Florida's $5.5 billion reef economy at risk frrom climate change

From a media release issued by the Environmental Defense Fund:

(Sarasota, Florida- December 1, 2008) A comprehensive new analysis of business generated by Florida's coral reefs warns that more than 70,000 jobs and more than $5.5 billion in economic activity in the state are in grave jeopardy from climate change.

"A business-as-usual approach to climate change could mean a lot less business for Florida," said Jerry Karnas, Florida project director at Environmental Defense Fund, which commissioned the report, Corals and Climate Change: Florida's Natural Treasures at Risk.

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Marine life responds instantaneously to Turks & Caicos artificial reef

From an Associated Press article posted on PR-inside.com:

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos (AP) - Nearly 100 concrete orbs have been submerged in shallow waters off Grand Turk island to encourage coral growth, shelter small fish and enhance snorkeling, a government scientist said Sunday.

The hollow domes submerged in recent days have quickly attracted marine life off Governor's beach, a popular stretch of coastline in Grand Turk, said Lucy Wells, a marine biologist who does reef restoration work for the Turks and Caicos Islands.

"The response from marine life was instantaneous," said Wells, who works for the island chain's Environment and Coastal Resources Department.

In Turks and Caicos waters, shallow-water coral reefs have been harmed by pollution, overfishing and unusually high sea temperatures in 2005. But scientists say coral colonies off the British islands are in better shape than those of many neighboring islands.

In recent years, reef balls have been submerged in dozens of locations around the globe to help marine habitats.

The newly submerged reef balls, anchored to the sandy seabed and weighing some 300 pounds (136 kilograms) each, have holes that create currents and circulate nutrients to marine life. Small fish can hide from predators inside the 2-foot (65 centimeter) wide, 3-foot (1 meter) tall spheres. Larval coral was placed on the rough exteriors.

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Holiday gifts to delight and support ocean causes

Nearly every conservation organization offers something special for the holidays; here's a very incomplete list of gift possibilities:

Adopt a turtle (Centro Ecológico Akumal)
Adopt a dolphin (World Wildlife Fund)
Adopt a hammerhead shark (Oceana)
Tree ornaments and other gifts (Sea Turtle Survival League)
CORAL calendar (Coral Reef Alliance)
Sea Turtle Note Cards (SeaTurtle.org)

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15th anniversary for Centro Ecológico Akumal

An e-mail from Centro Ecológico Akumal (CEA):

As we celebrate our 15-year anniversary as a conservation organization and reflect on our goals for this year, we are pleased that we've achieved quite a lot, and understand that we still have more to do to make Akumal a truly ecological destination. Centro Ecológico Akumal (CEA) has been working hard to establish a community program to manage our incredible bays in a more sustainable way and to develop a strategy to improve ground-water quality.

Based on two years of water quality studies and participation in regional wastewater management events, we have been able to form alliances with the municipal and state water authorities to begin to address the serious issue of wastewater treatment in Akumal. We are now able to address details for improved sewage treatment along the coast, and thus for reduced contaminants reaching the sea and choking off the reef.

Likewise, CEA has been able to facilitate the creation of a Community-based Management Plan for Akumal's bays, uniting such diverse actors as the local independent operators, dive shops and hotels, as well as outside tour operators. They all use the natural wealth of our bays, and are now working together to run and fund a program that seeks to balance economic benefit and environmental protection, with a focus on taking care of our resident sea turtles. Numerous workshops and meetings were held with all the actors, based on studies of both the sea turtles' and human activities in the bay. We were able to get stakeholders to understand their impact on and responsibility for the wildlife found in Akumal Bay. The program is now operating and it serves as a great example of a local initiative for sustainable tourism. We are excited about the positive results in the bay as tours and boats accept new operating rules aimed at human safety and wildlife protection.

In addition, our ongoing sea turtle protection was also very successful, with almost 300 nests protected and over 26,000 hatchlings able to reach the sea this year. This good hatchling rate is due in grand part to the cooperation CEA received from hotels and tourists each night as turtles nested or nests hatched.

Our challenge now is to build on these positive results, to protect and manage better all of Akumal. As tourism development grows in the region, we must be ready to serve as a model of what CAN be done to lessen the destruction of this beautiful area—demonstrating ways to treat wastewater, to manage beaches and bays, and to unite people for our future. CEA still has more to do, getting the government to improve enforcement of existing environmental laws, working with the local community to integrate our efforts, and sharing our goals and experiences with the global community. We look forward to concrete achievements in regional wastewater treatment and bay protection for all of Akumal.

We are grateful for all of the support we have received from so many people throughout the year and we are certain that, with your help, we will be able to report greater achievements next year. If you have not yet joined CEA with a new or renewed membership, or made a donation, please consider doing so before the end of this tax year. Please click here to explore your tax-deductible donation options.

Please join us to make 2009 a year of restoration of this paradise: cleaner ground-water, growing corals, and healthy sea turtles.

We are very thankful for your donations and we wish you a peaceful holiday season.

Best regards,

Paul Sánchez-Navarro
Director
www.ceakumal.org

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Changes in Land Use, Changes in Climate

From an articleby Emilio Godoy posted on IPS News:

MEXICO CITY, Dec 2 (Tierramérica) - The countries of Latin America have failed to design integrated policies to control the processes of changes in land use, one of the causes of climate change. The region produces 12 percent of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases, which are driving up the planet’s average temperatures and changing the climate around the globe.

Half of the emissions are the result of deforestation, with Brazil and Mexico leading the region in terms of climate-changing pollutants.

"Latin America needs regional integration to combat deforestation," Brazilian Senator Renato Casagrande told Tierramérica.

Change in land use was one of the main issues taken up by 77 lawmakers from across the region at a meeting of the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE) that ended Nov. 23 in the Mexican capital.

The event, sponsored by the Mexican Congress, the World Bank, the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (COM+) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), marked the launch of the International Commission on Land Use Change and Ecosystems.

"We hope that the Commission provides a clear set of measures that national parliaments can adopt through regulations, fiscal incentives or laws," said Casagrande. "That way we can advance towards an economic system that foments a sustainable use of the land."

In their 16-point declaration, the lawmakers stated that deforestation should be a priority in environmental action plans, especially considering the effective and low-cost opportunities associated with the measures and the important parallel benefits for local communities and biodiversity.

Not only does deforestation contribute to climate change, but deforested land can smother the ocean wtih eroded silt, as decribed in an entry on Mongabay.com:

As the suspended particles reach the ocean, the water becomes cloudy, causing regional declines in coral reefs, and affecting coastal fisheries. The loss of coral reefs worldwide, often labeled the rainforests of the sea, is especially distressing to scientists because of their tremendous diversity and the important services they provide. Coastal fisheries are affected not just by the loss of coral reefs and their communities, but by the damage inflicted on mangrove forests by heavy siltation.

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No place like home: new theory for how salmon, sea turtles find their birthplace

From an article on Science Daily:

How marine animals find their way back to their birthplace to reproduce after migrating across thousands of miles of open ocean has mystified scientists for more than a century. But marine biologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill think they might finally have unraveled the secret.

At the beginning of their lives, salmon and sea turtles may read the magnetic field of their home area and "imprint" on it, according to a new theory in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Earth's magnetic field varies predictably across the globe, with every oceanic region having a slightly different magnetic signature. By noting the unique "magnetic address" of their birthplace and remembering it, animals may be able to distinguish this location from all others when they are fully grown and ready to return years later, researchers propose.

Previous studies have shown that young salmon and sea turtles can detect the Earth's magnetic field and use it to sense direction during their first migration away from their birthplace to the far-flung regions where they spend the initial years of their lives.

The new study seeks to explain the more difficult navigational task accomplished by adult animals that return to reproduce in the same area where they themselves began life, a process scientists refer to as natal homing.

"What we are proposing is that natal homing can be explained in terms of animals learning the unique magnetic signature of their home area early in life and then retaining that information," said Kenneth Lohmann, Ph.D., professor of biology in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences and the first author of the study.

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Manatees become conservation symbol for communities in Chiapas

From an article posted on Mongabay.com:

Local conservation efforts are helping protect endangered manatees in Chiapas, Mexico, report researchers writing in the December issue of Tropical Conservation Science.

Conducting surveys of local communities and recording manatee sightings in the Catazajá wetlands of northeast Chiapas, Jenner Rodas-Trejo and colleagues mapped the progress on conservation efforts in an ecosystem that is increasingly rare in Mexico due to transformation for cattle ranching, oil exploration, and human settlement. The researchers found hopeful signs that locals are changing practices harmful to the marine mammal and even actively promoting conservation of the species. The new sentiment is reflected by the elevation of the manatee as a community symbol.

"Since 2001, we have gradually involved the local communities in the conservation of manatees and the wetland ecosystem. Local people participation has been gradual and more recently accelerated," write the authors. "While still in progress, tangible outcomes of community involvement in conservation are the following: protection by the local community of manatee preferred gathering areas in the wetland is gaining strength, hunting of manatees is now almost non existent, local people trained by us now assist in keeping track of manatee sightings and local community members actively become involved in the rescue of stranded individuals. Importantly, the manatee has now become the animal emblem for the communities in the study area. A manatee festival is held once a year, with intensive participation by local inhabitants, including adults of all ages and school children."

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