tagged w/ Species Extinction
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Scientists long puzzled by the rapid decline in millions of Canadian boreal ducks since the 1970s think they may finally have the cause: global warming.
"Because of climate change, the ducks don't have the food that they need when they need it," Stuart Slattery, a research scientist with Ducks Unlimited Canada, told CBC News on Friday.
Slattery and a team of scientists from the University of British Columbia, the University of Saskatchewan and Environment Canada have long been trying to solve a mystery in Canada's boreal forests: why have two duck species, the scaup and scoter, dropped so dramatically in numbers — by 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively — in just three decades?
The scaup population, for instance, plunged from six million to 3½ million.
Spring starting earlier
The team suspected the ducks' boreal wetland habitats were changing, so they examined snow cover data. That was when they made a startling discovery.
A map of snow cover data, illustrated in green, where earlier spring melts have resulted in declining boreal duck populations. (Stuart Slattery)"We found that over a 35-year period, that spring comes on average about 11 days earlier," Slattery said.
Slattery said that is a massive change. Low snow cover is directly linked with the drop in the ducks' survival.
Slattery said the world's warming trend interferes with a delicate timing in nature.
Migratory birds fly south in the fall and return just in time in the spring to feed on an abundance of insects. The duck mothers especially need this food while nesting in June.
But now that the spring is arriving nearly two weeks sooner, the ducks fly in too late for the feast.
"As this mismatch gets worse, the ducklings are impacted the most," said Slattery. "The food just simply isn't there in the amounts that it was historically."
Other duck species adapting
Curiously, other duck species, such as the mallard, are adapting since they can migrate to nesting areas earlier in the year.
But Slattery suspects the scaup and scoter have not developed that ability.
"They just get here late, and so they don't have a chance to re-nest like some of the other earlier nesting species do," he said.
Slattery said society's continued use of fossil fuels is causing all these problems.
"We are experiencing climate change in a very real way. [Duck] populations are getting smaller and smaller," he said.
A recent Stanford and University of Toronto study found that 98 per cent of 1,300 scientists who publish papers on climate change agree that the world is warming, and humans are the cause.
More at the linkScientists long puzzled by the rapid decline in millions of Canadian boreal ducks... more
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Maclean, IMD and RJ Wilson, 2011. Recent ecological responses to climate change support predictions of high extinction risk. Proceedings of the National Association of Sciences http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1017352108.
New evidence confirms what scientists have long suspected: that climate change is already having major effects on many of the world's species.
Researchers report for the first time that the documented species responses – migration to a higher or cooler climate or changes in population – suggest actual extinction risks linked to climate change are almost double those that were predicted. Just as grim are future outlooks – almost one-third of species will be threatened by 2100.
Temperature, ocean acidity and other climate-related changes can set the stage for widespread extinctions by adding even more pressure to ecosystems already stressed by habitat loss, pollution, disease and other human-related impacts.
Context
We are currently witnessing a mass extinction event, the sixth of such thought to have occurred in the Earth’s history. Mass extinctions were responsible for the demise of marine organisms more than 400 million years ago and the fall of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago – an event which led to the ascent of modern-day mammals.
The causes of these historical extinctions can only be guessed at based on geological records. But, the result then – as now – is a sharp reduction in global diversity of plant and animal species.
The current round of mass extinctions may be triggered by a combination of human-related environmental and ecosystem impacts, experts contend. In general, habitat loss, over harvesting, pollution and invasive species can combine with disease, parasites and other health problems to contribute to decreasing populations.
In addition, climate change is surfacing as a main threat to global biodiversity. The added stress of climate-related changes in temperature, rainfall, sea level or ocean chemistry put many plant and animal species at more risk. Especially hard hit are species that are not able to migrate to areas better suited to their needs.
While there is much debate on the cause of climate change, most scientists agree that the earth’s climate is changing at an accelerated pace. Ecologists have attempted to predict how temperature, ocean acidity or other climate-related changes might affect populations of different species or possibly cause extinctions.
Typically, scientists rely on models to predict the types and rates of extinctions. A new, growing body of studies now documents actual impacts and responses in a variety of species. These new studies make it possible to compare the theoretical with actual, observed responses.
No one knows for sure how many species live on Earth. More than one and a half million species are identified but tens – if not hundreds – of millions of species are estimated to live on the globe.
Biodiversity - the number of plants and animals in the world and their genetic variety – is important for a number of reasons. An organism-rich world provides direct benefits to humans. Many known and many yet-to-be-discovered resources can lead to the development of needed food, energy and medicines. Biodiversity also protects vital ecosystems that contribute to clean water and air against environmental damage from pollution and extreme weather.
More at the linkMaclean, IMD and RJ Wilson, 2011. Recent ecological responses to climate change... more
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The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has warned the US, the UK, and all tiger-range nations that China has re-opened the trade in wild cat skins—including tigers—ahead of a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting this week in Geneva, Switzerland. According to the EIA, China has reinitiated a Skin Registration Scheme that allows the trade of big cat skins from legal sources, such as captive-bred cats and controversial tiger farms, however the NGOS argues the scheme lacks transparency, providing an easy cover for the sale of skins taken from big cats poached in the wild.
"The Skin Registration Scheme is going in totally the wrong direction. It’s doing nothing to actually help tiger and leopard conservation, instead providing a cover for illegal trade and creating a confused consumer market," says Debbie Banks, EIA Tiger Campaign Head, in a press release.
China is a signatory of the Global Tiger Recovery Program, which ambitiously pledged to double tiger numbers in the wild by 2022 with initial funds of $300 million. However, EIA contends that the re-opening of the Skin Registration Scheme makes a 'complete mockery' of China's promise to conserve tigers.
The EIA states that it has already found examples of cat skins on sale on-line. According to the Hindustan Times one tiger rug cost $124,000, while a stuffed tiger cost $700,000. Leopard skins ranged from $100,000 to $300,000.
snip
Currently, there are an estimated 3,500 wild tigers in the world, down from approximately 100,000 in 1900; during the last decade alone tigers have lost 40% of their viable habitat; and already in the past century, three tiger subspecies went extinct and one may only survive in captivity. These bleak statistics underlie the difficulty of saving tigers. The great cat is threatened by habitat loss (much of which has vanished already), poaching for skins and traditional medicine, declines in prey species, and human-tiger conflict, which includes casualties both of humans and tigers.The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has warned the US, the UK, and all... more
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This video shows astoundingly beautiful footage of our greatest gift - this planet which I had to share. However, humans are using up her resources twice as fast as we are returning what we use while as a whole ignoring the signs. We cannot sustain this pace much longer.This video shows astoundingly beautiful footage of our greatest gift - this planet... more
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Worldwide, 2010 was one of the two warmest years on record, says the 2010 State of the Climate report, released June 27 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
On the Arctic, the State of the Climate shows how 2010 marked the end of the warmest decade since instrument records began in 1900.
The summer of 2010 in Greenland reveals the speed and breadth of the environmental change occurring in the Arctic, the report says.
In Greenland, warm air from the south was responsible for the longest period and largest area of ice sheet melt since at least 1978, and the highest melt rate since at least 1958, it says/
High summer air temperatures and a longer melt season also occurred in the Canadian Arctic, where loss from small glaciers and ice caps continued to increase.
A combination of low winter snow accumulation and high spring air temperatures also resulted in a record minimum spring snow, says the report, compiled by 400 scientists from 45 countries.
This year’s update on climate information from every continent tracks 41 climate indicators, including the temperature of the lower and upper atmosphere, precipitation, greenhouse gases, humidity, cloud cover, ocean temperature and salinity, sea ice, glaciers, and snow cover.
These indicators show “a continuation of the long-term trends scientists have seen over the last 50 years, consistent with global climate change,” said Thomas R. Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.
The Arctic section of the State of the Climate says:
• Arctic sea ice extent in September 2010 was the third lowest of the past 30 years. After a record minimum summer sea ice cover in 2007, the upper Arctic Ocean remains relatively warm and fresh, instead of salty, “a condition that is affecting marine biology and geochemistry;”
• observations of changes to tundra vegetation indicate “continued increases in greening,” associated with more ice-free, coastal waters and higher tundra land temperatures;
• on Sept. 19, 2010, ice extent shrank to its annual minimum of 4.6 million square kilometres. That’s the third-lowest minimum recorded since 1979, higher only than 2008 and the record minimum in 2007. There has been a substantial loss of old, thick ice in the Arctic Basin compared to the late 1980s, with the pack ice in the central Canada Basin changing from a multi-year to a seasonal ice cover;
• “surface air temperatures through the 2010 summer were higher than normal throughout the Arctic, though less extreme than in 2007;”
• vegetation changed and increased on Baffin Island;
• there was more warming in relatively cold permafrost than in warm permafrost in 2010; and,
• a combination of low winter snow accumulation and above-normal spring temperatures created new record-low spring snow cover duration over the Arctic since satellite observations began in 1966;
You can read a full report and a highlights document online.Worldwide, 2010 was one of the two warmest years on record, says the 2010 State of the... 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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The genetically engineered tree (GE tree) company ArborGen, a joint project of timber corporations International Paper (NYSE: IP), MeadWestvaco (NYSE: MWV) and Rubicon (NZSE: RBC.NZ), decided suddenly yesterday to change its plans and not sell shares in ArborGen publicly on the NASDAQ exchange. [1]
On July 1, 2010, three member organizations of the STOP GE Trees Campaign ( Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance and Sierra Club) teamed up with attorneys at the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety to sue the US Department of Agriculture over their approval of a series of field trials involving more than a quarter of a million GE cold tolerant eucalyptus trees because the Environmental Assessment the USDA used to approve the field trials was inadequate. The lawsuit demands that the USDA prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement regarding the field trials because of their potential impacts on forests, ground water, wildlife and endangered or threatened species. [2]
The groups that filed the suit charge that GE trees carry serious social and ecological risks; and that these risks were either downplayed or outright ignored in the USDA's Environmental Assessment.
"This lawsuit against the USDA over their approval of GE eucalyptus trees is just one of a series of lawsuits that has been filed against the USDA by the Center for Food Safety, the Sierra Club and others," stated Dr. Neil Carman, a plant scientist with the Sierra Club. "The USDA's Environmental Assessments on GMO plants are shams. Their science is completely flawed. Litigation has revealed this time and time again in court. I think ArborGen has good right to worry that they will never get commercial approval for their GE trees, based on the legal precedents so far," he added.
Even industry is acknowledging the chilling effect of the numerous lawsuits against GMOs. In an article from April 29, 2011 in Biomass Power and Thermal Magazine, Karen Batra, director of communications for the Biotechnology Industry Organization stated, "Obviously, the litigious environment we have seen in the past couple years is representing a tremendous deterrent to investment in [biotechnology]..." Batra says. "It's making it very hard to get investments and to see their way through what could be five and 10 years in development of a product, if when you finally do get to a point where you're close to commercialization, you're going to have to deal with litigation. It is creating a huge barrier." [3]
"According to the CEO of Rubicon, one of ArborGen's parent companies, ArborGen plans to sell half a billion GE eucalyptus trees annually just in the US South," stated Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and North American Focal Point of The Netherlands-based Global Forest Coalition. "This could devastate forest ecosystems, especially when you consider that one of ArborGen's eucalyptus species is an engineered variant of a species known to be invasive in Florida. In addition, eucalyptus trees are both explosively flammable and extremely water intensive. And now they've modified them to be cold tolerant, so they can spread throughout the US South. It's a disaster waiting to happen. GE eucalyptus trees are like kudzu, only flammable." [4] There are also several engineered species of native trees that are in the field trial stage-like poplar and loblolly pine that could irreversibly contaminate native forests with their engineered traits. [5]
In September 2009 the USDA rejected ArborGen's initial application for permission to release millions of their GE eucalyptus trees commercially.
"In addition to the detrimental impacts of escape or contamination of forests by GE trees is the fact that International Paper stated that they anticipate the use of GE trees will vastly expand the acreage of tree plantations in the South," stated Scot Quaranda, Campaign Director of the Dogwood Alliance. "Where is all of this land going to come from? Native forests will have to be clearcut to make room for GE tree plantations. Commercial release of GE eucalyptus trees will devastate the biologically rich native hardwood forests of the South, which is why Dogwood Alliance is so strongly opposed to them." [6]
Organizing to stop the commercialization of genetically engineered trees has been going on since 2000, with The STOP GE Trees Campaign founded in 2004 by thirteen groups including Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance and Sierra Club. The Campaign has since grown to include 145 organizations worldwide-with many based in Latin America. [7]
The court is expected to produce a ruling shortly on the lawsuit to stop ArborGen's eucalyptus field trials.The genetically engineered tree (GE tree) company ArborGen, a joint project of timber... more
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Dissatisfied with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) current review of the first-ever proposed commercialization of genetically engineered (GE) salmon, late yesterday the California Assembly Health Committee approved a bill which would require that all GE fish sold in California contain clear and prominent labeling. The bill, AB 88, was introduced by Assemblymember Jared Huffman. The Center for Food Safety (CFS), a co-sponsor of the bill, applauds the Health Committee for protecting the public’s right to know how their food is produced.
“The FDA has indicated that it will not require these GE fish to be labeled once they are approved,” said Rebecca Spector, West Coast Director of the Center for Food Safety. “As such, it is incumbent on the California State legislature, starting with the Health Committee, to let the people of California make informed choices about the food they eat by requiring the labeling of GE fish sold in California.”
Public opinion clearly and consistently calls for food labeling. Recent polls indicate that 95% of the public want labeling of genetically-modified foods, and that nearly 50% of the public would not eat seafood that has been genetically engineered. Consumers sent nearly 400,000 public comments to FDA demanding the agency reject this application and require mandatory labeling of this transgenic salmon should it decide to approve it.
The Center for Food Safety recently called on the FDA to recognize the immense public outcry for mandatory labeling of untested, unapproved transgenic salmon. CFS led a broad coalition of consumer, environmental, religious and animal welfare groups, along with commercial and recreational fisheries associations and food retailers, grocers and chefs in demanding the FDA deny approval of the long-shelved AquaBounty transgenic salmon and require mandatory labeling of the fish is approved despite intense opposition. If approved the transgenic salmon would be the first genetically engineered animal intended for human consumption.
“Until FDA completes an adequate environmental and human health review of genetically engineered salmon, it is up to individual states to protect consumers and their families,” said Spector. “California has always been a leader in environmental and food safety laws, and AB 88 continues this tradition by protecting the public from a potentially harmful food technology. More importantly, it gives consumers the right to know what they are eating and gives them a choice in the marketplace.”
Read CFS’s testimony presented at the Health Committee hearing at the link.Dissatisfied with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) current review... more
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Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide.
They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss.
"We provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level," the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calling the findings "alarming."
"These are one of the most important pollinators of native plants," Sydney Cameron of the University of Illinois, Urbana, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.
In recent years, experts have documented a disappearance of bees in what is widely called colony collapse disorder, blamed on many factors including parasites, fungi, stress, pesticides and viruses. But most studies have focused on honeybees.
Bumblebees are also important pollinators, Cameron said, but are far less studied. Bumblebees pollinate tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries, she noted.
"The 50 species (of bumblebees) in the United States are traditionally associated with prairies and with high alpine vegetations," she added.
"Just as important -- they land on a flower and they have this behavior called buzz pollination that enables them to cause pollen to fly off the flower."
POLLINATING TOMATOES
This is the way to pollinate tomatoes, Cameron said -- although smaller bees can accomplish the same effect if enough cluster on a single flower.
Several reports have documented the disappearance of bumblebees in Europe and Asia, but no one had done a large national study in the Americas.
Cameron's team did a three-year study of 382 sites in 40 states and also looked at more than 73,000 museum records.
"We show that the relative abundance of four species have declined by up to 96 percent and that their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23 percent to 87 percent," they wrote.
While no crops are in immediate danger, the results show that experts need to pay attention, Cameron said. Pollinators such as bees and bats often have specific tongue lengths and pollination behaviors that have evolved along with the species of plants they pollinate.
Bumblebees can fly in colder weather than other species, and are key to pollinating native species in the tundra and at high elevations, Cameron said.
Genetic tests show that the four affected bumblebee species are inbred and other tests implicate a parasite called Nosema bombi, Cameron said.
"This is a wake-up call that bumblebee species are declining not only in Europe, not only in Asia, but also in North America," she said.Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United... more
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A historic deal to halt the mass extinction of species was finally agreed last night in what conservationists see as the most important international treaty aimed at preventing the collapse of the world's wildlife.
Delegates from more than 190 countries meeting in Nagoya, Japan, agreed at the 11th hour on an ambitious conservation programme to protect global biodiversity and the natural habitats that support the most threatened animals and plants.
After 18 years of debate, two weeks of talks, and tense, last-minute bargaining, the meeting of the UN Convention on Biodiversity agreed on 20 key "strategic goals" to be implemented by 2020 that should help to end the current mass extinction of species.
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The sweeping plan to put the brakes on the loss of species includes a set of new targets to be implemented by the end of the decade that will give greater protection to the natural world and enshrine the benefits it gives to humankind in a legally binding code of protection.
"This agreement reaffirms the fundamental need to conserve nature as the very foundation of our economy and our society," said Jim Leape, director general of the conservation group WWF International.
"Governments have sent a strong message that protecting the health of the planet has a place in international politics, and countries are ready to join forces to save life on Earth," Mr Leape said.
One of the 20 targets agreed by the delegates was to extend national parks to increase the area of protected land in the world from 12.5 per cent to 17 per cent, and the area of protected oceans from 1 per cent to 10 per cent by 2020. Another target is to lift threatened species from the risk of extinction.
Environment ministers from around the globe also agreed on rules for sharing the commercial benefits of nature's genetic resources between governments and companies, a key trade and intellectual property issue that could be worth billions of dollars in new funds for developing nations.
One idea enshrined in the new protocol is to set up a special fund from a proportion of the profits made from commercial products derived from biological material collected decades or even centuries ago from natural habitats in the developing world.
Caroline Spelman, Britain's Environment Secretary, said last night from Nagoya: "We have also agreed an historic protocol which has been 18 years in the making, establishing a regime where developing countries will allow access to their genetic and natural resources in return for a share of the benefits for their use."
This feature of the agreement was the biggest stumbling block to a deal because of concerns by developing nations that they would miss out on the revenues generated by Western companies that discover new drugs and medicines derived from studying the chemistry and genetics of species living in regions rich in biodiversity.
Developing nations, particular in Africa, had argued they had not benefited in the past from their natural resources which had been developed into lucrative products by wealthy Western countries.
Poorer countries had insisted that the cost of increasing their spending on the conservation of natural habitats had to be offset by some financial mechanism that paid them for the benefit of the genetic resources they were protecting.
Johansen Voker of Liberia's Environmental Protection Agency
had said: "The forest and the other biological resources we have serve the general interests of the global environment. So we expect assistance to be able to effectively conserve our environment for the common good of the world community."
The Nagoya meeting agreed to establish an International Regime on Access and Benefit Sharing of Genetic Resources to lay down the basic ground rules on how nations co-operate in obtaining genetic resources from animals, plants and fungi.
Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme, which administers the Convention on Biological Diversity, said: "This is a day to celebrate in terms of a new and innovative response to the alarming loss of biodiversity and ecosystems. And a day to celebrate in terms of opportunities for lives and livelihoods in terms of overcoming poverty and delivering sustainable development."
Ms Spelmen said the agreement sets out a plan to halt the loss of habitats that provide essential biological services for the benefit of people, such as the supply of fresh water. This, she insisted, would help to eradicate poverty. "We have also secured an agreement to link climate change, global poverty and biodiversity together in protecting the world's forests, which is essential if we are to achieve our aims in these areas," she said.
Last week, a report by the Zoological Society of London warned the populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have declined by 30 per cent over 40 years and that one-fifth of all vertebrate species are threatened with extinction.
cont.A historic deal to halt the mass extinction of species was finally agreed last night... more
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You don't have to be an environmentalist to care about protecting the Earth's wildlife.
Just ask a Chinese fruit farmer who now has to pay people to pollinate apple trees because there are no longer enough bees to do the job for free.
And it's not just the number of bees that is dwindling rapidly - as a direct result of human activity, species are becoming extinct at a rate 1,000 times greater than the natural average.
The Earth's natural resources are also suffering.
In the past few decades alone, 20% of the oceans' coral reefs have been destroyed, with a further 20% badly degraded or under serious threat of collapse, while tropical forests equivalent in size to the UK are cut down every two years.
These statistics, and the many more just like them, impact on everyone, for the very simple reason that, in the end, we will all foot the bill.
Costing nature
For the first time in history, we can now begin to quantify just how expensive degradation of nature really is.
Drivers of biodiversity loss
Land use change - for example cutting down forests that provide essential water regulation, flood protection and carbon storage, to make way for agriculture
Over exploitation - for example over-fishing or intensive farming that leads to soil degradation
Invasive species - for example the introduction of non-indigenous species that crowd out endemic insect populations
Climate change - for example rising temperatures that cause more extreme weather conditions.
A recent, two-year study for the United Nations Environment Programme, entitled The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), put the damage done to the natural world by human activity in 2008 at between $2tn (£1.3tn) and $4.5tn.
At the lower estimate, that is roughly equivalent to the entire annual economic output of the UK or Italy.
A second study, for the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), puts the cost considerably higher. Taking what research lead Dr Richard Mattison calls a more "hard-nosed, economic approach", corporate environmental research group Trucost estimates the figure at $6.6tn, or 11% of global economic output.
This, says Trucost, compares with a $5.4tn fall in the value of pension funds in developed countries caused by the global financial crisis in 2007 and 2008.
Of course these figures are just estimates - there is no exact science to measuring humans' impact on the natural world - but they show that the risks to the global economy of large-scale environmental destruction are huge.
Natural services
The reason the world is waking up to the real cost of the degradation of the Earth's wildlife and resources - commonly referred to as biodiversity loss - is because, until now, no one has had to pay for it.
Businesses and individuals have largely operated on the basis that the natural resources and services that the planet provides are infinite.
But of course they are not. And only when the value of protecting them, and in some cases replacing them, is calculated, does their vital role in the global economy become clear.
Some are obvious, for example the clean and accessible water that is needed to grow crops to eat, and the fish that provide one-sixth of the protein consumed by the human population.
But others are less so, for example the mangrove swamps and coral reefs that provide natural barriers against storms that devastate coastal regions; the vast array of plant species that provide pharmaceutical companies with endless genetic resources used for live-saving drugs; and the insects that provide essential pollination for growing around 70% of the world's most productive crops.
Bee collapse
It is a hugely complex process, but an economic value can be placed on these resources and services.
In the US in 2007, for example, the cost to farmers of a collapse in the number of bees was $15bn, according to the US Department of Agriculture, contributing to a global cost of pollination services of $190bn, according to Teeb.
Deforestation increases the risk of flooding in surrounding areas As Paven Sukhdev, a career banker and team leader of Teeb, says: "Bees don't send invoices".
Research by consultancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers also suggests the economic losses caused by the introduction of non-indigenous, agricultural pests in Australia, Brazil, India, South Africa, the US and the UK are more than $100bn a year.
In 1998, flash flooding in the Yangtze River in China killed more than 4,000 people, displaced millions more and caused damage estimated at $30bn. The Chinese government established that extensive logging in the region over the previous 50 years had removed the trees that provided essential protection from floods. It promptly banned logging.
Indeed the Centre for International Forestry Research has estimated that, in the 50 years prior to the ban, deforestation cost the Chinese economy around $12bn a year.
Business costs
The impact of biodiversity loss is felt hardest by the world's poor. The livelihood and employment of hundreds of millions of people depend upon the world's natural resources, whether it be fish to eat or sell, fertile soil for farming or trees for fuel, construction and flood control, to name just three.
As Mr Sukhdev explains: "Biodiversity is valuable for everyone, but it is an absolute necessity for the poor".
For example, Teeb has calculated that the Earth's natural resources and the services they provide contribute 75% of the total economic output of Indonesia, and almost half of India's output.
But it's not only the poor who suffer.
Businesses will increasingly be hit as they start paying for their part in biodiversity loss.
Not only will they have to pay to protect or replace services that nature has historically provided for free, but they will be forced to pay by regulatory instruments such as pollution taxes, like carbon credits and the landfill tax that already exist, and higher insurance premiums.
Increased flooding is partly due to land conversion by humans Then there is the cost of paying for the increased number of natural disasters, resulting in part from more extreme weather conditions caused by rising temperatures due to greenhouse gases, and even reputational damage among consumers that are becoming increasingly sensitive to environmental issues.
Trucost and PRI have estimated the cost of environmental damage caused by the world's largest 3,000 companies in 2008 at $2.15tn.
That equates to around one-third of their combined profits.
Again, these figures are only estimates, but the scale of the costs that will have to be paid by companies for their damage to the environment cannot be ignored.
cont.You don't have to be an environmentalist to care about protecting the... more
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Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. The findings suggest humans will live in a very different future if they drive animals to extinction, because the loss of each species can alter entire ecosystems.
Some scientists have speculated that effects of humans — from hunting to climate change — are fueling another great mass extinction. A few go so far as to say we are entering a new geologic epoch, leaving the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch behind and entering the Anthropocene Epoch, marked by major changes to global temperatures and ocean chemistry, increased sediment erosion, and changes in biology that range from altered flowering times to shifts in migration patterns of birds and mammals and potential die-offs of tiny organisms that support the entire marine food chain.
Scientists had once thought species diversity could help buffer a group of animals from such die-offs, either keeping them from heading toward extinction or helping them to bounce back. But having many diverse species also proved no guarantee of future success for any one group of animals, given that mass extinctions more or less wiped the slate clean, according to studies such as the latest one.
Looking back in time, the diversity of large taxonomic groups (which include lots of species), such as snails or corals, mostly hovered around a certain equilibrium point that represented a diversity limit of species' numbers. But that diversity limit also appears to have changed spontaneously throughout Earth's history about every 200 million years.
How today's extinction crisis — species today go extinct at a rate that may range from 10 to 100 times the so-called background extinction rate — may change the face of the planet and its species goes beyond what humans can predict, the researchers say.
"The main implication is that we're really rolling the dice," said John Alroy, a paleobiologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. "We don't know which groups will suffer the most, which groups will rebound the most quickly, or which ones will end up with higher or lower long-term equilibrium diversity levels."
What seems certain is that the fate of each animal group will differ greatly, Alroy said.
His analysis, detailed in the Sept. 3 issue of the journal Science, is based on almost 100,000 fossil collections in the Paleobiology Database (PaleoDB).
The findings revealed various examples of diversity shifts, including one that took place in a group of ocean bottom-dwelling bivalves called brachiopods, which are similar to clams and oysters. They dominated the Paleozoic era from 540 million to 250 million years ago, and branched out into new species during two huge adaptive spurts of growth in diversity – each time followed by a big crash.
The brachiopods then reached a low, but steady, equilibrium over the past 250 million years in which there wasn't a surge or a crash in species' numbers, and still live on today as a rare group of marine animals.
cont.Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the... more
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on August 25, 2010 that it will potentially approve the long-shelved AquAdvantage transgenic salmon as the first genetically engineered (GE) animal intended for human consumption. The GE Atlantic salmon being considered was developed by AquaBounty Technologies, and genetically engineered to produce growth hormones year-round, creating a fish the company claims grows at twice the normal rate. This could allow factory fish farms to crowd the salmon into pens and still get high production rates.
We have only a short window to tell FDA to reject these GE fish - Can you send a comment today?
Each year millions of farmed salmon escape from open-water net pens, outcompeting wild populations for resources and straining ecosystems. Any approval of GE salmon would represent another serious threat to the survival of native salmon populations, many of which have already suffered severe declines related to salmon farms and other man-made impacts. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes that a release of just sixty GE salmon into a wild population of 60,000 could lead to the extinction of the wild population in less than 40 fish generations. Wild Atlantic salmon are already on the Endangered Species List in the U.S.; approving these GE Atlantic salmon will be the final blow to these wild stocks.
The human health impacts of eating GE fish are entirely unknown, but some scientific research raises cause for alarm: for example, some scientists have asserted that foreign growth hormones in transgenetic fish may increase production of other compounds such as insulin in the fish. Additionally, FDA has recognized that a transgene cannot be “turned off” once it is inserted in the organism, and will therefore have effects that are uncontrollable.
These GE farmed salmon will also carry with them all of the health hazards of other farmed salmon, but transgenic fish may be more susceptible to disease than fish currently grown in aquaculture facilities because transgenic fish are identified as “macro-mutants” with a reduced ability to survive. Consequently, the amount of antibiotics given to transgenic fish may be higher than the amount currently given to farmed fish; already farmed salmon are given more antibiotics than any other livestock by weight, threatening the health of those who eat them and the continued efficacy of these antibiotics to treat human disease.
The company first applied for approval of the fish in 2001, but the Bush Administration delayed its approval until it was out of office. Ironically, the Obama Administration, who came to office promising a more environmentally sound and transparent process, is using the Bush Administration-developed framework for the approval of genetically engineered animals. This process uses the fiction that the genetically engineered salmon is, in effect, an animal “drug.” The failure of the FDA to develop a transparent process for the approval of GE animals and instead use the secretive process of the New Animal Drug regulations means that consumers will be deprived of basic information as to the safety of these animals.
Tell the Food and Drug Administration not to approve GE salmon AND, if the Obama Administration insists on approving these genetically engineered fish, it should require the fish to be labeled when marketed to fish farmers, fish retailers and food companies, restaurants, and when marketed to consumers.
Please take action today! The hearing for approving the salmon is scheduled for Sunday, September 19, and no public comment period has been established for the approval of genetically engineered fish outside of this meeting, so this may be our only chance to oppose this dangerous approval! Only a public comment period on labeling of the GE fish has been opened.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on August 25, 2010 that it will... more
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"As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of all creatures that we learn more about our biosphere -- and build a networked encyclopedia of all the world's knowledge about life."
The first excerpt:
"This vast domain of hidden biodiversity is increased still further by the dark matter of the biological world of bacteria, which within just the last several years still were known from only about 6,000 species of bacteria worldwide.
But that number of bacteria
But that number of bacteria species can be found in one gram of soil, just a little handful of soil, in the 10 billion bacteria that would be there. It's been estimated that a single ton of soil -- fertile soil -- contains approximately four million species of bacteria, all unknown.
So the question is: what are they all doing? "
Second excerpt:
"The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere by a combination of forces that can be summarized by the acronym "HIPPO," the animal hippo. H is for habitat destruction, including climate change forced by greenhouse gases. I is for the invasive species like the fire ants, zebra mussels, broom grasses and pathogenic bacteria and viruses that are flooding every country at an exponential rate -- that's the I. The P, the first one in "HIPPO," is for pollution. The second is for continued population, human population expansion. And the final letter is O, for over-harvesting -- driving species into extinction by excessive hunting and fishing The HIPPO juggernaut we have created, if unabated, is destined -- according to the best estimates of ongoing biodiversity research -- to reduce half of Earth's still surviving animal and plant species to extinction or critical endangerment by the end of the century.
Human-forced climate change alone -- again, if unabated -- could eliminate a quarter of surviving species during the next five decades What will we and all future generations lose if much of the living environment is thus degraded?"
http://www.ted.com/talks/e_o_wilson_on_saving_life_on_earth.html
Our ignorance and greed is bringing this world to an end. We need to change this, we need to stand up and protect our environment and our health. We need to fight against the ones that put profit above people. No more!
Join the Organic Movement:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of all... more
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Drought, flower farms, and pesticides are damaging the already shallow lake
NAIROBI, KENYA—-Flamingos are showing up on Lake Naisvasha, a freshwater vacation destination 100 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, and they worry David Kilo. Why? Because flamingos favor saltwater. When flamingos flock to freshwater lakes it’s an unmistakable signal that the natural balances of a healthy ecosystem have sustained a heavy blow.
“They shouldn’t be here,” Kilo told Circle of Blue in March following the United Nations’ World Water Day Conference in Kenya. “They usually gather at Nakuru, [a saltwater body], but recently they’ve started to come to Naivasha.”
“The algae, just like the flamingos, shouldn’t be there.”No one knows precisely what the threat is to Lake Naivasha, Kenya’s third largest lake. But it’s genuine, says Kilo, the chairman of an anti-poaching conservation group. Droughts prompted by the changing climate, soaring population in cities fed by the lake, and a nearly 40-year-old horticultural industry that uses the lake for irrigation and drainage have shrunk Lake Naivasha to roughly 10,700 hectares (41 sq. mi.) or half its size two decades ago.
In February, a month before a Circe of Blue reporter visited the lake, three days of heavy rains ended with more than 1000 dead fish. The lake’s water turned red. The government blamed the fish kill on low oxygen levels.
The ecosystem damage in this part of east Africa is another facet of a wave of unmistakable evidence in Africa and every other continent that climate change, population growth, and the pursuit of industrial wealth is starting to buckle the Earth’s basic biology. The principle resource most affected is available supplies of clean freshwater.
Lake Naivasha was a site visited by several journalists following the major UN conference for World Water Day in Nairobi. The lake, which is listed as protected by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, was once an incredible tourist attraction. Development around the lake has resulted in deforestation and now wildlife is disappearing. In the meantime, two of the rivers that flow into the lake, Malewa and Gilgil, are drying up and a thick algal soup develops among the papyrus groves on the lake’s margin. The algae, just like the flamingos, shouldn’t be there.
Low Oxygen, Water Levels Harm Wildlife
Kilo’s office and pier connects to a plot of land along Naivasha known as Fisherman’s Camp, a lovely green spot shaded by scores of acacia trees. The camp has a lodge with rooms to rent and space to pitch a tent on the grass. Camp managers were preparing for the weekend’s Rift Valley Festival, a three-day “musical experience in the cradle of mankind,” according to promotional flyers.
Field manager Moses Parmat said that changes in Lake Naivasha’s wildlife and water quality have affected the camp’s ability to draw international tourists. “Ninety percent of what attracts tourism has gone down,” Parmat said. Domestic visitors still come to Naivasha as a refuge from Nairobi’s congestion, but they do not bring the camp as much income as those from abroad.
Lake Naivasha’s water levels have fallen drastically in recent years, shrinking the breeding ground for microphytes—tiny organisms at the base of the food chain. The lake, which has an average depth of 5 meters, reached an all-time recorded low in December 2009. They usually cover the lake bottom, Kilo said, but an increase in the amount of sediment has reduced the population.
Kilo points from the pier 300 meters inland to show the water’s recession. The most affected area is the shallower eastern shore where the water retreated three kilometers. Now in many parts of the lake the first growth of papyrus is too far away for the birds and marine life that breed there.
The fluctuating lake levels have devastated hippopotamus pods. In addition to a shrinking lake, much of the hippos’ habitat is being converted to farmland. As a result hippos have become trapped in mud pits around the lake, stranded from a water source and left to die.
“The riparian lands have been taken for farming, so the hippos are not coming,” Parmat said. “We have seen many die. They go to trenches where people get water and die. The Kenyan Wildlife Service traps and moves them elsewhere, but it is still a big problem.”
While the disappearance of birds and hippos from the lake has been gradual, it was the death of 1000 fish three months ago that revealed just how bad lake conditions have become. The kill aggravated the debate between government officials and local activists who are trying to determine what caused oxygen levels to drop, and so many fish to die.
The Battle with Flower Farms
Coming from Naivasha town, a right turn on Moi South Lake Road takes you along the southern shore of the lake. On the left, volcanic Mt. Longonot rises over dusted plains, cacti and acacia trees. On the right, lakeshore topography gradually gives way to a line of three-meter, hedge-fronted fences that partially obscure translucent greenhouses. Every kilometer or so there is a break in the hedge with space for a gated guardhouse and a company sign: Nini Farm, Oserian Flower Company, Kenya Roses, Sher Agencies. Looking through the gates it is possible to see the depth of the compounds. The greenhouses extend hundreds of meters in the distance like perspective lines seeking a vanishing point.
Kenya is the top flower supplier to the European Union. Flower farming is lucrative business, ranking second as a source of foreign exchange behind tourism. The industry earned US$585 million in 2008, according to the Kenya Flower Council, a trade group.
The flower farms provide cut flowers for export, of which 97 percent end up in bouquets in European cities. The farms began locating around Lake Naivasha in the early 1970s, drawn there by the water supply, the high equatorial sun which ensures straight stems, favorable weather conditions for year-round growing and direct air links with Europe. Roses and carnations, which comprise the bulk of the Naivasha operations, can go from Kenyan farm to London florist in 48 hours.
Cont.
Photo © Brett WaltonDrought, flower farms, and pesticides are damaging the already shallow lake... more
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Humans left their mark on the Galapagos even before Darwin turned up. Whalers slaughtered the giant tortoises, and the few settlers brought rats, cats and goats, which crowded out local flora and fauna. Yet the pace of depredation has picked up rapidly over the past three decades, as tourist visits have increased 14-fold to over 160,000 a year.
Tourists are partly responsible for invasive species that threaten endemic wildlife. The hundreds of thousands of chicks that are brought to the islands to feed humans transmit avian diseases to native birds. Parasitic fly larvae began attacking hatchlings of the Darwin finch a few years ago. Wild birds have caught the canary pox virus, and penguins have been stricken by avian malaria. In some cases the damage is more direct. Taxis are a particular hazard. One study found that the average Galapagos car runs over seven birds a year.
When tourism was more limited, fishing by settlers from the mainland was the main threat. The sea cucumber was hunted nearly to extinction. Many fisherman have since set up as unlicensed tourist operators. Some 40 small craft carry thousands of visitors a month on unregulated tours.
Ecuador also has no plans to cap the tourist trade, which is worth $500m a year. It is even planning a new airport that could triple the number of visitors to the archipelago. Paradoxically, if word spreads of the islands’ deterioration, even more tourists may feel moved to visit them before it is too late.
http://www.economist.com/node/16281325Humans left their mark on the Galapagos even before Darwin turned up. Whalers... more
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This is from Jessica Koski of KBIC, who attends Yale University and has been a longtime warrior in the fight to protect sacred Eagle Rock and the Yellow Dog Plains.
It announces a new group and events for National Sacred Places Prayer Day involving Eagle Rock:
on Saturday, June 19, 2010 in two northern Michigan cities - Marquette and at the KBIC Powwow Grounds in Baraga.
National Sacred Places Prayer Day: Honoring our Water
All Welcome
June 19, 2010
Water Ceremony
Sunrise
Little Presque Isle Point
Marquette, MI
Community Potluck Picnic and Gathering
12 Noon
Baraga Powwow Grounds Pavilion
Baraga, Michigan
Please join us on Saturday, June 19, 2010 for a day of prayer to protect Native American sacred places.
We will gather at sunrise at Little Presque Isle Point on the shores of Lake Superior to pray for threatened sacred places and to honor the sacredness of the water and Mother Earth.
Eagle Rock, a sacred place to Anishinaabe people, is currently threatened as the proposed mine portal for the Rio Tinto/Kennecott Eagle Mine on the Yellow Dog Plains.
Our fresh groundwater, waterways and Lake Superior are threatened by the Eagle Mine and increasing sulfide and uranium mining interests throughout the Great Lakes region.
Native and non-Native people nationwide will gather at this time for Solstice ceremonies and to honor sacred places, with a special emphasis on the need for Congress to build a door to the courts for Native nations to protect our traditional churches.
We ask that all women who wish to participate wear a skirt in order to honor our traditional way. Women are also welcome to bring blue prayer ties and blue shawls for the water.
A community potluck picnic and gathering in honor of National Sacred Places Prayer Day will follow at the Powwow Grounds Pavilion in Baraga, MI at 12 noon.
Please join to show your support, ask questions and learn how you can help be a part of the movement to protect our sacred places, water and way of life for future generations.
Directions to Little Presque Isle Point:
From Marquette, Michigan, take 550 North towards Big Bay.
Turn right at the Blue Flag for Little Presque Isle Point.
Directions to Baraga Powwow Grounds Pavilion:
From L'Anse, Michigan take US 41 North towards Houghton.
Turn right at the Powwow Grounds sign.
Turn left at the red building and follow the road to the first pavilion.
Please contact jlkoski@gmail.com or 715-550-0124 if any questions.
Hosted by the Stand for the Land and Oshki Ogitchidaawin Aki (New Warriors for the Earth or NWE) which is a new Native/non-Native environmental organization grounded in Anishinaabe traditions with a mission to educate and empower our communities to take action on mining and other social-ecological issues facing our communities.This is from Jessica Koski of KBIC, who attends Yale University and has been a... more
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In a new report, the President’s Cancer Panel emphatically reinforced what public health officials and activists have been saying for decades: Toxic chemicals in the environment are killing people.
Scolding regulators for taking a reactionary rather than a precautionary approach, the panel, attached to the National Institutes of Health, noted that only a few hundred of the 80,000 chemicals used in the United States have been tested for safety.In a new report, the President’s Cancer Panel emphatically reinforced what... more
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Experts will announce this month the world has failed to meet the target set by international leaders to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by this year.
Professor Joseph Alcamo, chief scientist of the United Nations Environment Program told the London Guardian: "Since 1970 we have reduced animal populations by 30%, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20% and the coverage of living corals by 40%. These losses are clearly unsustainable, since biodiversity makes a key contribution to human well-being and sustainable development."Experts will announce this month the world has failed to meet the target set by... more
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Washington, DC-- While the U.S. Supreme Court hears its first-ever case involving a genetically modified organism, alarms are sounding over the proposed planting of more than a quarter of a million genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees in the U.S., and transgenic trees are being globally condemned.
On April 27, the Supreme Court began to hear a case challenging a ban on the planting of a genetically engineered perennial alfalfa. The ban was implemented due to concerns about escape and contamination, and the inability of U.S. regulators to protect the public. [1]
In April, Reuters released a report exposing the fact that U.S. regulating agencies have "dropped the ball" when it comes to evaluating the potential risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). [2]
Reuters highlighted concerns that, "the U.S. government conducts no independent testing of these biotech crops before they are approved, and does little to track their consequences after." The report even went so far as to state, "Indeed, many experts say the U.S. government does more to promote global acceptance of biotech crops than to protect the public from possible harmful consequences."
This is a particular concern since the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), one of the named agencies in the report, is considering approving a request by ArborGen to plant 260,000 GE trees across seven states even though researchers admit some of these trees produce viable pollen and some seedlings are assured to escape.
Referring to the questionable efficacy of the altered fertility technology in these GE trees, researcher Steve Strauss said, "There does not seem to have been any serious field studies, in any crop, sufficient to estimate the operational effectiveness of containment genes." Adding, "Until many such studies are published, it would be unwise to assume that genes can be fully and safely contained in the near future." [3]
Additionally, MSNBC [4], NPR [5] and PLoS Pathogens [6] recently reported that a new strain of a deadly pathogenic fungus, Cryptococcus gattii, has been causing fatal human illnesses throughout the Pacific Northwest. The fungus, which is known to grow on some species of eucalyptus trees, has killed one on four people in Oregon, and 40 out of 220 people infected throughout the region. While it is not known whether genetically engineered eucalyptus plantations would be a host for the fungus, the fact that some of the GE eucalyptus would have reduced lignin has raised concerns that they could be more susceptible to fungal infection.
Another study by researcher Claire Williams, recently published in the American Journal of Botany, found that pollen from trees remains viable over long distances. [7] This raises concerns about the potential for pollen from genetically engineered versions of native tree species like pines to travel large distances and contaminate forests. Williams' study found that, "GM pine plantings have the potential to disperse viable pollen at least 41 kilometers from the source."
On April 22, during the World Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia, a broad gathering of Indigenous Peoples, social movements and organizations from around the world, issued a consensus condemnation of transgenic trees (GMO trees) and monoculture plantations. [8]
"Given all of this evidence, the USDA should not even consider approving the release of any genetically engineered trees," insisted Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project and the STOP GE Trees Campaign. [9] "The fact that there are so many unknowns and no independent studies evaluating the risks of GE trees--which include human health risks and damage to forests and wildlife--is a major reason why the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2006 and 2008 urged countries to use the Precautionary Principle with regard to GE trees. The Precautionary Principle would require GE trees to be proven safe before they are released." [10]Washington, DC-- While the U.S. Supreme Court hears its first-ever case involving a... more
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