SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - A report released today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union provides new insights on the potential for abrupt climate change and the effects it could have on the United States, identifying key concerns that include faster-than-expected loss of sea ice, rising sea levels and a possibly permanent state of drought in the American Southwest.

The analysis is one of 21 of its type developed by a number of academic and government agency researchers for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The work incorporates the latest scientific data more than any previous reports, experts say, including the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

While concluding that some projections of the impact of climate change have actually been too conservative - as in the case of glacier and ice sheets that are moving and decaying faster than predicted - others may not pose as immediate a threat as some scenarios had projected, such as the rapid releases of methane or dramatic shifts in the ocean current patterns that help keep Europe warm.

“We simulate the future changes with our climate models, but those models have not always incorporated some of our latest data and observations,” said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University and a lead author on the report. “We now have data on glaciers moving faster, ice shelves collapsing and other climate trends emerging that allow us to improve the accuracy of some of our future projections.”

Some of the changes that now appear both more immediate and more certain, the report concludes, are rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, loss of sea ice that exceeds projections by earlier models, and hydroclimatic changes over North America and the global subtropics that will likely intensify and persist due to future greenhouse warming.

“Our report finds that drying is likely to extend poleward into the American West, increasing the likelihood of severe and persistent drought there in the future,” Clark said. “If the models are accurate, it appears this has already begun. The possibility that the Southwest may be entering a permanent drought state is not yet widely appreciated.”

Climate change, experts say, has happened repeatedly in Earth’s history and is generally believed to be very slow and take place over hundreds or thousands of years. However, at times in the past, climate has also changed surprisingly quickly, on the order of decades.

“Abrupt climate change presents potential risks for society that are poorly understood,” researchers wrote in the report.

This study, in particular, looked at four mechanisms for abrupt climate change that have taken place prehistorically, and evaluated the level of risks they pose today. These mechanisms are rapid changes in glaciers, ice sheets and sea level; widespread changes to the hydrologic cycle; abrupt changes in the “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation,” or AMOC, an ocean current pattern; and rapid release to the atmosphere of methane trapped in permafrost or on continental margins.

Considering those mechanisms, the report concluded:

• Recent rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets show acceleration of flow and thinning, with the speed of some glaciers more than doubling. These “changes in ice dynamics can occur far more rapidly than previously suspected,” the report said, and are not reflected in current climate models.
• Inclusion of these changes in models will cause sea level rises that “substantially exceed” levels now projected for the end of this century, which are about two feet - but data are still inadequate to specify an exact level of rise.
• Subtropical areas around the world, including the American West, are likely to become more arid in the future due to global warming, with an increasing likelihood of severe and persistent drought. These are “among the greatest natural hazards facing the United States and the globe today,” the report stated, and if models are correct, this has already begun.
• The strength of “AMOC” ocean circulation patterns that help give Europe a much warmer climate than it would otherwise have may weaken by about 25-30 percent during this century due to greenhouse gas increases, but will probably not collapse altogether - although that possibility cannot be entirely excluded.
• Climate change will accelerate the emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from both hydrate sources and wetlands, and they quite likely will double within a century - but a dramatic, potentially catastrophic release is very unlikely.

The “overarching” recommendation of the report is the need for committed and sustained monitoring of these climatic forces that could trigger abrupt climate change, the researchers concluded.

Better observing systems are needed, better forecasting of droughts should be developed, a more comprehensive understanding of the AMOC system is needed, and monitoring of methane levels should be maintained, among other needs.

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The findings of this report will be used to inform federal agencies and policy makers, the researchers said. Another lead author on the report was Andrew Weaver at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and the contributing authors included scientists from Columbia University, NOAA, the University of Colorado, and Edward Brook, a professor of geosciences at OSU.

Reprinted from Oregon State University.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–Concern about increasing ocean acidification has often focused on its potential effects on coral reefs, but broader disruptions of biological processes in the oceans may be more significant, according to Donald Potts, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an expert in coral reef ecology and marine biodiversity.

Potts will give an invited talk on “Geobiological Responses to Ocean Acidification” at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco on Wednesday, December 17.

Ocean acidification is one of the side effects of the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels. The oceans can absorb enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but as the gas dissolves it makes the water more acidic. Increasing acidity can make life difficult for corals and other marine organisms that build shells and skeletons out of calcium carbonate.

Scientists fear that acidification will slow the growth of these organisms and cause calcium carbonate structures to dissolve. Potts agrees that dissolving shells will certainly be a problem for many marine organisms, but he thinks the disruptions will run much deeper.

“It’s not just a question of coral reefs, and it’s not just a question of calcification,” he said. “What we are potentially looking at are disruptions of developmental processes and of populations and communities on many scales.”

The term “acidification” refers to a slight lowering of the pH of ocean water, pushing it closer to the acidic end of the scale, although it is still slightly alkaline. A small decrease in pH affects the chemical equilibrium of ocean water, reducing the availability of carbonate ions needed by a wide range of organisms to build and maintain structures of calcium carbonate.

Many phytoplankton–microscopic algae that form the base of the marine food web–build calcium carbonate shells to protect themselves from microscopic predators called ciliate protozoa. A disruption of the ability of phytoplankton to build their shells could have ripple effects throughout the marine food web, Potts said.

“It’s going to change the dominant organism in the food chain, and there’s a very real danger that it may short-circuit the food chains,” he said. In other words, ciliate protozoa gorging on unprotected phytoplankton may flourish at the expense of other organisms higher up the food chain.

But calcification of shells is not the only biological process affected by acidification, Potts added. “All biochemical physiological reactions are potentially going to change,” he said. Developing organisms are most likely to be affected, due to their low range of environmental tolerances, but it is unclear what the ecological ramifications will be.

Ocean acidification may not affect all parts of the oceans equally. Within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of shore, the pH of ocean water is more variable than in the rest of the ocean. Fresh water and wind from the land can carry chemicals that alter the pH of near-shore water, making it either more acidic or more alkaline. There may be organisms in this region that are already starting to adapt to changes in ocean acidity, Potts said.

“We should be thinking in terms of triage,” he said. “We want to be predicting where are the organisms that are most likely to survive or survive the longest, and this is where we should be concentrating our conservation and management efforts, given finite resources.”

Reprinted from University of California - Santa Cruz.

Increasing pressures from climate change will reach a tipping point in less than a decade triggering a significant decline in the health of the planet’s coral reef ecosystems according to the findings in an international report issued today.

Released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network and the International Coral Reef Initiative, international governmental and scientific partnerships, “Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2008″ provides both good and bad news while sounding the call for urgent global action to respond to climate change.

Coral reefs continue to be threatened from direct human activities of pollution and over-fishing, but now the threat of climate change is being recognized as the major threat to the future of reefs around the world. One fifth of the Earth’s coral reefs have disappeared since 1950, and a NOAA authored report issued in July states that more that that nearly half of U.S. coral reef ecosystems are considered to be in “poor” or “fair” condition.

“Unless the world gets serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next few years, it is likely there will be massive bleaching and deaths of corals around the world,” notes the report’s lead editor and global coral authority Clive Wilkinson who coordinates the Global Coral Monitoring Network in Australia. “This will have significant impacts on the lives of the people in developing countries who are dependent on reefs for food, for tourism, and for protecting the land they live on.”

This status report was put together from 370 contributors in 96 countries and states and is the most authoritative report on the world’s coral reefs. The report presents regional assessments of the health coral reef ecosystems found throughout the world, the threats they face, and recommendations for action. A new feature of the 2008 reporting is publication of a separate report, “Socioeconomic Conditions along the World’s Tropical Coasts: 2008,” detailing socioeconomic data on how people use coral reefs in 27 developing tropical coastal countries.

The status report includes satellite date from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch project which measures stress to reefs from temperature globally and resulting bleaching. NOAA recently started tracking ocean acidification changes in the Caribbean.

Frequent or long-term bleaching kills or severely weakens corals, leaving them more vulnerable to disease, and resulting in a sea bottom covered with algae and sponges that may eventually smother remaining coral. Acidification is a growing threat that could imperil the ability of corals to build their skeletons. A number of recent studies demonstrate that ocean acidification is likely to harm coral reefs by slowing coral growth and making reefs more vulnerable to erosion and storms.

In good news the report, which is issued every four years, found that there was major recovery of reefs in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific from climate change induced bleaching events in 1998 - especially those reefs that were in protected areas. Other reefs cited as being in healthy condition included Australian reefs in general, most notably the Great Barrier Reef, the remote reef systems of the Pacific and Indian Ocean that suffer little human impacts and some small areas of the Caribbean.

The report also acknowledges that increased awareness such as that promoted by 2008 being designated “International Year of the Reef” is beginning to have an impact pointing to a series of major conservation initiatives that have been announced in recent years including the Coral Triangle Initiative in Asia, the Micronesia and Caribbean Challenges, and the creation of the two largest marine protected areas in the world: in the Phoenix Islands of Kiribati and the U.S. Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

In addition to climate change, negative impacts to corals in the past four years included the Indian Ocean tsunami, hurricane damage which combined with bleaching has endangered wide ranges of Caribbean coral reefs, and increasing human activity pressures including pollution, development, deforestation and overfishing in East Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, populated areas of the Pacific and Caribbean. One particular threat is the increase in “bomb” and cyanide fishing in Asia and in Tanzania.

The assessment includes detailed recommendations to preserve and better manage reef ecosystems. Human pollution and fishing pressures have to be reduced while the development of sustainable tourism activities can protect the reefs while stimulating economic growth. The report also encourages increased use of marine protected areas as a means of ensuring reefs can continue to protect important fish nursery areas and serve as reservoirs of marine biodiversity.

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The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network receives support from governmental and non-governmental organizations including the U.S. Department of State, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the World Bank and the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to publish this survey of the health of the world’s coral reefs and diagnoses solutions for halting and reversing their decline.

Although it was a crucial part of humans’ survival 100,000 years ago, hunting is now nothing more than a violent form of recreation that the vast majority of hunters does not need for subsistence.(1) Hunting has contributed to the extinction of animal species all over the world, including the Tasmanian tiger and the great auk.(2,3)

Less than 5 percent of the U.S. population hunts, yet hunting is permitted in many wildlife refuges, national forests, state parks, and on other public lands.(4) Forty percent of hunters slaughter and maim millions of animals on public land every year, and by some estimates, poachers kill just as many animals illegally.(5,6)

Pain and Suffering
Many animals suffer prolonged, painful deaths when they are injured but not killed by hunters. A member of the Maine Bowhunters Alliance estimates that 50 percent of animals who are shot with crossbows are wounded but not killed.(7) A study of 80 radio-collared white-tailed deer found that of the 22 deer who had been shot with “traditional archery equipment,” 11 were wounded but not recovered by hunters.(8) Twenty percent of foxes who have been wounded by hunters are shot again; 10 percent manage to escape, but “starvation is a likely fate” for them, according to one veterinarian.(9) A South Dakota Department of Game, Fish, and Parks biologist estimates that more than 3 million wounded ducks go “unretrieved” every year.(10) A British study of deer hunting found that 11 percent of deer who’d been killed by hunters died only after being shot two or more times and that some wounded deer suffered for more than 15 minutes before dying.(11)

Hunting disrupts migration and hibernation patterns and destroys families. For animals like wolves, who mate for life and live in close-knit family units, hunting can devastate entire communities. The stress that hunted animals suffer-caused by fear and the inescapable loud noises and other commotion that hunters create-also severely compromises their normal eating habits, making it hard for them to store the fat and energy that they need in order to survive the winter.

Blood-Thirsty and Profit-Driven
To attract more hunters (and their money), federal and state agencies implement programs-often called “wildlife management” or “conservation” programs-that are designed to boost the number of “game” species. These programs help to ensure that there are plenty of animals for hunters to kill and, consequently, plenty of revenue from the sale of hunting licenses.

Duck hunters in Louisiana persuaded the state wildlife agency to direct $100,000 a year toward “reduced predator impact,” which involved trapping foxes and raccoons so that more duck eggs would hatch, giving hunters more birds to kill.(12) The Ohio Division of Wildlife teamed up with a hunter-organized society to push for clear-cutting (i.e., decimating large tracts of trees) in Wayne National Forest in order to “produce habitat needed by ruffed grouse.”(13)

In Alaska, the Department of Fish and Game is trying to increase the number of moose for hunters by “controlling” the wolf and bear populations. Grizzlies and black bears have been moved hundreds of miles away from their homes; two were shot by hunters within two weeks of their relocation, and others have simply returned to their homes.(14) Wolves have been slaughtered in order to “let the moose population rebound and provide a higher harvest for local hunters.”(15) In the early 1990s, a program designed to reduce the wolf population backfired when snares failed to kill victims quickly and photos of suffering wolves were seen by an outraged public.(16)

Nature Takes Care of Its Own
The delicate balance of ecosystems ensures their own survival-if they are left unaltered. Natural predators help maintain this balance by killing only the sickest and weakest individuals. Hunters, however, kill any animal whom they would like to hang over the fireplace-including large, healthy animals who are needed to keep the population strong. Elephant poaching is believed to have increased the number of tuskless animals in Africa, and in Canada, hunting has caused bighorn sheep’s horn size to fall by 25 percent in the last 40 years; Nature magazine reports that “the effect on the populations’ genetics is probably deeper.”(17)

Even when unusual natural occurrences cause overpopulation, natural processes work to stabilize the group. Starvation and disease can be tragic, but they are nature’s ways of ensuring that healthy, strong animals survive and maintain the strength level of the rest of their herd or group. Shooting an animal because he or she might starve or become sick is arbitrary and destructive.

“Sport” hunting not only jeopardizes nature’s balance, it also exacerbates other problems. For example, the transfer of captive-bred deer and elk between states for the purpose of hunting is believed to have contributed to the epidemic spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD). As a result, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has given state wildlife agencies millions of dollars to “manage” deer and elk populations.(18) The fatal neurological illness that affects these animals has been likened to mad cow disease, and while the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that CWD has no relationship to any similar diseases that affect humans or farmed animals, the slaughter of deer and elk continues.(19,20)

Another problem with hunting involves the introduction of exotic “game” animals who, if they’re able to escape and thrive, pose a threat to native wildlife and established ecosystems. After a group of nonnative wild boars escaped from a private ranch and moved into the forests of Cambria County, Pa., the state of Pennsylvania drafted a bill prohibiting the importation of all exotic species of animals.(21)

Canned Cruelty
Most hunting occurs on private land, where laws that protect wildlife are often inapplicable or difficult to enforce. On private lands that are set up as for-profit hunting reserves or game ranches, hunters can pay to kill native and exotic species in “canned hunts.” These animals may be native to the area, raised elsewhere and brought in, or purchased from individuals who are trafficking in unwanted or surplus animals from zoos and circuses. They are hunted and killed for the sole purpose of providing hunters with a “trophy.”

Canned hunts are becoming big business-there are an estimated 1,000 game preserves in the U.S.(22) Ted Turner, who owns more land than any other landowner in the country, operates 20 ranches, where hunters pay thousands of dollars to kill bison, deer, African antelopes, and turkeys.(23)

Animals on canned-hunting ranches are often accustomed to humans and are usually unable to escape from the enclosures that they are confined to, which range in size from just a few yards to thousands of acres. Most of these ranches operate on a “no kill, no pay” policy, so it is in owners’ best interests to ensure that clients get what they came for. Owners do this by offering guides who are familiar with animals’ locations and habits, permitting the use of dogs, and supplying “feeding stations” that lure unsuspecting animals to food while hunters lie in wait.

Only a handful of states prohibit canned hunting, and there are no federal laws regulating the practice at this time.(24) Congress is considering an amendment to the Captive Exotic Animal Protection Act that would prohibit the transfer, transportation, or possession of exotic animals “for entertainment or the collection of a trophy.”(25)

‘Accidental’ Victims
Hunting “accidents” destroy property and injure or kill horses, cows, dogs, cats, hikers, and other hunters. In 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney famously shot a friend while hunting quail on a canned-hunting preserve.(26) According to the International Hunter Education Association, there are dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries attributed to hunting in the United States every year-and that number only includes incidents involving humans.(27) It is an ongoing problem, and one warden explained that “hunters seem unfamiliar with their firearms and do not have enough respect for the damage they can do.”(28)

A Humane Alternative
There are 30 million deer in the U.S., and because hunting has been an ineffective method to “control” populations (one Pennsylvania hunter “manages” the population and attracts deer by clearing his 600-acre plot of wooded land and planting corn), some wildlife agencies are considering other management techniques.(29,30) Several recent studies suggest that sterilization is an effective, long-term solution to overpopulation. A method called TNR (trap, neuter, and return) has been tried on deer in Ithaca, N.Y., and an experimental birth-control vaccine is being used on female deer in Princeton, N.J.(31,32) One Georgia study of 1,500 white-tailed deer on Cumberland Island concluded that “if females are captured, marked, and counted, sterilization reduces herd size, even at relatively low annual sterilization rates.”(33)
What You Can Do
Before you support a “wildlife” or “conservation” group, ask about its position on hunting. Groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Izaak Walton League, the Wilderness Society, and the World Wildlife Fund are pro-sport-hunting or, at the very least, they do not oppose it.

To combat hunting in your area, post “no hunting” signs on your land, join or form an anti-hunting organization, protest organized hunts, and spread deer repellent or human hair (from barber shops) near hunting areas. Call 1-800-448-NPCA to report poachers in national parks to the National Parks and Conservation Association. Educate others about hunting. Encourage your legislators to enact or enforce wildlife-protection laws, and insist that nonhunters be equally represented on the staffs of wildlife agencies.

References
1) National Research Council, “Science and the Endangered Species Act” (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1995) 21.
2) Grant Holloway, “Cloning to Revive Extinct Species,” CNN.com, 28 May 2002.
3) Canadian Museum of Nature, “Great Auk,” 2003.
4) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation” (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2001) 5.
5) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 80.
6) Illinois Department of Natural Resources, “Poaching Is a Serious Crime,” May 2003.
7) Stephen S. Ditchkoff et al., “Wounding Rates of White-Tailed Deer With Traditional Archery Equipment,” Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (1998).
D.J. Renny, “Merits and Demerits of Different Methods of Culling British Wild Mammals: A Veterinary Surgeon’s Perspective,” Proceedings of a Symposium on the Welfare of British Wild Mammals (London: 2002).
9) Spencer Vaa, “Reducing Wounding Losses,” South Dakota Department of Game, Fish, and Parks, 2004.
10) E.L. Bradshaw and P. Bateson, “Welfare Implications of Culling Red Deer (Cervus Elaphus),” Animal Welfare 9 (2000): 3-24.
11) John Swinconeck, “Controlled Hunt May Be Solution to the Excess of ‘Deer at Our Doorstep,’” York County Coast Star 27 Jun. 2002.
12) Bob Marshall, “Is Predator Program Enough?” Times-Picayune 2 Mar. 2003.
13) Dave Golowenski, “Grouse Numbers Go Up if Trees Come Down,” The Columbus Dispatch 20 Feb. 2003.
14) “Hunters Shoot Two Relocated Bears,” Associated Press, 9 Jun. 2003.
15) Joel Gay, “McGrath Wolf Kills Fall Short,” Anchorage Daily News 25 Apr. 2003.
16) Joel Gay, “Governor Takes Heat From Hunters Expecting Aerial Wolf Control,” Anchorage Daily News 8 Apr. 2003.
17) John Whitfield, “Sheep Horns Downsized by Hunters’ Taste for Trophies,” Nature 426 (2003): 595.
18) U.S. Department of Agriculture, “USDA Makes $4 Million Available to State Wildlife Agencies for Strengthening Chronic Wasting Disease Management,” news release, 15 Apr. 2003.
19) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, “Chronic Wasting Disease,” Nov. 2002.
20) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Media Relations, “Fatal Degenerative Neurologic Illnesses in Men Who Participated in Wild Game Feasts-Wisconsin, 2002,” news release, Feb. 2003.
21) Judy Lin, “Pennsylvania Worried About Wild Boar Escape,” Associated Press, 17 Mar. 2002.
22) “Reps. Farr, Shays Introduce Bill to Can Canned Hunts,” U.S. Fed News 7 Oct. 2004.
23) Audrey Hudson, “Greens Cut Turner a Break; Critics Question His Stewardship of Western Land,” The Washington Times 20 Jan. 2002.
24) National Conference of State Legislatures, “Environment, Energy, and Transportation Program: Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife,” Apr. 2003.
25) U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 5242, Session 108, introduced 7 Oct. 2004.
26) Dana Bash, “Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter,” CNN.com, 12 Feb. 2006.
27) International Hunter Education Association, “Hunter Incident Clearinghouse,” 2006.
28) Tom Harelson, “1998 Deer Gun Season Report,” Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 8 Dec. 1998.
29) “Deer Eating Away at Forests, Nationwide,” Associated Press, 18 Jan. 2005.
30) Andrew C. Revkin, “States Seek to Restore Deer Balance,” The New York Times 29 Dec. 2002.
31) Roger Segelken, “Surgical Sterilization Snips Away at Deer Population,” Cornell News 19 Mar. 2003.
32) “Princeton’s Deer Hunt Coming to a Premature End,” Associated Press, 21 Mar. 2003.
33) James L. Boone and Richard G. Wiegert, “Modeling Deer Herd Management: Sterilization Is a Viable Option,” Ecological Modeling 72 (1994): 175-86.

WASHINGTON DC, December 1, 2008 — Keeping tropical rain forests intact is a better way to combat climate change than replacing them with biofuel plantations, a study in the journal Conservation Biology finds.

The study reveals that it would take at least 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost through forest conversion. And if the original habitat was carbon-rich peatland, the carbon balance would take more than 600 years. On the other hand, planting biofuels on degraded Imperata grasslands instead of tropical rain forests would lead to a net removal of carbon in 10 years, the authors found.

The study is the most comprehensive analysis of the impact of oil palm plantations in tropical forests on climate and biodiversity. It was undertaken by an international research team of botanists, ecologists and engineers from seven nations.

“Our analysis found that it would take 75 to 93 years to see any benefits to the climate from biofuel plantations on converted tropical forestlands,” said lead author Finn Danielsen of Denmark’s Nordic Agency for Development and Ecology (NORDECO). “Until then, we will be releasing carbon into the atmosphere by cutting tropical rain forests, in addition to losing valuable plant and animal species. It’s even worse on peatlands, which contain so much carbon that it would be 600 years before we see any benefits whatsoever.”

Biofuels have been touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, one of the major contributors to global warming. One such biofuel, palm oil, covers millions of acres in Southeast Asia, where it has directly or indirectly replaced tropical rain forests, resulting in loss of habitats for species such as rhinos and orangutans and the loss of carbon stored in trees and peatlands.

“Biofuels are a bad deal for forests, wildlife and the climate if they replace tropical rain forests,” said co-author Dr. Neil Burgess of World Wildlife Fund. “In fact, they hasten climate change by removing one of the world’s most efficient carbon storage tools - intact tropical rain forests.”

The authors call for the development of common global standards for sustainable production of biofuels.

“Subsidies to purchase tropical biofuels are given by countries in Europe and North America supposedly to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from transport” said Danielsen. “While these countries strive to meet their obligations under one international agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, they encourage others to increase their emissions as well as breach their obligations under another agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity.”

“Comparing the flora of the rain forest with that of oil palm plantations shows the devastating effect of forest conversion on biodiversity. Major plant groups that thrive in natural rain forest, such as trees, lianas, orchids and native palms, are completely absent. The plants that do grow abundantly in plantations are mostly common fern species that like sunshine. Forest plants need shady and undisturbed habitat to survive” said botanist Hendrien Beukema of University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

For fauna, only one in six forest species can survive in plantations, the study finds. Most of these are common and widespread species.

“Conserving the existing forests is not only good for the climate as the emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced but also generates additional benefits, such as biodiversity protection” said Dr. Daniel Murdiyarso of the Indonesia-based Centre for International Forestry (CIFOR). Tropical forests contain more than half of the Earth’s terrestrial species and Southeast Asia’s forests are among the richest in species. They also store around 46 percent of the world’s living terrestrial carbon and 25 percent of total net global carbon emissions may stem from deforestation.

“It’s a huge contradiction to clear tropical rain forests to grow crops for so-called ‘environmentally friendly’ fuels,” said co-author Faizal Parish of the Global Environment Center, Malaysia. “This is not only an issue in South East Asia - in Latin America forests are being cleared for soy production which is even less efficient at biofuel production compared to oil palm. Reducing deforestation is a much more effective way for countries to reduce climate change while also meeting their obligations to protect biodiversity.”

“Any biofuel plantations in tropical forest regions should be considered only in former forest land which has already been severely degraded to support only grassy vegetation,” Parish added. “Care is further needed to prevent such plantations from stimulating further forest degradation in adjacent areas.”

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The paper was authored by:

Finn Danielsen (NORDECO, Denmark), Hendrien Beukema (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Neil D. Burgess (World Wildlife Fund US and University of Cambridge), Faizal Parish (Global Environment Centre, Malaysia), Carsten A. Brühl (University Koblenz-Landau, Germany), Paul F. Donald (RSPB, UK), Daniel Murdiyarso (CIFOR, Indonesia) Ben Phalan (University of Cambridge), Lucas Reijnders (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), Matthew Struebig (Queen Mary University of London, UK), and Emily Fitzherbert (Zoological Society of London and University of East Anglia, UK).

A copy of the paper, “Biofuel Plantations on Forested Lands: Double Jeopardy for Biodiversity and Climate,” and high resolution images of palm oil plantations are available on request.

ABOUT WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

WWF is the world’s largest conservation organization, working in 100 countries for nearly half a century. With the support of almost 5 million members worldwide, WWF is dedicated to delivering science-based solutions to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth, stop the degradation of the environment and combat climate change. Visit www.worldwildlife.org to learn more.

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Barcelona

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.

It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World Conservation Congress.

Some conservationists see it as a new way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection rather than allowing the decline in ecosystems and species, highlighted in the release on Monday of the Red List of Threatened Species, to continue.

Capital losses

Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.

“It’s not only greater but it’s also continuous, it’s been happening every year, year after year,” he told BBC News.

“So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today’s rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year.”

The review that Mr Sukhdev leads, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), was initiated by Germany under its recent EU presidency, with the European Commission providing funding.

The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP. The second phase will expand the scope to other natural systems.

Stern message

Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.

So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.

Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.

The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.

The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.

Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting or not halting the slide in biodiversity.

“The numbers in the Stern Review enabled politicians to wake up to reality,” said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an organisation concerned with directing financial resources into forest preservation.

“Teeb will do the same for the value of nature, and show the risks we run by not valuing it adequately.”

A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade, although it is clearly very early days.

Some have ethical concerns over the valuing of nature purely in terms of the services it provides humanity; but the counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the intrinsic worth of nature have not worked, so something different must be tried.

Whether Mr Sukhdev’s arguments will find political traction in an era of financial constraint is an open question, even though many of the governments that would presumably be called on to fund forest protection are the ones directly or indirectly paying for the review.

But, he said, governments and businesses are getting the point.

“Times have changed. Almost three years ago, even two years ago, their eyes would glaze over.

“Today, when I say this, they listen. In fact I get questions asked - so how do you calculate this, how can we monetise it, what can we do about it, why don’t you speak with so and so politician or such and such business.”

The aim is to complete the Teeb review by the middle of 2010, the date by which governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss.

Reprinted from BBC News.

Increasing acidity threatens sea life

University of Chicago scientists have documented that the ocean is growing more acidic faster than previously thought. In addition, they have found that the increasing acidity correlates with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a paper published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Nov. 24.

“Of the variables the study examined that are linked to changes in ocean acidity, only atmospheric carbon dioxide exhibited a corresponding steady change,” said J. Timothy Wootton, the lead author of the study and Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago.

The increasingly acidic water harms certain sea animals and could reduce the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide, the authors said. Scientists have long predicted that higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide would make the ocean more acidic. Nevertheless, empirical evidence of growing acidity has been limited.

The new study is based on 24,519 measurements of ocean pH spanning eight years, which represents the first detailed dataset on variations of coastal pH at a temperate latitude-where the world’s most productive fisheries live.

“The acidity increased more than 10 times faster than had been predicted by climate change models and other studies,” Wootton said. “This increase will have a severe impact on marine food webs and suggests that ocean acidification may be a more urgent issue than previously thought, at least in some areas of the ocean.”

The ocean plays a significant role in global carbon cycles. When atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in water it forms carbonic acid, increasing the acidity of the ocean. During the day, carbon dioxide levels in the ocean fall because photosynthesis takes it out of the water, but at night, levels increase again. The study documented this daily pattern, as well as a steady increase in acidity over time.

“Many sea creatures have shells or skeletons made of calcium carbonate, which the acid can dissolve,” said Catherine Pfister, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study. “Therefore, the increased acidity of the ocean could interfere with many critical ocean processes such as coral reef building or shellfish harvesting.”

Conducted at Tatoosh Island in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington, the study documented that the number of mussels and stalked barnacles fell as acidity increased. At the same time, populations of smaller, shelled species and noncalcareous algae increased.

“Models revealed strong links between the dynamics of species living on the shore and variation in ocean pH,” Wootton said. “The models project substantial shifts in the species dominating the habitat as a consequence of both the direct effects of reduced calcification and indirect effects arising from the web of species interactions.”

The study, “Dynamical Patterns and Ecological Impacts of Declining Ocean pH in a High-Resolution Multi-Year Dataset,” will be published in the Dec. 2 issue of PNAS. The third co-author, James Forester, was at the University of Chicago’s Department of Ecology and Evolution but is currently at Harvard University.

“To date there is a lack of information about how the ocean carbon cycle has changed in recent years,” Pfister said. “Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will continue to increase, and our work points to the urgent need to better understand the ocean pH changes that this is likely to drive as well as how these changes will affect marine life.”

Reprinted from the University of Chicago.

Large areas of forests could succumb to climate change; scientists urge local adaptation responses to avoid disaster for environment, forest-dependent people in new report

Bogor, Indonesia (28 November 2008)-Unless immediate action is taken, climate change could have a devastating effect on the world’s forests and the nearly 1 billion people who depend on them for their livelihoods, warned a leading group of forest scientists in a report to be released next week. The researchers from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) called for the implementation of adaptation measures to reduce the vulnerability of forests and forest-dependent communities that will experience an unprecedented combination of climate change-associated disturbances like flooding, drought, wildfire, and other environmental challenges in the next 100 years.

Negotiations within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are set to begin to reduce tropical deforestation and forest degradation, and therefore greenhouse gas emissions. Yet according to Facing an Uncertain Future: How Forests and People can Adapt to Climate Change, a new book by CIFOR that will be released next week at the UNFCCC Conference of Parties meeting in Poland, immediate measures must be taken now to adapt forests to climate change. Measures include buffering ecosystems against climate-related disturbances and selecting species in plantations better suited to predicted changes in climates.

If they are managed properly, forests can greatly assist vulnerable communities adapt to the impacts of climate change, yet if they are not managed sustainably, forests will exacerbate these impacts. Similarly, because of their ability to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, forests have the potential to be a big part of the solution to climate change. However, if forests are destroyed, the increasing amount of carbon in the atmosphere could lead to the destruction of what remains. So it is a self-perpetuating cycle, according to the report.

“The imperative to assist forests and forest communities to adapt to climate change has been poorly addressed in national policies and international negotiations. The adaptation challenge is being treated as secondary to mitigation, and yet the two are inextricably linked,” said Frances Seymour, Director General of CIFOR.

Forests provide millions of people with income, food, medicines and building materials and deliver many vital ecosystem services like flood or drought regulation and water purification, according to CIFOR’s report. They are, therefore, critical to the ability of human societies to adapt to climate change.

The report identifies two related but distinctive adaptation responses. One of these would aim to adapt forest management and conservation to reduce the impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems.

“We have identified two broad categories of adaptation measures for forest ecosystems,” said Bruno Locatelli, a CIFOR scientist and lead author of the report. “The first is to buffer ecosystems against climate-related disturbances like improving fire management to reduce the risk of uncontrolled wildfires or the control of invasive species. In plantations, we can select species that are better suited to coping with the predicted changes in climate. The second would help forests to evolve towards new states better suited to the altered climate. In this way we evolve with the changing climate rather than resist it.”

A second adaptive response is to help the people who are managing, living in or conserving forests to adapt to future changes.

“The people living in forests are highly dependent on forest goods and services and are often very vulnerable socioeconomically,” said Locatelli. “They usually have a much more intimate understanding of their forests than anyone else, but the unprecedented rates of climate change will almost certainly jeopardise their ability to adapt to new conditions. They will need help.”

The report reviewed the scientific literature on the effects of climate change on forests and came to several alarming conclusions:

• By the end of the 21st century, tropical regions in Africa, South Asia, and Central America are likely or very likely to be warming at a faster rate than the global annual mean warming.
• Rainfall in East Africa and during the summer monsoon of South and Southeast Asia is likely to increase.
• Annual precipitation in most of Central America is likely to decrease; this region is the most prominent tropical hotspot of climate change. It is unclear how rainfall in the African Sahel and the Amazon will change.
• Peak wind intensities of tropical cyclones are likely to increase, in particular in tropical Southeast Asia and South Asia, bringing extreme rainfall.
• Droughts and floods are expected to increase globally, making water management more difficult.

“In many forests, relatively minor changes in climate can have devastating consequences, increasing their vulnerability to drought, insect attack and fire,” said CIFOR forest ecologist Markku Kanninen, a co-author of the report. “Burning or dying forests emit large quantities of greenhouse gases, so there is a chance that an initially small change in climate could lead to much bigger changes.”

Mountain forests might be the first to disappear, said Kanninen. “We know that cloud forests are extremely sensitive to climatic changes, as are other types of mountain forest, because when temperatures increase and rainfall decreases, they have nowhere to go.” Mangrove forests in coastal parts of West Africa, which help mitigate storms and underpin many commercial fisheries, are highly vulnerable to rising sea levels, according to the report. Some mangroves are expected to dry out almost completely - droughts in Senegal and The Gambia have already had devastating effects on mangrove communities.

Scientists have already found examples of biodiversity loss due to climate change. In the highland cloud forests of Costa Rica, the lifting of the cloud base associated with increased ocean temperatures has been linked to the disappearance of 20 species of frogs.

“That is just a foretaste of what could be huge losses of forest biodiversity worldwide due to climate change,’ said Kanninen. Several studies have predicted that decreased rainfall in the biodiversity-rich Amazon would cause massive dieback of the forest and its large-scale substitution by savannah.

“Tropical dry forests are also highly vulnerable,” said Kanninen. “Only slight decreases in rainfall, predicted in many regions, will make them more susceptible to fire and to long-term ecological shifts that potentially could cause the extinction of thousands of species.”

According to the report, adaptation policy must be multi-sectoral. For example, ministries of transportation have an interest in conserving healthy forests. Haze from forest fires in Indonesia is often thick enough to close airports, while landslides often close roads. Drinking water or hydroenergy companies in South America are starting to consider upstream ecosystem management, including forests, in order to reduce their vulnerability and ensure the quality and quantity of their water supply.

“Adaptation strategies should build on existing local knowledge about forest management in the face of climatic variability, and empower community members to take action to suit their own local circumstances,” said Seymour. “For many forest communities, adapting to climate change is already a matter of survival. We need to act now to ensure a better future.”

This report, and another CIFOR report on mitigation, will be released on December 5 in Poznán.

###

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

CIFOR advances human wellbeing, environmental conservation and equity by conducting research to inform policies and practices that affect forests in developing counties. CIFOR helps ensure that decision-making that affects forests is based on solid science and principles of good governance, and reflects the perspectives of developing countries and forest-dependent people. CIFOR is one of 15 centres within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. For more information, please visit: www.cifor.cgiar.org.

For the full report and background information, please visit: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/PressRoom/MediaRelease/2008/2008_11_28.htm

In some parts of the tropics, frogs are the most abundant land vertebrates. This peculiar-looking casque-headed tree frog is one of the estimated hundreds of species of tropical frogs.

Such catastrophic declines have been documented for more than a decade, but until recently scientists knew little about how the loss of frogs alters the larger ecosystem. A University of Georgia study that is the first to comprehensively examine an ecosystem before and after an amphibian population decline has found that tadpoles play a key role keeping the algae at the base of the food chain productive.

“Many things that live in the stream depend on algae as a base food resource,” said lead author Scott Connelly, a doctoral student who will graduate in December from the UGA Odum School of Ecology. “And we found that the system was more productive when the tadpoles were there.”

The results, which appear in the early online edition of the journal Ecosystems, demonstrate how the grazing activities of tadpoles help keep a stream healthy. The researchers found that while the amount of algae in the stream was more than 250 percent greater after the amphibian population decline, the algae were less productive at turning sunlight and nutrients into food for other members of the ecosystem. Without tadpoles swimming along the streambed and stirring up the bottom, the amount of sediment in the stream increased by nearly 150 percent, blocking out sunlight that algae need to grow.

The study is part of a larger effort known as the Tropical Amphibian Declines in Streams (TADS) project, which also involves researchers from Southern Illinois University, Drexel University and the University of Alabama. The project is now in its third round of funding by the National Science Foundation and was initiated by Catherine Pringle (UGA Odum School of Ecology) and Karen Lips (Southern Illinois University) in 2000 through a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) from the NSF. Connelly and Pringle are monitoring in-stream effects of the population decline on algae, while other team members are studying how the loss of frogs impacts other organisms and the transfer of energy between streams and the terrestrial communities that surround them. Preliminary data show that the number of snakes that feed on frogs, for example, has plummeted after the population decline.

“We were there before, during and after the extinction event and were able to look at the ecosystem and measure how it changed,” said Pringle, Distinguished Research Professor in the Odum School and study co-author. “Very rarely have scientists been able to do that with respect to any organism.”

The chytrid fungus responsible for declines has steadily marched southeast across Costa Rica and through much of Panama like a storm front, killing up to 90 percent of frogs in afflicted streams. In 2003, the team set up research sites on two streams in the pristine and lush highlands of Panama. One study site had already suffered a catastrophic amphibian decline, while the other had a healthy population but, based on its location, was directly in the path of the fungal disease.

University of Georgia doctoral student Scott Connelly trekked to remote and pristine streams in Panama to study the impact of the chytrid fungus on frogs and stream ecosystems.

In the first stage of their research, Connelly and Pringle assessed ecosystem changes that occur when tadpoles are experimentally excluded from small areas of both the healthy stream and the frogless stream. They found that the absence of the tadpoles resulted in more sediment and less productive algae.

In late 2004, frogs in the formerly healthy stream began dying. The team reassessed the stream and found that impact of the frog die-off was even greater than they had predicted in their exclusion studies. “We predicted the direction of the change,” Pringle said, “but underestimated its magnitude.”

The UGA research team is continuing to monitor the health of the streams to get valuable, long-term data. So far the stream has not rebounded. “It’s still sad going back,” Connelly said, to which Pringle added: “Once the frogs die, it’s like an incredible silence descends over the whole area. It’s eerie.”

To date, scientists have not found a way to stop the spread of the fungus in the wild. Broadly applying a fungicide to an entire watershed, Connelly said, would kill beneficial fungi that are necessary for a healthy ecosystem.

But scientists can cure individual frogs in captivity by simply swabbing them with a fungicide. Connelly has worked to protect frogs through Amphibian Ark, a global effort supported by zoos, botanical gardens, aquariums and research institutions that aims to ensure the survival of amphibians by collecting and breeding them. The Atlanta Botanical Garden is one of the key breeding sites.

“The one speck of hope is that if we’re able to collect some of these rare animals, we can cure them,” Connelly said. “As long as we have the money to keep a breeding program going, in the future it might be possible to reintroduce them into the wild.”

Photos by Scott Connelly/UGA

Reprinted from the University of Georgia.

TEMPE, Ariz. - From majestic African elephants to tiny and often unappreciated rodents, mammals on Earth are in a state of crisis. One in four mammal species on Earth is being pushed to extinction, according to the Global Mammal Assessment, the most comprehensive assessment of the world’s mammals.

Writing in the October 10 issue of Science, (”The Status of the World’s Land and Marine Mammals: Diversity, Threat, and Knowledge”) and unveiling a “Red List” of endangered mammal species (at the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain), the researchers who worked on the exhaustive study say that from 25 percent to 36 percent of species may be in danger of extinction.

“It is frightening that after millions and millions of years of evolution that have given rise to the biodiversity of mammals we are perched on a crisis where 25 percent of species are threatened with being lost forever,” said Andrew Smith, an Arizona State University professor who played a key role in the mammalian assessment. Smith and his research assistant, Charlotte Johnson, are two of the 103 authors of the Science paper.

The Global Mammal Assessment was conducted by more than 1,800 scientists from more than 130 countries working under the auspices of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It was made possible by the volunteer help of IUCN Species Survival Commission’s specialist groups and collaborations between top institutions and universities, including Arizona State University, Texas A&M University, University of Virginia, Conservation International, Sapienza Università di Roma and the Zoological Society of London.

The mammal assessment is the first comprehensive look at the health of terrestrial and marine mammals across the globe. It is a companion assessment to similar documentation of the world’s amphibians, released four years ago by IUCN.

“Mammals are important because they play key roles in ecosystems and provide important benefits to humans,” Smith explained. “If you lose a mammal, you often are in danger of losing many other species.”

The assessment shows that at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction. At least 76 mammals have become extinct since 1500. The real situation could be much worse as 836 mammals are listed as “data deficient.”

The culprits driving this precarious position include habitat loss and over exploitation for terrestrial mammals, and pollution, global warming and over exploitation for marine mammals, Smith said.

“Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live,” said Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general in announcing the Red List. “We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out many of our closest relatives.”

In the Science article, which includes the contributions of more than 1,700 scientists, the researchers state that 188 mammals are in the highest threat category of “critically endangered,” including the Iberian Lynx (Lynx pardinus), which has a population of just 84 to 143 adults and has continued to decline due to a shortage of its primary prey, the European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

China’s Père David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus), is listed as “extinct in the wild.” However, the captive and semi-captive populations have increased in recent years and it is possible that truly wild populations could be re-established soon. It may be too late, however, to save the additional 29 species that have been flagged as “critically endangered, possibly extinct” including Cuba’s Little Earth Hutia (Mesocapromys sanfelipensis), which has not been seen in nearly 40 years.

Nearly 450 mammals have been listed as “endangered,” including the Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), after its global population declined by more than 60 percent in the last 10 years due to a fatal infectious facial cancer. The Fishing Cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), found in Southeast Asia, was listed as endangered due to habitat loss in wetlands. Similarly, status of the Caspian Seal (Pusa caspica) was moved to endangered. Its population has declined by 90 percent in the last 100 years due to unsustainable hunting and habitat degradation.

Habitat loss and degradation affect 40 percent of the world’s mammals. It is most extreme in Central and South America, west, east and central Africa, Madagascar, and in south and Southeast Asia. Over harvesting is wiping out larger mammals, especially in Southeast Asia, but also in parts of Africa and South America.

The Grey-faced Sengi or Elephant-shrew (Rhynchocyon udzungwensis) is only known from two forests in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania, both of which are protected but vulnerable to fires. The species was first described this year and has been placed in the vulnerable category.

In order to improve the current state of these mammals, Smith suggests a few actions that could help immediately.

“Curtail the trade of endangered species,” he said. “It would do an amazing amount of good for stabilizing the situation in Southeast Asia, which is a biodiversity hot spot. There also is so much needless habitat loss. Trees from too many lush tropical forests end up as coffee tables or in high-end furniture.”

Conservation’s role

“Our results paint a bleak picture of the global status of mammals worldwide,” the authors of the Science article state. “Yet, more than simply reporting on the depressing status of the world’s mammals, these Red List data can and should be used to inform strategies for addressing this crisis, for example, to identify priority species and areas for conservation.

“Further, these data can be used to indicate trends in conservation status over time,” they added. “Despite the general deterioration in the status of mammals, our data also show that species recoveries are possible through targeted conservation efforts.”

For example, the Black-footed Ferret (Mustela nigripes) moved from extinct in the wild to endangered after a successful reintroduction by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service into eight western states and Mexico from 1991-2008. Similarly, the Wild Horse (Equus ferus) moved from extinct in the wild in 1996 to critically endangered this year after successful reintroductions started in Mongolia in the early 1990s.

The African Elephant (Loxodonta africana) moved from vulnerable to near threatened, although its status varies considerably across its range. The move reflects the recent and ongoing population increases in major populations in southern and eastern Africa. These increases are big enough to outweigh any decreases that may be taking place elsewhere.

“This work sets a benchmark for us to understand what is happening with biodiversity of mammals worldwide and provides a platform from which all future conservation efforts can be measured,” said Smith, who initiated the database that was used to inventory the world’s mammals. “This effort hopefully will spur greater attention on the conservation of mammals and the habitats they occupy, for the benefit of all biodiversity.”

Reprinted from Arizona State University.

A global study led by Professor Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, shows that the number of “dead zones”-areas of seafloor with too little oxygen for most marine life-has increased by a third between 1995 and 2007.

Diaz and collaborator Rutger Rosenberg of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden say that dead zones are now “the key stressor on marine ecosystems” and “rank with over-fishing, habitat loss, and harmful algal blooms as global environmental problems.”

The study, which appears in the August 15 issue of the journal Science, tallies 405 dead zones in coastal waters worldwide, affecting an area of 95,000 square miles, about the size of New Zealand. The largest dead zone in the U.S., at the mouth of the Mississippi, covers more than 8,500 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey.

Diaz began studying dead zones in the mid-1980s after seeing their effect on bottom life in a tributary of Chesapeake Bay near Baltimore. His first review of dead zones in 1995 counted 305 worldwide. That was up from his count of 162 in the 1980s, 87 in the 1970s, and 49 in the 1960s. He first found scientific reports of dead zones in the 1910s, when there were 4. Worldwide, the number of dead zones has approximately doubled each decade since the 1960s.

Diaz and Rosenberg write “There is no other variable of such ecological importance to coastal marine ecosystems that has changed so drastically over such a short time as dissolved oxygen.”

Dead zones occur when excess nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, enter coastal waters and help fertilize blooms of algae. When these microscopic plants die and sink to the bottom, they provide a rich food source for bacteria, which in the act of decomposition consume dissolved oxygen from surrounding waters. Major nutrient sources include fertilizers and the burning of fossil fuels.

Geologic evidence shows that dead zones were not “a naturally recurring event” in Chesapeake Bay or most other estuarine ecosystems, says Diaz. “Dead zones were once rare. Now they’re commonplace. There are more of them in more places.” The first dead zone in Chesapeake Bay was reported in the 1930s.

Scientists refer to water with too little oxygen for fish and other active organisms as “hypoxic.” Diaz says that many ecosystems experience a progression in which periodic hypoxic events become seasonal and then, if nutrient inputs continue to increase, persistent. Earth’s largest dead zone, in the Baltic Sea, experiences hypoxia year-round. Chesapeake Bay experiences seasonal, summertime hypoxia through much of its main channel, occupying about 40% of its area and up to 5% of its volume.

Diaz and Rosenberg note that hypoxia tends to be overlooked until it starts to affect organisms that people eat. A possible indicator of hypoxia’s adverse effects on an economically important finfish species in Chesapeake Bay is the purported link between oxygen-poor bottom waters and a chronic outbreak of a bacterial disease among striped bass.

Several Bay researchers, including VIMS fish pathologist Wolfgang Vogelbein, hypothesize that the prevalence of mycobacteriosis among Bay stripers (>75%) is due to the stress they encounter when development of the Bay’s summertime dead zone forces them from the cooler bottom waters they prefer into warmer waters near the Bay surface.

Diaz and Rosenberg’s also point out a more fundamental effect of hypoxia: the loss of energy from the Bay’s food chain. By precluding or stunting the growth of bottom-dwellers such as clams and worms, hypoxia robs their predators of an important source of nutrition.

Diaz and VIMS colleague Linda Schaffner estimate that Chesapeake Bay now loses about 10,000 metric tons of carbon to hypoxia each year, 5% of the Bay’s total production of food energy. The Baltic Sea has lost 30% of its food energy-a condition that has contributed to a significant decline in its fisheries yields.

Diaz and Rosenberg say the key to reducing dead zones is “to keep fertilizers on the land and out of the sea.” Diaz says that goal is shared by farmers concerned with the high cost of buying and applying nitrogen to their crops. “They certainly don’t want to see their dollars flowing off their fields into the Bay,” says Diaz. “Scientists and farmers need to continue working together to develop farming methods that minimize the transfer of nutrients from land to sea.”

Reprinted from Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

(NaturalNews) According to the latest research, species around the world are going extinct faster that previously thought, at a rate not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. The Living Planet index which was released today shows that due to destructive human activity, the diversity of all life on earth has decreased by over 30%, nearly a third in fact in the past thirty-five years.

The Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network also gave the following statistics: land species have declined by 25%, marine life by 28% and freshwater species by 29%. The reports editor Jonathan Loh stated that to see such a sharp fall off in the species of the planet was “completely unprecedented in terms of human history”. “You’d have to go back to the extinction of the dinosaurs to see a decline as rapid as this… In terms of human lifespan we may be seeing things change relatively slowly, but in terms of the world’s history this is very rapid.”

To us, the extinction rate may seem slow or almost non-existent, but in terms of life on a historical time line, the rate is 10,000 times faster than the rate at which the planet normally loses species. The nations of world who set to make so called “significant reductions” in species loss by 2010 will be virtually useless. So much loss has already occurred due to lack of concentrated and focused effort and inaction that it is no longer possible to make any significant reductions in such a short time frame.

Ben Collen, who is an extinctions researcher at the Zoological Society of London: “Between 1960 and 2000, the human population of the world has doubled. Yet during the same period, the animal populations have declined by 30 per cent. It’s beyond doubt that this decline has been caused by humans.” The study pinpointed five major factors in the rapid decline of nearly 4000 species between 1960 and 2000; they are the human behavior of: climate change, pollution, the destruction of animals’ natural habitat, the spread of invasive species, and the overexploitation of species.

A case in point can be seen in the Yangtze River dolphin that scientists have been searching for and have been unable to locate any of the species, they now believe it is extinct. Some of the reasons for its rapid decline are; collisions with boats, habitat loss and pollution. All of these factors are man made in origin.

James Leape, who is the director of WWF (World Wide Footprint) said; “Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease and where water is in irregular or short supply… No one can escape the impact of biodiversity loss because reduced global diversity translates quite clearly into fewer new medicines, greater vulnerability to natural disasters and greater effects from global warming. The industrialized world needs to be supporting the global effort to achieve these targets, not just in their own territories where a lot of biodiversity has already been lost, but also globally.”

Unfortunately there is coming a time in the not so distant future when the very survival of life on earth will be at stake. If we continue to overuse all of our resources like a virus consumes its host until its very source of survival is gone, we will eventually be destroyed right along with the very planet that is the true source of our substance and life force. According to the Tao (The Way of Nature and the Universe), we can not continue to abuse, overuse and rip the earth of her elements and natural resources faster than earth can replace them and expect all things to remain in balance. This is common sense logic and also the universal laws of balance, yin and yang, light and shadow, male and female, etc.

The power of earth’s magnetic field has decreased significantly in the past 100 years or so. Much of this can again be blamed on mans’ activities. You would not normally think it, but the laying of world wide power lines, the explosion of wireless communication devices including satellites beaming information to and from orbit are all affecting the earth’s magnetic field, including it’s very power.

All our foods get part of their energies, their life sustaining chi from a combination of earth (yin/water) and the sun (yang/fire). If we weaken one, the other is thrown out of balance. We already know that due to acid rain, overuse of the land, pesticides and other factors that the mineral content of the soil is dangerously low. I’ve written before that approximately 2/3 of the earth’s tillable soil is completely devoid of Selenium, a vital trace element and power mineral required not only for the production of SOD (Superoxide Dismutase) but also one that is a powerful immune booster, cancer fighter and longevity mineral too, that most people have virtually no selenium in their diet which is another great reason to make sure that you’re taking the true RDA of 200mcg per day. Eating just three Brazil nuts a day gives approximately 200mcg, or you can take a supplement of Selenium daily.

No matter the mineral content of any food, what gives all foods their true power to heal and sustain life is not their pure vitamin, mineral or chemical compounds or make up themselves, it is the specific type and amount of chi (life force) in those elements and foods that are their real power to sustain life and heal. That is why chemical drugs can and never will be equal to the medicines that God’s earth provides, because science has no belief in or ability to manipulate or use chi. Science doesn’t even acknowledge that it exists as the Chinese and other Asian and ancient cultures have stated for millennia, but it surely does exist.

The more we allow and contribute to the destruction of life’s incredibly diverse life forms, the more we are killing ourselves in a very slow way. We are tied to the earth in an unbreakable way, but mankind with his technological know how thinks that “I know better than nature itself”… never! Even a great many of the drugs that man thinks that he “invented”, up to nearly half of them he learned how to make by chemically synthesizing the active ingredients from various plants, herbs and other natural compounds. Herbs and other life saving medicines are constantly being destroyed, all in the name of the greed of a worldwide collection of billionaires who can’t wait to get richer and richer so they can beat their friends’ yearly and lifetime earnings, and corporations who only care about their stock prices on the world market and more. They truly believe and live by the motto: “The person who dies with the most toys, wins!” That is their religion, their mantra and money is their god. How sad for the world and all the rest of us who live on this planet. These people are truly insane and drunk with power and greed and it seems as though they could care less if the entire earth is destroyed and all human and animal life on it is eradicated, as long as they die with the most money and toys to beat their other billionaire friends, that’s all that seems to matter at all to them.

Many prophecies, including those found in the Bible, mention a time when the earth will be ravaged by so much wars, death, disease, greed, destruction and mans’ inhumanity against man and his very environment itself that he will be brought to the very brink of annihilation unless God Himself steps in to stop it. Here it is starting right before our eyes, but everyone is just so busy having their fun, making their money and going on with their lives that most people, especially those in power and responsible, could care less to stop it or change their high flying, jet setting lifestyles for something that to them is a long way off or likely will never even happen, at least not in their lifetimes.

The destruction of earth’s environment, our food supply as well as the weakening of earth’s magnetic field or chi are reasons why practicing energy medicine and learning to cultivate one’s own chi through the breathing and meditative practices of Chi-gung are so important today, probably more so than at any other time in human history. To learn to increase our own protective chi field called Wei Chi that surrounds our body, as well as increase our overall chi levels and flow within the body will greatly help us to recover and make up for the chi and energy that we’re not getting from our foods or even the earth itself. Organic food has more nutrients and chi than conventional food and that’s one thing we all need to eat much more of. Organic foods also help slow down the rate of destruction of the earth’s ecosystem as does eating more locally grown foods too. Taking supplements is another way to help keep ourselves healthy since we have to make up for the nutrients that our diets can no longer supply.

But even these are secondary actions compared to the most vital and important source of our life, the primary source of all life, our chi. It is only through breathing and meditation that we can truly build up and extract many times the chi that we used to be able to get just by eating natural foods and breathing in times past. Even the oxygen content of the air is about 25% less than it was just 200 years ago. Due to the destruction of plankton in the earth’s oceans which makes up about 60% of the oxygen on earth, deforestation as well as all of mans’ pollution has contributed to lessen the amount of oxygen and sunlight available to us (and our crops) with each breath that we take. This is why practicing deep breathing techniques such as the 8 Pieces of Brocade, Tai chi, and other energy work exercises and learning to use our minds through true meditation to build up and extract even more chi from the earth and universe, has never been more important than at this most critical time in earth’s history.

In time through these ancient and powerful techniques we can greatly increase the amount, the flow, the balance and the strength of our life force flowing through and around our bodies, thus helping to protect our health and stave off illness and disease in a powerful way. They take work, but in order to remain healthy, vibrant and strong in these times they are very necessary and effective. Proven through thousands of years of practice by the fighting monks, martial artists and traditional doctors of China, practicing chi-gung and careful attention to diet and nutrition are becoming ever more necessary in today’s ever more polluted environment.

With the abysmal failures of the western slash and burn methods of surgery and drugs to prevent illness, learning to cultivate and use the true source of one’s own life force via the vehicle of various chi-gung techniques and exercises to increase your own store of chi within the body, is really one of the best methods and options that exist in the world today. The Chinese have given mankind a great gift in the form of its incredible repertoire of Chi-gung techniques and understanding of the human energy systems through Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). They are only proving themselves over and over again in this modern age as they continue to succeed in restoring and maintaining people’s health time and time again where western medicine has repeatedly failed.

This is especially true as we see the rate of both the destruction of the earth itself and its tens of millions of species occurring at an ever increasing rate. It is for this and many other reasons that I am producing my own health video to teach a number of these breathing and meditative techniques, including proper physical training, nutrition and more on my Chinese Health and Fitness video. If you can, learn all that you are able to about chi, Chinese and natural medicine, energy work, meditation, nutrition and natural health and healing, since they are our best bet to restore and protect our health and those of our loved ones as the world gets more and more polluted. Moreover, the energy that they teach you to use is all provided free of charge by the very universe and earth itself with no hidden fees and no side effects… other than good health and long life that is.

Recommended reading:

“Harnessing the Power of the Universe” by Daniel Reid

“The Complete Book of Chinese Health and Healing” By Daniel Reid

“The Root of Chinese Qigong” by Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming

“Awaken Healthing Energy Through The Tao” by Mantak Chia

Source Article: ((http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen…)

About the author

Rich Stacel is a natural health, Qigong and Chinese martial arts practitioner for over twenty four years. Having read scores of books on Chinese medicine, health, nutrition, supplements, meditation, martial arts, healing, science, astronomy, physics, Einstien, general health and more. Rich has helped numerous people achieve their health and fitness goals over the years. Rich is also interested in health freedom including spreading truth on health, fitness, spiritual truths and more. You can learn more about breathing, meditation, what foods to eat, avoid, food additives, chi-gung as well as get more info about his upcoming Chinese health video at http://www.chinesehealthandfitness.com/

Reprinted from NaturalNews.