Sustainable Seafood: Part 2 - What is sustainability?

I wrote a post about sustainably caught seafood a few weeks back (available here), but this issue is still causing me considerable grief, so I thought that I would revisit the topic in a series of short posts summarizing the problem as I see it. Sustainable Seafood: Part 2 - What is sustainability? The concept of sustainability has been around for a long time. Now it is a buzzword which is often heard when people are talking about the environment and environmental degredation. It was a word which began seeping into the public conciousness in the late 1980's following the release of a groundbreaking report by the United Nations (UN). In 1983, the Secretary-General of the UN established the World Commission on the Environment and Development - also frequently referred to as the Brundtland Commission after Gro Harlem Brundtland, the head of the commission and former Prime Minister of Norway. The commission was tasked with examining the world's environmental problems and proposing a global agenda for addressing them. The Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, was published in 1987. The Report is available in HTML format with links to cited documents, and an easy-to-read full version is available at the Center for a World in Balance. The report deals with sustainable development and the change of politics needed for achieving that. The Brundtland Report defined sustainable development in the following way:

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

This definition is well accepted and is usually the definition given today when dealing with issues of sustainability.

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Sustainable Seafood: Part 3 - How does sustainability relate to seafood?

Scientists Slam Climate Change Deniers

New Zealand's national science academy, the Royal Society (RSNZ), has challenged climate change "deniers", issuing a statement declaring unequivocally that the globe is warming and that humans are to blame.

"The globe is warming because of increasing greenhouse gas emissions," the society said, reporting the findings of an expert committee on climate.

In summary, the statement says:

The globe is warming because of increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Measurements show that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are well above levels seen for many thousands of years. Further global climate changes are predicted, with impacts expected to become more costly as time progresses. Reducing future impacts of climate change will require substantial reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Royal Society is charged by its Act with informing the public about science, and fostering evidence-based scientific debate.  We hope this statement makes a useful contribution to public understanding of climate change.

 

The full statement is available at the RSNZ website.

Australian Drought Expected to Worsen and Alter River Basin Ecology

Source: Alex Schrader www.abc.net.au

From Reuters:

Australia’s worst drought in 100 years, which has already cost the nation $20 billion dollars since 2002, is likely to become even more severe and cause permanent ecological changes in the country’s breadbasket, the Murray-Darling river basin, government officials said.

Alexandrina Council which manages the environment at the Murray mouth and lower lakes region says emergency water flows are needed or the river system will soon be beyond repair. Neil Schillabeer, from the Lower Lakes and Coorong Infrastructure Committee, says:

"There is a need for probably 200-250 gigalitres of water in the very immediate future to solve the problems we've got there right now. That doesn't seem to have eventuated. Our state Premier hasn't been able to negotiate those sort of volumes of water for the lakes."

John Brumby, the Premiere of Victoria said last week:

...some commentators [have] called for water to be flushed down the Murray River to save the Lower Lakes in South Australia. But from where? It is estimated that about 1200billion litres of water would be needed: 370 billion litres initially to fill Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert to a minimum level, then another 800billion litres to maintain water levels throughout summer when evaporation losses are extreme.But farmers in Victoria have a zero per cent allocation in the Goulburn and Murray irrigation districts. And there is no additional water available in the upper Murray without taking water for essential human needs away from rural communities.

The zero percent allocation that John Brumby refers to is related to Australia's system of water management. Farmers have allocated rights to draw water from the Murray-Darling river system. These rights may be bought and sold. So a farmer who requires 100 000 litres of water per year for irrigation would need to acquire permits to draw 100 000 litres of water from the system. In a drought year, all users are allocated a percentage of the water to which they hold rights, so that there is at least some water available to all users. Due to the extended drought, this year farmers in Goulburn and Murray districts will recieve 0% of their allocations.

Ballast Free Cargo Ship

Source: Conservation Magazine online. Illustration courtesy of University of Michigan.

The introduction of exotic species into new environments can pose a major threat to the integrity of natural communities, the existence of rare and endangered species, the viability of living resource-based industries and pose risks to human health.

In the marine environment, any mechanism that can rapidly transport organisms from shallow coastal waters across natural oceanic barriers has the potential to help exotic marine organisms invade new environments. International shipping provides such a mechanism . Modern international shipping practices transport marine and estuarine organisms faster and over longer distances than ever before. Marine pests are regularly transported via ballast water, or the hulls or anchor ropes of these vessels. Now, University of Michigan naval architect Michael Parsons has designed a ballast-free cargo ship that would stop most aquatic species from hitching rides around the world.

Ships take on ballast water for stability when they're not carrying cargo. When a vessel loads ballast water, it also takes up all minute the organisms contained in that water which may include planktonic species, the larvae of bottom dwelling invertebrates and fish, and pathogens. These organisms are released with the ballast water at another port when the vessel loads more cargo. It has been estimated that world-wide, over 3,000 species are transported in ballast water every day.

Instead of hauling contaminated water across the ocean, then dumping it in a foreign port, a ballast-free ship would create a constant flow of seawater through a network of large pipes running from the bow to the stern, below the waterline.

"In some ways, it's more like a submarine than a surface ship," Parsons said. "We're opening part of the hull to the sea, creating a very slow flow through the trunks from bow to stern. You're continuously sweeping water through the ship and out," he said. "So you're always filled with local sea water, not hauling water from one part of the world to the other."

Antarctic Fishing Pirates Identified

Source: www.NZHerald.co.nz

From the New Zealand Herald:

An international fishing company caught supporting Southern Ocean illegal fishing can now be named and shamed, after a failed attempt to gag the government in the High Court, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said today.

"Illegal fishing is a serious threat to global fisheries and this case shines a light on the problem of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the Southern Ocean," Mr Anderton said.

"The Namibian-flagged fishing vessel Paloma V wanted to unload toothfish in Auckland in May. Its owner, Omunkete Fishing (Pty) Limited took the government to court because it wanted to stop us reporting it to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)," said Mr Peters.

Why Can't We Just Be Friends?

What with all this fighting between Invertebrates and Vertebrates, I get thinking why do we have to fight?
Why can't we learn from the cleaner fish?
From New Scientist:

Peacemakers should look to the cleaner fish as a role model. In the coral reef world at least, all it takes to keep an aggressive predator in check and bystanders safe is good service and a gentle rub.

Cleaner fish remove and eat the parasites off other fish, exchanging a grooming service for a tasty meal.

Researchers have previously shown that cleaners who enhance their service by touching the fish they are cleaning with their fins benefit from more cooperative clients. This is especially helpful if the customer is a predator that could attack the cleaner.

But now it seems that the calming effect of the cleaner fish's touch has wider repercussions. It makes hunters so mellow that it transforms the cleaning station into a safe haven for other fish, says Redouan Bshary at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland.

Spectacular Pictures of Bugs

Over at Dark Roasted Blend they have curated an amazing selection of Scanning Election Micrographs (SEM) and macro photographs of insect heads. There are some amazingly beautiful pictures of some spectacularly ugly creatures.

Source: The Oklahoma Microscopy Society

Source: Martin Amm

More Amazing Golden Ray Photo's

I've previously posted about Golden Rays here.
Here are some more photos, from the Telegraph this time:

Source: www.telegraph.com

More photo's here.

The Mara Triangle - Best Wildlife Blog On The Web. Read It! Donate!

Kenyan ranger and blogger Joseph Kimojino. Source Wired Magazine.

Emily Meehan of Wired covered this story at the end of May. Basically as told by Wired the story goes like this:

A ranger in Kenya's acclaimed Mara Triangle wildlife park Kimojino is a member of the Masai tribe. He first learned how to click a computer mouse in November. Now he blogs about the Mara Triangle and posts wild animal photos on Flickr nearly every day. Kimojino's online outreach is an effort to raise awareness and money for the park, and it's urgent: Without the funds he raises online, his employer, the Mara Conservancy, would go broke. Admission fees from park visitors are the conservancy's primary source of revenue, but tourism dropped to almost zero during Kenya's post-election violence, and hasn't snapped back.

The thing is though, it's a really great read. Updates are frequent, and Kimojino posts some amazing wildlife shots almost every day. At the moment the Wildebeest are massing on the banks of the river as part of their famous migration (see photo). Earlier in the week they arrested poachers armed with AK47's in the park, and blogged it. Last month the Zebra were migrating and the Crocodiles were feasting.

Source: The Mara Triangle

But there is some bad news:

Working on a reduced budget for two months is starting to have an impact on the effectiveness of the Conservancy, and there are warning signs which indicate that the situation may deteriorate further. Our work is now threatened as a direct result of the collapse of tourism in Kenya. Due to lack of funds, all non-essential activities have been stopped since January, as well as the halting of the cattle compensation scheme and regular night patrols by rangers.

Tourist projection for the month of July and August is 50% occupancy. For the rest of the year it is expected to fall back to 20% like it has been up until now. This means that our situation will remain dire until 2009, however this is not an appeal for money (although if you have some it will help a lot) but instead we need ideas on how to fundraise for the long term. We thought that things would improve, which they have slightly, but unfortunately not as much as we had hoped.

So - what should you do?

1. Read the blog - it's great.
2. Follow Kimojino's photostream on Flickr - amazing photos.
3. Donate - make a difference. It's easy and rewarding.
4. Tell everyone you know to read the blog - it's really great. Really.

Beautiful Moray Shots

Source: Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice & Sunsets