Document Actions
The MAP News, 190th Ed., 27 October 2007
Dear Friends,
This is the 190th Edition of the Mangrove Action Project News - 27 October 2007.
For the Mangroves,
Alfredo Quarto
Mangrove Action Project
"Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe"
- John Muir, naturalist
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, 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, 190th Edition
FEATURE STORY
Mangroves more threatened than rainforests
MAP WORKS
Pre-order Your 2008 MAP Children's Art Calendar
Check Out MAP's New Adopt A Program On MAP's New Website!!
New Ecological Mangrove Restoration Workshop In Florida
MAP Co-sponsors Cultural-Exchange Tour in Thailand
Mozambique
Vietnam, Mozambique get to work on aquaculture
Thailand
CP Foods: Shrimp farming entering period of stability
Japanese food makers shun China for Thailand
Rising seas inch toward Thailand's capital.
Indonesia
70% of Indonesia's mangrove forests damaged
Indonesia Says to Plant 79 Mln Trees in One Day
Carbon for forests will help Aceh recover from war, tsunami
New official reports: Destruction of Indonesia's forests is a major cause of climate change
Malaysia
Malaysian company thinks it can produce 6.48 billion liters of ethanol from Nipah
Burma
Burmese business zone unlikely to meet shrimp exports of previous year
How Green Was Myanmar's Valley?
The Philippines
Factors affecting fisherfolk's support for coastal resource management
Bangladesh
Shrimp farms won't export faulty products in future
EU team to visit Khulna shrimp centres Oct 21, 22
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka buffer zone forces fisher folk into other work: survey
Sea canal project in India can harm Sri Lanka's marine life, says expert
Taiwan
Taiwan bans shrimp imports from China after drug found
China
Chinese Shrimp Imports In Question: News Summaries
Saudi Arabia
University To Fill The Mangroves
Ecuador
Latin America: 3rd Red Manglar International General Assembly
Peru
Malaria makes comeback in Peru, with mosquitoes breeding in abandoned fish ponds
Belize
Laughing aloud: Product proves aquaculture can be sustainable
Honduras
Honduras: Promoting Community-Based Tourism
Panama
Panama Canal port projects threaten mangroves
Mexico
Locals left behind by Mexico beach boom
Mexican Shrimpers Experience Bad Season
The Bahamas
Guana Cay Legal Battle Goes After Illicit Permit Process
Tourism Business Improving In Bimini
USA
23 Organizations Issue Joint Report Critiquing Wal-Mart's Sustainability Initiatives
MAP Signs On To Protest Letter Against Offshore Aquaculture
Florida: Restoration on Hutchinson Island returns Vitolo Park to its Natural Condition
US Imports of Seafood Up in 2006
Costco Buyers Inspect Shrimp In Vietnam & Thailand Plants
WTO Rules Heavy Against US Anti-Dumping Tariffs
Coastal buyout talk roils lives in Mississippi
The Netherlands
A Dutch Thumb In The Shrimp Farm Dike
Dutch brown shrimp fleet committed to change to get MSC eco-label
STORIES / ISSUES
Global seafood industry must adapt to demand for "greener" fish
Acidic oceans may threaten fisheries, says US scientist
Indigenous People Make Best Forest Custodians
Tsunami sentinels on duty under sea
Japan to Give US$10 Mln to New Fund to Save Forests
20 years on, world in dire straits, U.N. says
CONFERENCES / WORKSHOPS / PUBLICATIONS
Synthesis of the protective functions of coastal forests and trees against natural hazards
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Cameroon Mangrove Network publishes a quarterly bulletin 'Matanda News'
AQUACULTURE CORNER
Introduced King Salmon Take Root In Chile's Waters
Fish Farming's Growing Dangers
Captive breeding 'weakens' beasts, says research
AROUND THE CORNER
Glow-in-the-dark shrimp -- it's all a little fishy
The fish that can survive for months in a tree
Mangroves more threatened than rainforests
By Rhett A. Butler
Destruction of mangrove forests could leave the world deprived of their important ecological services by the end of a century, warns an international team of scientists writing in the July 6th issue of the journal Science.
Mangrove forests, which once covered more than 200,000 square kilometers of coastline, have been diminished by 35-86 percent in extent in locations around the world, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and are critically endangered or approaching extinction in 26 out of the 120 countries in which they are found. Further, mangrove forests are disappearing at a rate of 1-2 percent per year, a pace that surpasses the destruction of adjacent ecosystems, coral reefs and tropical rainforests. These losses, combined with increasing fragmentation of mangroves, reduces their viability and the quality of the services--including controlling coastal erosion, buffering against storm damage, and serving as a refuge for wildlife--they provide.
"Where mangrove forests are cleared for aquaculture, urbanization, or coastal landfill or deteriorate due to indirect effects of pollution and upstream land use, their species richness is expected to decline precipitously," write the authors. "Examples from other ecosystems have shown that species extinctions can be followed by loss in functional diversity, particularly in species-poor systems like mangroves... Therefore, any further decline in mangrove area is likely to be followed by accelerated functional losses."
The scientists warn that deforestation of mangroves "reduces their dual capacity to be both an atmospheric CO2 sink and an essential source of oceanic carbon," while damaging fisheries, worsening siltation, and adversely affecting coastal communities by putting them at greater risk of flooding from storm surges, sea level rise, and tsunami.
Despite their importance, the authors say that mangroves are under appreciated and that growing pressure from development, agriculture, and industry will put these forests at ever greater risk. The authors add that climate change and the associated rise in sea level could be particularly detrimental to mangroves and that urgent action is needed to protect them.
Source: mongabay.com
From: icsf@icsf.net
====
Note: Another imminent threat to the world's remaining mangroves comes from climate change and its incipient rapid acceleration of sea level rise. The following title is from a recent report written by Dr. P.K.JAYASURYA ("GLOBAL WARMING - SEVERE THREAT TO MANGROVE ECOSYSTEMS" in Science India 10 : 8 & 9 page 37- 41 August - September 2007)
If you are interested in reading the full article, please contact Dr. Jayasurya directly
at: jayasuryapk@yahoo.co.in
Order Your 2008 MAP Children's Art Calendar
Dear Friends,
I wanted to take this opportunity to request your help with one of our long-time projects which involves our 7th annual production of the MAP Children's Mangrove Art Calendar for 2008. The calendars make great gifts and a great project to support. Please order your 2008 calendar now at $12 per calendar plus shipping. If you order 20 or more calendars, we ask $8 per calendar plus shipping. If you order now, we can have the printer ship directly to your street address (not PO Box). This will save MAP an extra shipping fee if the printer ships directly to you. Please help support both MAP and the calendar program now!
Following our own environmentally sound ethic, the Calendar is being printed on recycled paper using soy ink.
The Calendar has in the past paid for itself and raised around $3000 above its costs. More importantly, the Calendar Art Contest and the distribution of the printed calendars have been a great educational incentive for the NGOs, schools and children participating from around the globe. This year's calendar competition was no exception. Over 1500 kids from 12 nations participated, and new NGOs from new nations are contacting us to be involved.
Please let me know the number of calendars that you want to order! You can also go onto MAP's website at to donate via PayPal or Network For Good using your credit card!
For the Mangroves and Mangrove Communities,
Monica Gutierrez-Quarto
MAP Calendar Coordinator
Note: Postage rates vary according to the following list of options:
US & Canada - $2/calendar
Mexico - $2.50/calendar
Elsewhere - $4.50/calendar
For anywhere in the world: for 3 or more calendars, contact MAP for possible volume discount and shipping rates.
See the USPS website for rates for multiple calendars for each country. Scroll down for 1st Class International.
===========================
Check Out MAP's New Adopt A Program On MAP's New Website!!
Adopt a Program Section
MAP's new Adopt-a-Program has been posted to the website. Please help MAP by forward the link to anyone who might be interested in donating!
=========================
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 <www.mangroveactionproject.org>. 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 Co-sponsors Cultural-Exchange Tour in Thailand
The MAP Asia office recently took the SEWALANKA Foundation, an NGO from Sri Lanka, to stay at a small village on the Andaman coast and, for many, it was the highlight of their week-long mangrove study tour of the Andaman Sea region. The village is called Ban Talae Nok. It is a traditional fishing village 40km north of Kuraburi and was devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Since the tsunami, villagers have decided to open their doors and lives to outsiders through community-based tourism. They are doing this with the guidance of Andaman Discoveries, a group that evolved out of the North Andaman Tsunami Relief, a non-profit organization that worked directly with villages to provide aid and new livelihood opportunities in the aftermath of the tsunami.
During their stay in Ban Talae Nok, the MAP-SEWALANKA group took a boat trip to view the natural mangrove forest with the village youth group as their tour guides, purchased scented soaps made by a handicraft cooperative of tsunami widows, and toured the nearby Wild Animal Rescue Conservation Center to view the multitude of gibbons and macaques it cares for. The group also shared meals, stories, culture and time at home with their host families. It was an opportunity for growth and learning for all involved.
If you're interested in spending a morning learning to fish with the locals, or taking a hike through the jungle on the nearby nature trail, you can do that as well in Ban Talae Nok. Or, if walking on pristine beaches for miles without a single high-rise hotel, shopping center, or even a lounge chair to impede your view is your idea of relaxation, there are 10 kilometers awaiting you. Andaman Discoveries offers many other activities to suit your tastes and a variety of villages in which to stay. You can learn more by visiting www.andamandiscoveries.com.
From: Mary Battcock - MAP-Asia Student Intern
Mozambique
Vietnam, Mozambique get to work on aquaculture
Vietnam will send aquaculture experts to Mozambique in 2008 and in return welcome specialists from the African country. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam and Mozambique Minister of Fisheries Cadmiel Mutemba reached the consensus during their talks in Hanoi on October 17.
Both sides agreed to increase the exchange of information and research in aquaculture, and boost co-operation in training managerial officials and technicians. The creation of favourable conditions for businesses to invest in aquaculture, seafood processing and exports, and technology transfer was also okayed at the talks.
Source: VNA
From: icsf@icsf.net
Thailand
5 October 2007
CP Foods: Shrimp farming entering period of stability
by Drew Cherry
Huge advances in farming technology and shrimp husbandry, coupled with increasing consolidation and vertical integration, are paving the way for steady, stable growth, according to Robins McIntosh, senior vice president at Thailand-based CP Foods.
„We‚re in an area of professionalism where amateurs and gold-seekers won‚t get involved. The amateurs are being weeded out,‰ McIntosh, who works in CP‚s shrimp management and research division, told delegates this week at the 2007 Value Added Seafood Conference in London.
Following a period of extensive culture in the 1990s, disease and other production problems led to a bust across the sector. Since 2000, the farmed shrimp industry has improved domestication.
Asia, for example, has shifted its production away (sic) black tiger shrimp, which used to make up some 75 percent to 80 percent of production, and toward the heartier domesticated vannamei. By focusing on healthier stocks, CP and other companies were able to increase production and reduce the need for antibiotics.
The result, McIntosh said, „was a tremendous shift in the amount of shrimp made available on the world‚s markets.‰
Global shrimp production flattened the past two years, to a level of 4 percent to 5 percent growth. McIntosh sees the slowdown as a sign.
„Production will match consumption, price will stabilize, and we‚ll see an increase in the price to the farm,‰ McIntosh said.
Pas environmental problems such as mangrove destruction have in several areas been solved with new techniques and technology. Shrimp ponds are being relocated to higher elevations in Thailand, and larger producers such as CP are moving to closed systems to limit waste.
At the same time, the industry has failed to communicate some of these shifts.
„We‚ve done a very poor job letting the market know what we‚re going,‰ McIntosh said. „It‚s a remnant of a more defensive, protective time.
„Companies just believe that these are their secrets, and they don‚t like talking about it. I take the posture that it‚s necessary to talk about it, because I think we have a very positive story to tell. What we‚ve done as producers in the past five years is astounding.‰
Source: Intrafish (password required)
===================================
Japanese food makers shun China for Thailand
By YUTHANA PRAIWAN
Hundreds of Japanese food processors that have relocated to China from Thailand over the past decade are expected to return due to growing concerns over food safety, says Paiboon Ponsuwanna.
Mr Paiboon, the chairman of the Food Processing Industry Club of the Federation of Thai Industries, said worries about chemical contamination and food safety had affected confidence among Japanese consumers of goods produced in China.
Thailand could be a strong beneficiary, as Japanese small and medium-sized producers who had relocated to China consider returning to Thailand, he said. The FTI plans to hold talks with the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and the Japan External Trade Organisation about matchmaking activities and building trading networks between local and Japanese businesses.
Mr Paiboon said Thai ready-to-eat products could be positioned as premium-grade goods, with Chinese products marketed as more basic products. He said the enactment of the Japan-Thai free-trade agreement starting next month would also lead hundreds of Japanese food processors in the country to expand their production capacity to take advantage of tariff gains.
The National Food Institute (NFI) said exports of food products this year are expected to reach $17.72 billion, up 18.3% from last year. In baht terms, food exports are projected at 608.04 billion baht, up 7.8% from last year.
Yuthasak Supasorn, an executive director of the NFI, said exports of commodities such as palm oil, sugar, cassava and non-alcoholic beverages had risen by as high as 40% this year. But shipments of fruit and vegetable juice, canned tuna and shrimp had been flat or had even declined due to supply constraints.
Mr Yuthasak said food exports in 2008 are expected to rise at least 10% in both US dollar and baht terms. Rice exports next year are expected to rise to nine million tonnes in 2008 from 8.5 million tonnes this year due to supply constraints in Vietnam and India, he added.
Source: Bangkok Post
From: icsf@icsf.net
=========================
Rising seas inch toward Thailand's capital.
The land is sinking too, and experts say the city of 10 million people will go under in 20 years. Associated Press
KHUN SAMUT CHIN, Thailand - At Bangkok's watery gates, Buddhist monks cling to a shrinking spit of land around their temple as they wage war against the relentlessly rising sea.
During the monsoons at high tide, waves hurdle the breakwater of concrete pillars and the inner rock wall around the temple on a promontory in the Gulf of Thailand. Jutting above the waterline just ahead are remnants of a village that has already slipped beneath the sea.
Experts say these waters, aided by sinking land, threaten to submerge Thailand's sprawling capital of more than 10-million people within this century. Bangkok is one of 13 of the world's largest 20 cities at risk of being swamped as sea levels rise in coming decades, according to warnings at the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change held there.
"This is what the future will look like in many places around the world," says Lisa Schipper, an American researcher on global warming, while visiting the temple. "Here is a living study in environmental change."
The loss of Bangkok would destroy the country's economic engine and a major hub for regional tourism.
"If the heart of Thailand is under water, everything will stop," says Smith Dharmasaroja, who chairs the government's Committee of National Disaster Warning Administration. "We don't have time to move our capital in the next 15-20 years. We have to protect our heart now, and it's almost too late."
The arithmetic gives Bangkok little cause for optimism.
The still expanding megapolis rests about 31/2 to 5 feet above the nearby gulf, although some areas already lie below sea level. The gulf's waters have been rising by about a tenth of an inch a year, about the same as the world average, says Anond Snidvongs, a leading scientist in the field.
But the city, built on clay rather than bedrock, has also been sinking at a far faster pace of up to 4 inches annually as its teeming population and factories pump some 2.5-million cubic tons of cheaply priced water, legally and illegally, out of its aquifers. This compacts the layers of clay and causes the land to sink.
Everyone - the government, scientists and environmental groups - agrees Bangkok is headed for trouble, but there is some debate about when. Anond, who heads the Southeast Asia START Regional Center, believes total submersion may not be imminent, but Smith disagrees.
"You notice that every highway, road and building which has no foundation pilings are sinking," Smith says. "We feel that with the ground sinking and the seawater rising, Bangkok will be under seawater in the next 15 to 20 years - permanently."
As authorities ponder, communities like Khun Samut Chin, 12 miles from downtown Bangkok, are taking action.
The five monks at the temple and surrounding villagers are building the barriers from locally collected donations and planting mangrove trees to halt shoreline erosion.
The odds are against them. About half a mile of shoreline has already been lost over the past three decades, in large part due to the destruction of once vast mangrove forests. The abbot, Somnuk Attipanyo, says about a third of the village's original population was forced to move.
The top of a broken concrete water storage tank protrudes from the muddy sea.
The monastery grounds are less than a tenth of their original size, and the waterlogged temple is regularly lashed by waves that have forced the monks to raise its original floor by more than 3 feet.
Fast facts
Threat from sea
Of the 33 cities predicted to have at least 8-million people by 2015, at least 21 are highly vulnerable, says the Worldwatch Institute.
Cities at risk
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Shanghai and Tianjin, China
Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt
Mumbai and Kolkata, India
Jakarta, Indonesia
Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe, Japan
Lagos, Nigeria
Karachi, Pakistan
Bangkok, Thailand
New York and Los Angeles
Countries at risk
More than one-tenth of the world's population, or 643-million people, live in low-lying areas at risk from climate change, say U.S. and European experts. Most imperiled, in descending order, are China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, the U.S., Thailand and the Philippines.
[Last modified October 21, 2007, 01:38:09]
From: Darlene Schanfald darlenes@olympus.net
===========================================
Indonesia
70% of Indonesia's mangrove forests damaged
mongabay.com June 25, 2007
70 percent of Indonesia's remaining mangrove forests are damaged due to human activities, Indonesian state media reported a local expert as saying.
Dr. Cecep Kusmana, a professor at the Bogor Institute of Technology, told ANTARA News that forestry ministry data shows about 6.7 million of Indonesia's 9.4 million hectares of mangrove forest are damaged, including 2.2 million of which are "seriously degraded." The figures do not include mangrove forest that has been cleared or converted for agriculture.
"The damages of the country mangrove forest areas were mainly due to human encroachment such as for settlement, ponds, and plantation," Kusmana was quoted as saying. "Despite the vast damages, Indonesia relatively has better mangrove forest areas than other countries in the region, because Indonesia still has intact mangrove areas in on Papua and Kalimantan Islands."
Still environmental group WWF estimates that around 80 percent of mangroves on the island of Borneo have been cleared by loggers and for agriculture. About 1.2 million hectares remain on the island, the majority of which occur in Kalimantan, the Indonesia-controlled part of Borneo island.
Kusmana said mangroves play an important ecological role in Indonesia, serving as a refuge for wildlife and protecting against coastal erosion. He advocated conservation and rehabilitation of mangrove forests.
From: ecorets@gmail.com
====================================
Indonesia Says to Plant 79 Mln Trees in One Day
Mail this story to a friend
Printer friendly version
INDONESIA: October 5, 2007
JAKARTA - Indonesia, which has destroyed vast tracts of forest, will plant 79 million trees in a single day ahead of the UN climate change summit in Bali in December, an official said on Thursday.
The event, scheduled for Nov. 28, is part of a global campaign to plant one billion trees launched at UN climate change talks in Nairobi last year, said Ahmad Fauzi Masud, spokesman for the forestry ministry.
"Everybody, residents and officials from the lowest unit of the government to the president, will take part in this movement," he said. "It will be a national record and, possibly, a world record."
Indonesia currently holds a far less flattering world record: according to Greenpeace, it had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000-2005, with an area of forest equivalent to 300 soccer pitches destroyed every hour.
Southeast Asia's biggest economy is also among the world's top three greenhouse gas emitters because of deforestation, peatland degradation, and forest fires, according to a recent report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain's development arm.
Environmental groups are concerned that rapidly expanding palm oil plantations, partly driven by ambitious plans for biofuels, are damaging the country's rainforests.
Participants from 189 countries are expected to gather in Bali in December to discuss a new deal to fight global warming. The existing pact, the Kyoto Protocol, runs out in 2012.
Under Kyoto, about 35 rich nations are obliged to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
Story by Ahmad Pathoni
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
From: LESrrl3@aol,com
==================================
Carbon for forests will help Aceh recover from war, tsunami
mongabay.com
September 18, 2007
Aceh Governor Irwandi Jusuf, a former rebel who was one of only 40 survivors after the December 2004 tsunami struck the prison where he was incarcerated, is now one of Indonesia's leading supporters of forest conservation funded through carbon credits.
Carbon credits through forest conservation will play an important role in Aceh's recovery from decades of civil strife and the devastating 2004 tsunami, which left more than 167,000 people dead and 500,000 homeless in the Indonesia province, said Aceh governor Irwandi Jusuf in meeting in San Francisco.
"The world needs more forests to store carbon," he said. "Aceh can give you these forests. This is my obsession -- the forests of Aceh need to be kept well."
In one of his first moves as governor, Irwandi in March declared a moratorium on all logging in the province, which had seen an up tick in timber cutting for tsunami reconstruction efforts. The move -- met with derision by some in the Indonesian forestry sector -- was welcomed by environmentalists and appears to have diminished legal and illegal logging, which is rampant in other parts of the country. Irwandi says that protecting Aceh's forests -- which are some of the largest blocks of rainforest remaining on the island of Sumatra -- is his top priority for rebuilding the economy. The next step, he says, is to promote economic growth through sustainable development and reforestation.
In one of his first moves as governor, Irwandi in March declared a moratorium on all logging in the province, which had seen an up tick in timber cutting for tsunami reconstruction efforts. The move -- met with derision by some in the Indonesian forestry sector -- was welcomed by environmentalists and appears to have diminished legal and illegal logging, which is rampant in other parts of the country. Irwandi says that protecting Aceh's forests -- which are some of the largest blocks of rainforest remaining on the island of Sumatra -- is his top priority for rebuilding the economy. The next step, he says, is to promote economic growth through sustainable development and reforestation.
"We can provide a lot of employment through a reforestation program," said Irwandi. "People who used to be paid to cut forests can now be paid to reforest. Aceh has 3 million hectares (7.5 million acres) of degraded land that can be used for reforestation and agricultural expansion."
"I see three areas," he continued. "Areas of no harvest which are preserved for wildlife, carbon, and other services; community forestry areas where degraded lands are replanted with fruit and timber trees that are then sustainably managed; and the remaining land for oil palm and rubber plantations.
Irwandi says that Aceh needs money to start the program and believes that funds could come from carbon credits through avoided deforestation.
"I think within six years we could have the world's biggest forest carbon offset program," he said.
Avoided deforestation is the process by which forested countries earn carbon credits for protecting forests that lock up large amounts of carbon. Deforestation is a major source of greenhouse gases, accounting for roughly 20 percent of global emissions. Steps to reduce forest clearing and degradation will help mitigate climate change.
Overall the avoided deforestation market could be substantial -- on the order of tens of billions of dollars per year. Gains would extend beyond helping fighting climate change -- avoided deforestation offers the potential to simultaneously conserve biodiversity, alleviate rural poverty, protect important ecosystem services, and reduce the risk of forest fires in the tropics.
Under the existing Kyoto agreement, only reforestation and afforestation are eligible for carbon credits -- forest protection is specifically excluded from receiving carbon credits -- but considerable momentum for avoided deforestation makes it likely that the mechanism will be carefully considered during the next round of climate talks in Bali, Indonesia in December. Last week a group of eight tropical countries containing 80 percent of the world's remaining tropical forest cover -- Brazil, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Congo and Indonesia -- announced an alliance to push avoided deforestation at the upcoming conference.
Irwandi, a veterinarian by trade, was formerly a rebel leader with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), a separatist movement that the Indonesian government has battled for decades. Arrested in 2003, Irwandi was held at Keudah Prison in Banda Aceh when the December 26, 2004 tsunami struck and flooded the facility. Irwandi survived by punching a hole through the ceiling and fleeing to the roof. He was one of 40 survivors at the prison. During the reconciliation that followed the tsunami, Irwandi was elected governor in Aceh's first democratic election in almost 30 years. The soldiers who once hunted him are now his guards.
From: "Kwon, Cheemin (FOEL)" Cheemin.Kwon@fao.org
==================================
SOS Sumatran Projects : www.orangutancenter.org
New official reports: Destruction of Indonesia's forests is a major cause of climate change
The loss of Indonesia's forests is an issue of serious global concern, according to two recent reports, citing illegal logging, fires and conversion to oil palm plantations for biofuel production as themain culprits. A United Nations report, "The Last Stand of the Orangutan", provides evidence from satellite images that orangutan habitat is being lost 30 percent faster than previously feared. Indonesia is losing 2.8 million hectares of rainforest every year. Experts predict that the country's forests will be wiped out altogether within the next 15 years, although Sumatra's forests could have disappeared as soon as 2012.
Indonesian government policy aims to preserve virgin forest and expand oil palm plantations on degraded and abandoned land that has already been cleared. However, local governments continue to grant plantation concessions in high conservation value forest areas. The country already has over 5 million hectares of oil palm plantations, and plans to develop at least a further 3 million hectares by 2010, making it the world's largest producer of palm oil.
The second report was commissioned by the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (DfID). It placed Indonesia amongst the top three greenhouse gas emitters in the world, alongside the USA and China. The report identifies deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires as causing around 75% of Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions. Global warming will create a vicious cycle by drying up the rainforests and peat swamps, therefore increasing the risks of even more intense fires. Fires are often deliberately lit as a cheap method of land clearance for oil palm plantations, especially in Sumatra.
The world's next major climate summit takes place this December in Bali, giving Indonesia an opportunity to take a lead on developing international action on the issue of deforestation. Tropical deforestation contributes 20% of global carbon emissions, more than all the cars and aeroplanes in the world. Slowing the rate of forest destruction is one of the cheapest and highest impact ways to fight climate change.
UK energy company RWE nPower recently dropped plans to use palm oil as a biofuel in its power stations due to the environmental and social impacts of sourcing palm oil from plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Both reports, "Last Stand of the Orangutan. State of Emergency: Illegal Logging, Fire and Palm Oil in Indonesia's National Parks" and "Indonesia and Climate Change: Current Status and Policies", are available to download from the SOS website.
From: seagrassroots@gmail.com
=======================================
Malaysia
Malaysian company thinks it can produce 6.48 billion liters of ethanol from Nipah
Fresh news about that 'mysterious' energy crop called Nypa fruticans (also known as 'nipah' or 'mangrove palm'): Pioneer Bio Industries Corp Sdn Bhd (PBIC) claims it will be able to produce a startling 6.48 billion litres (1.7 billion gallons) of nipah palm ethanol per year when its planned refineries in Malaysia's North-Western Perak State begin operations in 2009. This amount is roughly equal to 780,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Earlier, the same company had announced a far lower projected output of around 1 billion liters (previous post and here).
At the Biopact we understand the potential of nipah, a very robust palm that thrives in most tropical mangrove systems, because we are cooperating with a small NGO in Nigeria, where the plant has invaded vast tracts of the Niger Delta. The aim of the small project is to alleviate the rampant poverty that plagues the mangrove communities, by building a 'cottage' ethanol industry around the palm and to link it up with larger production facilities (earlier post).
Ethanol can be obtained from fermenting the sugar-rich sap that can be tapped continuously from the trees' inflorescence. Nipah has a very high sugar-rich sap yield. According to one study (earlier post), the palm can produce 6,480-15,600 liters of ethanol per hectare, compared to 3,350-6,700 liters /hectare from sugarcane. Others go so far as to estimate potential ethanol yields to be as high as 20,000 liters once plantation management is optimised. However, the tapping technique is labor-intensive and it remains a question whether production can be scaled up that easily.
Apparently, the malaysian company thinks it is possible. Speaking at a media briefing titled ambitiously "National Biofuel Project based on Ethanol from Nypa Palm - Industrial Project Investment and Solution for Solving Global Warming", Chairman Md Badrul Shah Mohd Noor put the venture into a larger perspective:
He indicated that ethanol demand of the United States alone stood at 22 billion litres last year, and that the biofuel is forecast to provide 30% of global energy by 2020, up significantly from only two per cent last year.
Giving details about the nipah project, Mr Badrul Shah said the Perak state government has awarded the company the rights to harvest nipah sap on 10,000 hectares of land, for which it has to pay 324 million ringgits (*70/US$94 million) per year. (A quick calculation shows that this would only result in 200 million liters of ethanol, maximum. The question is: where will the other 6.28 billion liters come from? Earlier, the company said it would establish dedicated plantations, besides tapping sap from wild stands. This matter remains very vague.)
PBIC, a subsidiary of Pioneer Vaccination Biotech Corp Sdn Bhd, holds the patent to produce ethanol from nipah palm sap. Md Badrul Shah said the company will sign a multi-billion dollar contract with a major international company in July to supply nipah-based ethanol over a five-year period.
posted by Biopact team at 6:20 PM email-post
From: mapasia@loxinfo.co.th
================================
Burma
Editor's Note: It would seem timely based on the article below to raise a red flag publicly over the potential support that Northern shrimp consumers are giving to the corrupt dictatorship of Burma by buying shrimp imported from Bangladesh and Malaysia (and possibly elsewhere). If indeed this shrimp comes from Burma, shrimp consumers are inadvertently supporting the brutal military junta that rules with such an iron fist over the Burmese people.
This is just one more reason not to eat imported farmed shrimp!
June 2007
Burmese business zone unlikely to meet shrimp exports of previous year
The Burmese military government recently opened a business zone in the western border town Maungdaw to export Arakanese produced shrimp to Bangladesh, but the sector is unlikely to meet the level of exports of previous years due to damage of shrimp farms caused by the May 14 cyclone, said a shrimp trader.
In Arakan State there are 155,533 acres of shrimp farms, comprising 76 percent of shrimp farms in the whole of Burma. Several tons of shrimp from Arakan State have been exported to neighboring countries, including Bangladesh and Malaysia, in the last few years.
However, estimates are that 75 percent of the state's shrimp farms were damaged in the cyclone that struck on May 14, and many are yet to be repaired as shrimp farm owners are facing many difficulties, reported the trader.
In Rathidaung Township 381.5 acres of shrimp, with 85 acres belonging to the army, were damaged after embankments collapsed in the cyclone.
Many shrimp farms from Akyab, Ponna Kyunt, Pauktaw, Minbya, May Bon, Kyaukpru, and Rathidaung were damaged, and will be able to recover during the rainy season, said the trader.
Because of this, the shrimp production in Arakan State is expected to decrease this year, and Arakanese shrimp traders will be unable to export shrimp to Bangladesh at the levels of previous years.
Source: Narinjara News
From: icsf@icsf.net
==================================
How Green Was Myanmar's Valley?
Myanmar quickly being deforested for world timber trade, quick cash
Ever wonder what the military government of Myanmar is up to when it's not quashing peaceful, pro-democracy protests? According to environmental groups, the regime has allegedly been profiting from large-scale illegal logging operations that feed sawmills across the border in China. Green group Global Witness estimates that up to 95 percent of Myanmar's timber exports to China are illegal. Trade in imperiled-species body parts and extensive mining for precious metals and gems are also lucrative deals allegedly supported or aided by the military junta. In the past 10 years, over 20 dams have either been built in Myanmar or been planned; at least a few dams in the works would provide electricity to China and Thailand. A dam planned for the Irrawaddy River is expected to displace some 10,000 residents and also harm fish. "This region is one of the world's biodiversity hot spots," said environmentalist Naw La. "If this dam is built on the Irrawaddy, the fish populations will decrease. A lot of people will be suffering because their livelihoods will disappear." All of which points to a catchy bumper-sticker slogan: If you want biodiversity, work for justice.
From: ecorets@gmail.com
============================
The Philippines
Editor's Note: The following contains excerpts from the full paper that is in PDF format at:
www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman
Factors affecting fisherfolk's support for coastal resource management: The case of local government initiated
mangrove protection activities
Emmanuel L. Genio Jr. a, Roderick M. Rejesusb, ,
Robert S. Pomeroyc, Alan Whited, Becky Smithe
Abstract
This article examines factors that influence support for local-government initiated mangrove protection activities. Using an ordered probit approach, we show how fisher characteristics and
regional variation affect the level of support given to mangrove protection activities. Our results suggest that education levels, knowledge of the dangers of mangrove depletion, and pre-existence of mangrove-related ordinances in their municipalities are the factors that significantly affect the level of support for mangrove protection activities. In addition, we find that surveyed fisher communities from the southern region of the Philippines are less likely to support mangrove protection activities probably due to the higher rate of poverty incidence in these areas. These results have important implications for local government units in charge of mangrove planning and management. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman
0964-5691/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2007.05.010
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1919 513 4605; fax: +1919 515 6268.
E-mail address: roderick_rejesus@ncsu.edu (R.M. Rejesus).
Chapter 1
……In light of the modest successes of managing mangroves at the community level, the Philippine government realized that the best approach to better improve the status of coastal mangrove areas is to implement a decentralized coastal resource management
(CRM) system. That is, instead of the conventional, top-down system where the central government is responsible for CRM, local government units (LGUs) were seen as the bestpositioned
institution to effectively manage coastal resources as long as there is support (or buy-in) from the local fisher communities [12].5 With the passage of the 1991 Local Government Code and the 1998 Fisheries Code, CRM is now viewed as among the inherent functions of LGUs in accordance with their general powers for management
within their territorial jurisdiction. LGUs are now tasked to play a key role as front line stewards and the last safety net for the protection and management of coastal and marine resources in the Philippines--including mangroves [13].
With the responsibility of sustainably managing coastal mangrove areas, LGUs have to determine which types of mangrove protection activities have the greatest chance of succeeding. The LGUs in the Philippines acknowledge that for a mangrove protection activity to be successful and sustainable, the local stakeholders--the fisherfolks in the coastal mangrove areas--must support and buy-in to this approach. Thus, it is important for LGUs to investigate which mangrove protection activity (or activities) would likely be
supported by fisher communities. In addition, information about which factors affect fisherfolk's level of support would help LGUs determine whether camps of support for particular mangrove protection activities could be identified based on the fishers' attributes or regional location. This type of information will also help LGUs determine which type of fisherfolk they need to reach
in order to increase support for and increase the success probability of these mangrove protection activities.
Funding priorities and outreach activities can be targeted better with knowledge about fisher characteristics that significantly affect the likelihood of support. The objective of this study, therefore, is to determine and examine the factors affecting local fisherfolk's propensity to support LGU CRM initiatives aimed at protecting
mangroves in their region. Specifically, we want to explore which factors affect the support for an initiative to: (1) restrict conversion of mangroves into fishponds, and (2) revert abandoned fishponds to mangroves….
From LESrrl3@aol.com
Bangladesh
Shrimp farms won't export faulty products in future
Govt assures visiting EU team
18 October 2007
The government has said that it would ensure any shrimp farm does not export unhygienic products in future.
Such an assurance was made when a high profile European Union (EU) delegation met Fisheries and Livestock Secretary Sayed Ataur Rahman at his office yesterday.
The EU team arrived Tuesday in Dhaka on a 10-day visit to have an idea of what measures have already been taken by the government about quality shrimp export from Bangladesh to the EU in accordance with the Union's directives.
The delegation from Food and Veterinary Office of EU also wants to see whether shrimp cultivators and processors are implementing HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) policies properly….
….The inspectors will visit the quality control laboratories at Atomic
Energy Commission and Agriculture Research Institute, Fish Inspection and Quality (FIQ) Control Lab and some of the veterinary shops at Livestock Department in Dhaka today.
The team will visit Khulna on October 19-22 to inspect the FIQ regional lab, shrimp processing plants, shrimp enclosures, hatcheries and the fish meal and shrimp landing centre.
The EU team will also inspect government laboratories for standard control, quality control systems and other facilities of different shrimp farms and processing plants located at Chittagong, Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira.
The inspection team is also scheduled to visit the Sundarbans to see the fishing activities in the region.
The shrimp industry, the second largest foreign exchange earner for Bangladesh, employs more than 7.5 lakh people. Using 2.5 lakh hactares of land in southeastern and southwestern coastal areas of Cox's Bazaar, Bagerhat, Khulna and Satkhira, around 1.4 lakh farmers are producing more than 50,000 tonnes of shrimps annually, mostly by using traditional methods.
In the 2006-07 fiscal, Bangladesh fetched about US$ 500 million by exporting shrimps, mainly to the USA and EU countries.
Industry insiders hope that seafood exports would fetch US$ 1.5 billion by 2010.
-=====
EU team to visit Khulna shrimp centres Oct 21, 22
Staff Correspondent, Khulna
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=7818
Exporters of frozen shrimp are making preparations to welcome a
four-member EU inspection team that will visit shrimp cultivation and processing centres in Khulna and Bagerhat districts on October 21 and 22.
The team will inspect shrimp landing centre of Fakirhat and a shrimp enclosure at Rampal upazila of Bagerhat district On October 21….
…Their Khulna programme will be followed by visits to two or three factories and hatcheries in Bagerhat district on October 22, the BFFEA leader said.
Report on findings of the EU Food and Veterinary Mission determines the fate of export of shrimps and other frozen foods worth over Tk 2,000 crore a year, he said.
Such a team from the EU visited Bangladesh in November 2005 to inspect frozen shrimp processing factories.
The European Union slapped a ban on shrimp export from Bangladesh in 1997 as processed frozen shrimp carried bacterial germs.
EU has been keeping sharp watch on the quality of Bangladeshi frozen shrimp since the ban on its export was withdrawn after six months.
From: "zakir kibria" zakir.kibria@gmail.com
=================================
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka buffer zone forces fisher folk into other work: survey
Sept 12, 2007 (LBO) ˆ A controversial buffer zone that banned re-building of homes of Sri Lankan victims near the coast after the December 2004 tsunami has forced fisher folk out of their traditional livelihood, a survey has found.
A survey by the International Labour Organization has found that 45 per cent of fisher families who have been resettled five kilometers away from the coast have had to change their livelihoods.
The widest buffer zones were seen in the East of the country.
The agriculture and the private sector services and its workers increased in those areas.
"As you know the houses that were affected in the coastal belt were mostly of fishermen. So 80 percent of the people who were settled in these areas were from the fishing community," Mazahim Hanifa, a livelihood recovery advisor of an ILO-run project told a forum in Colombo.
"But now it has come down to 60 percent in terms of fisheries because of change of locations. Now they are far from the sea and they can‚t practice what they did before."
The sample survey was conducted among new post-tsunami settlements. More than 30,000 people lost their lives in the devastating tsunami.
Many victims who were financially stronger, including shopkeepers and tourist hotel operators defied the buffer zone bans and went ahead with re-building their lives without state-sanctioned assistance.
At the time critics pointed out that people settle in coastal areas because of economic opportunities and state buffer zone rules which were imposed arbitrarily without tsunami inundation maps were neither fair nor logical.
The controversial buffer zones were described by some critics as a convenient method to clear valuable coastal land of 'undesirables'; most of whom did not have legal title to the land they lived in.
The earlier strict rules were later relaxed in some areas.
The ILO survey was a part of the Income Recovery Technical Assistant Program, run in Sri Lanka after the tsunami.
"ILO along with RADA [a state reconstruction agency] planned this study in December 2006 and the design was to look at the settlements that have come up," Hanifa said.
"According to UN habitat information there were 775 settlements to come up by RADA. It's data base had only 355 registered at that time - that is in November 2006 - of which only 177 were completed."
The overall study found that before the tsunami, around seven percent of those in the sample were agricultural employees.
After resettlement it had increased to 28 per cent.
The number of private sector workers also increased from 7 to 14 percent after the tsunami.
Fisher folk have changed their primary source of revenue generation depending on the distance of the new settlements from the coast.
The settlements at distances of two to five kilometers from the coast have changed their livelihoods by around 13 per cent.
Fishermen who have been settled over five kilometers away have changed their working patterns by as much as 45 per cent.
The people who are continuing to live in coastal belt between zero to two kilometers have only changed their livelihoods by a smaller percentage of around 12, the survey found.
The researchers say the figures could vary significantly from district to district as the Eastern coastal line‚s buffer zone is larger than the southern coastal line.
The fishermen of the Eastern and North-Eastern Provinces would have changed their livelihoods in bigger numbers.
The survey found another two percent of people who are working as temporary employees in non-governmental organizations were those whose livelihood had improved above the traditional sectors.
In the post-tsunami period, 84 international and local charities and other organizations came forward to help victims.
The ILO has now closed its own income and technical assistance project.
Though the project is closed the ILO believes that more has to be done to brighten the victims‚ lives.
"My key message to you is that we should not look back," Tine Staermose, head of ILO in Sri Lanka said.
"But there is urgent need to look around us not only look forward. There are still many challenges out there in the field of livelihoods that need urgent attention."
Source: Lanka Business Online
From: "Elaine Corets" <ecorets@gmail.com>
================================
Sea canal project in India can harm Sri Lanka's marine life, says expert
Amidst the raging controversy in India over Sethusamudram, an expert in Sri Lanka has warned that the project can harm the island's coastal and marine life.
"The Sethusamudram project can cause problems to Sri Lanka's coastal and marine life," Malith Mendis, a member of the Sri Lankan delegation to study the project has said.
Mendis, the CEO of Lanka Hydraulic Institute, said if the project goes ahead, there will be considerable changes in the currents and that can affect marine life.
Mendis told the Daily Mirror newspaper that Sri Lankan authorities have investigated more into the matter than their Indian counterparts and are concerned about the project. "While it can be expected to create changes in the sea currents in the region, the effect on biodiversity is unpredictable," he said.
Meanwhile, the Asian Tribune newspaper claimed the project would pose a threat to the livelihood of fishermen. Claiming that it was doubtful whether it would provide economic benefits to India, it said there is also a possibility of economic disadvantage to Sri Lanka from the project
The project to create a shipping channel, dredging 167 km across the Palk Straits and Adam's bridge connecting Bay of Bengal and Gulf of Mannar, is estimated to cost Rs 2,400 crore. The project, when completed, will cut back the time spent on circumnavigating Sri Lanka when ships travel between East and West of India.
Source: PT
From: icsf@icsf.net
Taiwan
Sept. 4, 2007
Taiwan bans shrimp imports from China after drug found
Taiwan's Department of Health (DOH) announced yesterday that it has banned shrimp imports from China after the discovery of the forbidden antibiotic nitrofurans in the product.
Cheng Hui-wen, director of the DOH Bureau of Food Safety, said the concentration of nitrofuran metabolites (substances that indicate use of the drug) detected ranged from 1.1 parts per billion (ppb) to 30 ppb.
The DOH notified the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection under the Ministry of Economic Affairs Aug. 22 to ban all Chinese shrimp imports, he continued.
According to Cheng, since the DOH increased the inspection rate of Chinese shrimp imports from 5 percent to 50 percent July 5, five shipments have been found to contain nitrofuran metabolites as of mid-August.
The DOH has also increased inspections of Chinese fish imports to 50 percent, although no problems have so far been found, Cheng said. The use of nitrofuran drugs in food-producing animals has been banned in Taiwan and other countries because they pose a public health risk sparked by evidence of their role as carcinogens.
Source: The China Post
From: icsf@icsf.net
==================================
China
Chinese Shrimp Imports In Question: News Summaries
News Summary, October 1, 2007 Today's Main Stories:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Savannah, Ga. port of entry recovered more than $2.2 million in underpaid antidumping duties on shrimp imported from China.
An Indonesian exporter was commingling Chinese shrimp in shipments invoiced as entirely of Indonesian origin. The shrimp entered the U.S. in 2004 and 2005 through Savannah and Los Angeles in 39 shipments.
====
News Summary, October 24, 2007 Today's Main Stories: Our BANR report cites the remarkable growth in China's fish production. In 2006, China produced 38 percent of the world's overall fishery production at 52.9 million tons.
In 2006, China?s aquaculture production was 35.9 million tons, which was about 70 percent of the world total.
====
10/26/07
Taiwan is investigating the possible contamination of a shipment of Chinese white shrimp with illegal animal antibiotics, that may have entered Taiwan last June. The shipment involved a single 20,000 pound lot, imported by a local Taiwanese company.
====
From: "Seafood.com News" seafoodnews@seafood.com
University To Fill The Mangroves
The construction site for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia's effort to build its own M.I.T.
By THANASSIS CAMBANIS Published: October 26, 2007
JIDDA, nytimes
Saudi Arabia, Oct. 25 -- On a marshy peninsula 50 miles from this Red Sea port, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is staking $12.5 billion on a gargantuan bid to catch up with the West in science and technology.
King Abdullah has broken taboos, declaring that the Arabs have fallen critically behind much of the modern world in intellectual achievement.
Between an oil refinery and the sea, the monarch is building from scratch a graduate research institution that will have one of the 10 largest endowments in the world, worth more than $10 billion.
Its planners say men and women will study side by side in an enclave walled off from the rest of Saudi society, the country's notorious religious police will be barred and all religious and ethnic groups will be welcome in a push for academic freedom and international collaboration sure to test the kingdom's cultural and religious limits.
This undertaking is directly at odds with the kingdom's religious establishment, which severely limits women's rights and rejects coeducation and robust liberal inquiry as unthinkable.
For the new institution, the king has cut his own education ministry out the loop, hiring the state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco to build the campus, create its curriculum and attract foreigners.
Festivities at the construction site on Sunday for 1,500 dignitaries included a laser light show and a mockup of the planned campus that filled an entire room. The king laid a crystal cornerstone into a stainless steel shaft on wheels.
Cranes tore out mangroves and pounded the swampland with 20-ton blocks into a surface firm enough to build the campus on….
MTV awards show. Mist from dry ice shrouded the stage, music blared in surround sound, and holographic projections served as a backdrop to some of the speeches.
From: LESrrl3@aol.com
Ecuador
NOTE: Red Manglar means Mangrove Network in English.
- Latin America: 3rd Redmanglar International General Assembly
Between 8 and 13 October, fisher-folk organizations, artisanal gatherers, environmentalists and academics from 10 Latin American counties organized in Redmanglar International, met in the locality of Cuyutlan, State of Colima, Mexico.
During a whole week of work, it was reported that a policy for appropriation and use of coastal and marine spaces is being reaffirmed and strengthened worldwide, placing the economic interests of a few before ecosystem conservation sustaining the life and fundamental rights of local communities.
During the first day, representatives from each of the Redmanglar International member countries presented the current local situation of marine-coastal ecosystems and the work carried out in their defense. The efforts made by countries such as Guatemala, Peru and Venezuela are noteworthy as they have achieved, over the past year, to set up national networks of organizations linked to the Redmanglar International mission: that of defending mangrove ecosystems and marine-coastal ecosystems, guaranteeing their vitality and that of the ancestral user populations who live in association with them and are faced by threats and impacts likely to degrade the environment, alter the natural ecological balance and/or violate the local communities‚ human rights.
On the following days the presentation by Fernando Lopez, Professor at the Central University of Ecuador on the present political and economic situation and on the natural and cultural heritage of Latin America, launched the discussion of general issues affecting the region.
"The situation we are facing is enormously complex due to the intertwining of powerful global interests, the magnitude of the hazards threatening populations and the environment and to the political and social communities and organizations‚ scant capacity for resistance," explained Fernando Lopez.
He also made an analysis of the Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA), showing how this implies market integration and a serious threat to the peoples.
Subsequently, at the University Picture Gallery in the city of Colima, a talk was given on "Marine-Coastal Ecosystems, Water and Food Sovereignty" by Jorge Varela Marquez, delegate of the World Forum of Fisher-Folk Peoples, Dolores Gonzales of the Central University of Venezuela and Alberto Villarreal from Food and Water Watch.
Sessions continued throughout the week, with reports on the network‚s participation at international fora, campaigns, mobilizations and signing of declarations as effective and legitimate tools for ancestral coastal peoples. A statement was also made against coastal privatization and governments were required to guarantee access by fisher-folk and artisanal gatherers to their territories. At the same time, joint rejection of the commercialization of environmental goods and services was proclaimed. .
An analysis of shrimp farming certification made by Jeovah Meireles from the Federal University of Ceara, Brazil, moved the Assembly to ratify its position against organic certification of industrial shrimp farming, regarding it to be a green masquerade, which attempts to conceal environmental, social and economic crimes committed by the shrimp industry.
Furthermore, the Assembly made statements on various specific issues regarding the member countries of the network. One of these was a request to the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, to cancel the project for the Manzanillo Liquid Gas Terminal, considering it to be highly hazardous for the Cuyatulan Lagoon ecosystems.
As a result, during their last day in Mexico the participants at this III General Assembly of Redmanglar International paid a field visit to the Cuyutlán Lagoon and also met with the fisher-folk from the community of Ventandas to find evidence of how this project is a threat to the lagoon system and mangrove ecosystem.
Lider Gongora Farias, outgoing Executive Secretary and the Ecuadorian C-CONDEM team installed Juan José López, in representation of the Colombian Association of Producers for Community Development of the Bajo Sinu Cienaga Grande (ASPROCIG), as new Executive Secretary of Redmanglar International for the three-year period 2008-2010.
The Declaration of Cuyatlan was signed at the end of the Assembly and it's available at: redmanglar.org
Source: World Rainforest Movement Bulletin, Issue 123
=============================
Peru
Malaria makes comeback in Peru, with mosquitoes breeding in abandoned fish ponds
By John Otis
Although malaria was once nearly eradicated in Peru, the disease is making a devastating comeback, waylaying entire villages in the Amazon jungle.
Part of the problem in Peru, as in other tropical countries, is that an aggressive global campaign in the 1950s and '60s to eliminate the mosquito-borne illness petered out before the job was done. Since then, deforestation, development and mass migration have helped speed malaria's resurgence.
Yet many Peruvians no longer fear it. Few patients die, and treatment, with chloroquine or other anti-malaria drugs, is widely available, so at-risk populations often neglect to take the simple precautions for prevention.
Last year, Peru reported 64,000 cases of malaria, most of which cropped up in villages and towns along tributaries to the Amazon River here in the northeast state of Loreto. That's less than the record 225,000 cases reported in 1997 but many times more than the numbers reported during the 1960s when the annual caseload plummeted to about 1,500.
Since the start of the year in the river hamlet of 742 mostly poor people, 197 residents have come down with the muscle aches, nausea, chills and high fever that are the telltale signs of the illness.
The community of fishermen and farmers lies on a tributary of the Amazon River, which often overflows its banks and leaves behind mud puddles where mosquito larvae hatch.
To boost the economy, humanitarian aid groups in the 1990s promoted fish farming. But many of the businesses went bankrupt, and the abandoned fish ponds became breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
Just about everyone lacks the cash to put screens on their doors or repellant on their skin.
In addition, years of clearing the rain forest by farmers and loggers has attracted mosquitoes. In a 2006 study, scientists from Johns Hopkins University found that malaria-inducing mosquitoes in the Peruvian Amazon were 200 times more likely to bite humans in cleared areas than in forested regions.
Source: chron.com
From: icsf@icsf.net
=========================
Belize
2 October 2007
Laughing aloud: Product proves aquaculture can be sustainable
SAN FRANCISCO ˜ CleanFish, a San Francisco-based sustainable seafood company, has introduced Laughing Bird Caribbean White Shrimp, a fresh shrimp produced by a family-owned, eco-friendly operation in coastal Belize.
Laughing Bird Caribbean White Shrimp is farmed with attention to the health of the animal, the environment and the people who consume it. It is produced from a closed-loop aquaculture system that sets the gold standard for shrimp farmed globally in terms of land use, water reuse, lined ponds and stocks of highly monitored, healthy shrimp.
A recent report on shrimp farming and the environment, prepared for WWF, the World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations Consortium Program says that this kind of system is the future of shrimp production.
And these organisations and others are behind this new model of aquaculture in Belize, says the CleanFish company.
„Chefs today want to cook with excellence, openness and integrity, using the purest ingredients. That‚s what sets the Laughing Bird shrimp apart ˜ it is a superior product that will impress chefs and consumers who have high standards for both taste and environmental stewardship,‰ says Tim O‚Shea, founder and CEO of CleanFish.
The company sources and promotes top quality seafood that is safe and sustainable. It believes that artisanal production, attention to human health and environmental stewardship also make a significant difference the taste of seafood products.
This new sustainable alternative to rock shrimp is sweet and briny, with a fleshy firmness, but its benefits to the environment equals, and may even exceed, its tasty reputation. It is suited to environmentalists by provenance and to seafood lovers for its pure, sweet flavour. It‚s pleasing to the conscience and the palate, says the company.
For more details go to
www.thefishsite.com/fishnews/
Source: The Fish Site
From: ecorets@gmail.com
============================
Honduras
Honduras: Promoting Community-Based Tourism
By Jessica Sherman October, 2007
The community of El Cacao on the northern Caribbean coast of Honduras is home to a spectacular mangrove-lined lagoon. Howler monkeys perch in the trees, their calls echoing over the water. Dense mangrove stands protect crabs and provide shelter for flora and fauna. In a kayak or canoe, you can nose your way into niches of amazing biodiversity˜and keep your eyes peeled for birds swooping overhead.
Tourism is growing by leaps and bounds in Honduras. Travelers are beginning to come to this magical place in El Cacao, led by agencies based in the nearby tourism mecca of La Ceiba. Sightseers pay top dollar to get a taste of the backwoods beauty of coastal Honduras.
What's wrong with this picture? Plenty. El Cacao is a poor, rural community, where people struggle to make a living. And all of the tourist dollars, which could be invested back into the community itself, pass right on by in the kayaks guided by outside tour companies. The only thing left behind is a ripple in the water. In the meantime, there is no employment in El Cacao, no clean water, no sense of a better future around the corner.
That is, there was no sense of real possibilities for change until the community decided to develop its own ecotourism project. The plan: (1) take back the lagoon from the outside tourist agencies; (2) make sure that benefits from outside tourism reach those who live on its shores; (3) protect the lagoon's natural beauty, ensuring its continued economic value for the community as well as its biodiversity; and finally, (4) create a brighter future for this village of thatched-roof, mud-floored huts, for the children with big bellies swollen from parasites in the water.
The Patronato Pro-Mejoramiento El Cacao, or Council for the Improvement of El Cacao, received a $3,000 grant from Greengrants in late 2006 to hold roundtable discussions with all members of the community to strategize a plan for an ecotourism project for the lagoon. José Fuentes, President of the Council, explains, "The project started because we could see that the lagoon was being damaged and we wanted to protect it. We started with signs to pick up trash to increase community awareness about the environment; a pier to help with the fisherman‚s cooperative to provide better access to the lagoon; and we began training sessions on creating environmental management plans. All of this led up to José Fuentes, President of the Council Fishermen on the lagoon in El Cacao bigger discussions about an ecotourism project. This was where the roundtable discussions came in. These discussions allowed us to talk about our goals and priorities as a community."
Mario Santos, the Treasurer, adds, "We're trying to improve the quality of life here. This is a poor community, and the ecotourism project is giving us an opportunity to move ahead in creating job opportunities and a sense of investment in the quality of life in our community. We, as leaders in the Council, are people of vision; what we most want is for our community to have a better future."
The long-term plan is to set up the infrastructure for a successful, community-managed ecotourism project that will attract tourists to the lagoon. The fisherman's cooperative will guide tourists through the backwaters of the lagoon and serve as naturalists. There will be booths serving traditional food and selling handicrafts made by community members. Access to the lagoon will be monitored and controlled, and an official lagoon management plan will be drawn up.
It has been challenging for the Council to push forward with their plan. They've encountered resistance from community members who don't want change, and from those who graze their cattle on the borders of the lagoon, thereby damaging the delicate natural environment. This is where the roundtable discussions prove invaluable promoting dialogue to put everyone‚s concerns on the table. Gisela Martinez, a consultant for the project, notes, "We knew that the project was possible, but we also knew it could cause problems with those who live around the lagoon and have their cows in the area. And we wanted to generate productive discussion, to promote the value˜natural and economic˜of the lagoon. Through the roundtables, we wanted to create consensus among the people involved in the project, and for the community to value what the lagoon signifies˜a source of employment as well as its natural value."
Despite the tensions, real progress has been made in uniting people around the ecotourism project. "We've been able to really bring the community together, through meetings that we never would have had otherwise [without Greengrants‚ support]," says José. "There will always be some opposition, but we want people to understand that change is possible and a better future can be created. People are seeing concrete achievements that have emerged from the project, and this really helps them see the possibilities. People that opposed the project yesterday have now changed their minds. We hope to have everyone's support in the village."
The Council has already put up signs promoting the protection of natural resources….Next steps include buying kayaks, and deciding how much to charge to enter the lagoon. The Council is close to completing an official map of the lagoon to design a long-term management plan. José says, "We are energized. People have had their eyes opened about the potential of the lagoon…."
….Tourism is now the largest industry in the world. The World Tourism Organization predicts that 1.5 billion international travelers will spend USD 2 trillion every year on tourism by 2020.
Source: Global Greengrants
========================
Panama
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0306-panama.html
Panama Canal port projects threaten mangroves
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
March 6, 2007
Port development and land speculation in Panama is turning some of the Caribbean's most productive mangrove forests into landfill.
The landfill would be used for container storage near the city of Colon, at the mouth of the Panama Canal. But local scientists say the transformation could have unintended environmental consequences.
"Destruction of coastal habitats through port development is currently one of the most pressing environmental issues in Colon," said Dr. Stanley Heckadon, a distinguished Panamanian anthropologist and historian with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. "But few are actually aware of the issue."
Panama is home to the largest mangrove forests in Central America. Because the country lies outside the hurricane belt, its Atlantic mangrove forests are particularly rich, serving as a nursery for marine life including species important to local fisheries. They also provide sanctuary for birds. Mangroves and associated sea-grass beds also ensure a range of local ecological services including buffering against storm surge and flooding, water filtration to reduce sedimentation, and anchoring coastal areas from erosion. However, despite their importance, mangroves aren't much appreciated by the local population.
In Panama, mangroves suffer from an image problem: "No trees in Colon city"
Destruction of the mangrove forests is being fueled by port expansion and the burgeoning population growth caused largely by migration from other parts of the country. Local apathy is also a factor. Heckadon estimates that on the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal the mangrove cover has from 5,000 hectares to 3000 hectares. At the same time in the last three decades the country's mangrove surface has declined from 5000 suare kilometers to 3,500 square kilometers.
Some of the areas once off-limits as U.S. military installations are now eagerly eyed by developers and local residents who view mangrove forests as little more than "swamps." Their status as public lands--owned by nobody--makes them ripe for clearing for container storage, port expansion, or simply land speculation. In speculation, the land is cleared, filled, and then put on the market by developers who can't afford to do something themselves with the land.
"The community does not assign value to mangroves," Heckadon said. "Mangroves are hardly mentioned in children's school books, and few appreciate the services they provide. To most locals, mangroves are a stinking wasteland."
Heckadon said the local sentiment towards mangroves and the environment in general is reflected by the lack of greenery in the Zona Libre--the free-trade zone of Colon where one can buy anything from cigarettes to luxury purses.
"There are also few trees in the city of Colon," lamented Heckadon. "This is a statement that business doesn't care about nature. Developers use every opportunity to clear forests."
"'How many jobs will mangroves create?' is the question I'm always asked," he continued. "Developers encourage poor jobless migrants in the cities to pressure politicians, but once a project gets approved they aren't hired because they aren't skilled. So while, yes, a lot of wealth is generated by the ports, the railroad and the canal, a barely a fraction remains in the area. Colon has bad roads, bad schools, and bad hospitals. Mangroves don't have a lobby--in fact they often stand in the way of the local government's push for infrastructure. Everything is about containers these days."
Heckadon says the local government hasn't helped counter popular sentiment toward mangroves.
"Governments set the tone by example," he said. "In the 1990s it began to clear primary forest for housing developments around Colon that could otherwise be built on already deforested scrub and grassland. Sometimes it would seem that development policy is to get rid of mangroves. We're trying to change perceptions. Through the environmental education program at Galeta Point Marine Laboratory, we're bringing kids to see mangroves so they understand them and appreciate them. We are trying to provide an important service to the community, especially when you look at the style of development that is going in surrounding areas…"
"…We need to continue and expand our education program so people know about this. Mangroves are important. So are sea grass beds and coral reefs. These ecosystems sustain fisherman and help prevent flooding from storm surge and heavy rains. Locals just don't know this. Yet..."
From ecorets@gmail.com
=========================
Mexico
10 October 2007
Locals left behind by Mexico beach boom
The 'Mayan Riviera' is developing too fast, environmentalists warn.
By csmonitor
Sara Miller Llana
Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Rosalio Mezo dips his feet in the Caribbean Sea and points from one end of Xpu-Ha Bay to the next. There used to be nothing along this inlet, he says, save a few fishermen's homes and the jungle.
Now a 200-room hotel stands to his right; a 700-room resort to his left. In fact, along this stretch of shore south of Cancún called the Mayan Riviera, developers are devouring land in a boom that has made this region, by many accounts, the fastest-growing in Latin America.
Once a swath of small fishing communities made up of simple, palm-covered homes like that of Mr. Mezo, this coastline has become the trendy new vacation spot as Cancún has morphed into a concrete jungle of high-rise hotels. Now the number of hotel rooms along this strip on the Yucatán Peninsula's eastern coast has surpassed that of Cancún.
Critics say the transformation is threatening fragile ecosystems (such as the region's mangrove forests), exceeding the capacity of the current infrastructure, and forever changing the area's tranquil way of life. Tourism and local officials say they are planning responsibly and providing an alternative to Mexicans who might otherwise head to the US in search of employment.
Developers come to Mezo's 700-by-100-meter slice of land every few months, he says. "They always say, 'It will be so much money, you will be able to take your family and live abroad, or wherever you want,' " he says, driving his blue motorboat to pick up his 6-year-old granddaughter from school on a recent day. "I don't want to live anywhere else. This is where I want to live."
Most people Mezo knows, including most of his siblings and aunts and uncles, sold their properties, and in their place have risen massive resorts. In 2004, the Mayan Riviera, a roughly 60-mile stretch, counted 23,502 hotels, according to the Riviera Maya Tourism Promotion Trust. Last year that number increased to 30,705, and officials say they expect to add some 3,500 rooms by year's end.
Much of the investment is from European developers ˆ particularly Spanish ˆ and the market includes everyone from those seeking destination weddings to second-home purchasers. All along Highway 307, which connects Cancún with Tulúm, billboards advertise mortgage alternatives and new resorts on the rise.
More tourists, more jobs
The growth has created jobs. The city of Solidaridad has grown an average of 22 percent per year for the past five years, says its mayor, Carlos Joaquín. Nearly 95 percent of the residents aren't originally from the region, but come to work as maids, gardeners, souvenir hawkers, dishwashers, and drivers. "Why would they go to the US, when they can come here?" he says. "We generate so much employment."
But while it may bring new inhabitants, it also displaces lifelong residents ˆ particularly those with prime beach-front property. Though Mezo, a fisherman, makes his living from tourism, with a small seafood restaurant and by running fishing tours, others were ousted by it.
On a recent day he rides along the shoreline, past hotels with neatly manicured beachfronts and rows of blue sun chairs. This used to be the property of his neighbors, but many were bought out. He says they moved inland, or even to cities in the Yucatán, such as Mérida. Many, including his own brother, were victims of bribery and bad deals, he says.
His daughter, Jacqueline Mezo, says that of all the friends she studied with in school a decade ago, hardly anyone lives here anymore. "It doesn't matter the millions they offer. This is our home," she says, celebrating her cousin's birthday on a recent night, over lobster salad and flaky white fish cooked for hours in palm leaves under the sand ˆ fish that her father and uncles caught the night before.
A changing way of life
"[Mezo] hasn't gotten wrapped up in the whole globalization thing," says Patricio Martín, a representative with the Mexican Center for Environmental Law. But he was also lucky; he had a land title. Many others didn't. "There were people who had the land, but they were bribed or threatened. Land speculators just took control," says Mr. Martín. "They are building more rooms than is sustainable in the region."
While other tourist hot spots such as Cancún or Acapulco, on Mexico's Pacific coast, are marked by confined high-rises, this growth has moved horizontally. "The Riviera Maya is the place where you have most of the tourism sprawl, with big resorts in pristine areas," says Ramon Cruz, a senior policy analyst at Environmental Defense in New York. "The problem is that it's a trendsetter."
Environmentalists scored a victory this winter, when Mexican President Felipe Calderón approved mangrove-protection measures that were strongly opposed by the tourism industry. The new law has slowed down construction, says Martin, but it is not being strictly enforced.
"Yesterday I walked through here with a machete. Today I zip by in a car," says Mezo. "Before we were alone here, now there are tourists everywhere."
His five grandchildren, are learning how to fish, and anchor the boats. The oldest, age 11, already drives the family motorboat. "This is for them," he says. "I want them to have this place forever."
Source: Christian Science Monitor
From: ecorets@gmail.com
==============================
Mexican Shrimpers Experience Bad Season
The Mexican wild pacific shrimp season is going very poorly, with some now saying catches could be down 40% to 50% from last year, when they were at the highest level in 20
years. The government is being criticized for not opening the season earlier, yet the government has been under a lot of pressure from NGOÕs to be cautious.
From: "Seafood.com News" seafoodnews@seafood.com
The Bahamas
Guana Cay Legal Battle Goes After Illicit Permit Process
Save Guana Cay issues new case against Government And
Hope Town District Council And Bakers Bay Developers
Citizens of Guana Cay continue fight to respect local rights, save environment and claim Crown Land and heritage
October 3, 2007
On September 29 2007, the Freeport Supreme Court ordered that Save Guana Cay and Aubrey Clarke could issue a new Judicial Review case to sue the Government and Hope Town District Council, the local government district for Guana Cay and the Bakers Bay Developers.
This is the 2nd Judicial Review case launched against the Government and Developers. It is the 1st against the Hope Town District Council.
Save Guana Cay is an association of Bahamians and foreign residents dedicated to preserving their unique heritage and culture, the land and marine environment, promoting respect for locals to be responsible for their island and saving Crown Land for future generations of Bahamians.
Guana Cay is internationally recognized as a unique marine and land environment and boasts one of the most picturesque and pristine traditional old Bahamian communities in the Abacos.
Despite this, in February 2005 the PLP Cabinet, under the direction of PM Perry Christie, and after years of secret planning and negotiations with developers, and following its now disgraced Anchor Project policy, dictatorially and without consultation with the residents of Guana cay, signed a Heads of Agreement with Bakers Bay, a foreign real estate developer, to allow a tax free $500,000,000 hotel, residential, golfing and the largest marina project in the Bahamas.
Since then the residents of Guana Cay mounted and continue to fight for their rights. They believe that the golf course will destroy the rich marine reef life.
The exclusively affluent and foreign gated residential community will destroy one of the few remaining forests, containing a fabulous variety of flora and fauna, in the Northern Bahamas.
The marina dredging and silting will destroy Joe's Creek, and the hundreds of ancient mangroves which protect against hurricane storm surges and are the nurseries for the marine life on which the fisherman on the island depend.
Their traditional crabbing and hunting grounds have been lost, as the former PM Perry Christie agreed to give it to the developers for $1 per acre or some other secret amount. Despite elections promises to the contrary, the FNM, according to the Developers, has issued the Crown Land Deed to the Developers of the last remaining 179 acres of Crown (public) Land left on the island. There will be no room for the local community to grow in the future. The 150 Bahamians will be surrounded by over 700 foreigners.
Perversely….the Developers, who only paid $1 per acre, have now offered to sell 1/3 of an acre of our Bahamian Crown land back to Bahamian citizens for $50,000 or $150,000 per acre, thereby making a swift profit of 149,999%. What were the PLP and what are FNM Cabinet ministers thinking?
The development will be completely out of scale with the small island community, dwarfing it in size. The construction of the development is expected to take 10 years, and will require hundreds of transient foreign laborers. The social, economic and environmental life of this old Bahamian community is being destroyed. The local citizens are becoming foreigners in their own land.
In Save Guana Cay Case number 1, the Association obtained an injunction (after several appeals in the courts in the Bahamas) from the Privy Council in London, stopping the development until the trial. In October 2006, at the trial, acting Justice Carroll, in the Supreme Court, ruled that the Heads of Agreement was valid and allowed the development to continue. Save Guana Cay appealed and is waiting for a Court of Appeal decision.
At the Court of Appeal hearing the Government and Developers argued that even if the Heads of Agreement was invalid they had received all necessary permits from the necessary government departments, and were therefore not relying upon the Heads of Agreement as authority to proceed.
In their pre election promises, the FNM party promised freedom of information, promotion of local rights and preservation of Crown Land for Bahamians. Since the FNM became the government, Save Guana Cay have repeatedly asked the FNM to make full disclosure of all of the permits.
Despite their promises the FNM has failed and refused to give any information and Bakers Bay claims that the FNM government has given 150 acres of Crown Land to the developers.
The citizens of Guana Cay, trusting the FNM, are appalled by the FNM's betrayal, even though 90% voted for the FNM in the general elections.
Now, after pressure from the Court of Appeal, the Developers, 2 years later, have provided copies of the permits they say were necessary to proceed with the development. For 2 years, the PLP and the FNM have kept the details of this development secret from their own Bahamian citizens, preferring instead to conspire illegally with the foreign developers, and permitting the rape and destruction of the environment, as they have done in Bimini and elsewhere.
Save Guana Cay case number 2 challenges all of these so called "permits".
The defendants in this action are The Queen, the Director of Physical Planning, The Prime Minister, the Town Planning Committee, the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Labour, the Minister of Public Works and Transport, the Commissioner of Police, the Water and Sewerage Corporation, the Hope Town District Council, the Attorney General, and the Developers, Passerine at Abaco Limited, Passerine at Abaco Holdings Limited, Bakers Bay Limited, Bakers Bay HOA Limited, Bakers Bay Marina Limited, and Bakers Bay Foundation Limited.
Save Guana Cay claims that the defendants did not have lawful authority to give the permits; that contrary to law the citizens of Guana Cay were not consulted; and that in any event granting the permits was irrational and contrary to the Constitution because they discriminate against Bahamians and residents who have to pay customs duties while the Developers and their buyers invest and own tax free.
Save Guana Cay also claims that Crown and Treasury Land is only for public purposes and for Bahamians. It is not supposed to be given away to foreign developers, for their profit, tax free.
No agreement under the Hotels Encouragement Act was given by way of disclosure; so the citizens of Guana Cay ask this FNM government to make full disclosure and tell the public on what lawful basis Customs is allowing Bakers Bay to import materials customs duty-free?
The Association continues to ask for discovery and will shortly be seeking another injunction. We will go to the Privy Council again if necessary. The English seem to have a little more respect for local and environmental rights than our own country.
Bakers Bay is continuing to desecrate, destroy and ruin the environment. See the photos exhibited with the court papers.
The citizens of Guana Cay will continue to fight for their rights as against the PLP, the FNM, and these destructive foreign Developers who have taken away their environment, heritage and quaint, picturesque Family Island.
Troy Albury is the president of Save Guana Cay, and copies of the action and his affidavit are attached as well as a copy of the Court order.
This war will continue and the citizens of Guana Cay need funding to continue to fight for their rights. We invite the public to visit our website, contribute to our cause financially, and to give support by letters to the Editors, press statements, telephone calls to the FNM members of parliament and in any other way possible.
This is not just about Guana Cay! This is a fight for the future of the Bahamas! What is happening in Guana Cay is one of the more abusive examples of what is happening all over the Bahamas.
Save Guana Cay is a member of Save The Bahamas and supports all those other freedom and environmental fighters in Nassau, San Salvador, Bimini, Harbour Island, Mayaguana, Rum Cay, Exuma and elsewhere in the Bahamas, the Caribbean and the rest of the world, fighting to protect their homes, cultures and environments from ignorant and blind politicians and rapacious and destructive developers. The politicians care for nothing more than to win political brownie points by announcing some development and the developers to make a fast dollar!
Please help us to protect our children's heritage and the future of the Bahamas!
Troy Albury, Aubrey Clarke, Anthony Roberts, Frederick R. M. Smith (Counsel to SGCRA)
From: bahamas_18@hotmail.com
=================================
Bimini Island
26th October
Tourism Business Improving In Bimini
The operators of an exclusive resort in Bimini are vowing to continue contributing to the advancement of tourism, declaring that the island has positioned itself to reap lucrative rewards from the industry.
The Bimini Bay Resort owned by developer Gerardo Capo has been at the center of lingering controversy over the methods employed to create the property and the perceived toll it took on the environment.
Despite that past conflict, the resort noted that it remains committed to the tourism product.
"Bimini Bay Resort will continue to contribute to the rising growth of tourism in The Bahamas," it said in a press statement.
"Guests of The Bahamas can look forward to more fishing tournaments and holiday events that are being planned in Bimini for 2008. Bimini Bay looks forward to breaking more records in the future as it continues its expansion with the Conrad Hotel, casino spa, Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed golf course and a second private island."
According to the Ministry of Tourism's figures, air and sea arrivals in July, the last month for which data was collected, showed that over 2,100 visitors by air chose Bimini for a vacation destination in that month over the 1,600 plus tourists recorded in July 2006.
Between January and July, 2007, just over 10,200 visitors made it to that island whichreflected a 7.5 percent hike over the 9,500 plus visitors recorded in the same period in 2006.
The pledge came as officials from the Ministry of Tourism have reported that air arrivals to Bimini are up by 32 percent compared to air arrivals in the Abacos, Andros, Cat Cay, Cat Island and Exuma - which are all down compared to 2006 numbers.
Bimini Bay executives believe that their property played a vital role in attracting many of those visitors.
The visitor arrival numbers, they said, were especially large during U.S. holiday weekends like July 4, Independence Day; the Labour Day and Memorial Day weekend.
Between 2006 and 2007, the resort went from hosting two events to 12 with an increase reflected in fishing tournaments and various other events, it was reported.
Officials said the resort would continue to set the standards among this new wave of tourism.
"We are extremely pleased with the success and growth of Bimini Bay Resort as it has become a destination for everyone to enjoy including families, couples, groups, meetings and of course honeymooners," said Anthony Stuart, executive director of the Bahamas Out Islands Promotion Board [BOIPB].
"The great thing for Bimini is that the success is not only being experienced at the resort but also by the local stores, the fishing and dive operators, tour guides and restaurants."
The Bimini Bay Resort is featured as a property that prides itself as first class retreat that offers convenient, unforgettable and unrivaled fishing and some of the best diving and snorkeling in the Caribbean region.
Tourism's competitive environment has changed tremendously and is facing a "double negative threat," Director General of Tourism Vernice Walkine said recently.
Ms. Walkine said The Bahamas simply does not have the infrastructure to compete on the level of Japan and Dubai, nor does it have the population size to match regional counterparts like Mexico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic - each of whom has received significantly greater numbers of stopover visitors on a consistent basis.
She again pointed to the newly effective Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which now requires that US citizens re-entering the United States from The Bahamas present a passport, as they would from any international destination in the world.
www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=14616
From: "Jana Rajnohova" mangroves.jr@gmail.com
USA
23 Organizations Issue Joint Report Critiquing Wal-Mart's Sustainability Initiatives
Human rights, labor and environmental groups find Wal-Mart's
"green" initiatives lack real impact on global warming, employee health and welfare
Report asserts: "When you look at the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by Wal-Mart, it becomes impossible to take the company's claims to reduce global warming as anything more than hot air."
Washington, DC--As Wal-Mart prepares to release its long-anticipated sustainability progress report, 23 environmental, farm, labor, and human rights groups have released their own report, "Wal-Mart's Sustainability Initiative: A Civil Society Critique."
The report, prepared by some of the country's most respected public interest groups, includes sections on Wal-Mart's specific commitments in seven product areas -- organics, seafood, shrimp, forest products, cypress mulch, product packaging, and toxic chemicals -- as well as sections on global warming and Wal-Mart's international business practices. It argues that even if Wal-Mart achieved all of its stated goals, the company's business model is inherently unsustainable.
This damning critique comes nearly two years after Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott announced a bold initiative to turn the world's largest company green. However, as the report explains, "Wal-Mart's goal to cut its annual greenhouse gases by five million tons would be admirable if it weren't for the fact that the company publicly acknowledged in 2006 that its global operations created 220 million tons of greenhouse gases every year.1 That's more than 40 times the emissions the company says it would like to eliminate."
In fact, Wal-Mart has used its massive political clout to support an anti-sustainability agenda in the U.S. Congress, the report reveals. According to report contributor Corporate Ethics International, two-thirds of Wal-Mart's PAC campaign contributions in the last election went to candidates who earned failing grades from the League of Conservation Voters. "Wal-Mart claims to be a leader in the battle against global warming, yet it's one of the largest contributors to politicians with the worst records on global warming," says Michael Marx, Corporate Ethics International's Executive Director.
Ultimately, the report contends that the mega-retailer's "sustainability" agenda ignores the health and welfare of employees, customers, the environment and local economies both in the US and across the globe. "Wal-Mart can change to more efficient light bulbs, but that doesn't change its carbon footprint or the enormous social consequences of its globally unsustainable business model. If we look at its practices internationally, Wal-Mart has used its market power to cut costs at the expense of workers and the environment across the developing world," says report contributor Ruben Garcia of Global Exchange.
Wal-Mart is not only using an astronomically unsustainable amount of fuel in importing cheap goods from China