Document Actions
The Map News 194th ed., 03 February 2008
Dear Friends,
This is the 194th Edition of the Mangrove Action Project News, Feb 3, 2008. Happy Belated World Wetlands Day, which was on Feb. 2nd!
For the Mangroves,
Alfredo Quarto
Mangrove Action Project
====
Sign up to receive the MAP News.
MAP's Mission:
Partnering with mangrove forest communities, grassroots NGOs, researchers and local governments to conserve and restore mangrove forests and related coastal ecosystems, while promoting community-based, sustainable management of coastal resources.
All news items and notices published in the MAP News can also be accessed directly from our home page www.mangroveactionproject.org, with links to the full story and the original source. New items are posted daily and are available as an RSS feed!
Contents for MAP NEWS, 194th Edition, Feb.3, 2008
FEATURE STORIES
International report emphasizes need for urgent change in aquaculture industry
MAP WORKS
Next Calendar Children’s Art Contest For 2009 Open For New
New Ecological Mangrove Restoration Workshop In Florida Feature: MAP Staff Visit Community Home Stay Program In Thailand
AFRICA
Europe takes Africa's fish, and migrants follow
Cameroon
BBC coverage of community mapping in Cameroon
Mozambique
Developing sustainable aquaculture in Mozambique
S.E. ASIA
Indonesia
Indonesia: Leading oil palm producer. Leading carbon emitter?
Vietnam
Vietnam's Mangrove Restoration Program
Scientists Warn The Sai Gon River is dying
S. ASIA
India
Steely threat to mangrove
CPF to build a third feed mill in India
Bangladesh
Rare dolphin 'beaten to death' in Bangladesh
Bangladesh's majestic dolphins at risk
E. ASIA
China
China shrimp exports to U.S. Surpass 2006 Levels
OCEANIA
Australia
Prawn costs rise amid tough border controls - Australia
LATIN AMERICA
Brazil
Brazilian Mangrove-Sea Network Created
THE CARIBBEAN
The Bahamas
Bimini Island Under A New and Added Attack
***ACTION ALERT!!!***
Letters Needed To Protest Additional Mangrove Clearing On Bimini Island
NORTH AMERICA
USA
For F.D.A., a Major Backlog Overseas
Canada
Newfoundland Shrimp 2nd MSC Certified
EUROPE
EJF urges consumers to shell out more for ethical prawns
EUROPE’S APPETITE FOR SEAFOOD PROPELS ILLEGAL TRADE
STORIES / ISSUES
World Wetlands Day Saturday 2 February 2008
Corruption in fisheries ˆ from bad to worse
Bad News For Coastal Ocean: Less Fish Out, Means More Nitrogen In
Stanford University, Monterey Bay Aquarium launch center to save oceans
'Nonlinear' Ecosystem Response Points To Environmental Solutions
CONFERENCES / WORKSHOPS / PUBLICATIONS
IUCN Mangrove Valuation Report
Aquaculture in the Ecosystem
AQUACULTURE CORNER
Coalition of Groups Block Bad Ocean Fish Farming Plan in
Gulf of Mexico
Wild salmon hit by parasite from fish farms
Marine Harvest: B.C. salmon test positive for malachite green
“You Are What You Eat!”
International report emphasizes need for urgent change in aquaculture industry
VANCOUVER, Jan. 28 /CNW Telbec/ - The global aquaculture, or fish farming, industry is not a solution to overfishing and must dramatically change in order to become sustainable, says a new Greenpeace report.
Challenging the Aquaculture Industry on Sustainability, which was presented to the 2008 Seafood Summit in Barcelona today, documents how fish farming is damaging marine and freshwater ecosystems by destroying coasts to make way for ponds, polluting water with fecal waste and depleting wild fish caught for feed and farm stock.
"Many of the most serious environmental impacts of aquaculture are happening here in Canadian waters, and it's time the Canadian government ensured the industry takes responsibility for the damage being caused," said Sarah King, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace Canada. "With continued reports of lice from farmed fish infecting wild B.C. salmon, and pollution plaguing bays and inlets on our East Coast, it's clear we're nowhere near farming fish in a sustainable way."
Aquaculture, one of the fastest growing sectors of the food industry, already provides nearly half of all fish consumed by people. As wild fish stocks continue to decline, the demand for farmed shrimp, salmon, tuna, tilapia and other finfish has risen. However, cheap, abundant seafood has come at a price. The report, which was prepared by the Greenpeace research lab at the University of Exeter, gives an overview of some of the harmful
environmental and social impacts of aquaculture. These include destruction of habitat, the effects of escaped farm fish on wild species, depletion of wild stock caught for feed, disruption to the natural food chain, and the threat to food security.
Human rights abuses, which are often forgotten in the aquaculture debate, plague shrimp farming with reports finding abuses in 11 countries. In Bangladesh alone about 150 murders linked to aquaculture have been reported.
The report highlights the devastating impacts nutrient pollution from fecal matter and wasted feed has on whole ecosystems. A salmon farm of 200,000 fish releases roughly the same amount of fecal matter as the untreated sewage of 65,000 people. Many salmon farms in the Pacific Northwest have four to five times that number of fish. Because few species can survive the oxygen-deprived environment created by waste feed and feces, biodiversity in
such areas has decreased. Research near finfish farms in the Bay of Fundy, Canada found that diversity decreased significantly up to 200 meters away from the cages after five years of operation.
To address these problems, the report offers specific recommendations for the industry to move towards sustainability and calls on retailers to buy only from sustainable aquaculture operations.
"Retailers also have a role to play by refusing to support destructive fishing practices including unsustainable aquaculture. By removing these fish from their shelves, they can be part of the solution and help clean up the problem," said King.
Greenpeace believes that aquaculture and industrial fisheries can only be sustainable if a truly ecosystem-based management approach is adopted, within a global network of fully protected marine reserves that incorporate 40 per cent of the oceans.
The report can be obtained at greenpeace.org
For further information: Jane Story, Greenpeace Canada communications
officer, (416) 930-9055; Sarah King, Greenpeace Canada oceans campaigner,
(778) 227-6458
From: ecorets@gmail.com
Next Calendar Children’s Art Contest For 2009 Open For New Submissions
Feb. 2008
Dear Friends of the Mangroves,
We are sponsoring our nineth international children's art competition and would like to Invite children in your country to enter this contest and learn more about the important role that mangrove forests play in the lives of the coastal communities in particular and for marine life in general.
Specifically we would like you to contact schools and teachers in your area and provide them with information regarding this contest, and also to act as a liaison between MAP and the local schools as a resource person regarding mangrove and ecological
information. In addition, we would ask you to collect the winners from each school participating within your country, and send the three best entries on to MAP at the above address for the final judging, and possible inclusion in the calendar. We must receive the art work by July 31, 2008 for the 2009 Art Calendar.
This provides an opportunity for participating NGOs to build relationships with teachers and to provide school children with environmental information. Educating children on the importance of mangrove and coastal ecosystems is critical to effecting long term change. Without this information, current generations will grow up placing little value on the environment (as modeled by their parents) unless they are given new eyes with which to see coastal ecosystems and mangrove forests.
We have attached information that is ready to have your name added as the local contact representative and duplicated for distribution to teachers in your country.
Please let us know if we can be of further assistance in helping you implement this exciting educational project in your country. We will send all student winners, participating NGOs and schools copies of our calendar as well. And, the winning students will receive a signed official certificate announcing their great achievement in the 2009 Children’s Mangrove Art Contest.
Yours sincerely,
Monica Alicia Paz Gutierrez-Quarto,
Calendar Project Coordinator
Mangrove Action Project
PO Box 1854
Port Angeles, WA 98362-0279, USA
tel. (360) 452-5866
=============================
New Ecological Mangrove Restoration Workshop In Florida Scheduled
The full announcement about the 6th "Mangrove Forest Ecology, Management and Restoration Training Course", March 3-6, 2008, Hollywood, Florida, is now available at www.mangroverestoration.com.
ANNOUNCEMENT: “Mangrove Forest Ecology, Management and Restoration" training workshop, March 3-6, 2008, Hollywood, Florida.
The sixth "Mangrove Forest Ecology, Management and Restoration" training workshop will be held at the Anne Kolb Nature Center, in Hollywood, Florida, USA, March 3-6, 2008. The training site is within a 500 ha mangrove restoration project at West Lake Park operated by Broward County. The award-winning project was designed by Roy R. "Robin" Lewis III, who will be teaching the course.
The workshop includes an introduction to mangrove forest ecology, management options and problems, and restoration design issues. The class programs are all given in a PowerPoint format, and each student is provided with a print out of the presentation and additional handouts including monitoring reports for typical restoration projects. Case studies of 5 successful mangrove restoration projects, and several unsuccessful projects, are discussed. Field trips are taken within the 500 ha West Lake Park mangrove restoration project (now 18 years old) and a new project just five years old, for a comparison.
The emphasis is on cost-effective successful mangrove management and restoration, and cost figures for typical projects are discussed and explained. The hydrologic restoration of mangroves is emphasized as the best approach to successful restoration at minimal cost (see Erftemeijer and Lewis 2000; Lewis 1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2005; Lewis and Marshall 1998; Lewis and Streever 2000; Lewis et al. 2005, Stevenson et al. 1999; and Turner and Lewis 1997, for further discussion about hydrologic restoration of mangroves). Planting of mangroves is discussed in light of the many failures of this alone to successfully restore mangroves.
Cost for the course not including travel to Ft. Lauderdale, lodging or food is $800, due by January 1, 2008 to Coastal Resources Group, Inc., P.O. Box 5430, Salt Springs, Florida, USA 32134-5430. Two qualified students will be allowed to attend for free, and can apply at any time for the two fee-waived positions. This course is organized by the Coastal Resources Group, Inc., and will be taught in conjunction with the Mangrove Action Project. Lodging close to the training site is available at the SleepInn in Dania Beach, Florida. Reservations need to be made early. Each participant is responsible for making their own reservations.
More information can be provided by Robin Lewis at
LESRRL3@aol.com
and
www.mangroverestoration.com.
============================
MAP’ Staff Visit Community Home Stay Program In Thailand
Earlier this month I had the privilege and pleasure of visiting the Ban Talae Nok community along the Andaman Sea coast of Thailand. The small village had been hit hard by the 2004 tsunami losing 38 community members to the giant waves. The villagers were still in the process of slow, but steady recovery.
One of the recovery programs they have initiated there in collaboration with the NGO Andaman Discoveries is a community home-stay program, which allows travelers to stay with a local family in a traditional home setting, and have traditional village cuisine, including fresh fish, rice and locally grown fruit and vegetables. The food of the family I stayed with was delicious and bountiful.
My home-stay host "mother" was Ms. Fon, and she cooked the meals and set up my sleeping area, which was quite comfortable, and was equipped with brand new and effective mosquito netting. I encourage our readers themselves to take the opportunity to have this unique and rewarding experience. The costs are low and the food is great! The family hosts are helpful and friendly. And language is no barrier to a really enjoyable stay. Just bring good earplugs because of those early morning roosters crowing outside the house! Great way to start the new day!
For a low key activity there is an expansive sandy beach just a two km stroll from the village, and when I went for an afternoon dip in the warm Andaman Sea I couldn't see another soul in either direction as far as the eye could see. Having the beach all to oneself is indeed a very special experience and not an easy feat when most beaches today have become over developed tourist traps. For a little more adventure one can hire a local fisherman for a cruise through the mangroves in a traditional long tail boat. The engine can be a bit noisy so keep those ear plugs handy, but the scenery is fantastic and there is the opportunity to see a variety of birds and even monkeys if you're lucky.
Every holiday is not complete without a bit of required souvenir shopping and mine was thoroughly enjoyable and stress free consisting of purchasing handcrafted soaps from the Ban Tale Nok woman's soap making group. The soaps come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and were made with local spice fragrances such as cinnamon, ginger, lemon grass, tamarind and turmeric; and the best part is you're supporting a supplementary livelihood project, established post tsunami to help women support their families.
The villagers of Ban Talae Nok and the Andaman Discoveries are seeking volunteers for a one month period to help with projects there. Please consider volunteering now. Just contact the great folks who can be reached via the web list below:
NATR and Andaman Discoveries
http://www.andamandiscoveries.com
http://www.northandamantsunamirelief.com
Tel: +66 (0) 87 917 7165
Note: This is excerpted from a longer article.
Europe takes Africa's fish, and migrants follow
By Sharon Lafraniere The New York Times
Monday, January 14, 2008
Ale Nodye, the son and grandson of fishermen in this northern Senegalese village, said that for the past six years he netted barely enough fish to buy fuel for his boat. So he jumped at the chance for a new beginning. He volunteered to captain a wooden canoe full of 87 Africans to the Canary Islands in the hopes of making their way illegally to Europe.
The 2006 voyage ended badly. He and his passengers were arrested and deported. His cousin died on a similar mission not long afterward.
Nonetheless, Nodye, 27, said he intended to try again.
"I could be a fisherman there," he said. "Life is better there. There are no fish in the sea here anymore."
Many scientists agree. A vast flotilla of industrial trawlers from the European Union, China, Russia and elsewhere, together with an abundance of local boats, have so thoroughly scoured northwest Africa's ocean floor that major fish populations are collapsing.
That has crippled coastal economies and added to the surge of illegal migrants who brave the high seas in wooden pirogues hoping to reach Europe. While reasons for immigration are as varied as fish species, Europe's lure has clearly intensified as northwest Africa's fish population has dwindled.
Last year roughly 31,000 Africans tried to reach the Canary Islands, a prime transit point to Europe, in more than 900 boats. About 6,000 died or disappeared, according to one estimate cited by the United Nations.
The region's governments bear much of the blame for their fisheries' decline. Many have allowed a desire for money from foreign fleets to override concern about the long-term health of their fisheries. Illegal fishermen are notoriously common; efforts to control fishing, rare.
But in the view of West African fishermen, Europe is having its fish and eating them, too. Their own waters largely fished out, European nations have steered their heavily subsidized fleets to Africa.
"As Europe has sought to manage its fisheries and to limit its fishing, what we've done is to export the overfishing problem elsewhere, particularly to Africa," said Steve Trent, executive director of the European Justice Foundation, a research group.
European Union officials insist that their bloc, which has negotiated fishing deals with Africa since 1979, is a scapegoat for Africa's management failures and the misdeeds of other foreign fleets. They argue that African officials oversell fishing rights, inflate potential catches and allow pirate vessels and local boats free rein in breeding grounds.
Pierre Chavance, a scientist with the French Institute for Research and Development, said both foreign fleets and African governments allowed financial considerations to trump concerns for fish or local fishermen.
"One side has a big interest to sell, and the other side has a big interest to buy," he said. "The negotiations are based upon what people want to hear, not the reality."
Overfishing is hardly limited to African waters. Worldwide, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 75 percent of fish stocks are overfished or fished to their maximum. But in a poor region like northwest Africa, the consequences are particularly stark.
Fish are the main source of protein for much of the region, but some species are now so scarce that the poor can no longer afford them, said Pierre Failler, senior research fellow for the British Center for Economics and Management of Aquatic Resources.
The coastal stock of bottom-dwelling fish is just a quarter of what it was 25 years ago, studies show. Already, scientists say, the sea's ecological balance has shifted as species lower on the food chain replace some above them.
In Mauritania, lobsters vanished years ago. The catch of octopus â?" now the most valuable species â?" is four-fifths of what it should be if it were not overexploited. A 2002 report by the European Commission found that the most marketable fish species off the coast of Senegal were close to collapse â?" essentially sliding toward extinction.
"The sea is being emptied," said Moctar Ba, a consultant who once led scientific research programs for Mauritania and West Africa.
In a region where at least 200,000 people depend on the sea for their livelihoods, local investments in fishing industries are drying up with the fish stocks. In Guinea-Bissau, fishermen who were buying more boats less than a decade ago now complain they are in debt and looking to get out of the business.
"Before, my whole family could live on what we caught in one pirogue," said Niadye Diouf, 28, whose Senegalese family sold their pirogue for $500 to pay for an illegal â?" and ultimately unsuccessful â?" voyage to Spain. "Now even five pirogues would not be enough."
Fishermen like Diouf argue that Africans should have first priority in their own waters â?" an idea enshrined in a 1994 United Nations treaty on the seas that acknowledges the right of local governments to sell foreigners fishing rights only to their surplus stocks.
But that rule has been repeatedly violated along northwest Africa's nearly 2,000-mile coast.
Studies dating to 1991 indicated that Senegal's fishery was in trouble. In 2002, a scientific report commissioned by the European Union stated that the biomass of important species had declined by three-fourths in 15 years â?" a finding the authors said should "cause significant alarm."
But the week the report was issued, European Union officials signed a new four-year fishing deal with Senegal, agreeing to pay $16 million a year to fish for bottom-dwelling species and tuna.
Four years later, Mauritania followed suit. Despite reports that octopus were overfished by nearly a third, in 2006 Mauritania's government sold six more years' access to 43 European Union vessels for $146 million a year â?" the equivalent of nearly a fifth of Mauritania's government budget.
"I don't know a government in the region that can say no," said Chavance, the French scientist. "This is good money, and they need it."
Sid-Ahmed Ould-Abeid, who leads a Mauritanian association of small fishermen, said: "The EU has the money, so it has the power. It is easier to sacrifice the local fishermen…."
From: "Madhusree Mukerjee" lopchu@att.net
================================
Cameroon
BBC coverage of community mapping in Cameroon
30 Jan 2008
New technology used by indigenous peoples to map traditional lands and monitor illegal logging given wide coverage on BBC
Fergal Keane of the BBC is in Cameroon meeting indigenous peoples who are using new technology to document their traditional use of forests, to map their lands and to monitor and report illegal logging activity.
Local NGO, Centre for Environment and Development in Cameroon (CED) and Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), have been working directly with indigenous peoples to support and develop this approach over several years. These maps support indigenous peoples to assert their rights in dialogue and negotiation with government authorities, conservation NGOs and logging companies. Indigenous peoples, with support from FPP, are also mapping their lands in Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Thailand and Indonesia.
Such grassroots initiatives can offer concrete solutions to crucial global issues, such as the protection of indigenous peoples' rights, the management of protected areas and the protection of forest biodiversity. These issues are being discussed at the UN level, including the upcoming 2nd Meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity Working Group on Protected Areas, 11 - 15 February 2008, at the FAO headquarters in Rome.
Coverage includes:
BBC 10 O'Clock News, UK, Wednesday 30 January
BBC World, Breakfast news and subsequent hourly updates featuring interviews with Baka community members, Thursday 31 January
BBC Online, live discussion between London school children and Baka community, Thursday 31 January
Another email will follow broadcast, with links to BBC Online broadcasting of programmes and to additional articles.
For further information please visit forestpeoples.org
From: "M F Ferrari" maurizio@forestpeoples.org
==============================
Mozambique
Editor’s Note: Considering the sorry state of shrimp aquaculture development in Brazil, this article’s mention of a partnership between industry leaders in Brazil and Mozambique leaves one wondering…?
11 January 2008
Developing sustainable aquaculture in Mozambique
By Patty Pitts
Children in Quelimane, Mozambique, will benefit from UVic-led aquaculture program.
Mozambique, the coastal nation in southeast Africa, is struggling to recover from more than two decades of war that has ravaged the country. Along the coastline, the fishery is in decline, but a new project, led by the University of Victoria, is offering the area’s citizens hope for a better life.
The UVic-led Southern Oceans Education and Development project (SOED) will establish sustainable shrimp and mollusc aquaculture programs that preserve Mozambique’s coastal ecosystems. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) recently provided $1 million for the project.
SOED will build on expertise developed during previous CIDA-funded UVic projects in Brazil. Since Mozambique and Brazil share a common language (Portuguese) expertise can easily be shared between institutions in Brazil and the School of Marine and Coastal Sciences at the satellite campus of Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) in the coastal city of Quelimane, Mozambique, as well as the Ministry of Fisheries.
“This partnership represents a transfer of development roles,” says Jack Littlepage of the Centre for Global Studies and SOED co-director. “For more than a decade, UVic carried out aquaculture development projects in Brazil, and now we have the opportunity to work with Brazilian partners in university and government to bring to Mozambique the same kinds of benefits which flowed to coastal communities in Brazil˜a secure food source, improved economic and social opportunities and, above all, an appreciation of the marine environment.”
While Mozambique‚s government has made significant advances in fighting poverty and improving human development since signing the peace accord that ended civil strife, Mozambique remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Like many African countries, it is also hard-hit by high HIV/AIDS infection rates.
While the focus of SOED will be on coastal resource and environmental management, the project will not ignore other societal issues facing the citizens of Mozambique. HIV/AIDS has lowered the life expectancy for the coastal area population and gender inequity continues to be a problem. SOED will promote equal opportunities for women and build information about HIV/AIDS into project curricula and extension programming.
Under the co-direction of UVic researchers Littlepage and geography professor Mark Flaherty, SOED will help develop instructional programs in marine sciences, oceanography and aquaculture at UEM. Graduate students from UEM and the Ministry of Fisheries will be studying marine sciences at UVic and at Brazil’s Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), with whom UVic has a long-standing partnership. These students will take their new knowledge back to Mozambique to create courses to be offered at UEM and to help to develop effective policies for the management of coastal resources.
Along with UFSC, UVic will lend expertise to develop aquaculture extension programs for citizens interested in operating their own aquaculture businesses. Aquaculture provides many business opportunities for women since cultural activities take place close to home and draw on their traditional skills. Even children, who often assist in family occupations, will be able to participate in the aquaculture business without having to forfeit attendance at school.
Source: The Ring, The University of Victoria's Community Newspaper
Indonesia
Indonesia: Leading oil palm producer. Leading carbon emitter?
Indonesia, a leading producer of palm oil, reached an output of 16 million tonnes in 2006, having tripled the area of land under oil palm plantation between 1995 and 2005.
Though the Indonesian government had established a moratorium on forest conversion for estate crops --though unclear about how long the moratorium should be maintained and whether it referred to a moratorium on actual conversion of forest cover or a moratorium on changing the status of forest lands to allow planting (see WRM Bulletin Nº 124)-- the country‚s policy on palm oil development seems to continue the increasing trend. There are plans to add some 10 to 11 million hectares to the six million hectares of land occupied with oil palm plantations, in response to the rising global demand for palm oil.
Palm oil is used in numerous food products and consumer goods and is one of the main raw materials for the new biodiesel rush. In early 2007, the European Union endorsed a minimum target for biofuel to constitute 10% of its transport fuels by 2020.
The target of increasing palm oil production to 40 million tonnes in Indonesia by 2020 goes along with the need to add some 300,000 hectares of new estates each year. A report by the Indonesian Forest Ministry and European Union cited by an article of Hilary Chiew (1) says that inevitably, most new estates would come up in wetlands, as the more desirable dry lands are already occupied.
Recently, the Indian edible oil refiner Jhunjhunwala Vanaspati Ltd has announced its plans to buy 20,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in Indonesia for an amount of up to US$ 38 million. According to Reuters (2), the company director S.N. Jhunjhunwala said that they were „looking at either virgin or developed plantations [sic] in Indonesia". For the Indian firm, the operation has two purposes. First, to reduce costs. The costs of producing edible oils are mounting so for Indian firms the opportunity to buy plantations abroad is a way of bringing down the cost incurred through import of crude palm oil (CPO).
Besides cutting costs, Indian firms in Indonesia can thus avoid the laws that at home limit them to acquire the large areas they need. That‚s why they are heading to countries in South-East Asia or South America, with less protective regulations.
However, such happy business plays a heavy toll on the people and the environment. Almost one-quarter of Indonesia's palm oil plantations is established in the province of Riau, where peatlands abound. The carbon rich peatlands are drained and burned to make way for palm oil plantations thus sending huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. According to Wetland International, this gives Indonesia a notorious third place as carbon emitter and contributor to global warming after the United States and China.
The Indonesian Technology Assessment and Application Agency (BPPT) has claimed that the calculation did not include the carbon absorption power of Indonesia‚s forest that reduced the total amount.
Whether ranked third or 14th carbon emitter, the destruction of rainforests to grow palm oil in Indonesia represents, as UNDP‚s latest Human Development Report 2007/2008 puts it „the erosion of a resource that plays a vital role in the lives of the poor, in the provision of ecosystem services and in sustaining biodiversity.‰ The UNDP report also acknowledges that the „rapid expansion of the [palm oil] market has gone hand-in-hand with an erosion of the rights of small farmers and indigenous people.‰ So, good business for whom?
Article based on information from:
(1) "Eco-conscious palm oil", Hilary Chiew, The Star Online;
(2) "India firm eyes oil palm plantations in Indonesia", Reuters;
(3) "Indian firms scout for farms overseas", M.R. Subramani, The Hindu Business Line; (4) Human Development Report 2007/2008, UNDP
From: "WRM - World Rainforest Movement" wrm@wrm.org.uy
=============================
Vietnam
15 January 2008
Vietnam's Mangrove Restoration Program
The Vietnamese Government‚s pro- active approach to disaster prevention is an ideal model that should be followed by her neighbors.
By: Vanessa Uy
Over the past 30 years, climate disasters like floods, droughts and hurricanes have increased three- fold. This trend concerns Vietnam, which climatologists had found out to be one of the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters. The reason for this is that most of the Vietnamese population and agricultural industries are cited in coastal areas that are only a few feet above sea level.
In 1994, Vietnam‚s Red Cross adapted a pro-active approach to against storm surges by launching a program of mangrove tree reforestation and management. Existing mangrove forests in parts of Vietnam are well known for their ability to protect low lying rice fields against tidal surges caused by increasingly powerful storms. The root complexes of these mangrove trees buffers the forces exerted by storm waves and extend the useful lives of the earthen dikes that for years served as scant protection to these vital agricultural areas.
Mangrove tree reforestation also benefits Vietnam‚s fishing industry. The fishes, shrimps, prawns, and crabs that populate the coastal areas now have an increased number of secure spawning areas to rear their young. Despite these benefits, mangrove roots can easily be damaged by careless fishing practices. So mangrove fields should be designated as a no fishing zone. Illegal harvesting of mangrove trees for firewood and charcoal production is also a problem. Since Vietnam has a very long coastline, the program still has quite a long way to go in order for all coastal communities to reap the benefits and receive increased protection against storm surges.
Despite the programs documented successes, there was no mention of the effects of defoliants used by U.S. Armed Forces back in the late 1960‚s. Chemical defoliants like "agent- orang" were used to reveal the camouflaged positions of the communist rebel fighters. In 1975, the publication of the three- year investigation of the 17-member National Academy of Science‚s Committee on the Effects of Herbicides in Vietnam released their report in February of that year. Their major conclusions: The military use of herbicides may have had ill effects on the human population of the then South Vietnam and inflicted long-term damage on the country‚s environment and supplies of timber. The “Committee’s” findings on the effects on the local vegetation were considerably more definite in comparison to the effects on human health. Coastal mangrove forests „suffered greater damage than any other type of vegetation.” Even where they were sprayed only once, they were destroyed. Time for total recovery of the mangrove forests: “at least 100 years.”
Thirty years on, Vietnam‚s mangrove forests seems to be thriving. To what extent does the past herbicide and defoliant use affect the mangrove reforestation program, nobody knows? Maybe, we just got lucky that mangrove forests are more resilient than we thought they are.
From: ecorets@gmail.com
====================================
Scientists Warn The Sai Gon River is dying
(04-01-2008)
HCM CITY — The Sai Gon River that provides water for HCM City’s almost 10 million people is dying.
Its killer is the waste water discharged from industrial zones and the pursuit of aquaculture, scientists at a seminar held to discuss the protection of the river agreed.
Many reports tabled at the HCM City meeting showed that high amounts of manganese, iron, ammonia, coliform and oil are the major pollutants.
A study by HCM City University of Technology Professor Nguyen Thi Van Ha showed the amount of manganese and iron in the river was higher than the norm of potable water.
The amount of manganese at the Tan Hiep pumping station from where water is supplied to the city, was measured at 0.2mg per litre, double that permissible.
Tan Hiep pumping station director Bui Thanh Giang said he was worried about the fall in water quality and the increase in the amount of ammonia since 2004.
"Previously, the amount rose and fell with the tide," he said.
But now it was always high.
"The quality of the river water has abnormally changed making it more difficult to treat," he said.
The indicator of dissolved oxygen, DO, in the river is lower than that required.
A study by the HCM City Environment Protection Department’s Dr Nguyen Dinh Tuan revealed that the DO ratio was just 2.8-4/7mg per litre compared with a norm of more than 6mg per litre.
The pollution in the Sai Gon River basin was the most serious, Dr Tuan said.
Binh Duong Natural Resources and Environment director Vo Thi Ngoc Hanh said the province’s 11 industrial zones discharged between 1,200 cu.m and 5,600cu.m of waste water into the river basin each day.
Another 45.000cu.m of waste water was discharged by other producers.
Toxic waste water from paper production totalled 7,700cu.m; weaving and dying – 4,200cu.m and rubber processing – 9,600cu.m every day.
The daily discharge from animal breading alone totalled 24,500cu.m.
Tay Ninh Province and HCM City have not yet published figures for the discharge of industrial waste water into the river.
The seminar was told that coliform, a bacteria normally found in the colons of humans and animals but with the potential to become a serious contaminant when found in food or water, and oil spill had become serious pollutants.
The amount of coliform caused by aqua culture was 220 times the norm….
…Plans for the protection and management of the water in the Sai Gon River were now necessary, Dr Triet said.
State management agencies and local governments should invest properly in ensuring its survival.
"If there’s no action, the Sai Gon River will become a dead river," he warned.
The 107km-long Sai Gon River crosses Tay Ninh Province and Binh Duong Provinces and flows through HCM City.
It provides water for daily life; irrigation, aqua culture, industry, transport and tourism. — VNS
From: Darlene Schanfald darlenes@olympus.net
India
Steely threat to mangrove
8 January 2008
Cuttack: Industrial development and ecology are at a stand off over the commercial use of water from the Brahmani river for a proposed steel hub at Duburi.
While the government has already assured the supply from Brahmani for the proposed plants, a „catastrophe‰ awaits Bhitarkanika Sanctuary ˜ Asia‚s second-largest concentration of mangrove forests ˜ experts believe.
Proposed steel plants with a combined capacity of over 40MT have been reportedly assured water from the river. The plants would require all most all the water available.
According to the irrigation department sources, the total live storage capacity (LSC) of the Rengali Dam reservoir is 4400million-cubic-metre. The Rengali irrigation canals have a requirement of 3,450million-cubic-metre, while large PSU industrial users like SAIL, NTPC, Nalco and Mahanadi Coalfields have an estimated requirement of over 450million-cubic-metre.
The department officials admit there would be an additional pressure of over 400million-cubic-metre from Brahmani at Jokadia barrage, if the proposed plants go on stream in Duburi.
For every tonne of finished steel, an estimated 1-lakh-cubic-metre would be required.
Diversion of such huge volume of water, experts fear, would push Bhitarkanika mangroves on Orissa‚s coast towards the same fate as the Sunderbans, after the Farakka Barrage. The Sunderbans were affected after the barrage was commissioned and the Sundari trees (a variety the mangrove was named after) started to disappear soon after.
“A fall in water flow and the consequent shortage of fresh water downstream of Jokodia barrage (where drastic reduction in water availability has already been marked) will lead to changes in the water regime of Bhitarkanika mangroves,” said B. Mohanty, secretary of Wildlife Society of Orissa.
“The situation could be calamitous for the mangroves as fresh water brought from the Brahmani to Bhittarkanika mixes with sea water to produce brackish water ideal for the mangroves,” he added.
Mangroves, growing in brackish water, are sensitive to changes in salinity ˜ any change in freshwater flow increases saline ingression.
The rich mangroves in Bhittarkanika spread over 195sqkm have a high level of bio-diversity with 62 of the world‚s 73 mangrove species.
Source: The Telegraph (India)
From: "Elaine Corets" ecorets@gmail.com
====================================
9 January 2007
CPF to build a third feed mill in India
Projects planned in Russia and Malaysia
WALAILAK KEERATIPIPATPONG
Charoen Pokphand Foods, the CP Group's listed flagship, has decided to build its third feed mill in India at a cost of US$10 million to tap continued strong growth in marine products.
''The well-planned development in the aquaculture business by Indian authorities in recent years has given us confidence to invest there,'' said Pinij Kungvankij, senior vice-president for foreign aquaculture business development with CPF.
For example, farmers are not allowed to farm more than 20 shrimp per square metre in order to avoid too small output. The measure has worked and black tiger prawns from Indian farms weigh as much as 30 grammes each or approximately 30 heads per kilogramme, compared to 40-50 heads per kilogramme from Thai farms.
Substantial expansion of shrimp farms across the country in addition to high local consumption are also positive factors, said Mr Pinij.
The Marine Products Export Development Authority, India's government agency that oversees the development of aquaculture, reports that India produced about 185,820 tonnes of shrimp and prawns in 2005, with a total of 183,433 hectares of ponds.
The agency expects that there would be an additional 10,000 hectares to raise both freshwater prawns and marine shrimp in 2008-09.
The third mill will be built on the west coast of India this year and start operating in early 2009, with a capacity to produce 80,000 tonnes of shrimp feed a year and putting total annual feed output from CP in India at 250,000 tonnes.
Mr Pinij said that CP Group started surveying India's shrimp industry in 1992 after the country opened its doors for foreign investment. It first tested the market by bringing in shrimp feed from Thailand to sell in India and continued the business for three years before establishing the first subsidiary, CP Aquaculture India (Private) Limited, in Chennai in 1995.
The company, 72% held by CPF and the rest by CP Group, has produced 90,000 tonnes of shrimp feed a year.
The second company, Charoen Pokphand (India) Private Limited, was founded in 2004 in Vishakapatanam, Andhra Pradesh, in southern India. It added another 80,000 tonnes of feed to the group and brought the total of CP's investment in the country to $17 million by then.
Pong Visedpaitoon, chief operating officer of CPF, said that the investment expansion was part of the group's five-billion-baht overseas investment budget for this year, which also includes new projects in Russia, Malaysia, and the Philippines for both the livestock and marine sectors.
He said CPF was also upbeat about the aquaculture business in the Philippines, the last Asian country that CPF invested in in 2003. It sells about 5,000 tonnes of shrimp feed a year in the country and the volume is expected to rise to 10,000 tonnes this year.According to Mr Pong, a boom in shrimp farming in the Philippines has led the company to build a shrimp-feed manufacturing plant sometime this year in Cebu at a cost of $10 million.
Fish farming on the islands is also booming, with high consumption of 30 kilogrammes per year per head on average. The statistics have caused the company to consider a new investment to produce fish feed, expected in Luzon this year at the same budget.
The Thai Shrimp Association forecasts that the shrimp industry this year will remain strong, with production of 530,000 tonnes, up from 500,000 tonnes harvested in 2007.
Exports will expand slightly to 370,000 tonnes from 360,000 last year.
CPF shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 4.40 baht, down 0.9%, in trade worth 79 million baht.
Source: Bangkok Post
From: corets@gmail.com
==================================
Bangladesh
Feb. 1, 2008
Rare dolphin 'beaten to death' in Bangladesh
An extremely rare river dolphin has been beaten to death by fishermen in southern Bangladesh. Fishermen at Mongla, near the Sunderbans mangrove forest, netted a Ganges river dolphin on Monday and beat it to death as they had not seen this kind of creature before, the state-run BSS news agency said on Tuesday.
A group then tried to sell it as a rare fish, before giving up and dumping it outside a museum. The Sunderbans area straddles the borders of Bangladesh and India's West Bengal state and lies on the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta. According to the World Wildlife Fund, there are just 1,200-1,800 such dolphins alive.
Source: AFP
From: icsf@icsf.net
===============================
28 January 2008
Bangladesh's majestic dolphins at risk
By Alastair Lawson
BBC News, in the Sunderbans of Bangladesh
Seeing the river dolphins of Bangladesh is not something that is easily forgotten. They rise arc-like and majestic out of the water only inches from boats that ply the rivers of the country's south.
In a country where the wildlife population has been denuded because of over-crowding and pollution, dolphins provide visitors with a beautiful and memorable surprise.
But conservationists say they are increasingly concerned over the future of the country's river dolphin population, some of which they warn may even be at risk of extinction.
They say that it is rapidly declining because of over-fishing, a shortage of prey, pollution and declining freshwater supplies.
'Isolated'
Experts are particularly concerned over the fate of two species - the Ganges river dolphin and the Irrawaddy dolphin whose numbers they say have significantly reduced over the last decade.
"This is probably because of intense human activities - such as farming and fishing - that takes place in their river and near shore water habit," said dolphin expert Elisabeth Fahrni Mansur.
"But they are also at risk because of the clumped nature of their overall distribution, which results in a patchwork of relatively small groups demographically isolated from each other."
While Bangladesh currently supports relatively large populations of Ganges river dolphins and Irrawaddy dolphins, conservationists argue that it's crucial to address the threats they face now, while the potential for long-term survival of both species is still relatively high in comparison to other areas in Asia.
While other species such as Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins are not currently threatened, their future can by no means be taken for granted. But it's the Ganges river dolphin and the Irrawaddy dolphin which give the most cause for concern.
"The most dire threat to them comes in the form of accidental deaths caused fishing nets," said Ms Mansur.
"Fishermen don't target the animals, but when they often become entangled in nets they easily drown because they are breathing mammals.
"A more long term threat comes from declining freshwater supplies - primarily due to water extraction upstream in India - and sea-level rises which have led to profound changes to the ecology of their habitat."
The bulk of the country's freshwater dolphin population live in the south-west of the country, especially in the rivers and waterways of the Sunderbans mangrove forest.
Experts point out that these rivers are particularly affected by toxic and industrial waste which is dumped in the water further upstream.
"Rising salinity through both climate change and declining freshwater supplies is also a real and a long-term challenge to the ecology of the Sunderbans," said Ms Mansur.
Dolphins in the forest tend to partition themselves according to the level of salinity - Ganges river dolphins for example are found in mangrove channels with high freshwater inputs, while Irrawaddy dolphins live in more salty mangrove channels further downstream.
Ominous development
Experts say that the level of salinity in these areas is crucial to the survival of the animals and to the livelihoods of over 30,000 fishermen in the Sunderbans. Already at least 11 species of fresh water fish are extinct.
In what many environmentalists see as an ominous development, salt water species of pin dolphin in the Sunderbans have recently been discovered, which provides another indication of rising salinity.
Steps are now being taken to combat the problem.
The Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project (BCDP) and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) are proposing a protected area for dolphins, which would consist of three priority sites in the Sunderbans.
In addition to monitoring salinity levels, accidental killings of dolphins by fishermen would also be surveyed.
"The idea is that fishermen will be provided with relatively inexpensive global positioning systems and depth sounders, in addition to being trained how to use them so that they can navigate safely to shore during storms," said Ms Mansur.
"In return the fishermen would safely release live animals found entangled in their nets, and collect samples and basic information on animals found already dead.
"But the battle to save these animals is not going to be easy. Salinity and over-fishing are in many respects facts beyond our control. We are the local end of a global battle."
Source: BBC NEWS
From: ecorets@gmail.com
China
China shrimp exports to U.S. Surpass 2006 Levels
In an article published by IntraFish, the Xinhua News Agency of China reported that China exported 3,975 tons of shrimp meat to the U.S. valued at $17.1 million in November 2007. This represents a gain of 52.3 percent from November 2006.
For the same period, the U.S. General Administration of Customs reported total shrimp exports to the U.S. were 25,047 tons worth $119.5 million, a 32.5 percent increase.
(According to the article, China also exported 119,482 tons of frozen fish valued at $288.8 million, which represented a 5.9 percent decline from the year-earlier period. )
For more details visit the Intrafish Web site at www.intrafish.com
China shrimp exports to U.S. way ahead of 2006 Printer Version
1/18/2008
Australia
Prawn costs rise amid tough border controls - Australia
by Tony Love
7 January 2008
A SEAFOOD feed could soon cost a lot more, thanks to tough new disease testing shutting out cheap Asian prawns.
Imported supplies of Australia's favourite shellfish are already dwindling, and prices have risen.
Quarantine tests for disease have resulted in more than 300 tonnes, or 22 containers, of raw prawns being refused entry since October.
Only seven containers had been let in up to December.
The tough new border controls have angered the hospitality industry, seafood importers and distributors, who fear the financial cost in the next year will top more than half a billion dollars.
Hotels and clubs, budget bistros and popular Asian restaurants will face the brunt of the shortages.
The chairman of the Australian Seafood Importers Association, Harry Peters, said budget and mid-level restaurants would soon be unable to obtain their usual produce and would have to charge more for seafood dishes.
"The only alternative will be higher-priced Australian prawns," Mr Peters said.
"Your five stars and three hats restaurants will be OK, because they can pay the high prices and the people who eat there are happy to pay."
Since October, one seafood distributor has raised wholesale prices for imported medium prawns by 30-40 per cent, from $18.90 kg to $25.90 kg. Some restaurants have begun buying smaller shrimps.
A key seafood industry figure said Australian prawns, which supply less than half Australia's consumption, would be next to rise in price as the import shortfalls hit.
The tough new quarantine tests on raw imported prawns were introduced to guard against four deadly viruses prevalent in South-East Asian prawn farms.
The seafood importers' association and hospitality industry will campaign this year to have the tests halted, arguing that they are excessive and that the science behind the regimen is questionable.
Source: Herald Sun
From: ecorets@gmail.com
Brazil
Brazilian Mangrove-Sea Network Created
- in defense of marine and coastal peoples and environments of Brazil
A National Meeting for the creation of the Rede MangueMar (Mangrove-Sea Network) took place in the community of Acupe in Santo Amaro, Bahia State, from 10-13 December 2007. Around 60 participants met, representing a collective of people and entities concerned with the protection of marine and coastal traditional populations and environments, amongst them fisherfolk, NGO representatives, and researchers from 13 coastal Brazilian states (Pará, Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Bahia, Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Santa Catarina e Rio Grande do Sul). During the meeting the objectives and format for the functioning of the Network were defined. A national facilitation team was created, formed by two representatives each of Bahia and Ceara states, where the state networks are already articulating, and one representative from each of the rest of the states. A provisional secretary based at the NGO Gamba, in Salvador, Bahia, will support the functioning of the Network until the next meeting, planned for July 2008 in Maranhao state. For more information, contact manguemarbrasil@gmail.com .
From: ecorets@gmail.com
=================================
World Bank pledges to save trees... then helps cut down Amazon forest
A month ago it vowed to fight deforestation. Now research reveals it funds the rainforest's biggest threat. By Daniel Howden
Published: 13 January 2008
The World Bank has emerged as one of the key backers behind an explosion of cattle ranching in the Amazon, which new research has identified as the greatest threat to the survival of the rainforest.
Ranching has grown by half in the last three years, driven by new industrial slaughterhouses which are being constructed in the Amazon basin with the help of the World Bank. The revelation flies in the face of claims from the bank that it is funding efforts to halt deforestation and reduce the massive greenhouse gas emissions it causes.
Roberto Smeraldi, head of Friends of the Earth Brazil and lead author of the new report, obtained exclusively by The Independent on Sunday, said the bank's contradictory policy on forests was now clear: "On the one hand you try and save the forest, on the other you give incentives for its conversion."
There are now more than 74 million cattle reared in the Amazon basin, the world's most important eco-system, where they outnumber people by a ratio of more than three to one. Fuelled by massive illegal ranches, the South American giant has become the world's leading beef exporter, rearing more cattle than all 25 EU members put together. This industrial expansion comes despite international agreements to combat deforestation, and claims from the government of Brazil that it is succeeding in slowing the destruction of the world's largest standing forest.
"Land-use change in the Amazon is first and foremost a product of ranching. It is on the hooves of cattle, out on the forest fringe, where the repercussions are being felt," said Mr Smeraldi.
The new report, "The Cattle Realm", comes after a year in which deforestation was acknowledged as the second leading cause of carbon emissions worldwide and was included in the plan for a new global treaty to fight climate change. But the catastrophic destruction of the Amazon to make way for ranches is being funded by the same international institutions that have pledged to fight deforestation.
The World Bank, which unveiled a new programme to fund "avoided deforestation" at the UN climate summit in Bali last month, is at the same time pouring money into the expansion of slaughterhouses in the Amazon region. The new report estimates that the internationally funded expansion of Brazil's beef industry was responsible for up to 12 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the past decade ˆ an amount comparable to two years of emissions from the US.
The World Bank, which British taxpayers help to fund, lent its backing to the inclusion of deforestation in the Bali "road map" signed by 180 countries last month. At the summit the bank unveiled its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), aimed at reducing deforestation by compensating developing countries for carbon dioxide reductions realised by maintaining their forests. The pilot programme has received more than $160m (£82m) in funding from donor governments.
The World Bank's president, Robert Zoellick, claimed that the project "signals that the world cares about the global value of forests and is ready to pay for it. There is now a value to conserving, not just harvesting the forest." But the institution, set up to provide loans to developing countries aimed at reducing poverty, has been accused of hypocrisy as it talks up relatively low levels of funding on "avoided deforestation" while spending millions more on the industries ˆ such as cattle ranching and soya production ˆ that are the acknowledged drivers of forest destruction.
In a single project last year, the IFC ˆ part of the World Bank group ˆ handed $9m to Brazil's leading beef processor to upgrade its slaughterhouse operations in the Amazon, despite an environmental study, carried out for the IFC, which showed that expansion of a single slaughterhouse in Maraba would lead to the loss of up to 300,000 hectares of forest to make way for more cattle.
The project was signed off despite angry resistance from up to 30 NGOs in Brazil and the intervention of the influential US lobbying group the Sierra Club, all of which pointed out that the high-risk agricultural project contradicted the bank's stated aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In the past three years Brazil's National Development Bank and the World Bank have poured funds into the southern Amazon, fuelling the expansion of the cattle industry with new slaughterhouses and four million additional head of cattle. "While governments insist they are doing their utmost to stop deforestation they have been putting in place incentives for the destruction of the forest. It is taxpayers' money fuelling this," said Mr Smeraldi.
Only the US rears more cattle than Brazil, which since 2004 has led the world in beef exports. The endangered eco-system of the Amazon basin has accounted for 96 per cent of all growth in the country's cattle industry. The ranchers are expanding as meat consumption soars both in Brazil and the rest of the world. Britain is the sixth largest importer of Brazilian beef, buying more than 80,000 tons in the year to November 2007.
The Amazon basin is home to one in 10 of the world's mammals and 15 per cent of land-based plant species. It holds more than half the world's fresh water, and its vast forests act as the largest carbon sink on the planet, providing a vital check on the greenhouse effect. This vital resource faces three main dangers: the expansion of the soya industry, driven by high prices for animal feed; the surge in sugarcane plantations to feed the sudden and insatiable global appetite for bio-fuels; and the traditional threat of cattle ranching, underestimated in recent years as soya and sugarcane have received more attention.
Since the "Save the Amazon" campaigns of the 1970s the role of illegal ranchers in the destruction of the rainforest has been widely known. Virtually non-existent government control has allowed ranchers to clear large areas of remote forest for pasture. But the land ˆ while initially fertile ˆ quickly erodes, spurring the need for new pasture and driving the chainsaws further into the forest, in a vicious cycle largely unchecked for decades. Carbon dioxide emissions from the fires set to clear the trees have helped to propel Brazil into the top four carbon polluters in the world, exceeded only by the US, China and Indonesia.
At the end of each dry season, in anticipation of the first winter rains, farmers and cattle ranchers throughout South America set fires to "renovate" pasture land. But this process has spun out of control as deforestation and climate change have created a tinderbox, leading to ever-larger blazes. Last October a record area of the rainforest went up in flames, choking vast areas of not just Brazil but Paraguay and Bolivia.
There are increasing signs that the strain placed on the Amazon's eco-system could lead to an irreversible breakdown Last month the WWF predicted that the combination of drought and fire could wipe out the Amazon by 2030, with disastrous consequences for the world.
From: ecorets@gmail.com
The Bahamas
Bimini Island Under A New and Added Attack
***ACTION ALERT!!!***
Letters Needed To Protest Additional Mangrove Clearing On Bimini Island
Editor's Note: Please send letters of protest and concern to the Bahamian officials listed below, using the letter provided by Grant Johnson below as a reference for your own letter, as his letter contains many good points.
Bahamas National Trust
P.O. Box N4105
The Retreat Gardens
Village Road
Nassau, Bahamas
Department of Fisheries
Ministry of Agriculture & Marine Resources
East Bay Street
P. O. Box N 3028
Nassau, Bahamas
The Nature Conservancy - Bahamas Program
West Bay Street
Caves Village, Suite 2
Building 5
P.O. Box CB - 11398
Nassau, Bahamas
The Bahamas Environment, Science and Technology (BEST) Commission
Ministry of Health and the Environment
PO Box N3730
Nassau Court
Nassau, New Providence
The Bahamas
Dear all,
Despite the startling evidence showing the negative impact that excessive dredging and mangrove removal is having on North Bimini, developers on South Bimini have begun to follow suit with the same disregard for Bimini's ecological integrity.
A study carried out a few years back examined the levels of larval and post-larval recruitment around Bimini for small fish an invertebrates, specifically focusing on lobster. Four of Bimini's mangrove nursery areas were compared to each other to see where the highest numbers of post-larval lobster were settling, and thus growing up, around the island. (I will assume by now, that all on this e mail listing are aware of the direct relationship between healthy mangrove nursery habitat and the adult populations of the species that inhabit those nurseries.) Of the four sites studied around Bimini, there were two sites that had substantially higher levels of lobster recruitment than the other two sites. Ironically, the area included in Bimini's proposed MPA boundaries was not amongst the top two sites.
The second-highest numbers recorded for lobster settlement were recorded in the area directly adjacent to Mosquito Point, on North Bimini. This area has since been bulldozed and cleared by resort developers on North Bimini.
The highest levels of lobster settlement were actually recorded on the north-western region of South Bimini, where a large mangrove wetland sits closely in line with the Gulf Stream flushed waters that rush onto the Bimini flats with the tides. Today, as I write this e mail, that area is being dredged (see photos attached). Along the road just west of South Bimini's Fountain of Youth, a large area of mangrove wetlands is being dredged and destroyed, and with it will go the lobster, and other wildlife, that inhabit the area.
It has been indisputably proven that mangrove nurseries play a critical role in maintaining coral reefs systems, as well as other off-shore marine ecosystems. It has also been shown around the world that removing these mangrove nurseries has devastating effects on the ecology, and very often the economy, in the areas in which they occur.
In early December, CNN News and Island Magazine listed Bimini as one of the top snorkeling "safari" sites in the world, among such famed areas as the Galapagos Islands and the Dry Tortugas National Park (see article attached below). This claim, along with Bimini's long-held title as the "Big Game Fishing Captial of the World," would lead one to believe that Bimini's ecological health is at the forefront of the island's future economic growth. You would assume that an area widely revered as a 'mecca' for fishing and diving would surely be actively pursuing measures to ensure the future of these huge draws to the island. But is this happening on Bimini?
Today, as two of the most important wetlands on the island are being destroyed, what will the result be for tomorrow? As more and more people come to Bimini to fish, what will happen as we continue to destroy the nursery areas that make that sport so viable here? As we allow more mangroves to be dredged, what will snorkelers and divers enjoy as the coral reefs and their inhabitants are degraded as a result?
Bimini should not be seen as a piece of real-estate for people to come in and alter as they see fit, yet developers on North Bimini, and now on South Bimini, seem eager to change the landscape of the island to suit their desires. Bimini's ecology, culture and history are what have brought every person here who has enjoyed the island over the last many decades. And instead of preserving those things, and using them as the primary attraction of the island, they are being replaced.
Again, I respectfully ask the Bahamas National Trust, The Nature Conservancy, BEST Commission, and Department of Marine Resources, what is being done to preserve this amazing island? What is being done to ensure that the waters that have attracted thousands and thousands of people to Bimini are being maintained, healthy and viable?
At this point, I would argue that establishing Bimini's Marine Protected Area is the least that should be done. Prime Minister Ingraham has recently stated that, "The filling in of wetlands is a thing that has to come to an end, it has to stop." (The Tribune, November 2, 2007) If this idea is not embraced on Bimini, and embraced soon, I fear that the very things that have made this island the paradise that it is will be lost.
Respectfully yours,
Grant Johnson
From: "Grant Johnson" grantjohnson86@gmail.com
USA
January 29, 2008
For F.D.A., a Major Backlog Overseas
By GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON
The Food and Drug Administration is so understaffed that, at its current pace, the agency would need at least 27 years to inspect every foreign medical device plant that exports to the United States, 13 years to check every foreign drug plant and 1,900 years to examine every foreign food plant, according to government investigators.
Computer systems at the drug agency are so inadequate that it can only guess the number of the plants, and it cannot produce a list of those that have not been inspected. The situation is particularly dire in China, which has more drug and device plants than any other foreign nation but where F.D.A. inspections are few.
These findings come from a series of reports by the Government Accountability Office ˜ obtained by The New York Times ˜ scheduled to be released Tuesday at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The reports and a recent assessment by the agency’s Science Board conclude that the F.D.A. is so overwhelmed by a flood of imports that it is incapable of protecting the public from unsafe drugs, medical devices and food.
“This is a fundamentally broken agency, and it needs to be repaired,” said Peter Barton Hutt, a former top lawyer with the agency who will testify Tuesday before the committee….
…“Our investigation has found ample evidence that F.D.A. inspections across the board are sorely lacking,” said Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, the chairman of the House committee. “How many more examples are needed to demonstrate that this agency is struggling and the public health is at risk?”…
…In the last 14 years, the drug agency has lost 1,311 employees and nearly $300 million in appropriations to inflation while Congress has passed more than 100 laws defining or expanding its regulatory responsibilities. The agency now regulates about $1 trillion worth of goods, or 25 cents of every dollar spent by consumers.
The agency’s field inspection force has suffered, particularly in the area of food. In 1973, the F.D.A. undertook 34,919 food inspections; in 2006, that number had dropped to 7,783.
As the share of imported food, drugs and devices has soared, the number of agency import inspectors has plunged, to 380 in 2006 from 531 in 2003. Although 80 percent of the nation‚s drug supply is now imported, the F.D.A. last year inspected only 30 of more than 3,000 foreign drug plants. It inspected 100 of 190,000 foreign food plants….
Source: New York Times
===================================
Canada
Newfoundland Shrimp 2nd MSC Certified
From www.Seafoodnews.com 1-30-08
In St. John's, Newfoundland, both offshore shell on shrimp harvesters and inshore cooked and peeled producers attended a cold water shrimp conference this week, along with buyers, many from Europe. Derek Butler, executive director of the Association of Seafood Processors in Newfoundland, announced that Moody's Marine, the MSC approved certifier for the Newfoundland and Labrador shrimp fishery, has made an official recommendation that the shrimp fishery be certified as it meets MSC sustainability criteria.
The Newfoundland shrimp fishery will become the second coldwater shrimp fishery certified by the MSC, the first being the West Coast pink shrimp fishery, which received its certification last fall. Certification is expected to be complete in a matter of months.
The Gulf of St. Lawrence shrimp fishery, being certified by Tavel, is also being recommended for certification, and should be certified on the same timetable
From: ecorets@gmail.com
EJF urges consumers to shell out more for ethical prawns
14th January 2008
GEMMA TAYLOR writes
Sustaining the seas resources, by choosing responsibly sourced seafood, is something we’ve been hearing more and more about recently, particularly in relation to the massively declined stocks of cod, the fish and chip supper favourite.
Prawns are another British favourite, and another environmental disaster. The Environmental Justice Foundation’s (EJF) Hungry for Change campaign is concerned with the devastation caused by shrimp farms to the environment, and the discarded by-catch when prawns are wild-caught.
Thousands of hectares of mangrove forests have been destroyed in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Bangladesh to make way for shrimp farms. Often they are only in operation for a few years before being abandoned, leaving damaged ecosystems which are no longer capable of providing an sustainable industry to the fishing communities which rely on the area.
There’s also significant consequences with wild-caught prawns. Prawn trawlers are responsible for about 30 per cent of the world’s discarded by-catch.
Trawlers can catch as much as 40kg of other marine animals - which are then discarded, usually either dead or dying - for every 1kg of shrimp that is kept. An estimated 150,000 turtles are killed by shrimp trawlers annually.
The EJF has produced a Consumer Guide to Prawns. It advises to read the packaging and not to buy trawled shrimp. Instead look for northern coldwater prawns that have been sustainably caught, particularly pot-caught.
Alternatively, the EJF advises consumers to look out for the small but growing number of prawns being produced by ethical tropical producers. Responsible farms are those not involved in any clearing of mangrove, are chemical-free farms and have transparent practices for labour and local communities.
EJF is working with partners in Brazil to expose and oppose the expansion of shrimp farms. EJF’s latest film It’s All a Lie, forms part of the campaign which hopes to increase awareness and, in turn, consumer demand for sustainable alternatives - to convince retailers to switch and force more producers to do the same.
===================================
EUROPE’S APPETITE FOR SEAFOOD PROPELS ILLEGAL TRADE
The illegal trade of fish is thriving in Europe. Over recent years, Europe has become the world‚s largest market for fish. To support this growing appetite, it must import 60 percent of its stock. This demand has led to an increase in illegal trading. According to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, up to half of the fish sold in Europe are illegally caught or imported. The price has also risen, doubling and tripling due to surging demand, scarce availability, and recent fishing quotas imposed by the European Union in a desperate effort to save native species. In an attempt to control this situation, the European Union „is exploring the idea of requiring officials at its ports to check with officials from countries where boats are registered to make sure they are legal and have fishing rights.‰
Source: Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times, 15 January, 2008
From: Pew Ocean Science pewoceanscience@MIAMI.EDU
World Wetlands Day Saturday 2 February 2008
World Wetlands Day marks the date of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on 2nd February 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar. World Wetlands Day was first celebrated in 1997. Since then government agencies, non-government organisations and community groups have celebrated World Wetlands Day by undertaking actions to raise public awareness of wetland values and benefits and promote the conservation and wise use of wetlands. These activities include seminars, nature walks, festivals, launches of new policies, announcement of new Ramsar sites, newspaper articles, radio interviews and wetland rehabilitation.
The international theme for World Wetlands Day 2008 is Healthy Wetlands, Healthy People. This is in recognition of the importance of the impacts of wetland-related diseases and poor sanitation on the quality of water and wetlands.
more………………….. seagrasswatch.org
From: "Seagrass-Watch HQ" hq@seagrasswatch.org
==================================
29 January 2008
Corruption in fisheries ˆ from bad to worse
Corruption in global fisheries is compounding the devastating effects of overfishing ˆ and the problem could get worse, according to IUCN today
Gland, Switzerland, 29 January, 2008 (IUCN) ˆ Corruption in fisheries is increasing against a backdrop of declining fish stocks and increased consumer demand. It taints all aspects of the fishing industry, from the scientific evidence that quotas are based on, to the mislabelling of fish.
A series of briefings released ahead of a key meeting about corruption in fisheries shows that consumers are unwittingly sucked into the subterfuge as they do not realize exactly which species of fish they are buying. Not only may species be mislabelled, but some products are falsely marked „ecofish‰, which undermines sustainable seafood campaigns.
„The large-scale occurrence of corruption adds insult to injury,‰ said Head of IUCN‚s Global Marine Programme Carl Gustaf Lundin. „The world‚s global fish stocks are already severely depleted by overfishing and this is just making the situation worse.‰
Fisheries corruption undermines the ability of scientists to know how many fish are removed from the oceans, causing inaccurate stock assessments. Fisheries managers are therefore far more likely to approve total allowable catches that are higher than those that would be based on sound scientific advice.
„Scientists‚ evidence is not being taken into consideration when it comes to management decisions on fisheries and quotas,‰ said Deputy Head of IUCN‚s Global Marine Programme Andrew Hurd. „Fisheries managers should be held accountable when ignoring scientific advice.‰
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) is organizing a Fisheries and Corruption meeting, hosted by the World Bank, in Washington to identify all the points where corruption happens from the hook to the dinner plate and find solutions.
At the meeting, IUCN will be calling for better enforcement of current rules and laws, better tracing of fish, the introduction of satellite tracking of fishing vessels and better labelling of fish.
The meeting will be held on January 30 and 31 at the World Bank in Washington DC and will be co-chaired by the Head of IUCN‚s Global Marine Programme, Carl Gustaf Lundin.
Notes to editors
For more information, please contact:
Sarah Halls, IUCN Global Communications, mobile +41792472926,
e-mail sarah.halls
=================================
Bad News For Coastal Ocean: Less Fish Out, Means More Nitrogen In
Four decades ago, commercial fishing removed the equivalent of 60 percent of the nitrogen from coastal oceans that entered as fertilizers. Today, this figure has dropped to 20 percent.
by Staff Writers
Montreal, Canada (SPX) Jan 29, 2008
Canada-U.S. research team has found that commercial fisheries play an unexpected role in the decline of water quality in coastal waters. In the latest issue of Nature Geoscience, Roxane Maranger and Nina Caraco explain that the collapse of the fisheries from decades of over fishing has played a significant role in disturbing the balance between nitrogen entering and leaving costal water systems.
The study, the first to examine the world's 58 coatal regions, shows how failing to maintain ecosystems in a sustainable manner has wide-ranging consequences. Using data provided by the United Nations, Maranger and Caraco found that commercial fishing has played an important, yet declining, role in removing man-made nitrogen from coastal waters.
"Fish accumulate nitrogen as biomass, and when humans move fish from the ocean to the table through commercial fisheries, they are returning part of this terrestrial nitrogen generated by humans back to the land," said Maranger, a biology professor at the Universite de Montreal (Canada).
Caraco, an aquatic biogeochemist at the Cary Institue of Ecosystem Studies (Millbrook, New York, U.S.) notes: "While nitrogen is essential to plant and animal life in oceans, human export of nitrogen from land to ocean has resulted in exploding nitrogen levels in coastal waters over the past century. Nitrogen-rich fertilizer that's applied to farmland eventually makes its way into coastal waters via a network of streams and rivers. Fertilizer run-off is a significant source of nitrogen pollution to many coastal regions around the world."
Four decades ago, commercial fishing removed the equivalent of 60 percent of the nitrogen from coastal oceans that entered as fertilizers. Today, this figure has dropped to 20 percent. "From a historical perspective, this is bad news," says Maranger. "Increased nitrogen levels in coastal ocean ecosystems throughout the world have resulted in excessive plant growth, lack of oxygen, severe reductions in water quality and in fish and other animal populations."
In order to manage coastal ecosystems in a sustainable manner, while fully understanding the impact that humans are having on the nitrogen cycle, the scientists recommend the role of commercial fisheries be reexamined.
From: ecorets@gmail.com
=========================
9 January 2008
Stanford University, Monterey Bay Aquarium launch center to save oceans
Stanford University, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have teamed up to establish the Center for Ocean Solutions, a new collaboration that will bring together international experts in marine science and policy to find innovative ways to protect and restore the world's oceans.
Funded by a $25 million grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Center for Ocean Solutions will be located near the renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California.
"It is with great pleasure that Stanford joins two world-class institutions, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and MBARI, to establish the Center for Ocean Solutions-a unique forum where marine scholars can develop effective solutions to one of the most critical environmental problems of the 21st century," Stanford President John Hennessy said. "Stanford is widely recognized for its broad range of marine scholarship in biology, aquaculture, environmental law and many other fields. But the problems we face-from polluted shorelines to collapsing fisheries-are so complex that they will only be solved by engaging in new collaborations that extend beyond the university."
The new facility will seek to address global marine issues, including climate change, ocean acidification, and overfishing.
"The problem right now is that we take our oceans for granted," said Leon E. Panetta, co-director of the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy at California State University-Monterey Bay and co-chair of the national Joint Ocean Commission Initiative. "The reality is that we have a responsibility as good stewards to ensure that this great resource is protected for the future."
Source: Mongabay.com
===========================
17 January 2008
'Nonlinear' Ecosystem Response Points To Environmental Solutions
The preservation of coastal ecosystem services such as clean water, storm buffers or fisheries protection does not have to be an all-or-nothing approach, a new study indicates, and a better understanding of how ecosystems actually respond to protection efforts in a "nonlinear" fashion could help lead the way out of environmental-versus-economic gridlock.
There may be much better ways to provide the majority of environmental protection needed while still maintaining natural resource-based jobs and sustainable communities, scientists from 13 universities and research institutes will suggest January 18 in a new article in the journal Science.
"The very concept of ecosystem-based management implies that humans are part of the equation, and their needs also have to be considered," said Lori Cramer, an associate professor of sociology at Oregon State University.
"But ecosystem concerns have too often been viewed as an all-or-none choice, and it doesn't have to be that way," Cramer said. "What we are learning is that sometimes a little environmental protection can go a long way, and leave room for practical compromises."
In their analysis, a diverse group of scientists from four nations analyzed the values and uses of mangrove forests in Thailand -- a hot spot of concern about coastal ecosystems being degraded and losing their traditional value of storm protection, wood production and fish habitat. These saltwater forests are frequently being replaced with commercial shrimp farms.
In the past, the scientists said, it was often assumed that the environment responded to protection efforts in a "linear" fashion -- in other words, protecting twice as much of a resource generated twice the amount of protection. But the new study, and others like it, are making it more clear that ecosystems respond in a "nonlinear" fashion -- protection of a small percentage of a resource might result in a large percentage of the maximum benefit that can be gained.
If the data are available to help quantify goods and services, researchers say, values can be attached to them and used to reach societal compromises. This might lead to most -- but not all -- of an environmental resource being protected, and some -- but not all -- of resources available for commercial use. The combined value of the ecosystem protection and commercial development may approach, or even exceed the value of a "hands-off" approach.
"Part of the problem now is that a lot of the data we need to make this type of assessment simply isn't available," said Sally Hacker, an OSU associate professor of zoology. "Biological, economic and sociological data could be enormously helpful to help us reach better management decisions, and this is something we need to improve."
Fairly good data were available in the case of the Thailand mangrove forests, however, and researchers used it to make their case. On a given area of mangrove forest there, the assigned value of ecosystem services -- storm protection, biological habitat, etc. -- was determined to be about $19 million with a "hands-off" approach and no commercial use whatsoever.
But with a full range of uses, which included leaving 80 percent of the area in mangrove forests and gaining almost all of their flood protection ability, the value was found to be $17.5 million, Hacker said. And this allowed for a commercial shrimp fishery, gathering of wood products, fishing and other commercial uses.
"At some point we have to get beyond this 'either-or' mentality when it comes to land and ocean management," Cramer said. "Insisting that our ecosystems be either totally protected, or totally developed, just leads to polarization, entrenched positions and a loss of communication. We can do better than that, and a good scientific approach can help show the way."
In the final analysis, the researchers said, everything should be on the table -- the value of ecosystem services, the protection of species and the environment, jobs, tourism, protection of human life, even cultural and community values.
"Shrimp farming may be a person's livelihood, and that cannot be ignored," Cramer said. "At the same time these mangrove forests help protect human lives and healthy ecosystems, and you can't ignore that either. The good news is that when we understand the nonlinear nature of ecosystem response, some of these compromises become possible."
The concepts being developed, the researchers said, are directly relevant to the current debate over marine reserves in Oregon. The challenge there will be to balance an adequate amount of biological protection, and a careful analysis of the areas to be protected, with the needs and concerns of coastal communities, they said.
In like fashion, they said, such approaches may be relevant to many other societal debates -- whether it's health care or the preservation of protective marshes around New Orleans -- in which values can be assigned to various services and compromises reached.
Adapted from materials provided by Oregon State University.
Source: ScienceDaily.
CONFERENCES / WORKSHOPS / PUBLICATIONS
IUCN Mangrove Valuation Report
This study on economic valuation of Tsunami affected mangroves is one component of the project "valuation, Rehabilitation and Conservation of Mangroves in Tsunami Affected Areas." It was undertaken in four villages in the South-eastern coastal zone of Sri Lanka in an area with 158 hectares of total mangrove coverage. It is an important study in that it emphasizes participatory valuation appraisal methods substantiated, but not reliant upon academic research. It has the potential to become a powerful economic tool in promoting mangrove conservation in the region.
here's the link
www.iucn.org
From: Ben Brown seagrassroots@gmail.com
=================================
Aquaculture in the Ecosystem
Edition First
Marianne Holmer, Kenny Black, Carlos M. Duarte, Nuria Marba, Ioannis Karakassis
Hardback
+This book has not yet been published.
The global expansion of aquaculture production and its future role as a food supplier to human society has environmental, social and economic limitations, affecting marine ecosystems and socio-economic scales from local to global. The expansion is closely linked with human health requirements and societal needs for various goods and services provided by marine ecosystems. This book provides a scientific forecast of the development in aquaculture with a focus on the environmental, technological, social and economic constraints that need to be resolved to ensure sustainable development of the industry and allow the industry to be able to feed healthy seafood products to the future generations. The chapters included discuss the most critical bottlenecks of the development encompassing subjects of understanding the environmental impacts, the current state-of-art in monitoring programs and in coastal zone management, the important interactions between wild and cultured organisms including release of non-native species into the wild, the current trends within the development of aquafeeds along with human health aspects as well as the political, socio-economic and economic trends within the industry including a chapter on approaches taken by Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to aquaculture. Finally the last chapter provides different future scenarios of the industry based on the identified bottlenecks.
Source: Rapid Share Books
For Immediate Release: January 31, 2008
Contact: Marianne Cufone, (813) 908-7161, mcufone@fwwatch.org
Coalition of Groups Block Bad Ocean Fish Farming Plan in Gulf of Mexico
St Petersburg, Florida – Today, an unusual alliance of consumer, conservation and commercial and recreational fishing groups succeeded in blocking the approval of an incomplete and vague plan to allow the development of ocean fish farms - large industrial facilities that grow thousands of fish in huge cages - in Gulf of Mexico waters. Also called offshore aquaculture or open ocean aquaculture, similar practices around the world are associated with increased pollution, harm to wild fish populations and threats to commercial and recreational fishing.
“As currently written, the plan fails to address basic matters like where these facilities will be, what specific types of fish will be grown, whether fish will be purposefully released into the wild and how pollution, and drug usage will be controlled. Before we move forward, we must ensure protection of existing commercial and recreational fishing and Gulf natural resources. Right now, the plan is primarily about money-making opportunities for aquaculture entrepreneurs, and that is inappropriate,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food and Water Watch.
The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service are tasked with protecting and managing fish resources. The current plan does neither; rather, it does not have strong safeguards and allows the maximum flexibility for the new fish farming industry.
The council has been talking about developing a fish farming industry in the Gulf since an aquaculturist was appointed to the council back in 2002. The council debuted the current plan in January 2007 and pushed it through the approval process, intending to finalize it in October 2007 – just 9 months later.
“The council has been unnecessarily rushing to complete this plan, and consequently it has huge gaps and needs a good deal of work to even meet minimum legal requirements of assorted laws. They did the right thing today by voting to revise it,” said Zach Corrigan, Staff Attorney for Food and Water Watch. “We submitted a detailed letter to the council two weeks ago outlining the many problems with their plan. We are very pleased they took that to heart.”
Additionally, the groups staged a protest during the public comment session at yesterday’s Council meeting. Holding signs and wearing buttons saying “No open ocean aquaculture today,” environmentalists, fisherman, and concerned community members explained to media and others that the plan just isn’t ready to be approved.
The Council in cooperation with NMFS will review and re-work the plan over coming months.
From: Sascha Bollag sbollag@fwwatch.org
==============================
Wild salmon hit by parasite from fish farms
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 7:01pm GMT 13/12/2007
Evidence that fish farms can wipe out local populations of wild salmon is published today.
The experts who did the study in Canada also raised serious concerns about the expansion of industrial fish farming in Scotland, adding to pressure to move the fish farms out of the paths of migrating fish.
The research shows, for the first time, that parasitic sea lice infestations caused by salmon farms are driving nearby populations of wild salmon toward extinction by killing vulnerable young salmon.??The findings, published in the journal Science, show that the affected pink salmon populations have been rapidly declining for four years and the team expects a 99 per cent collapse in another four years, or two salmon generations, if the infestations continue.??"The impact is so severe that the viability of the wild salmon populations is threatened," says author Martin Krkosek, a fisheries ecologist from the University of Alberta.
Krkosek and his co-authors calculate that sea lice have killed more than 80 per cent of the annual pink salmon that returns to British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago. "If nothing changes, we are going to lose these fish."
As for the impact of sea lice in Scotland, Krkosek says: "It has been highly controversial that sea lice have caused the declines in sea trout. It is quite likely that the impacts we have measured in Pacific Canada of sea lice and pink salmon are affecting the sea trout as well."
"The principles are the same as in Canada - wild juvenile salmon enter the sea, encounter fish farms, get infected with sea lice, and many can die," he tells The Daily Telegraph. "I would expect that sea lice have contributed to sea trout declines. But detailed data are necessary."
Previous work showed that sea lice from fish farms can infect and kill juvenile wild salmon. This, however, is the first study to examine the population-level effects on the wild salmon stocks.
Juvenile fish are usually protected because any infected adult salmon would typically be offshore when the juveniles enter the sea. But, juveniles often swim near salmon farms during their seaward migration, where they can become infested.
"Aquaculture is a serious problem in the UK as well, especially on the west coast of Scotland, where sea lice have impacted wild sea trout and salmon since the 1980s," said Paul Knight, Director, Salmon & Trout Association.
"The Association has been calling for greater control over marine aquaculture for many years, to overcome the problems of lice infestations impacting wild salmon and sea trout, and the dilution of distinct individual genetic strains of salmon from particular rivers as a result of cross-breeding with farm escapees.
"The research from Canada proves that this is a serious international problem which requires immediate action from the industry, if wild salmon stocks are not to be jeopardised."
"The science from around the world is now in," adds Don Staniford European Representative, Pure Salmon Campaign. "We need to take immediate action and move fish farms out of the paths of migrating wild salmon and sea trout or they could soon become extinct on Scotland's West coast.
"Even the owner of the world's largest salmon farming company recently called to move salmon farms to save wild fish. When rigorous science is coupled with recognition of the problem from industry there is no excuse not to act."
The data used for today's study are from the Broughton Archipelago, islands and channels about 260 miles northwest of Vancouver. Extending back to 1970, the data covers 14 populations of pink salmon (Onchorhynchus gorbuscha) that have been exposed to salmon farms, and 128 populations that have not.
Sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) are naturally occurring parasites of wild salmon that latch onto the fishes' skin in the open ocean. The lice are transmitted by a tiny free-swimming larval stage. Open-net salmon farms are a haven for these parasites, which feed on the fishes' skin and muscle tissue.
Adult salmon can survive a small number of lice, but juveniles headed from the river to the sea are very small, thin-skinned, and vulnerable.
"Salmon farming breaks a natural law," says co-author Alexandra Morton, director of the Salmon Coast Field Station, Broughton.
"In the natural system, the youngest salmon are not exposed to sea lice because the adult salmon that carry the parasite are offshore. But fish farms cause a deadly collision between the vulnerable young salmon and sea lice. They are not equipped to survive this, and they don't."
"Over the years the number of farmed fish has increased," says Morton. "There used to be only a few farms, each holding about 125,000 fish. But now we have over 20 farms, some holding 1.3 million fish. The farmed fish are providing a habitat for lice that wasn't there before."
There are two solutions that may work - closed containment, and moving farms away from rivers. Closed containment means moving the salmon to pens that are completely sealed off from the surrounding environment in contrast to the open-net pens currently in use.
From: "Zeke Grader" zgrader@ifrfish.org
=============================
Jan. 11, 2008
Marine Harvest: B.C. salmon test positive for malachite green
A second British Columbia salmon farm had fish being shipped to the United States test positive for malachite green after the products were inspected by American food safety officials.
==============================
“You Are What You Eat!”
Laine Welch (Fish Radio) observed that the FDA's clearance of meat and milk from cloned animals may pave the way for approval of the Aqua Bounty system that engineers Atlantic salmon to grow out faster and be more resistant to cold water. Aqua Bounty claims its engineered salmon will reach a weight in eighteen months that would otherwise require three years.
Aqua Bounty's Eliot Entis claims the fish are also more resistant to disease and are neutered to prevent interbreeding with wild stocks.
The FDA will make a final decison on whether to allow the commercialization of cloned foods by next year.
From: "Seafood.com News" seafoodnews@seafood.com
