'Historic' day for shark protection

From BBC

Three types of critically endangered but commercially valuable shark have been given added protection at the Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) meeting in Bangkok.

Shark fins drying in the sun in Kaohsiung before processing. 30 percent of the world’s shark species are threatened or near threatened with extinction.

Photo Credit: Shawn Heinrichs for the Pew Environment Group

The body, which regulates trade in flora and fauna, voted by a two-thirds majority to upgrade the sharks' status.
Campaigners hailed the move as historic and said the vote represented a major breakthrough for marine conservation.
The decisions can still be overturned by a vote on the final day of this meeting later this week.

The oceanic whitetip, three varieties of hammerheads and the porbeagle are all said to be seriously threatened by overfishing.
Their numbers have declined dramatically in recent years, as the trade in shark fins for soup has grown.
Manta rays are killed for their gill plates which are used in Chinese medicine.

Shark supporters have been attempting to get Cites to protect these species since 1994.
But there has long been strong opposition to the move from China and Japan.

But a number of factors have changed the arithmetic.
Experts say the critical factor has been a shift in South American nations, who've come to understand that sharks are more valuable alive than dead.
"They've come to realise, particularly for those with hammerhead stocks, the tourist value of these species and the long term future that will be protected by a Cites listing," said Dr Colman O'Criodain from WWF International.

• The oceanic whitetip was once a widespread large shark species, but its numbers show a drastic decline. It appears as bycatch in pelagic (open sea) fisheries, but its large fins are highly prized, used in shark's fin soup and in traditional medicine

• Hammerhead sharks are known for their distinctive head shape which may have evolved in part to enhance vision. The great and scalloped varieties are endangered; the smooth hammerhead is considered vulnerable. All have been given added protection

• Porbeagles are found in cold and temperate waters of the North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere. Targeted commercial fishing and unintentional catches pose the biggest threat to this shark, which has a low reproductive rate

Thousands of sharks fins are laid out on roofs in Hong Kong for airing and sorting.

(see video)

Regulate, not ban

While the vote to upgrade these shark species to Appendix 2 does not ban the trade, it regulates it. Both exporting and importing countries must issue licences.
If a nation takes too many of these species, they can be hit with sanctions on the range of animal and plant products that are governed by Cites.

As the votes went on there were smatterings of applause in the hall and some high fives among campaigners.
"It is really significant for Cites to come of age like this," Dr Susan Lieberman told BBC News.
"To say we can deal with these species, we can manage the international trade and lets not be afraid of marine species."

Fin from alexhofford

The extension of the authority of Cites into the international trade in fish has long worried China and Japan and the Asian nations were strongly against these proposals.
But many West African countries, who have seen their native shark fisheries destroyed by large offshore operations, voted in favour of the restrictions.

Another factor was money.
Especially cash from the European Union.
The head of delegation told the meeting that extra money would be made available to help poorer countries change their fishing practices.
"If there's a need for it the funding will be available," Feargal O'Coigligh told the meeting.

The amendments can still be overturned in the final session of this meeting.
And this realisation is tempering the celebrations.
"Cites is ready to come of age for marine species, " said Dr O'Criodain.
"As long as we hold these results in plenary. Maybe warm champagne is the right note."

Links :

• The Guardian : Five shark species win protection against finning trade
• YouTube : Shark and Ray Day at CITES meeting 
• Dalhousie Univ : Unsustainable fishing: Dal researchers on the global shark decline
  100 million sharks killed each year

Scientists raise concerns over tsunami debris carrying invasive species

Ocean debris believed to be from Japan is posed for a photograph on Long Beach in Tofino, B.C., April, 18, 2012. The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward

From RedOrbit

Two years after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, researchers in the US and Canada are concerned about the possible damage that could be caused by invasive species that have found their way to North America on debris resulting from the 2011 disaster.

According to UPI, experts in the northwest US and Canada are having difficulty determining whether or not marine life washing ashore on the debris will be a threat to the environment and/or living things native to the region – or for how long they could pose a threat.

“Ecologists have a terrible track record of predicting what introduced species will survive and where. But once things are here, they are a threat,” John Chapman, an invasive species expert working at the Oregon State University (OSU) Hatfield Marine Science Center, told Lori Tobias of The Oregonian on Thursday. “They could explode at any time. It’s just like roulette. Each time something lands here, we pull the trigger. We’re getting more and more every year.”

In this photo released by NOAA, a boat lost in the Japanese tsunami of 2011 sits onshore on a remote Canadian island. The boat was discovered Aug. 9, 2012.
Credit : Kevin Head

Chapman and his OSU colleagues have been tracking and studying the debris since shortly after it began arriving on nearby beaches. That includes a dock that arrived on Agate Beach in Lincoln County, Oregon last summer following roughly 450 days adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Chapman explained the debris and the organisms they have found living on it have been extremely unpredictable.

“It’s been a constant surprise,” he told The Oregonian. “There was a huge diversity of organisms. There are multiple generations. They were carrying on with life like fleas on a dog’s back. The other thing that was maybe even a bigger surprise is that lots of things settled on the debris after the tsunami. We know that because it was on top of the things that were there at the time of the tsunami.”

Source : LiveScience

For now, Chapman and his colleagues have to measure the debris as it washes in, keeping careful track of the types of species they harbor. He called it a “giant… terrible experiment that should have never happened,” adding, “I can’t see the dock and debris and know what happened in Japan and not feel an enormous amount of responsibility for pulling everything good out of it I possibly can.”

Experts in Canada are faced with a similar situation, according to CTV British Columbia reports published Saturday.

“Items like home cleaning supplies and kids’ toys are now littering West Coast shorelines,” they explained. However it is the “small organisms attached to the debris” that are concerning scientists. “Foreign plants and animals could devastate local ecosystems, researchers say, and as coastal communities… start to see more debris there is growing concern they won’t be able to clean it up fast enough.”

This floating dock washed ashore near Newport. Ore. on June 5

with Wakame, a known invasive seaweed, exotic mussels (Mytilus edulis or M. galloprovicialis) and barnacles clinging to the "tsunami dock"

Dolf DeJong, vice president of conservation and education at the Vancouver Aquarium, told reporters invasive species were “a legitimate threat” to the province’s ecosystem.

DeJong warned, depending on exactly which organisms managed to survive and how many there are on any given piece of debris, they could adversely impact the region’s biodiversity, damage the oceans, and even have a negative fiscal influence by harming populations of economically-important life forms like shellfish.

“Canadian researchers say they haven’t had the chance to study the problem as closely because they haven’t had access to such a large item with so many organisms on it,” CTV said, adding that DeJong is urging anyone who spots a foreign object that has washed ashore to contact the aquarium or another expert so they “can determine whether it harbors invasive species.”

Links : 

• HuffingtonPost :  Japan tsunami debris spreads in U.S. 2 years after earthquake
• LifeScience : 2 years on, Japan tsunami debris still washing ashore
• NOAA : Marine debris

Amazing orca dolphins leap from the water

An enthused Steve Backshall watches from his canoe as Orca Dolphins jump and dive in the sea infront of him off the Canadian coast - a process known as breaching.

Midway : message from the Gyre

MIDWAY : trailer : a film by Chris Jordan from Midway

The MIDWAY film project is a powerful visual journey into the heart of an astonishingly symbolic environmental tragedy.

On one of the remotest islands on our planet, tens of thousands of baby albatrosses lie dead on the ground, their bodies filled with plastic from the Pacific Garbage Patch.

Returning to the island over several years, our team is witnessing the cycles of life and death of these birds as a multi-layered metaphor for our times.

With photographer Chris Jordan as our guide, we walk through the fire of horror and grief, facing the immensity of this tragedy—and our own complicity—head on.

And in this process, we find an unexpected route to a transformational experience of beauty, acceptance, and understanding.
We frame our story in the vividly gorgeous language of state-of-the-art high-definition digital cinematography, surrounded by millions of live birds in one of the world’s most beautiful natural sanctuaries.

The viewer will experience stunning juxtapositions of beauty and horror, destruction and renewal, grief and joy, birth and death, coming out the other side with their heart broken open and their worldview shifted.

Stepping outside the stylistic templates of traditional environmental or documentary films, MIDWAY will take viewers on a guided tour into the depths of their own spirits, delivering a profound message of reverence and love that is already reaching an audience of tens of millions of people around the world.

Links :

• Midway blog / Facebook / Twitter
  

What are the seven seas ?

A map of the world from 1733 (Mappemonde de M. de L'Isle)
Different cultures have had different meanings for the 'Seven Seas.'

From LiveSciences

The phrase "sail the Seven Seas" has had different meanings to different people at different times in history.
The term "Seven Seas" is mentioned by ancient Hindus, Chinese, Persians, Romans and other cultures.
The term historically referred to bodies of water along trade routes and regional waters; although in some cases the seas are mythical and not actual bodies of water.

The term "Seven Seas" has evolved to become a figurative term to describe a sailor who has navigated all the seas and oceans of the world, and not literally seven.

Why 'seven'?

The number seven has a great deal of historical, cultural and religious significance: lucky number seven, seven hills of Rome, seven days of the week, seven wonders of the world, seven dwarves, seven days of creation, seven Chakras, seven ages of man, seven deadly sins and seven virtues — just to name a few.

The term "Seven Seas" can be traced to ancient Sumer in 2300 B.C., where it was used in a hymn by Sumerian high priestess Enheduanna to Inanna, the goddess of sexual love, fertility and warfare.

To the Persians, the Seven Seas were the streams forming the Oxus River, the ancient name for the Amu Darya, one of the longest rivers in Central Asia.
It rises in the Pamir Mountains and flows northwest through the Hindu Kush and across Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to the Aral Sea.

 Early woodcut map of the modern world, published in Laurent Fries' Ptolemy's 'Geographia' 1522 in Strassburg or in Fries's reissue of 1525.

To the ancient Romans, the septem maria, Latin for Seven Seas, referred to a group of salt-water lagoons separated from the open sea by sandbanks near Venice.
This was documented by Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and fleet commander.

The ancient Arabs defined the Seven Seas as the ones they sailed on voyages along their trading routes with the East.
They were the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Khambhat, the Bay of Bengal, the Strait of Malacca, the Singapore Strait, the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea.

The Phoenicians were expert sea traders and their sailors set out to in search of markets and raw materials.
Their Seven Seas — Alboran, Balearic, Ligurian, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Adriatic and Aegean — were all part of the Mediterranean.

The Greeks and Romans gave rise to the medieval definition of the Seven Seas.
During this time, references to the Seven Seas meant the Adriatic Sea; the Mediterranean Sea (including the Aegean Sea);  the Black Sea; the Caspian Sea; the Persian Gulf; the Arabian Sea (which is part of the Indian Ocean); and the Red Sea, including the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.

 Planisphere M. Bonne 1780

During the Age of Discovery (1450-1650), after Europeans began exploring North America, the definition of the Seven Seas changed again.
Mariners then referred to the Seven Seas as the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Other geographers identify the Seven Seas at that time as the Mediterranean and Red seas, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, China Sea, and the West and East African seas.

The Colonial era, which saw the tea trade sailing from China to England, gave rise to another description of the Seven Seas: the Banda Sea, the Celebes Sea, the Flores Sea, the Java Sea, the South China Sea, the Sulu Sea and the Timor Sea.
Their expression "sailed the Seven Seas" meant sailing to the other side of the world and back.

 Orbis Terrarum, Visscher, Nicolaas J. 1670

Modern Seven Seas

The modern list of the Seven Seas that is most widely accepted by geographers actually lists the oceans:

• North Atlantic Ocean: the portion of the Atlantic Ocean that lies primarily between North America and the northeast coast of South America to the east, and Europe and the northwest coast of Africa to the west.
• South Atlantic Ocean: the southern section of the Atlantic Ocean, extending southward from the equator to Antarctica.
• North Pacific Ocean: the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, extending from the equator to the Arctic Ocean.
• South Pacific Ocean: the lower segment of the Pacific Ocean, reaching southward from the equator to Antarctica.
• Arctic Ocean: the smallest of the Seven Seas, it surrounds the North Pole.
• Southern Ocean: also known as the Antarctic Ocean, it consists of the southern portions of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans and their tributary seas. It is the newest ocean, being designated by the International Hydrographic Organizationin 2000.
• Indian Ocean: stretches for more than 6,200 miles (10,000 km) between the southern tips of Africa and Australia.