Help save Xcacel turtle nesting beach!

Courtsey of Marti Johnston:

Playa Xcacel, here in the Quintana Roo, Riviera Maya, Mexican Caribbean, is an important nesting site for the green and loggerhead turtles. It has a designation as a state protected turtle sanctuary. There is a long and very dubious background that leads to the current moment where land on the northern border of the protected area is in the approval process for development of yet another resort community; a third incarnation of the project now called Punta Carey. They have filed their impact statement to SEMARNAT , Mexico's environmental ministry. It is in violation of various environmental laws and a refute has been filed and is now in the hands of SEMARNAT as well. It is my understanding that by next week 9/18 SEMARNAT is supposed to have a reply.

Xcacel needs your help! has a petition to the head of SEMARNAT Juan Elvire Quesada as well as some good information and background.

Please take a few minutes to look at this link, sign the petition and pass it on. The effects and fall-outs of these type of illegal projects touch the Mesoamerican Reef, mangroves, underground rivers, as well as the endangered turtle species....it is all connected, and is part of the patrimony of us all as global citizens.

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Support the Caribbean Challenge

An appeal from The Nature Conservancy:

In May of 2008, The Bahamas’ government, alongside leaders from Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines launched the Caribbean Challenge, a region-wide campaign to protect the health of the Caribbean’s lands and waters. Today, eight Caribbean nations have committed to protecting nearly 20 percent of their marine and coastal habitat by 2020.

The Caribbean Challenge will result in a wholesale transformation of countries’ national park systems and will nearly triple the amount of marine and coastal habitat currently under protection, setting aside almost 21 million acres of coral reefs, mangroves, sea grass beds and other important habitat for sea turtles, whales, sharks and other wildlife. The three core components of the Challenge include:

•creating networks of marine protected areas expanding across 21 million acres of territorial coasts and waters

•establishing protected area trust funds to generate permanent, dedicated and sustainable funding sources for the effective management, expansion and scientific monitoring of all parks and protected areas

•developing national level demonstrations projects for climate change adaptation
Modeled on other large-scale conservation financing efforts, including the Micronesia Challenge and the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, the Caribbean Challenge goes far beyond piecemeal, incremental conservation. The campaign to meet the Caribbean Challenge is a campaign to end paper parks in the Caribbean forever.

To support the Challenge, the Conservancy has pledged $20 million in cash and in-kind resources to endow national protected area trusts and provide technical support. . . .

Happily, the Challenge offers an opportunity to profoundly change that projected future of loss into a realized future of abundance. Please join us as we work to fulfill our $20 million pledge to help protect 21 million acres of the Caribbean and all of the plants, animals and people who depend upon those clear waters for survival.

With your help, the Caribbean Challenge can make an immediate and material difference to the future of the plants, animals and people of the Caribbean. Please join us. Your contribution matters.

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Q&A: The world needs a Marshall Plan for climate change

From an interview and article by IPS U.N. Bureau Chief Thalif Deen:

Last year, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled the 'Roadmap to Copenhagen', including a proposal for 100 billion dollars to be raised annually to finance mitigation and adaptation measures, especially in the world's poorest nations facing droughts, floods, deforestation, sea-level rise and pollution.

But that proposed funding, mostly by Western donors, still falls far short of the targets set by the United Nations.

"Billions in public financing will be required," warns Ban, "There must be new money, not just re-packaged official development assistance (ODA)."

"If we can bail out banks," he argues, "certainly we can find the funds to protect millions, if not billions of people and their means of survival."

In an interview with IPS U.N. Bureau Chief Thalif Deen, Richard Kozul-Wright, chief of the Development Strategy and Policy Analysis Unit at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, says finance issues are an integral part of the climate change debate. "I think the summit can have a very positive impact. The secretary general has insisted on the need for vision, urgency and leadership on the climate issue and has been working very hard to provide these," he said.

He said the summit will be an opportunity for member states, and particularly the leading players, to show their support for his efforts and to move the discussion forward as the clock ticks down on reaching a deal in Copenhagen, including a new global treaty on greenhouse gas emissions.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

IPS: Against the backdrop of the present global financial crisis, what are the chances of increased funding from rich nations?

RICHARD KOZUL-WRIGHT: Strictly speaking, chance should not have anything to do with it as advanced country governments have (at previous climate change meetings in Kyoto and Bali) signed up to meeting the additional financing costs incurred by developing countries in their mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Moreover, developed countries - including now the United States and Australia - have accepted the scientific evidence that anthropomorphic activity lies behind the already dangerous rise in global temperatures, and that if developing countries follow their example, then the consequences will be dire for everyone.

That activity has been located - predominantly - in rich countries. Indeed, the high carbon growth path adopted by these countries lies behind both the climate challenges and the massive income gaps that currently characterise the global economic landscape. The good news is that their success also means that these countries have the resources to tackle climate change both in their own country and developing countries.

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CEA tackles turtle refuge and water quality

An update about the activities of Centro Ecológico Akumal:

Throughout 2009, Centro Ecológico Akumal (CEA) has been working to improve the use and management of Akumal's marine and coastal ecosystems. We are successfully operating the Akumal Bays Management Plan (POBAk), a locally defined and operated program that seeks to organize the myriad marine tourism activities carried out in the clear blue waters of Akumal. Local boats are now regulated and comply with tourism laws, and land- and sea-based snorkel tour operators work within a schedule which limits the numbers of tourists per group per day. Federal authorities such as the Port Captain and Ministry of the Environment support and participate in this program. Akumal now has a management tool with which to protect the sea turtles feeding in Akumal Bay, and the coral species struggling to continue their job of building reef in the area.

One of our main goals is to create a Sea Turtle Refuge, converting this management experience into a legal instrument which will help us protect Akumal's wondrous sea turtles for years to come. We will expand our sea turtle protection and marine conservation efforts beyond beach management and patrols during nesting season to include the hawksbills, greens and loggerheads found in our coastal waters.

In addition, CEA has been working with the federal, state and municipal water authorities and local businesses to improve wastewater management in the region, with the goal of making sure that all the fresh water making its way to the sea is free of pollutants. This is an ongoing process, involving creating a new water treatment infrastructure in Akumal, Chemuyil and Tulum, as well as building local awareness and capacity for water management. We have to make sure that our incredible marine biodiversity has a healthy habitat in which to grow.

Our conservation work is integrated into environmental education projects in the local schools, communication activities with tourists, visiting groups and local businesses, and sustainable environmental policy objectives with municipal, state and federal governments.

CEA could not carry out any of its work without the support of so many actors, from all the local restaurants and hotels, visitors from so many countries, foundations and agencies, to other environmental organizations in Mexico. We are thankful to everyone for their participation.

We hope you enjoy our new Web site, and we invite you to rediscover CEA, learn about our work and join us in protecting this incredible biodiversity—wildlife and water in Akumal.


Paul Sánchez-Navarro Russell
Director
director@ceakumal.org

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Torpedo speed over the Yucatán

From an article by Jon Kohl on emagazine.com

While it’s usually Yucatan’s lush, green jungles and pristine beaches that draw visitors’ eyes, beneath their feet, rivers, including the world’s longest underground river, flow through immense caverns. Thousands of years of rainwater percolation have carved these tunnels throughout the Mexican peninsula’s base material, ancient limestone coral reefs.

Not only have these underground waters sustained classic Mayan cities like Tulum and Chichen Itza, but they supply freshwater both to inhabitants and to more than 10 million annual visitors. They also receive their wastewaters. “These cave systems are so extensive and so interconnected that if there is a point of pollution in one area, then it can quickly get distributed to a very, very wide area,” British cave diver Stephen Bogaerts said in National Geographic.

Although Bogaerts has squeezed and scooted through miles of underground channels, his technique is slow motion compared to what Amigos de Sian Ka’an, a conservation group based in Cancun, is now attempting to do.

“This is quite spectacular—this is a very sophisticated study,” beams Gonzalo Merediz-Alonso, director. Amigos has joined with the Austrian Geological Service to adapt oil exploration technology to map underground aquifers. To do this, a Mexican Navy helicopter dangles a torpedo-like electromagnetic sensor as it flies in beelines back and forth across the peninsula, drawing a colorized map of subterranean waters.

“We can see how pollutants flow underground. We want to understand the hydrological system and to generate public policies to orient urban development in Tulum, for example. We certainly cannot establish a landfill on top of an underground water source,” Gonzalo explains.

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Climate targets 'will kill coral'

From a story by Richard Black on the BBC:

Current climate targets are not enough to save the world's coral reefs - and policymakers urgently need to consider the economic benefits they bring.

Those are two of the conclusions from a UN-backed project aiming to quantify the financial costs of damaging nature.

Studies suggest that reefs are worth more than $100bn (£60bn) annually, but are already being damaged by rising temperatures and more acidic oceans.

The study puts the cost of forest loss each year at $2-5 trillion.

Looking ahead to December's UN climate conference in Copenhagen, study leader Pavan Sukhdev said it was vital that policymakers realised that safeguarding the natural world was a cost-effective way of protecting societies against the impacts of rising greenhouse gas levels.

Green roots
The current UN climate negotiations contain measures for protecting forests as carbon stores - an initiative called Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation).

Its roots lie in the calculation that forest loss accounts for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, and that combating it is probably the cheapest way of reducing emissions overall.

But protecting societies against climate impacts (climate adaptation) will also be a key component of any Copenhagen deal, because it is the single biggest priority for many developing nations.

The TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) analysis emphasises that forests, coral reefs and many other ecosystems can be the cheapest "adaptation tools" as well.

"We feel this isn't really at the top of politicians' minds at the moment," he told BBC News.

Read a recipe for saving coral reefs by Dr Rod Salm is director of The Nature Conservancy's Tropical Marine Conservation Program in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Satellite-tracked sea loggerhead attacked by shark, rescured

From an article on Underwatertimes.com:

MARATHON, Florida Keys -- A loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) bearing a satellite tracking tag from Mote Marine Laboratory
was rescued on Sunday, Aug. 23, and brought to the Florida Keys for treatment of serious shark bites.

The 200-pound adult female turtle with a 3-foot-long carapace, nicknamed "Wham," was found by staff at Dry Tortugas National Park, an island cluster west of Key West, and transported to Key West by Fastcat Ferry and then on to The Turtle Hospital in Marathon.

According to Ryan Butts, administrator at The Turtle Hospital, Wham lost 6 inches of her left flipper and her entire right front flipper to a shark bite. "A boat wouldn't have been able to take out the distal end of both flippers," he said. Still, the turtle may return to the wild, he said. "Provided she responds to treatment, she should be fine to be released." Wham is receiving care for her wounds and antibiotics for possible infections.

Wham is The Turtle Hospital's first patient to come in bearing a satellite tag - a cell-phone-sized device that Mote scientists use to track sea turtles in real time. When the turtles come to the surface to breathe, the tag transmits data to a satellite, which then sends it back to scientists. Mote has been satellite tracking turtles since 2005 to identify critical habitats for sea turtles and focus on threats they face while swimming hundreds of miles between feeding and breeding areas. Sea turtles are federally protected in U.S. waters and loggerhead sea turtles are considered threatened.

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