tagged w/ World Heritage Sites
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Flailing through mounds of sludge left by torrential rains, rescue workers cleared debris and hunted for survivors in Tuscany and Liguria on Wednesday after mudslides and flooding left at least six people dead and hundreds homeless in those areas, among the most picturesque in Italy.
Video images showed vast devastation, including in Monterosso al Mare, a village on the Unesco World Heritage List.
In some towns, videos showed, streets had become canals, furniture was piled pell-mell outside homes, bridges were swept away, highways were blocked by tree trunks and overturned trucks, cars were washed out to sea and boats were shredded like matchsticks.
Telecommunications and electricity were severed in the worst-hit towns, while train service was disrupted and numerous roads and highways were closed, civil protection authorities said.
In Monterosso al Mare, one of the five medieval towns that make up the picturesque Cinque Terre, a popular tourist draw on the Italian Riviera, one video showed a muddy river sweeping through a street, the water lapping at the ground floors of the buildings.
Angelo Betta, the mayor of Monterosso, said the rains had come fast and hard starting Tuesday night, causing five canals to overflow at the same time. “We need food, water, doctors, even toilets,” he told Italian television.
Interviewed by the news media, residents of Monterosso, which is popular with hikers who trek from town to town along a 12-mile footpath offering breath-catching views, described apocalyptic scenes of scrambling to reach upper stories while water swirled into the town like a speeding train.
The rains extended into Wednesday, causing more destruction. The Italian Army was sent in to assist civil protection rescue workers, and President Giorgio Napolitano said on television that climate change was the cause of the disaster.
“This is the very painful price we are unfortunately paying,” he said.
Environmental groups also blamed unregulated construction and expressed concerns that government cutbacks to environmental protection agencies, a consequence of Italy’s budget and economic travails, had undermined efforts to better manage such catastrophes.
Vittorio Cogliati Dezza, president of Legambiente, an Italian environmental organization, called on the government to restore financing to the Environment Ministry. He said preventive measures to strengthen geologically fragile areas were more economically sound than tackling emergencies, “which result in unsustainable costs for the population with no effective savings for public coffers.”
The torrential rains were likely to become more common because of climate change, said Fausto Guzzetti, the director of a geological institute that is part of Italy’s National Research Council. A different issue, he said in an interview, was the impact that they had on infrastructure and towns, as a result of the often unregulated and widespread urban development that took place throughout Italy during the postwar boom. What happened in Tuscany and Liguria, he said, “should not have happened, but it did because we have built in places where we should not have built. Now it is too late, and we are paying the consequences.”
More at the linkFlailing through mounds of sludge left by torrential rains, rescue workers cleared... more
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Russians on Saturday protested at the reopening of a paper mill on the shore of Lake Baikal which environmentalists say endangers one of the world's largest freshwater reserves.
Nearly 200 people turned out in central Saint Petersburg, Russia's former imperial capital, as environmental organisations including Greenpeace warned of turning the scenic Siberian lake into a sewer.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in January gave the go-ahead for the reopening of the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill which has been shut since 2008 and is owned by billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Demonstrators were planning to send a collection of toilet paper to Putin whose decision they argue would lead to discharging tonnes of sewage into the lake and incinerating waste on the lakefront.
"If authorities are in dire need of paper and need to destroy the Baikal, we're giving them paper," said Dmitry Artamonov, the local Greenpeace chief.
Lake Baikal, the world's deepest freshwater lake and a UN World Heritage site, is renowned for its unique flora and fauna and contains about 20 percent of the planet's freshwater reserves.
"The attitude toward the Baikal shows the pervasive ecological arbitrariness in the country," said 37-year-old demonstrator Yevgeny Kozlov.
WWF Russia representative Yevgeny Schwartz has warned that reopening the mill is dangerous "because they are going to resume the production of white cellulose with chlorine", which is a toxic gas.
About 100 people rallied in a similar protest in the eastern Siberian city of Ulan-Ude, Russian news agencies reported.
Nearly 700 people turned out to back Putin's decision in the town of Baikalsk where the mill is located.
Agencies said the plant employs about 1,600 people.
An official said in late January that the factory's closed water circulation system, built to avoid pollution to the lake, had not been put back into service.
The high cost of operating the system had led to the plant's closure in 2008.
Critics say the reopening of the mill also is an obstacle to the development of alternative economic activities for the region, mainly in tourism and ecology.Russians on Saturday protested at the reopening of a paper mill on the shore of Lake... more
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http//www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/video-china-karst/
The vast yet inaccessible underground waters in southwest Yunnan Province represent the front lines of China’s freshwater crisis. Two openings in the earth, Shi Dong and Nan Dong caves, where the Yang Liu River slips into and out of the shadows, mark the point where a fluvial region rich with surface streams meets an unusual geologic formation of soluble rock layers known as a karst landscape. It is also a fateful human dividing line, a place where China’s challenges with water scarcity, land use, and pollution come into clear focus.http//www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/video-china-karst/
The vast yet... more
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Determined to reduce dependence on foreign energy, Turkey vowed Tuesday to push on with an ambitious dam construction program despite the loss of financing for a key project and loud objections from environmentalists.
German, Swiss and Austrian creditors announced eaerlier in the day they were withdrawing from the Ilisu dam project on the Tigris river in southeast Turkey because Ankara had failed to meet conditions of the 1.2 billion-euro (1.7 billion-dollar) credit.
Turkey hit back by saying that the decision was "political" and underlined that it was determined to realize the Ilisu project, which opponents say will flood a millenia-old historic site and displace some 50,000.
Last week, Environment Minister Veysel Eroglu said Ankara would build the dam and its 1,200-megawatt powerplant with its own money if the loan were not released.
Observers say it is unlikely for Turkey to give up on plans for low-cost energy at a time when official projections estimate an annual 6.0 to 8.0 percent increase in the country's energy consumption.
Turkey is already a big importer of natural gas and oil, part of which it uses to produce electricity.
There are currently 172 hydroelectric dams in operation in Turkey with an overall capacity of 13,000 megawatts, which amounts to 17 percent of the country's electricity production, according to figures from the state-run hydraulic works directorate (DSI).
A total of 148 are under construction and there are plans to build another 1,400, which would enable Turkey to triple its hydroelectric production.
"At the moment Turkey uses only 30 percent of its hydraulic resources, but there are planned projects to increase it to 50 percent," said Sezayi Sucu, an enthusiastic engineer heading a major dam project in northeastern corner of Turkey.
"This figure is still rather low compared to the United States or Europe where the exploitation rate reaches 95 percent and 85 percent respectively," he added.
But some of the planned hydroelectric dams not only come under fire from environmentalists but are also criticised by neighbouring Syria and Iraq who say Turkish dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers reduce the flow into their territories.
Sucu works on one such controversial project in the Coruh River in the Black Sea province of Artvin, bordering Georgia, that involves the construction of 15 major dams -- two of which have already been completed -- and several dozen smaller ones.
Once completed, the project will provide one tenth of Turkish electricty production.
But one of the planned dams, the Yusufeli dam, has for several years has been at the centre of a legal war between the state and environmentalists trying to block its construction.
Opponents say the dam will not be profitable, will destroy endemic flora and fauna species and displace some 16,000 people in a region that has already been drained by years of migration.
"This project does not stand up on its feet: Just look at the reservoir of the nearby Borcka dam and you will see how much silt has accumulated there. In a few years, everything will turn into mud," said Bedrettin Kalin, a lawyer from a local environmental platform called the Fraternity of the Valleys.
Korol Diker from the environmental group Greenpeace blamed Ankara of ignoring the potential environmental impact of planned dams when it gives the go-ahead to the projects.
"The problem is that the environmental impact study system does not work properly in Turkey," Diker said, adding that Ankara often chooses to build big dams that are more environmentally destructive than smaller ones.Determined to reduce dependence on foreign energy, Turkey vowed Tuesday to push on... more
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Pure water and pristine wilderness make Glacier National Park and its sister park in Canada, Waterton Lakes National Park, a unique place worthy of its designation as Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, a UN World Heritage site and Biosphere Reserve. Grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, lynx and many threatened species depend on its pristine habitats. However, the park and its wildlife are threatened by mining and gas drilling in the Flathead River Valley adjacent to the park.
Our leaders need to know how you feel about this special place.
This month the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations will meet in Spain to rule on a petition submitted by 11 leading environmental groups in the U.S. and Canada. The petition urges the committee to add Waterton-Glacier to the list of World Heritage sites "In Danger."
One proposal under consideration by British Columbia's government is for an open pit coal mine less than 25 miles upstream from the park. More than 325 million tons of waste rock would be dumped into a tributary of the Flathead River that forms the western border of the park and provides critical habitat for threatened bull trout and genetically pure westslope cutthroat trout. Any leakage from the waste dumps would send toxic sludge into Waterton-Glacier within 24 hours.
Other mineral exploration is underway even closer to the park boundary. Proposed mining and drilling in the Canadian Flathead Valley would push threatened species closer to extinction by disrupting the seasonal migration of trout, eagles, falcons, moose and elk, and the dispersal of wide-ranging carnivores.
Take action: Tell decision-makers in Canada and the United States that mining and gas drilling do not belong upstream of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park in the Flathead River Valley.Pure water and pristine wilderness make Glacier National Park and its sister park in... more
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Siberia's Lake Baikal, the world's largest and most biologically diverse lake, faces the prospect of severe ecological disruption as a result of climate change, according to an analysis by a joint US-Russian team in the May issue of BioScience.
The lake is considered a treasure trove for biologists and was designated a World Heritage
Site by UNESCO because a high proportion of its rich fauna and flora are found nowhere else.
Perhaps the most alarming imminent threat stems from the dependence of the lake's food web on large, endemic diatoms, which are uniquely vulnerable to expected reductions in the length of time the lake is frozen each winter.
The article was written by Marianne V. Moore, of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and five coauthors, including four from Irkutsk State University in Russia. Moore and colleagues note that Lake Baikal's climate has become measurably milder over recent decades, and that annual precipitation is expected to increase.
The average ice depth in the lake is known to have decreased in recent decades, and the ice-free season to have increased. Changes in the lake's food-web composition have been documented.
Future shortening in the duration of ice cover is expected to curtail the growth of the lake's endemic diatoms, because unlike most diatoms, they bloom under the ice in springtime and are highly dependent on ice cover for their reproduction and growth.
The diatoms constitute the principal food of tiny crustaceans abundant in the lake, and these are in turn preyed upon by the lake's fish. Moreover, the crustaceans could be affected by changes in the transparency of the ice, an expected result of shifting precipitation patterns and changes in wind dynamics.
Shortened periods of ice cover and changes in the ice's transparency may also harm the Baikal seal, the lake's top predator and the world's only exclusively freshwater seal. Because the seals mate and give birth on the ice, premature melting of the ice forces them into the water before molting and drastically reduces their fertility.
A warmer, wetter climate may be the principal threat to Lake Baikal's unique biological heritage, but it is not the only one. The secondary effects of climate change, including greater nutrient inputs and industrial pollution from melting permafrost, may also exact a toll on an already-stressed ecosystem.
end of excerpt.Siberia's Lake Baikal, the world's largest and most biologically diverse... more
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This is as close as you can get to a divine experience. It brings me to tears. Sheer beauty. Water is life.
And now:
Brazil drought staunches famed Iguazu falls
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Brazil_drought_staunches_famed_Iguazu_falls_999.html
Excerpt:
"An acute drought in Brazil has hit the famed horseshoe-shaped Igauzu falls which straddle two countries, cutting back the tumbling waters to reveal the rocky sides. Only a third of the usual volume of water is now flowing over the top of the stunning falls, which were listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1984 and border both Brazil and Argentina, Globo television said.
At the foot of the falls on the Brazilian side, the bottom of the Parana river is now clearly visible, allowing environmentalists a rare chance to clean up mountains of accumulated trash.
The falls, which are actually made up of 275 waterfalls stretching some 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles), are taller than the Niagara Falls and twice as wide.
They provide a panoramic backdrop to the tropical rainforest region, with an average of 553 cubic feet of water per second from the Iguazu River thundering some 269 feet over the falls and then draining into the Parana.
Divers have been cleaning up the garbage which has collected in the Parana, finding everything from cameras to combs, CDs and batteries as well as plastic bottles, tin cans and umbrellas.
Some of the trash has floated down river from other towns, but most has been dropped by tourists, said environmentalist Tassio Lima."
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Now this should open your eyes. I have always thought that should these magnificent falls be diminshed that something surely was wrong with the climate balance of this planet. To stand and feel the raw energy and power and see the awe inspiring beauty of these falls is something to aspire to in life. To read these falls are now being diminshed due to drought leaves me sad, and must raise a flag.
We are changing the climate balance of this planet and it is affecting water beyond what I believe we could have comprehended or predicted. How much will we have to see disappear before we comprehend that as a species? And can you imagine, "tourists" throwing their garbage into the river there? Have we become that bereft of all respect for the natural beauty and power of this planet? We have forgotten our place and we are reaping the consequences of it now.This is as close as you can get to a divine experience. It brings me to tears. Sheer... more
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