabbling, nesting-stone thievery, philandering, stoicism (Fraser has seen penguins almost cut in half by leopard seals stagger back to the colony to deliver their load of krill), indifference to squalor and enslavement to their squawking chicks (at least until the little darlings reach fledgling weight, at which point their parents turn their backs on the creatures and dive into the sea).
Fraser himself remains more of an enigma, a man who’s happiest spending long stretches alone in inhospitable places. Montaigne tells us that Fraser is not on speaking terms with another penguin scientist, and that he’s “not a man you would want to cross,” but we never see this play out. Still, one admires both the subject’s reserve and the author’s respect for it.
Adélie penguins, like other polar species, have always faced daunting challenges. But today, Adélies are confronting conditions for which nothing in their evolutionary history has prepared them. According to Fraser, the colonies around Palmer Station have reached a tipping point: they’ll be gone within his lifetime.
Despite this sobering message, “Fraser’s Penguins” leaves one feeling exhilarated — by these remarkable creatures, the landscape they inhabit and the scientists who’ve devoted their lives to studying both.
Elizabeth Royte’s latest book is “Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle Over America’s Drinking Water.”December 10, 2010
Tragedy in Black and White
By ELIZABETH ROYTE
FRASER’S... more
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St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators have identified key components of a signaling pathway that controls the departure of neurons from the brain niche where they form and allows these cells to start migrating to their final destination. Defects in this system affect the architecture of the brain and are associated with epilepsy, mental retardation and perhaps malignant brain tumors.
link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101125202308.htmSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators have identified key... more
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Hundreds of bald eagle, are currently descending upon the Fraser Valley drawn here by the millions of salmon carcasses that have spawned in the Fraser & Harrison River systems.Hundreds of bald eagle, are currently descending upon the Fraser Valley drawn here by... more
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Whales suffering from 'dramatic' sunburn
By Matthew Knight for CNN
November 10, 2010 2:23 p.m. EST
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Whales in Gulf of California suffering from sunburn, according to new report
* Paler-skinned blue whale has experienced the most blisters and damage
* Scientists think higher levels of ultraviolet radiation due to ozone depletion could be to blame
London, England (CNN) -- Whales in Mexico's Gulf of California are showing worsening signs of sunburn according to new report published Wednesday.
Photos and skin samples gathered by scientists from the UK's Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Mexico's Interdisciplinary Marine Science Center revealed blisters and changes in skin pigmentation in blue whales, fin whales and sperm whales.
The most badly-affected species was the blue whale -- which has paler skin -- and whales which spend most time on the surface exposing their skin to the sun.
"Whales need to come to the surface to breathe air, to socialize and to feed their young, meaning that they are frequently exposed to the full force of the sun," lead author Laura Martinez-Levasseur said in a statement.
Martinez-Levasseur says the rises in skin damage in the blue whale were "a matter of concern," but it isn't clear yet why they were happening.
....."A likely candidate is rising UVR (ultra-violet radiation) as a result of either ozone depletion or a change in the level of cloud cover
--Laura Martinez-Levasseur, Zoological Society of London, UK
Ultra-violet levels in the Gulf of California generally remain high or very high on the UV index (the international standard measurement of the strength of the ultraviolet radiation) throughout the year.
Edel O'Toole, professor of molecular dermatology at Queen Mary, University of London and co-author said the changes in the whales' skin were "dramatic" and "significant."
"In the cells of the epidermis there were blisters which we could observe under the microscope, as well as the ones you can see on the skin. We also observed sunburn like you would see in humans," O'Toole told CNN.
The damage appears to be getting worse, but there is no evidence yet that whales are developing more skin cancers, O'Toole says.
Now they have established that exposure to strong sun is damaging to whales' skin, scientists will now look at the knock-on effects and monitor if the whales are able to respond to increasing radiation, and enhance their natural sun protection mechanisms.
The research, which was conducted between 2007 and 2009, appears online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.Whales suffering from 'dramatic' sunburn
By Matthew Knight for CNN... more
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Scientists: Serengeti on road to ruin
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/21/serengeti.migration.threat.road/index.html?hpt=C1
Photo: Conservationists say a proposed new road through the Serengeti National Park will disrupt migratory patterns of wildebeests
Serengeti on road to ruin, scientists warn
By Matthew Knight for CNN
September 21, 2010 11:07 a.m. EDT
London, England (CNN) -- Plans to build a highway through Tanzania's Serengeti National Park will destroy one of the world's last great wildlife sanctuaries, a group of conservation experts has warned.
Writing in the journal Nature, 27 scientists have called for a re-think on a proposed 50 kilometer (31 mile) road which they say will cause "environmental disaster."
Under plans approved by the Tanzanian government earlier this year, the trade route would bisect a northern part of the park, forming part of the 170 kilometer-long Arusha-Musoma highway slated to run from the Tanzanian coast to Lake Victoria, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Construction is expected to begin in 2012.
In "Road will ruin Serengeti," lead author Andrew Dobson, professor at the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, says laying a track across the park would disrupt the annual migratory patterns of tens of thousands of zebras and gazelles, and 1.3 million wildebeest.
Using computer simulations the scientists estimate that if the wildebeests' access to the Mara river in Kenya is blocked their numbers "will fall to less than 300,000."
The ecosystem could flip into being a source of atmospheric CO2
--Scientists writing in 'Nature'
"This would lead to more grass fires, which would further diminish the quality of grazing by volatizing minerals, and the ecosystem could flip into being a source of atmospheric CO2," the scientists said.
In addition to simulations, the scientists also cite the experience of other park ecosystems where large mammal migration has been hindered by roads and fences.
In Canada's Banff National Park in Canada, "habitat fragmentation" has led to the "collapse of at least six of the last 24 terrestrial migratory species left in the world."
In Africa, the ecosystems of Etosha National Park in Namibia and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Botswana have collapsed to "a less diverse and less productive state," the scientists said.
Scientists say a different route running south of the Serengeti should be considered to preserve the 1.2 million hectare UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This alternative route could utilize an existing network of gravel roads and would only be 50 kilometers longer than the proposed northern route, the scientists said.
While they acknowledge that Tanzania needs improved infrastructure to facilitate economic development, they argue that the road would damage wildlife tourism -- "a cornerstone" of the country's economy which was worth an estimated $824 million in 2005.
The Nature article adds weight to the growing pressure on the Tanzanian government to reconsider its position regarding the road.
Last month, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Zoological Society of London voiced their concerns and campaigns against the highway are gaining support on social networking sites Facebook ("Stop the Serengeti Highway") and Twitter ("SaveSerengeti").
Earlier this year, Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete tried to placate opponents of the project by announcing that the section of new road running through the Serengeti would not be tarmacked.
"I am also a conservation ally and I assure you I'm not going to allow something that will ruin the ecosystem to be built," President Kikwete said in an address to the nation in July.Scientists: Serengeti on road to ruin... more
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The world's longest conga line of caterpillars was kept together by a silk thread as the 136 spiny pillars made their way across the road.
Luckily the van full of tourists put on his breaks just in time, which stopped them from squishing the trial of caterpillars
"'They were following a very, very thin silk thread on the ground and it took them about 20 minutes to get across the road safely.'
'Our guide had never seen it before, but he'd heard about it and explained they were migrating into the bush where they would disperse.'-Daily Mail
The tourists in the van were lucky since spotting the troop of migrating caterpillars is a rare sight, which took them about 20minutes before it was safe to drive on.The world's longest conga line of caterpillars was kept together by a silk thread... more
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If a country disappears, is it still a country? Does it keep its seat at the United Nations? Who controls its offshore mineral rights? Its shipping lanes? Its fish?
And if entire populations are forced to relocate -- as could be the case with citizens of the Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati and other small island states facing extinction -- what citizenship, if any, can those displaced people claim?
Until recently, such questions of sovereignty and human rights have been the domain of a scattered group of lawyers and academics. But now the Republic of the Marshall Islands -- a Micronesian nation of 29 low-lying coral atolls in the North Pacific -- is campaigning to stockpile a body of knowledge it hopes will turn international attention to vulnerable countries' plights.
"At the current negotiating sessions and climate change meetings, nobody is truly addressing the legal and human rights effects of climate change," said Phillip Muller, the Marshall Islands' ambassador to the United Nations.
"If the Marshall Islands ceases to exist, are we still going to own the sea resources? Are we still going to be asked for permission to fish? What are the rights that we will have? And we are also mindful that we may need to relocate. We're hoping it will never happen, but we have to be ready. There are a lot of issues we need to know the answer to and be able to tell our citizens what is happening," he said.
Frustrated by the dearth of answers to the questions he was posing, Muller said, Marshall Islands leaders contacted Columbia Law School. Michael Gerrard, who leads the law school's Center for Climate Change Law, picked up the challenge and issued a call for papers.
Theoretical questions become real
Gerrard, who is arranging a conference sponsored by Columbia University's Earth Institute next year, said that when he began reaching out to scholars, he realized most were working in isolation from one another. And, he said, some of the most ticklish legal questions facing small island nations have been understudied -- because until recently, the notion of a country's extinction has been largely theoretical.
"The prospect of a nation drowning is so horrific that it's hard to imagine," Gerrard said. Moreover, he added, until just a few years ago, it was difficult to have a conversation in the international community about how countries might adapt to climate change.
"There was a concern that it would divert focus from mitigation. But now people recognize that even with the most aggressive imaginable mitigation measures, the climate situation will get worse before it gets better, and we have to begin making serious preparation," he said.
The plight of refugees is the most emotional of the looming questions. Deciding where to relocate citizens is just the beginning for a disappearing nation. Still unanswered: What will the political status of those displaced people be? Will they assimilate into the culture and economy of their new host country, or will they retain a separate identity?
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that rising sea levels, saltwater intrusion and accelerated coastal erosion could lead to as many as 200 million environmentally induced migrants worldwide by 2050.
The Carteret Islanders of Papua New Guinea could be some of the world's first climate "refugees." The land is expected to be under water by 2015, and Papua New Guinea's mission to the United Nations has already announced it would evacuate the approximately 2,000 islanders to Bougainville Island -- about a four-hour boat ride away.
Maldives wants a fund of last resort
Meanwhile, in the Maldives, President Mohamed Nasheed declared upon entering office that he would create a sovereign fund -- something of a last-resort insurance policy -- in the event that the country's 305,000 citizens would require relocation. The fund fell victim to budget shortfalls, but Maldivian officials have said it had the desired effect of raising awareness in the international community.
cont.If a country disappears, is it still a country? Does it keep its seat at the United... more
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