i * China faces environmental challenges * Ozone layer faces loss * China's battle against desertification * Chenobyl - 24 years on * Greenland ice sheet safer than scientists previously thought * China battles desertification * Biodiversity talks * Pepsi takes fight with Coca~Cola to the potato fields * 1 in 5 plant species facing extinction * Human impact on world's rivers * Coal ash pollution in China * Mississippi brimming with dead fish * Water &N Life return to Iraq * Climategate - the need for openness * Britaina as 'dirty man of Europe' * BP accused of killing endangered sea turtles * The changing face of China's coal industry * Chinese protesters confront police over incinerator plans * De-forestation on Sumatra * Australian town's bottled water ban * The Last Nomads * UK woodlands tackle climate change * Chinese legislature passes first climate change resolution * Climate change - natural disasters in UK * Time-line for Copenhagen * Climate change threat to Pacific Islanders * Supermaket supplies helping to destoy Amazon rainforest * Greenland ice could fuel US sea level rise * Yellow River erosion * The Scilly Isles & global warming * The Prince of Wales in the Galapagos Islands * Amazon rainforest at risk of ecological catastrophe *
References on Environmental issues
China faces severe environment challenges 06-03-2011
China still faces grave environmental challenges ahead, despite some progress being achieved in 2010.
The State Council's information office has issued a report on China's
environmental situation over the last year. Officials say environmental
quality has partially improved, but on the whole the problems are
pressing. Acid rain, agricultural pollution, a deteriorating ecological
system and surface water pollution are some of the major concerns.
In the meantime some environment protection projects have met or even
exceeded their targets, such as the reduction of sulfur dioxide with
emissions falling 14 percent compared to 2005. However as China starts
its 12th Five Year Plan this year, it will be under growing pressure to
solve multiple problems.
The State Council's information office has
issued a report on China's environmental situation over the last year.
Officials say environmental quality has partially improved, but on the
whole the problems are pressing.
AP Britain's Prince Harry tries out an immersion suit, during training for the Walking with the Wounded
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press John Heilprin, Associated Press
Tue Apr 5, 5:47 am ET
GENEVA The depletion of the ozone layer shielding
Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays has reached an unprecedented low
over the Arctic this spring because of harmful chemicals and a cold
winter, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday.
The Earth's fragile ozone layer in the Arctic region
has suffered a loss of about 40 percent from the start of winter until
late March, exceeding the previous seasonal loss of about 30 percent,
the World Meteorological Organization said.
The Geneva-based agency blamed the loss on a buildup
of ozone-eating chemicals once widely used as coolants and fire
retardants in a variety of appliances and on very cold temperatures in
the stratosphere, the second major layer of the Earth's atmosphere, just
above the troposphere.
Arctic ozone conditions vary more than the seasonal
ozone "hole" that forms high in the stratosphere near the South Pole
each winter and spring, and the temperatures are always warmer than over
Antarctica.
Because of changing weather and temperatures some
Arctic winters experience almost no ozone loss while others with
exceptionally cold stratospheric conditions can occasionally lead to
substantial ozone depletion, U.N. scientists say.
This year the Arctic winter was warmer than average
at ground level, but colder in the stratosphere than normal Arctic
winters. U.N. officials say the latest losses unprecedented, but not
entirely unexpected were detected in observations from the ground and
from balloons and satellites over the Arctic.
Atmospheric scientists who are concerned about global
warming focus on the Arctic because that is a region where the effects
are expected to be felt first.
Ozone scientists have said that significant Arctic
ozone depletion is possible in the case of a cold and stable Arctic
stratospheric winter. Ozone losses occur over the polar regions when
temperatures drop below -78 degrees Celsius (-108 Fahrenheit), when
clouds form in the stratosphere.
Average temperatures in January range from about -40
to 0 C (-40 to 32 F), while average temperatures in July range from
about -10 to 10 C (14 to 50 F).
"The Arctic stratosphere continues to be vulnerable
to ozone destruction caused by ozone-depleting substances linked to
human activities," said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud. "The
degree of ozone loss experienced in any particular winter depends on the
meteorological conditions."
The loss comes despite the U.N. ozone treaty, known
as the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which has resulted in cutbacks in
ozone-damaging chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons, halons and other,
that were used in the making of refrigerators, air conditioners, fire
extinguishers and even hairspray.
The 196-nation ozone treaty encourages industries to
use replacement chemicals less damaging to ozone, the atmospheric layer
that helps protect against the sun's most harmful rays.
But because these compounds have long atmospheric
lifetimes, it takes decades for their concentrations to subside to
pre-1980 levels as was agreed in the Montreal Protocol.
U.N. officials project the ozone layer outside the polar regions will recover to pre-1980 levels sometime between 2030 and 2040.
China's battle against desertification but has long fight ahead
Expert warns it could take 300 years to recover desert land resulting from over-cultivation and water demands
A child on a sand dune in Waixi, Gansu province, China, where
desert is overtaking farmland. Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP
China
has gained a sliver of ground in its ancient battle against the desert
sands, the government announced today, though it warned another 300
years may be needed to solve "the most serious ecological problem facing
the country".
A survey showed more than a quarter of China's land
remained either degraded or lost to sand and gravel due to a
combination of a naturally dry climate, centuries of over-cultivation
and decades of excessive demand on water and soil from the world's biggest population and fastest growing economy.
Unveiling the results, state forestry officials said desertification had been stabilised, but recovery efforts would have to be stepped up.
Despite
the world's biggest tree-planting campaign, the relocation of millions
of "eco-migrants" and restrictions on herding and farming, the report
noted the "desertification trend has not fundamentally reversed".
There
were small signs of improvement. In the five years to 2010, the authors
estimated the area of desert had shrunk by an annual average of 1,717
square kilometres. This was 40% better than the results from 2000-05,
the first in China's history to ever show a gain.
But 1.7m square
kilometres - more than six times the area of the UK - is still covered
in sand dunes or gobi gravel desert. An even wider swathe of land is
plagued by wind and water erosion or salination.
The report said
desertification continued to pose a "serious hidden danger" to China's
security and its capacity for economic development.
The government
estimates that 530,000 square kilometres can be restored through
afforestation, protection and natural regeneration. But the time needed
for such an undertaking makes the Long March look like a weekend stroll.
"We've
made progress, but we face a daunting challenge," said Liu Tuo, head of
the desertification control office in the state forestry
administration. "It may take China 300 years."
To accelerate the
process, senior officials said anti-desertification spending would be
beefed up to 200bn yuan (ฃ19.4bn) over the next decade.
But there
are major obstacles. In a few areas, such as mountainous north-west
Sichuan, deserts continue to expand because local officials ignore
restrictions on land reclamation and water use.
Zhu Lieke, deputy head of the state forestry administration, said climate change was another growing concern.
"The
frequent occurrence of extreme meteorological disasters, such as
prolonged drought, has increased the vulnerability of the land to
desertification," he said, citing climate simulations that project a 17%
increase in desert areas with each 1 degree rise in temperature.
Tibet,
Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia remain badly affected, partly
because they are at a high elevation and more vulnerable to rising
global temperatures, glacier melt, retreating snowlines and water
shortages.
"We cannot be optimistic about the desertification
situation on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau," said Zhu. "Of all the
challenges Tibet faces, the biggest is climate change."
The
government has controversially moved hundreds of thousands of nomadic
herders off degraded grasslands in the past 10 years. Tibetan critics
are suspicious that this is being done to clear land for development or
resource extraction. Many environmentalists also question whether it is a
mistake to put too much of the blame on overgrazing.
"The grass
doesn't grow well without animals so herding limits may not be the best
solution," said Wang Yongchen, an environmental activist who has seen
the impact on annual visits to the plateau. "Our government is making a
big effort to deal with ecological problems, but management and
artificial steps alone cannot cope with the consequences of climate
change."
Whatever actions the authorities take, it is unlikely
that they can ever completely deal with desertification and its
consequences.
The dust storms which blew in to Beijing from the
Gobi have become rarer in recent years because of government efforts to
encourage vegetation - which prevents the soil from being picked up by
the wind - in surrounding regions.
"The
sandstorms are a natural disaster like typhoons or earthquakes. We can
try to control the source, but we cannot eradicate them altogether,"
said Liu.
He said China has the world's worst desertification
problem because it has to meet the demands of such a huge population.
Finding a balance is the government's stated goal, but it remains
elusive.
This article was amended on 12 January 2011. The
original said that 1.7m hectares - more than six times the area of the
UK - is still covered in sand dunes or gobi gravel desert. This has been
corrected.
Chernobyl - 24 years on
By John Hall Tuesday, 27 April 2010
image: GETTY
A ferris wheel and carousel abandoned in
the amusement park in the ghost town of Prypyat, adjacent to the
Chernobyl nuclear plant.
24 years ago today, the world woke
up to news of the Chernobyl disaster - the worst nuclear power plant
accident in history. Our photo essay looks back at the event and its
devastating consequences.
Melting ice sheet in Greenland. Photograph: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
The threat of the Greenland ice sheet slipping ever faster into the sea because of warmer summers has been ruled out by a scientific study.
Until now, it was thought that increased melting could lubricate the ice sheet, causing it to sink ever faster into the sea. The issue was a key unknown in the landmark 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which pinned the blame for climate change firmly on greenhouse gas emissions from human
activities.
However,
the impact of rising sea temperatures on melting ice sheets is still
uncertain, meaning it remains difficult to put an upper limit on potential sea level rises.
Understanding the risk is crucial because about 70% of the world's
population live in coastal regions, which host many of the world's
biggest cities, such as London, New York and Bangkok.
Shepherd's team used satellite imagery to track the progress of the west Greenland ice sheet as it slipped towards the sea each summer, over five years.
Researchers
had feared that more melting from the surface of the ice in hotter
years would in turn provide more meltwater for a slippery film at the
sheet's base. More melting would mean more slippage and a greater rise in the sea level.
But
they discovered that, above a certain threshold, the slipping began to
slow. On-the-ground studies and work done on alpine glaciers suggest
that higher volumes of meltwater form distinct channels under the ice,
draining the water more efficiently and reducing the formation of a
lubricating film.
The Greenland ice sheet studied by Shepherd's
team is up to 1,000m (3,280ft) thick. If the entire ice sheet melted,
sea levels would rise by a catastrophic seven metres, but this is likely
to take 3,000 years if warm air blowing over the ice is the only way in
which the ice melts.
Shepherd said most of the Greenland ice cap
was on land and not in contact with the sea, unlike the west Antarctic
ice sheet. That ice sheet contains enough water to push up sea level by
six metres if it all melted.
He said the next scientific question to answer was whether warmer oceans would erode the edges of ice caps, causing them to fall rapidly into the ocean. "The real threat now is from the oceans melting the west Antarctic ice sheet, which is 3km-4km thick, of which 1km-2km is below sea level."
Shepherd
said his work was helping to reduce uncertainties about the
consequences of climate change. Asked if he thought his work suggested
the wider risks of global warming could be discounted, he said: "Not at
all."
China makes gain in battle against desertification but has long fight ahead
Expert warns it could take 300 years to recover desert land resulting from over-cultivation and water demands
A child on a sand dune in Waixi, Gansu province, China, where desert is overtaking farmland. Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP
China
has gained a sliver of ground in its ancient battle against the desert
sands, the government announced today, though it warned another 300
years may be needed to solve "the most serious ecological problem facing
the country".
A survey showed more than a quarter of China's land remained either
degraded or lost to sand and gravel due to a combination of a naturally
dry climate, centuries of over-cultivation and decades of excessive
demand on water and soil from the world's biggest population and fastest growing economy.
Unveiling the results, state forestry officials said desertification had been stabilised, but recovery efforts would have to be stepped up.
Despite the world's biggest tree-planting campaign, the
relocation of millions of "eco-migrants" and restrictions on herding and
farming, the report noted the "desertification trend has not
fundamentally reversed".
There were small signs of improvement. In the five years to 2010,
the authors estimated the area of desert had shrunk by an annual average
of 1,717 square kilometres. This was 40% better than the results from
2000-05, the first in China's history to ever show a gain.
But 1.7m hectares - more than six times the area of the UK - is
still covered in sand dunes or gobi gravel desert. An even wider swathe
of land is plagued by wind and water erosion or salination.
The report said desertification continued to pose a "serious hidden
danger" to China's security and its capacity for economic development.
The government estimates that 530,000 square kilometres can be
restored through afforestation, protection and natural regeneration. But
the time needed for such an undertaking makes the Long March look like a
weekend stroll.
"We've made progress, but we face a daunting challenge," said Liu
Tuo, head of the desertification control office in the state forestry
administration. "It may take China 300 years."
To accelerate the process, senior officials said
anti-desertification spending would be beefed up to 200bn yuan (ฃ19.4bn)
over the next decade.
But there are major obstacles. In a few areas, such as mountainous
north-west Sichuan, deserts continue to expand because local officials
ignore restrictions on land reclamation and water use.
Zhu Lieke, deputy head of the state forestry administration, said climate change was another growing concern.
"The frequent occurrence of extreme meteorological disasters,
such as prolonged drought, has increased the vulnerability of the land
to desertification," he said, citing climate simulations that project a
17% increase in desert areas with each 1 degree rise in temperature.
Tibet,
Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia remain badly affected, partly
because they are at a high elevation and more vulnerable to rising
global temperatures, glacier melt, retreating snowlines and water
shortages.
"We cannot be optimistic about the desertification situation on
the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau," said Zhu. "Of all the challenges Tibet
faces, the biggest is climate change."
The government has controversially moved hundreds of thousands of
nomadic herders off degraded grasslands in the past 10 years. Tibetan
critics are suspicious that this is being done to clear land for
development or resource extraction. Many environmentalists also question
whether it is a mistake to put too much of the blame on overgrazing.
"The grass doesn't grow well without animals so herding limits may
not be the best solution," said Wang Yongchen, an environmental activist
who has seen the impact on annual visits to the plateau. "Our
government is making a big effort to deal with ecological problems, but
management and artificial steps alone cannot cope with the consequences
of climate change."
Whatever actions the authorities take, it is unlikely that they can
ever completely deal with desertification and its consequences.
The dust storms which blew in to Beijing from the Gobi have become
rarer in recent years because of government efforts to encourage
vegetation - which prevents the soil from being picked up by the wind -
in surrounding regions.
"The sandstorms are a natural disaster like typhoons or
earthquakes. We can try to control the source, but we cannot eradicate
them altogether," said Liu.
He said China has the world's worst desertification problem because
it has to meet the demands of such a huge population. Finding a balance
is the government's stated goal, but it remains elusive.
Biodiversity talks: Ministers in Nagoya adopt new strategy
Chair of the UN biodiversity talks gavelled into effect a set of targets for 2020 to at least halve the loss of natural habitats
Ministers at the UN conference on biodiversity in Nagoya have set targets for 2020. Photograph: AP
Environment ministers from almost 200 nations agreed late tonight to adopt a new United Nations strategy that aims to stem the worst loss of life on earth since the demise of the dinosaurs.
With a typhoon looming outside and cheering inside the Nagoya conference hall, the Japanese chair of the UN biodiversity
talks gavelled into effect the Aichi Targets, set to at least halve the
loss of natural habitats and expand nature reserves to 17% of the
world's land area by 2020 up from less than 10% today.
Fish and other aquatic life should be provided with greater
refuge, under the Aichi Targets as the plan is named, after the
region around Nagoya which including a widening of marine protected
zones to 10 per cent of the world's seas, an increase from barely 1 per
cent today.
Frantic late-night negotiations also saw the UN's COP10
biodiversity conference adopt a new treaty, the Nagoya Protocol, to
manage the world's genetic resources and share the multibillion-dollar
benefits with developing nations and indigenous communities.
Despite concerns that targets are inadequately funded and not
sufficiently ambitiousto reverse the decline of habitats and species,
most organisers, delegates and NGOs expressed there was relief that
negotiations had avoided the friction and fracture of last year's
climate talks in Copenhagen. "This is a day to celebrate in terms of a
new and innovative response to the alarming loss of biodiversity and
ecosystems," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme.
"It is an important moment for the United Nations and the
ability of countries to put aside the narrow differences that all too
often divide in favour of the broader, shared issues that can united
peoples and nations."
Under the Aichi Targets, all signatories to the UN Convention on
Biodiversity,are supposed to draw up national biodiversity plans.
Together, their voluntary actions are supposed to halt over-fishing,
control invasive species, reduce pollution minimise the pressure on
coral reefs from ocean acidification, and halt the loss of genetic
diversity in agricultural ecosystems.
Perhaps the most remarkable breakthrough, was the adoption of the
Nagoya Protocol which lays down ground rules on how nations should
cooperate in accessing and sharing the benefits of genetic resources
including plants, fungi and pathogens.
Governments have been discussing this subject for 18 years, but it
has been held up until now because it ran across issues of trade,
health, traditional medicine and science and pitted multinational
pharmaceutical companies against indigenous communities.
Tthe Nagoya Protocol, will see governments considering ways to
provide recompense for genetic material and traditional medical
knowledge collected in the past that is now being used, patented and
sold. This is likely to be done through a special fund for developing
nations that could be used for conservation or scientific research
centres.
The protocol will come into effect in 2020 and needs to be
ratified by signatory nations. Several delegates, including those from
Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela, expressed unease that the protocol
inadequately safeguarded the benefits due to developing nations, but
said they would not stand in the way of a consensus.
Another area of frustration was financing. The conference did not
specify how much money would be provided to achieve its goals to save
habitats and species. Instead governments agreed to draw up a funding
plan, with sums, baselines and other details, by 2012.
The host country, Japan, has pledged $2bn this week for
biodiversity while the UK and France have earmarked smaller sums for
related projects. However, most developed countries were unable to
pledge major funding. Conservation groups said it was vital that
significant extra finance was put in place to halt the demise of nature.
"We were disappointed that most rich countries came to Nagoya with
empty pockets unable or unwilling to provide the resources that will
make it possible for the developing world to implement their ambitious
targets." said Jim Leape, director general of WWF International.
But Leape welcomed the overall deal. "This agreement reaffirms
the fundamental need to conserve nature as the very foundation of our
economy and our society. Governments have sent a strong message that
protecting the health of the planet has a place in international
politics and countries are ready to join forces to save life on Earth."
Other groups emphasized that implementation was the key.
"Participants may be leaving Nagoya this Friday but they still need to
be working to save life on this planet from Monday morning," said
IUCN's Director of Conservation Policy, Jane Smart. "There is a
momentum here which we cannot afford to lose in fact we have to build
on it if we stand any chance of success in halting the extinction
crisis." In earlier reports the IUCN noted that a fifth of the world's
vertebrates are under threat and the die-off of all species is at a
level not seen in 65 million years.
Pepsi takes fight with Coca-Cola into potato fields
PepsiCo,
the parent company of Walkers crisps, is Britain's biggest crisp maker,
buying more than 350,000 tonnes of potatoes a year
The consumer war waged between Pepsi and Coke takes a new twist in Britain today with PepsiCo pledging to reduce the carbon emissions and water consumption of its UK operations by an ambitious 50% in five years, in the process leapfrogging Coca-Cola's plan to improve its ecological efficiency by a similar amount.
PepsiCo, the $60bn-a-year parent company of Walkers
crisps, Quaker Oats, and Tropicana fruit juices, is Britain's biggest
crisp maker, buying more than 350,000 tonnes of potatoes a year.
The group says it will now replace the three varieties of potato it grows in Britain with types that need less water in production and which store better.
The 350 farms which cultivate the corporation's
potatoes will also switch to low-carbon fertilisers and use more
precise irrigation. Instead of applying about 10 tonnes of water in the
field, to grow one tonne of potatoes in dry areas, after 2015 the farms
will use about five tonnes.
"These are ambitious but achievable targets," said
David Wilkinson, PepsiCo's agriculture director for Europe, "Britain is
a testbed. If it goes well we will be able to use these methods
worldwide."
Pepsi and Coke, which sell their products in almost
every country in the world and are two of the best known global brands,
have long fought each other over taste, price, sugar content and market
distribution. Each has been criticised by communities, courts, and
developing countries, for depleting water supplies in drought-prone
areas and for allegedly poisoning water with pesticides. A massive
movement has now emerged in India to hold multinational companies
accountable for their water use. The state of Kerala in India banned
the sale and production of Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Fanta, and other soft
drinks made by the firms' local subsidiaries.
The Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva
has calculated that it takes nine litres of clean water to manufacture
a litre of Coke, though Coca-Cola says the correct figure is 3.12
litres on average.
Research has shown both companies that most of
the water they consume is used for growing ingredients rather than in
the manufacturing process itself.
"The food
industry is starting to recognise that a large part of its focus must
be on the agricultural supply chain. PepsiCo has taken a leadership
role in recognising that it is, at its heart, an agricultural business.
The focus of the business on improving its key environmental impacts
is most welcome," said Richard Perkins, commodities adviser at WWF
One in five plant species face extinction
First ever comprehensive study of plants, from giant rainforests to common snowdrops, finds 22% of all species at risk
Juliette Jowit 29.09.2010. guardian.co.uk,
The tree tumbo which is found in the African desert and can live to
more than 1,000 years old is one of the species identified as
at-risk. Photograph: Andrew Mcrobb/PA
One in five of the world's plant species the
basis of all life on earth are at risk of extinction, according to a
landmark study published today.
At first glance, the 20% figure looks far better
than the previous official estimate of almost three-quarters, but the
announcement is being greeted with deep concern.
The previous estimate that 70% of plants
were either critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable was based
on what scientists universally acknowledged were studies heavily biased
towards species already thought to be under threat.
Today the first ever comprehensive assessment of
plants, from giant tropical rainforests to the rarest of delicate
orchids, concludes the real figure is at least 22%. It could well be
higher because hundreds of species being discovered by scientists each
year are likely to be in the "at risk" category.
"We think this is a conservative estimate," said
Eimear Nic Lughadha, one of the scientists at Kew Gardens in west
London responsible for the project.
The plant study is also considered critical to understanding the level of threat to all the natural world's biodiversity, said Craig Hilton-Taylor of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which runs the world's offical "red list"
of threatened species. "Plants are the basis of life, and unless we
know what's happening to plants it has many implications," said
Hilton-Taylor.
"This is a base point," said Lughadha.
"What we do from now is going to lead to the future of plants. We need
to challenge the idea that plants are there to be exploited by us, we
need to move to a system where we're nurturing plants much more
carefully [and] actively taking steps to conserve them."
Politicians and conservation experts will also be
told that by far the biggest threat to plants is human rather than
natural causes, especially intensive agriculture, livestock grazing,
logging and infrastructure development.
Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary,
who will travel to Japan for the final talks, said the results were
deeply troubling. She added: "Plant life is vital to our very
existence, providing us with food, water, medicines, and the ability to
mitigate and adapt to climate change."
Scientists randomly selected 7,000 species from across the major plant groups as a representative sample of the estimated 380,000-400,000 so far known to science.
Of these, 3,000 were found to have too little information to begin
making an proper assessment a result that was expected and so built
into the selection process.
The remaining 4,000 species were
assessed and the level or risk based on a combination of the absolute
number of plants estimated in the wild, the known decline, and the
total area in which they are thought to live.
Of the 4,000, 63% were found to be of "least
concern", 10% near threatened, 11% vulnerable, 7% endangered and 4%
critically endangered. Another 5% were rated "data deficient".
The proportion of plant species deemed at-risk is
similar to that of the IUCN's red list for mammals, worse than that for
birds (less than 10% at-risk) and better than the number for amphibians
(more than a quarter under threat).
Nearly two-thirds of threatened plant species are
found in tropical rainforests, five times the proportion for the
nearest other habitats rocky areas, temperate forests and tropical
dry forests. This is because of their huge density of biodiversity and
the widespread risks of logging and clearance for other agriculture,
said analysts.
Previously the red list for plants contained
assessments for a greater number of plants about 12,873 or 3% of
known species but was not considered representative because
scientists had focused on at-risk species so that they could get
attention and funding for conservation.
The assessment was done using experts and collections at the herbaria at Kew Gardens, the Natural History Museum in London and Missouri Botanical Garden in the US, plus specialist experts from the IUCN.
From pines to snowdrops to rosewood six of the endangered plants
Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) critically endangered
The wollemi pine was discovered in 1994 in Wollemi
National Park, Australia, and there fewer than 50 mature individuals
are known. Its long-term regeneration from seed is unknown but seems
doubtful due to competition with other trees. Its small size and
limited range means it is at risk from any chance event such as fire or
the spread of disease.
Common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) near threatened
The common snowdrop was once widely distributed in
the east Carpathian mountains in central and eastern Europe. Although
it is widely naturalised, including in the UK, during the past decade
its native distribution has been considerably reduced, due mainly to
habitat loss through the increase in residential developments and
recreational land use.
D. andapensis is a species of rosewood, a highly
valued timber sed in the production of fine furniture and musical
instruments. It is estimated that 52,000 tonnes of rosewood and ebony
were logged in north-east Madagascar in 2009, and this habitat is
itself under threat from conversion to agriculture for a growing rural
population.
Wood bitter-vetch (Vicia orobus) least concern
Wood bitter-vetch is a rare species found through
much of western Europe, including the British Isles, at woodland
margins, field edges and rocky places, often on limestone. In Ireland
it is considered to be threatened as a result of habitat loss, and is
being protected by the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland.
Whited's milkvetch is restricted to a tiny area of
the state of Washington, USA. Its dry hillside habitat is threatened by
invasive, non-native species, by grazing and by agriculture. Seeds have
been collected and banked by the Berry Botanic Garden Seed Bank for
Rare and Endangered Plants of the Pacific Northwest and the Miller Seed
Vault, University of Washington Botanic Gardens.
Encephalartos altensteinii vulnerable
E. altensteinii is found in coastal regions of the
eastern cape, South Africa, where the number of individuals has
declined by more than 30% in the past 50 years. Large numbers have been
removed from its native habitat, including 438 plants in one poaching
incident in 1995, mainly by horticultural collectors for pot plants or
medicinal use.
Human impact on world's rivers 'threatens water security of 5 billion'
Study on effect of all human intervention on water supplies finds water security and biodiversity severely damaged
Chemical waste water is discharged into the Yangtze river Photograph: Lu Guang/Greenpeace
Nearly 80% of the world's rivers are so badly affected by humanity's footprint that the water security of almost 5 billion people, and the survival of thousands of aquatic species, are threatened, scientists warned today.
The global study
put together by institutions across the globe is the first to
simultaneously look at all types of human intervention from dams and
reservoirs to irrigation and pollution
on freshwater. It paints a devastating picture of a world whose
rivers are in serious decline. While developing countries are suffering
from threats to both water security and biodiversity particularly in
Africa and central Asia the authors said they were surprised by the
level of threat posed to wildlife in rich countries.
"What made our jaws drop is that some of the highest threat levels
in the world are in the United States and Europe," says Prof Peter
McIntyre, one of the lead authors, who began work on the project as a
Smith Fellow at the University of Michigan. "Americans tend to think
water pollution problems are pretty well under control, but we still
face enormous challenges." Some of the worst threats to aquatic species
in the US are in the south-eastern states, including the Mississippi
river.
Prof Charles V๖r๖smarty of the City University of New York, lead
author and an expert on global water, said the impact on wildlife in
developed countries was the result of river systems that had been
heavily engineered and altered by man.
"With all the protection the EU has in place for waterways, it was
surprising to see it was a hotspot for biodiversity loss. But for a
long time Europeans have altered their landscapes, including the
removal of 90% of wetlands and floodplains, which are crucial parts of
river ecosystems," he said.
Published in the journal Nature today, the international team
behind the report looked at datasets to produce a map of how 23
different human influences such as dams, the introduction of alien
non-native fish and pollution affect water security and biodiversity.
Previous studies have tended to look at just one influence at a time.
Even the world's great rivers, such as the Yangtze, the Nile and
the Ganges, are suffering serious biodiversity and water security
stress, the map shows. Despite their size, more than 30 of the 47
largest rivers showed at least moderate threats to water security, due
to a range of human impacts such as pollution and extracting water for
irrigation.
Even the Amazon, which is considered to be relatively pristine,
still has human fingerprints on it, said V๖r๖smarty. "While the Amazon
is in generally good shape, in the upstream regions such as Peru, there
are many high density areas of people that inject threat into the
system. The legacy of that human threat passes downstream into the
remote forested areas of the river."
Globally, between 10,000 and 20,000 aquatic wildlife species are
at risk or face extinction because of the human degradation of global
rivers, the report said.
The world's least affected rivers, the authors found, were those
furthest from populated areas, such as remote parts of the tropics,
Siberia and elsewhere in the polar regions.
V๖r๖smarty said he hopes the report highlights the need to address
the root causes of the degradation of rivers. "We're spending trillions
of US dollars to fix a problem we've created in the first place. It's
much cheaper to treat the causes rather than the symptoms, which is
what we do in the developed world today," he said.
In the UK, rivers have been getting cleaner over the past decade. But a report by the UK's Environment Agency last year admitted
only five of 6,114 rivers in England and Wales are considered pristine
and three-quarters were so polluted they are likely to fail new
European quality standards.
Coal ash pollution in China
Environmental
group Greenpeace warns that China is producing toxic coal ash at an
alarming rate, destroying surrounding villages and agricultural land
Last
year, China consumed more than 3bn tonnes of coal - more than triple
the amount used by the United States. Chinese power stations generated
375m tonnes of coal ash, according to a Greenpeace report. This image shows Shentou number two power plant in Shuozhou, Shanxi province, its ash pond in the foreground Photograph: Zhao Gang/Greenpeace
Mississippi brimming with dead fish near Gulf of Mexico
Local residents spotted hundreds of thousands of dead fish
floating atop the Mississippi River late Friday evening near Bayou
Chaland in Plaquemines Parish, La., just north of the Gulf of Mexico, a
spot that has been affected by the BP oil spill, the Times Picayune
reported.
The river looked like a road paved with dead fish.
Local authorities have asked the Environmental Protection Agency
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help
investigate the cause of the fish kill, which included several
different fish species, as well as crabs, shrimp, freshwater eel and a
dolphin.
Water and life return to Iraq's 'Garden of Eden'
One of Saddam Hussein's
greatest acts of ecological destruction the draining of the
Mesopotamian marshes has been reversed as birds and rivers return to
the region
Iraq's marshes drained by Saddam in the 90s to punish rebellious marsh inhabitants are now thriving once more. Photograph: Korsh Ararat, Omar Fadil and Mudhafar Salim/Nature Iraq
Saddam Hussein's draining of the Mesopotamian marshes of Iraq
recorded as the Garden of Eden in the Bible - was one of the most
infamous outrages of his regime, leaving a vast area of once-teeming
river delta a dry, salt-encrusted desert, emptied of insects, birds and the people who lived on them.
But nearly two decades later the area is buzzing and
twittering with life again after local people and a new breed of Iraqi
conservationists have restored much of what was once the world's third
largest wetland to some of its former glory.
The story of this once almost impossible restoration is told in an
exhibition of photographs that has opened in the UK. They show the huge
expanses of reeds and open water now at least half the size of the
Florida Everglades where plants, insects and fish have returned,
creating a vast feeding area for migrating and breeding birds,
including the majestic Sacred Ibis, the endemic Basrah Reed Warbler and
the Iraq Babbler, along with most of the world's population of Marbled
Teal ducks, bee-eaters and many more.
"We call them stop-over sites, refuelling sites," said Richard
Porter, Middle East advisor for the conservation group Birdlife
International, who has helped train biologists and other experts for
the local Birdlife partner Nature Iraq.
"They are as important as the breeding and over-wintering grounds for
species; if you have got to make a journey from central Africa to
norther Europe and Asia, and you've got nothing to feed on, you're
stuffed."
The Mesopotamian marshes originally made up an area more than three times the size of Norfolk, where the exhibition is showing, in Holt.
It sprawled across thousands of square kilometres of floodplain where
the Euphrates and Tigris rivers divided into a network of tributaries
meandering and pulsating south to the Arabian sea. They were home to
more than 80 bird species, otters and long-fingered bats, and hundreds
of thousands of Marsh Arabs who grew rice and dates, raised water
buffalo, fished and built boats and homes from reeds.
In the early 1990s, this way of life came to an abrupt end
when Hussein ordered the marshes to be drained to punish the local
population for an uprising after his failed invasion of Kuwait, a
problem exacerbated by the continued construction of dams upstream.
He ordered the area to be hemmed in by constructing around 4,000km
of earthen walls that towered up to 7m above the unbroken flat
landscape. The wetlands retreated to as little as 5-10% of their
original size, according to a 2001 United Nations Environment Agency report.
After Hussein was toppled by American forces in 2003, Azzam
Alwash returned from his adopted home in the US to the area, where he
had lived for part of his childhood, and learned to hunt ducks with his
father while they inspected the irrigation ditches. Alwash found the
local people who had stayed had already begun to break up the walls
with shovels or earth diggers, and they have continued to do so. They
have destroyed up to 98% of the embankments, he told the Guardian, "not
because they are tree-huggers or bird-lovers, but because it's a source
of economic income to them, because they can harvest reeds and sell
them. They can fish and feed a family or sell them to earn extra
income."
Alwash, a civil engineer, set up Nature Iraq and has organised
training for graduates who help with monitoring work. "We take guards
with us with Kalashnikovs, but the most difficult part is the road
between [the capital] Baghdad to the marsh," said Alwash. "Once I'm
inside the marshes it's relatively safe."
About half the original marshland has been restored - even more
had been reinstated, but there was a setback last year because of a
drought. Nature Iraq has now drawn up a plan to cope with the
diminishing water flows from dams upstream in Turkey by channelling
irrigation water back into the rivers and building a barrage to retain
meltwater from the mountains and create a "mechanical flood" of water
to replicate the important pulses of freshwater that wash through the
marshlands every spring.
Alwash and his team are also trying to tackle the problem of local
poaching, although he has great sympathy with those who have few
alternative sources of income, and hopes the opening of a new oil
industry will help create jobs.
"We have done some work in trying to educate the lo
cals," he added. "We say: 'Go out and hunt but take less; make $10
today you don't have to make $20, and make $10 tomorrow'. We just
keep at it. You can't give up."
A scientist checks the effects of climate change on an Australian rainforest. Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images
"Like it or not, this [demand for openness] indicates a
transformation in the way science has to be conducted in this century."
That, say many, will be the lasting legacy of the independent review published last week into the controversial emails between climate scientists that were stolen from the University of East Anglia and posted online.
Scientists were cleared, as expected, of any fiddling of the figures
to exaggerate the case for global warming. But the review heavily
criticised them and the university for consistently blocking access to
data and failing to recognise the risk such secrecy posed to the
"credibility of UK climate science".
It is now possible to assess the damage. The scientific
evidence showing that the world is warming fast due to human actions
and presents a clear future danger remains untarnished. However, the
public's trust in that science has been scorched.
Professor Bob Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and former head of the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
said he wanted the report to "draw a line under this episode so that
the scientific community can begin to regain the trust of the public
and continue to do its vital work on climate change".
But if there was no great global warming conspiracy, why did
the leaking of the emails last November become such a PR disaster?
Climate scientists, such as Oxford University's Myles Allen, blame the
media: "What everyone has lost sight of is the spectacular failure of
mainstream journalism to keep the whole affair in perspective."
The review, led by Sir Muir Russell, does not mention the media.
Instead, it examines the reaction of the scientists at the UEA's
Climatic Research Unit (CRU) to the pressure exerted by bloggers: "An
important feature of the blogosphere is the extent to which it demands
openness and access to data. A failure to recognise this and to act
appropriately can lead to immense reputational damage by feeding
allegations of cover-up."
The review adds: "We found a lack of recognition of the extent to
which earlier action to release information might have minimised the
problems."
Pressure on the scientists, whose once esoteric work creating
records of past temperatures had gained global significance, was
intense. In 2005, CRU head Phil Jones replied to a request: "We have 25
or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available
to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" But,
the review implies, the more they blocked, the more the Freedom of
Information requests flooded in.
On the same day the Russell review was published, the Information
Commissioner's Office published a little-noticed notice stating that UEA had breached two FOI regulations
in relation to requests made in 2008. Professor Geoffrey Boulton, an
eminent earth scientist and Russell review panel member, said: "We have
to move science from a private enterprise to a public enterprise."
It was bad luck that the CRU scientists were singled out, said Dr James Lovelock,
originator of the Gaia hypothesis, adding that the group was among the
best in the world at climate science. But he said: "Science has to
start examining the way it works. This report compares peer review,
which is 'pure', with the blogosphere, which is 'impure' and there's
some truth in that, to be sure but the peer-review process can be
exceedingly prejudiced and exert censorship even."
Russell found the CRU scientists were innocent of subverting
the peer-review process, through which researchers recommend or reject
work for publication in a journal. The review acknowledges the language
in some emails could be thought to reflect "partial and aggressive"
behaviour, such as this from CRU's Keith Briffa: "Confidentially I now
need a hard and if required an extensive case for rejecting" a paper.
But, said Russell, "we think it more plausible that it reflects the
rough and tumble of interaction in an area of science that has become
heavily contested".
Arch-critic of CRU, blogger Steve McIntyre, was far from convinced.
In his opinion, "the only reasonably objective inquiry to date", which
criticised the behaviour of the CRU scientists, was that by Fred Pearce in The Guardian.The editor of the Lancet,
Dr Richard Horton, gave evidence to the inquiry on peer review. What
was at stake was far bigger than the climate change science being done
at CRU, he said.
"What Russell has identified is the beginning of a revolution
in the way science is being done," he said. "If scientists don't adapt
to this soon, the trust that the public and politicians put in science
will be jeopardised. The credibility of science itself is at stake."
Eiris review names Britain as 'dirty man of Europe'
Survey of Europe's top 300 companies reveals UK as worst offender in terms of corporate impact on global warming.
Protesters in New Orleans target BP over the oil spill from its
drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Mark
Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
Britain is being accused of being the "dirty man of Europe" after
new research showed that, of the world's top 300 companies, more than
half of those most engaged in carbon-polluting sectors were based in
the UK.
A review of Europe's top 300 companies by the ethical investment
consultant Eiris found that the greatest proportion of those with "very
high impact" in relation to global warming came from the UK, more than
double the number from any other country.
Of those companies in the top 300 dedicated to solving or mitigating the problems of climate change,
only 3% were located in Britain. Eiris's findings come at a time when
BP, one of the UK's best-known companies, has attracted bad publicity
worldwide over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
A spokesman for Eiris said that its review was "worrying from a
consumer point of view but also from an investment perspective". He
added: "It is particularly alarming for pension funds and other
long-term investors as climate change rises up the political agenda."
The greater exposure of UK plc to risk from climate change largely stems from the number of big oil and mining companies that dominate the FTSE 100 index in London.
Greenpeace said that the Eiris research was a "shameful"
indictment of the UK, which had failed to build up a low-carbon
business sector despite much political rhetoric.
Ben Stewart, a spokesman for the environmental campaign group,
said: "It seems Britain is still the dirty man of Europe. These figures
will shame the succession of ministers who promised Britain would be at
the forefront of developing clean tech.
"As things stand, our economy is poorly placed to benefit from
this century's inevitable shift to low-carbon industry, while Germany
looks well-positioned to gain from first-mover advantage."
Eiris estimates that 41% of the top 300 companies in Britain and
Europe have a significant impact on global warming, either directly
from their operations or through the products they manufacture.
However, there was some good news to come out of the survey. More
than 60% of companies with a high or very high impact on the
environment have put in place measures under which executive
remuneration is in some way linked to the company's carbon emission
reductions.
More than half of all companies in the most polluting brackets
have some kind of long-term carbon reduction targets in place, although
Eiris notes that concrete action is harder to find.
French and German companies in the top 300 are at the forefront
among those providing solutions to climate change. The consultancy
does, however, point out that many British businesses may be excluded
from the ranking because they are smaller.
In fact, the UK government has led initiatives to limit climate
change, publishing the low carbon transition plan and introducing a
carbon reduction commitment energy efficiency scheme, as well as a
feed-in tariff scheme, promoting clean energy production in the home.
In the 1980s, the UK was described by Scandinavian countries as
"the dirty man of Europe" because of high emissions of sulphur dioxide
from industrial power plants, which exported acid rain across the Baltic
BP accused of killing endangered sea turtles in cleanup operation
Environmentalists press Obama administration to put a halt to BP's 'burn fields' to dispose of oil from the Gulf spil
A Kemp's Ridley turtle rescued from the BP oil spill is cleaned up at the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans. Photograph: Bevil Knapp/EPA
Endangered sea turtles and other marine creatures are being
corralled into 500 square-mile "burn fields" and burnt alive in
operations intended to contain oil from BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration confirmed today.
The killing of the turtles which once teetered on the brink of
extinction has outraged environmentalists and could put BP into even
deeper legal jeopardy.
Environmental organisations are demanding that the oil company
stop blocking rescue of the turtles, and are pressing the US
administration to halt the burning and look at prosecuting BP and its
contractors for killing endangered species during the cleanup
operation. Harming or killing a sea turtle carries fines of up to
$50,000 (ฃ33,000).
"It is criminal and cruel and they need to be held accountable,"
said Carole Allen, Gulf office director of the Sea Turtle Restoration
Project. "There should not be another lighting of a fire of any kind
till people have gone in there and looked for turtles."
The Obama administration, confirming the kills, said BP was under
orders to avoid the turtles. "My understanding is that protocols
include looking for wildlife
prior to igniting of oil," a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said. "We take these things very
seriously."
The agency this week posted a single turtle spotter on the burn
vessels, but government scientists are pressing for more wildlife
experts to try to rescue the animals before the oil is lit or at the
very least to give them access to the burn fields.
"One can't just ride through an area where they are burning and
expect to be safe while looking for turtles. We don't expect that, but
we would like to access those areas where we suspect there may be
turtles," said Blair Witherington, a sea turtle research scientist at
Florida's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.
More than 425 turtles are known to have died in the spill zone since 30 April, Noaa said.
Conservationists say the losses could imperil the long-term
survival of the creatures. All five species of turtles found in the
Gulf are endangered or threatened: the Kemp's Ridley most of all.
But in a video posted on YouTube, Mike Ellis, a skipper from
Venice, Louisiana, accuses BP of chasing away a boat of
conservationists trying to rescue turtles caught in the oil and weed a
few miles away from the leak.
"They ran us out of there and then they shut us down," said Ellis.
On days when the weather is fine and there is relatively no wind,
BP conducts up to a dozen "controlled burns", torching vast expanses of
the ocean surface within a corral of fireproof booms.
Biologists say such burns are deadly for young turtles because oil
and sargassum the seaweed mats that provide nutrients to jellyfish
and a range of other creatures congregate in the same locations.
The sargassum is also a perfect hunting ground for young sea turtles,
who are not developed enough to dive to the ocean floor to forage for
food.
Once BP moves in, the turtles are doomed. "They drag a boom
between two shrimp boats and whatever gets caught between the two
boats, they circle it up and catch it on fire. Once the turtles are in
there, they can't get out," Ellis said.
The heartbreak for conservationists is that the convergence of
sargassum and oil offers the best chance of finding young turtles
before they suffocate on the crude. But it can also be deadly.
"When they breathe and come to the surface, they get a mouthful
and a bellyful of toxic substance that is very much like wallpaper
paste," said John Hewitt, the director of husbandry at the New Orleans
aquarium. "If we don't remove them and clean them up, in three or four
days that probably spells the end of the turtle."
Since the spill, the aquarium has taken in 90 sea turtles,
scrubbing the oil off their shells with toothbrushes and washing-up
liquid.
Even before the fires, the two-month gusher in the Gulf of Mexico was threatening the long-term survival of sea turtles.
"This is the worst calamity that I have ever seen for sea
turtles," said David Godfrey, executive director of the Sea Turtle
Conservancy. "This is really the cradle of sea turtle reproduction for
the western hemisphere."The threat to the turtles could continue well
after the gusher is capped. The oil spill is turning vast expanses of
the Gulf into a dead zone, killing off the jellyfish, crabs and conches
that are the staples of an adult diet.
Conservationists are also worried about the survival of the next
generation of loggerhead turtles, which are about to climb up on to
badly oiled shorelines to begin their nesting season. "They are doomed"
said Godfrey.
Godfrey said his organisation was working on plans to dig up about
1,000 nests, or 100,000 eggs, from nesting grounds in the Florida
Panhandle and transfer them to hatcheries for safekeeping. "It is a
last gasp measure to save 100,000 young sea turtles," he said. "We need
every one of these turtles to survive."
The changing face of China's coal industry
Jonathan Watts reports from Inner Mongolia on a project that could clean up the planet's fastest growing source of greenhouse emissions or make them far, far worse.
A local holds a banner reading "oppose garbage incineration, protect green Guangzhou" outside government offices in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. Photograph: Reuters
Chinese police have dispersed a demonstration by hundreds of Chinese protesters over a planned waste incinerator in the southern city of Guangzhou.
Residents are unhappy about what they see as inadequate consultation for the project. A public meeting this morning broke down when officials were deluged with around 200 petitioners.
The frustrated crowd surged into the municipal government office and demanded to be heard. They then occupied the city square, where they staged a peaceful sit-in. Wen Yunchao, a blogger and rights activist at the scene, told the Guardian by telephone that the number of protesters had swelled to about 800 as word spread by mobile phone and internet. The authorities declared the gathering illegal after the participants demanded the resignation of the city's deputy general secretary, he said.
The demonstration was broken up by police, who used crowd barriers to drive the protesters off the square. Most of the protesters were home-owners and villagers from Panyu, the district where the planned incinerator is expected to handle 2,000 tonnes of waste per day.
Others were from Likeng, which is in the process of expanding an incinerator despite concerns among nearby residents that it will lead to an increase in cancer cases. The government has said such claims are groundless.
China's southernmost province has been at the forefront of the country's breakneck economic development and has experienced some of its worst environmental degradation and social turbulence. In 2005, police killed three villagers in Shanwei, Guangdong province in a violent protest over a planned power plant. The same year, thousands of riot police evicted farmers locked into a land dispute in Sanshan.
Many of the protesters in the latest peaceful protest were middle-class home-owners, who oppose the construction of a potential environmental hazard in their neighbourhood. The government sometimes pays more heed to this group than dispossessed farmers. In 2007, a "walk" by thousands of middle-class residents through the streets of Xiamen in Fujian province prompted the government to rethink plans for a para-xylene chemical plant in the area.
In the latest case, however, the Panyu local government has stated its intention to push ahead with the project once an environmental impact assessment is completed.
Editor's note: Much of the world's toxic waste, including from the UK has been shipped to this region fo incinertion for several years, particularly since I have been in China. It's big business.
De-forestation on Sumatra - from The Guardian with links - 2009.10.06.
Australian town in 'world-first' bottled water ban. 2009.09.26.
An Australian town pulled all bottled water from its shelves Saturday and replaced it with refillable bottles in what is believed to be a world-first ban.
Hundreds of people marched through the picturesque rural town of Bundanoon to mark the first day of its bottled water ban by unveiling a series of new public drinking fountains, said campaign spokesman John Dee.
Shopkeepers ceremoniously removed the last bottles of water from their shelves and replaced them with reusable bottles that can be filled from fountains inside the town's shops or at water stations in the street. "Every bottle today was taken off the shelf and out of the fridges so you can only now buy refillable bottles in shops in Bundanoon," Dee told AFP.
The tiny town, two hours south of Sydney, voted in July to ban bottled water after a drinks company moved to tap into a local aquifer for its bottled water business. "In the process of the campaign against that the local people became educated about the environmental impact of bottled water," said Dee.
"A local retailer came up with this idea of well why don't we do something about that and actually stop selling the bottled water and it got a favourable reaction," he said. Dee said the 2,000-person town had made international headlines with their bid, which he hoped would spur communities across the world to action.
"Whilst our politicians grapple with the enormity of dealing with climate change what Bundanoon shows is that at the very local level we can sometimes do things that can surprise ourselves, in terms of our ability to bring about real and measurable change that has a real benefit for the environment," he said.
Activists say bottling water causes unnecessary use of plastics and fuel for transport. A New South Wales study found that in 2006, the industry was responsible for releasing 60,000 tonnes of gases blamed for global warming.
Dust blankets the Opera House at sunrise Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters
The last nomads: drought drives Kenya's herders to the brink
In the isolated border lands between Kenya and Somalia, families have always clung to a precarious existence. Now a decade of droughts has tested their endurance
Peter Beaumont travelled to the border town of Elwak to meet the desperate families abandoning the ranger lands for an equally uncertain future living by the road Link to this video
Hawa Hassan comes leading three donkeys, accompanied by two female relatives and a handful of the family's smallest children. They have walked out of the drought-withered acacia scrub, travelling 15 miles in a day to reach the Kenyan settlement of Makutano, not far from the border with Somalia.
Makutano is a sparse collection of tukuls dome-shaped dwellings patched with cloth and tarpaulin and sections of woven-grass matting scattered along the dirt road. Passing through a fence of piled thorn around the settlement, Hawa and the other women unload branches from the donkeys' backs. Quickly and dextrously they bend and lash the boughs, framing an igloo-shaped structure in a few minutes, one of three that will be erected by the women in a sandy clearing among the low and spiny trees.
The men, says 55-year-old Hawa, are a day behind the women with what remains of their livestock some camels and 18 goats out of the 40 they once owned. The rest perished through lack of water or were slaughtered for meat so her family could survive a few more days on their journey.
As Hawa works the rough twine around the sticks, she describes in a few sentences the story that marks not simply the end for her family of generations of nomadic existence in the isolated lands where Kenya meets Somalia and Ethiopia, but the imminent collapse of a whole way of life that has been destroyed by an unprecedented decade of successive droughts.
"We have no water," she explains, "and no food. We have left the pastures because we have lost so many goats. We had to come here to seek assistance. For the past two months we have talked and talked about making this decision. We waited because we thought there might be some rain."
And in these few minutes on arriving at Makutano, Hawa's world is utterly transformed. A nomad when she walked in through its fence, in the moment of settling into its impoverished community she became something else instead: part of the burgeoning class of pastoral dropouts. No longer self-sufficient. Condemned to live at the very margins of Kenyan life. "I'm not sad that I came," she says. "I can get water here. I don't want to leave my life. If I could get some goats then I would return to herding... I can't feel good about being in a settlement. It has been forced on me. I don't wish it for my life."
A day later, I return to Makutano to find Hawa again, and to see how she has settled in. The men of her family have now joined the women. Children crowd outside the tukuls eating porridge made of maize mixed with ground tree bark a traditional coping technique during times of little food. But Hawa is not there. One group of Hawa's relatives I do notice, however. A mother and young children, they sit eating next to the corpses of two of the family's goats that had collapsed and died a few hours before.
Other family members are gathered quietly around something lying on the ground, the motionless figure of a woman in her late 60s, her face wrapped in a shawl. A grandmother, someone explains, she is sick from hunger and malaria. It does not look as if she will survive the evening.
What is happening in Kenya's ranger lands is the slow death of an existence, with families attempting to cling stubbornly to a land where the acacia scrub has been scorched to a spectral grey; where wind erosion scourges the possibility of life out of the fragile, desiccated soil. It has always been a hard living, herding goats, camels and bony cattle on the migration routes between the dry season and the wet season pastures. These days it looks close to impossible: the herders have begun slaughtering what precious stock has survived in order to feed their families.
Those trying to assist the nomads in the ranger lands around the dusty town of Elwak on the Somalia border understand that there is a catch-22 in their efforts to help them: that external help for all that it is desperately needed may also be hastening the end of nomadic pastoralism in this region.
Where water is provided, delivered in a solitary tanker with a broken steering column, the nomads will gather, attracted by what is an occasional and insufficient supply of water. And be encouraged to drop out. New parts for the water truck can take up to three months to come from Nairobi, so its drivers have been forced to make their own uncomfortable decision: to drive it until it breaks completely rather than take it off the road for temporary repairs.
The watering points in the new settlements also attract wild animals. In the villages we hear stories of infants and livestock snatched by predators. And so far it is a very piecemeal relief effort. While some plastic water tanks are being trucked in by Kenya's government, most settlements are reliant on dirty water pans often shared by animals and humans.
While Hawa Hassan says she will miss her life among the tracts of thorn bushes, most recent pastoral dropouts interviewed by the Observer conceded that while in the past, perhaps, they had settled for brief periods, this time many are doing it for good.
The last drought which began in 2005 saw a dropout rate of close to 80%. This time the numbers are between 55% and 60%. But with no rains likely for weeks at the earliest, and then only the short rains, the situation is worsening by the day.
The current drought, which began when the rains failed once again in April, is not yet as bad as the drought that came in 2005 and left this area littered with the corpses of animals. But the animals are dying now, the weakest stumbling and falling, unable to get up again. And the consequence of a change in the global weather patterns that has seen three serious droughts within a decade, when previously a bad one occurred every nine to 12 years, has been a whittling away at the nomads' capacity to restock with animals, to replenish and survive normally a period of about three years.
The problems are exacerbated by the political marginalisation of this remote region nearly 700 miles from Nairobi whose residents, mainly Muslims, have long been regarded with either suspicion or indifference by those in the capital.
The result has been a mounting desperation. Families who are rich enough have taken their animals hundreds of miles by lorry to Mombasa on the coast to pasture them, or have had fodder brought from Nairobi. Those lacking in resources have been forced over the border to Somalia or into Ethiopia where many have seen their cattle stolen by militias, or have been drawn into sometimes violent conflicts over competition for resources.
One man, recently returned from Ethiopia, shows me a freshly healed wound on his throat that was sustained in a fight before he was driven back across the border. Others speak of losing all their camels to raiders in Somalia. And not all these conflicts are occurring across the border.
One morning I accompany the limping government water truck on its deliveries. First stop is a settlement named Iresuki. A group of women wait by the road with empty 20-litre plastic canisters. As the tanker arrives a fight breaks out between several women desperate to get water.
The problem is explained. The tanker visits on average just once a week. The water it delivers lasts only four days. So those without access to donkeys to fetch water from elsewhere are forced to beg and borrow. Or go thirsty.
In another village, Dowder, I come across a temporary water pan a tarpaulin laid into a broad trench in the earth into which the tanker deposits water for livestock. A few muddy puddles are all that remain of the water.
Abdi Kher Hassan and Bishar Dahir are scooping up the puddles, a few spoonfuls at a time. "It's for my family to drink," says Abdi. "For our homes." Unlike Hawa, Abdi has no wish to return to the ranger lands and the nomadic way of life. He dropped out of pastoralism two and a half years ago. His life is not much better.
"When we had livestock we had to move around," he says with sad logic. "Now our livestock is gone, we don't have to move. Before I had 50 goats. Now I have five. Those are ones that I'll stay home with. I don't want to go back to that life. It is too hard. My children are getting an education here. I don't want them to follow their father and grandfathers as the situation gets worse."
Bishar says they have chosen to settle on these remote and dusty roads so that their plight remains visible to the government. "If we went to the big towns, no one would notice us. We have settled here where people will notice us and where we can be helped."
The escalating collapse of the pastoralist way of life is having a profound social impact on the dropouts, those on the verge of dropping out, and the few settled communities in the region.
At a bush madrasa, an irritable teacher with a stick beats children struggling to learn Islamic verses drawn with charcoal on flat sections of tree bark. Their parents, it transpires, are still in the bush trying to survive but have given their youngest children to relatives who have already dropped out to care for in settlement.
Other problems are more obvious. The dropouts congregating in Elwak and by the road have little access to healthcare and sanitation a particular issue in the town, where the tukuls have sprung up around homes, behind the healthcare centre, and around the water towers. Most of the dropouts are lacking in any employment.
For the children it is a particularly harsh existence. Close to the water towers in Elwak, Khadija Omar is standing over the body of the last of her 50 goats. She arrived in Elwak 10 days before. One of her children has pneumonia, another has malaria. She says she will survive by gathering firewood.
Ahmed Ibrahim, of Northern Aid, a local partner of the British charity Christian Aid, which is about to launch an appeal to counter the effects of the drought in Kenya, describes the situation of the nomads as desperate. "The pastoralists know that to take their livestock into areas like Somalia, where there is a war, is unsafe. It is a mark of their desperation."
"The way the climate is changing if it continues it will be very difficult to sustain the nomadic way of living. It is a very hard task. We fear that soon people will begin dying not just from the lack of food but from a lack of water."
He believes that despite the terrible conditions visible already, the nomads are currently only at the beginning of what has become a disaster.
The flight from drought
A third drought in a decade is afflicting the countries in the Horn of Africa. In Kenya, more than three million people are facing food and water shortages. The worst problems have been in the north of the country, where conflicts over resources have broken out between groups of nomadic pastoralists, killing dozens.
In desperation, some nomads have crossed the borders into Ethiopia and war-torn Somalia. Others have sent women and children to lead herds into the Tsavo national park to graze, while those who are wealthy enough have moved livestock by truck as far as Mombasa on the coast in search of grazing land.
The UK's woodlands will be "hugely important" in efforts to tackle climate change and cope with its impacts, the Forestry Commission said as it launched the most comprehensive survey of our forests ever undertaken.
Tim Rollinson, director-general of the Forestry Commission, said the massive, five-year survey of 15,000 woodland sites across England, Scotland and Wales would help plan for "an uncertain future" brought on by a changing climate.
British woods and trees will not only play a key role in storing carbon and cutting the emissions causing global warming, but also help wildlife and people cope with impacts such as hotter summers and increased risk of flooding.
The survey will provide "crucial information" on the extent and health of British woodlands, including how much carbon they store, while in the future, surveyors will return to each of the sites to monitor changes.
The Forestry Commission has already seen a number of changes to woodlands in Britain, such as greater use of wooded areas for recreation and increased planting of more urban forests, to give access for city-dwellers to woods.
Mr Rollinson said he expected to see other changes over the next 20 years, including the planting of more woodland and changes in management to maximise the carbon storage it can deliver.
The Government recently said it wanted to see 10,000 hectares of new woods planted each year to store carbon, as part of the Low Carbon Transition Plan which aims to cut the UK's emissions by 80% by 2050.
Mr Rollinson said: "What we're doing with this survey is planning for an uncertain future, and that future is strongly linked to a changing climate. "There's no doubt that woodland can be a substantial help with climate change, and we want to see more trees being planted.
Chinese legislature passes its first climate change resolution
New laws to combat global warming are highly likely, according to the state mediaJonathan Wattsguardian.co.uk, 2009.08.29.
China's top legislative body approved its first climate change resolution today and announced plans to draw up new laws to combat global warming, according to the state media.
The moves by the rubber-stamp National People's Congress are timed to strengthen China's negotiating position as it prepares a new announcement on emissions policy before the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.
Environmentalists welcomed the unusually high degree of attention that the NPC's standing committee paid to the environment during a week-long session in which lawmakers also debated a more ambitious target for renewable energy. Details of the final resolution were not immediately available, but a draft submitted this week called on the government to take further measures to control greenhouse gas emissions and invest more in low carbon technology.
There was tough language on international negotiations, noting that China would defend its right to further economic development. Senior lawmakers said further action would follow. "China will draw up new laws and regulations to provide a legal basis for combating climate change," Wang Guangtao, director of the NPC's environment and resource protection committee was quoted as saying by the China Daily.
While apparently lacking specific targets to reduce emissions, the resolution was welcomed by environmental groups. "It's very significant. For the first time, they have put climate change at the core of economic and social planning at all levels of government," said Yang Ailun, climate and energy campaign manager for Greenpeace China. "This lays the ground for China to make a big announcement ahead of Copenhagen."
Ahead of those crucial climate talks in December, Yang said the government appeared to be leaning towards a mid-term target for carbon intensity, as first reported in the Guardian.
This would represent progress from China's current policy of reducing energy use relative to gross domestic product in the latest five-year economic plan.
But even the setting of a carbon intensity goal for 2020 would disappoint hopes that China will set a target for overall emissions to peak. Last week, an influential research panel said this might be possible by 2030, but the government has given no suggestion it will make this into policy.
The draft resolution called for the government to strengthen its early warning systems and make better preparation for extreme events, such as typhoons. It recommends greater investment in water-saving technologies and low carbon energy.
"We should make carbon reduction a new source of economic growth, and change the economic development model to maximise efficiency, lower energy consumption and minimise carbon discharges," the draft says.
All of the measures included in the draft resolution were previously outlined in government white papers, but environmentalists said the issue has moved to a more prominent position in the nation's political system and a climate change law is highly likely.
"This is a good step forward," said Yang Fuqiang, the director of global climate solutions at the China office of the World Wildlife Fund. "Before we only had government policy, which local governments could challenge, but a law would be harder to violate."
Lawmakers are also discussing a revision of the renewable energy law that could set the stage for the government to raise its target for wind, hydro, nuclear, solar and biomass, currently set at 15% of the total energy mix by 2020.
China is already ahead of its interim goals for wind, hydro and nuclear power. Each extra percentage point that can be added to the renewables target by 2020 is estimated to save 150 million tonnes of coal equivalent.
Climate change: melting ice will trigger wave of natural disasters. Robin McKieThe Observer 2009.09.09. Scientists at a London conference next week will warn of earthquakes, avalanches and volcanic eruptions as the atmosphere heats up and geology is altered. Even Britain could face being struck by tsunami
Kirkjufell volcano erupting above the town of Vestmannaeyjar, Heimaey Island, Westmann Islands, Iceland. Photograph: Emory Kristof/National Geographic/Getty Images
Scientists are to outline dramatic evidence that global warming threatens the planet in a new and unexpected way by triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and volcanic eruptions.
Reports by international groups of researchers to be presented at a London conference next week will show that climate change, caused by rising outputs of carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories and power stations, will not only affect the atmosphere and the sea but will alter the geology of the Earth.
Melting glaciers will set off avalanches, floods and mud flows in the Alps and other mountain ranges; torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion; while disappearing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets threaten to let loose underwater landslides, triggering tsunamis that could even strike the seas around Britain.
At the same time the disappearance of ice caps will change the pressures acting on the Earth's crust and set off volcanic eruptions across the globe. Life on Earth faces a warm future and a fiery one. "Not only are the oceans and atmosphere conspiring against us, bringing baking temperatures, more powerful storms and floods, but the crust beneath our feet seems likely to join in too," said Professor Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre, at University College London (UCL).
"Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something," added McGuire, who is one of the organisers of UCL's Climate Forcing of Geological Hazards conference.
Time-line for CopenhagenClick image
Climate change threat to Pacific Islanders. By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney: 2009.07.27.
More than 75 million people living on Pacific islands will have to relocate by 2050 because of the effects of climate change.
Fishermen paddle off Kennedy Island in the remote Western Province of the Solomon IslandsPhoto: AFP
A report by the charity said Pacific Islanders were already feeling the effects of global warming, including food and water shortages, rising cases of malaria and more frequent flooding and storms. Some had already been forced from their homes and the number of displaced people was rising, it warned.
"The Future is Here: Climate Change in the Pacific" predicted that many Pacific Islanders would not be able to relocate within their own countries and would become international refugees. It urged neighbouring wealthy countries to take urgent action to curb their carbon emissions to prevent a large-scale crisis.
Half of the population of the Pacific live less than 1.5km from the coast and are incredibly vulnerable to sea-level rise and extreme weather. But as well as moving out, the report found that some countries had started adapting to the changing climate.
Fiji is attempting to "climate-proof" its villages by testing salt-resistant varieties of staple foods, planting mangroves and native grasses to halt coastal erosion in order to protect wells from salt water intrusion, and moving homes and community buildings away from vulnerable coastlines.
In the Solomon Islands officials are looking for land to resettle people from low-lying outer atolls, and those living in the outer atolls of the Federated States of Micronesia were also moving to higher ground. The tiny nation of Tuvalu also recently pledged to become carbon neutral by 2020.
Andrew Hewett, Oxfam Australia Executive Director, said it was vital that Australia started working with Pacific governments to plan for the impact of climate change. The Australian government's commitment of $150 million (ฃ75m) to help Pacific Islanders adapt to climate change needed to at least double, it said.
With only months to go until the crucial UN negotiations in Copenhagen in December, Australia needed to show Pacific leaders it was willing to do its fair share to address one of the most pressing challenges in the region, with projections that 75 million people in the Asia-Pacific region will be forced to relocate by 2050 if climate change continues unabated.
Not all will have the option of relocating within their own country.
Pacific leaders will raise the issue of climate change with Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister, at the Pacific Islands Forum on Aug 4.
Meat companies sued over Amazon deforestation Accused firms supplying Tesco, Asda and M&S
A three-year survey by Greenpeace shows that western demand for beef and leather and an increase in cattle ranching is leading to intensified deforestation in the Amazon Link to this video
Brazilian authorities investigating illegal deforestation have accused the suppliers of several UK supermarkets of selling meat linked to massive destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian firms that supply Tesco, Asda and Marks & Spencer are among dozens of companies named by prosecutors, who are seeking hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation.
The move follows a three-year investigation by Greenpeace into the trade in cattle products such as meat and leather traced to illegal farms across the Amazon region. The Greenpeace report, revealed in the Guardian earlier this month, showed that a handful of major Brazilian processors exported products linked to Amazon destruction to dozens of blue-chip companies across the world. Daniel Cesar Avelino, the public prosecutor handling the cases, brought by Brazil's Federal Public Prosecution Office (MPF), said: "We know that the single biggest driver of deforestation in the Amazon is cattle. We want all companies who are part of this destructive economic chain to be responsible for their economic crimes."
The MPF has started legal action against 21 farms and slaughterhouse companies, including Bertin, which supplies Tesco and Princes Food with processed beef. The MPF said the investigated Brazilian companies could be to blame for illegal deforestation across 150,000 hectares. It is seeking ฃ630m compensation for "environmental crimes against Brazilian society". The accused farms include the Espirito Santo farm in Para state, which the Guardian visited in an undercover investigation with Greenpeace last month. Bertin said it was "analysing the content of the [legal] action to respond later". The MPF has also warned a further 69 firms for buying products associated with illegal deforestation, including JBS, which supplies Princes Foods, Asda and Marks and Spencer.
Bertin and JBS, the Greenpeace report said, source cattle from illegal farms, and ship the beef and hides to facilities in the south of Brazil for export. Greenpeace claims records show that cattle from hundreds of farms across the Amazon are mixed and processed in this way, making it currently impossible to trace the origins of products.
"In effect, criminal or 'dirty' supplies of cattle are 'laundered' through the supply chain." JBS would not comment. Several supermarkets in Brazil, including ญWal-Mart, have already banned beef from deforested areas. The Brazilian Association of Supermarkets said it would cancel supply contracts with accused farms. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace, said: "Major supermarkets in Brazil have promised action to remove Amazon beef and leather from their stores, and now it's time that UK companies did the same we need to see British firms cancelling contracts with suppliers who are implicated in Amazon deforestation."
The UK supermarkets said the beef did not come from the Amazon. Tesco and Marks and Spencer said they had received assurances from their suppliers. Asda said it was sending people to Brazil to audit the supply line.
Princes Foods said: "We have contacted both suppliers to discuss the claims in detail, and they are liaising directly with Greenpeace. We will monitor the outcome of these discussions closely."
In a separate move, the World Bank said it will withdraw a $90m (ฃ54.47m) loan to Bertin from its private lending arm, which Greenpeace says was used to expand activities in the Amazon. Bertin supplies several companies with leather for shoes, including Nike and Timberland.
A Timberland spokesman said it was "actively engaged with Bertin to better understand this very complex issue". Nike said it was meeting its tannery suppliers and investigating the supply chain. Greenpeace wants companies to refuse to buy products sourced from farms that have carried out illegal deforestation. It wants consumers to pressure supermarkets and high-street brands identified in the report to clean up supply chains.
Clearing tropical forests for agriculture is estimated to produce 17% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions more than the global transport system. Cattle farming is now the biggest threat to the remaining Amazon rainforest, a fifth of which has been lost since 1970. The Greenpeace report compiles government records, company documents and trade data from Brazil, China, Europe, Vietnam and the US to piece together the global movement of meat, leather and cosmetics ingredients made from Brazilian cattle.
Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise. 2009.05.29.
Reuters The small town of Ilulissat in Greenland is seen in this photo taken August 16, 2007. New York, Boston By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) New York, Boston and other cities on North America's northeast coast could face a rise in sea level this century that would exceed forecasts for the rest of the planet if Greenland's ice sheet keeps melting as fast as it is now, researchers said on Wednesday.
Sea levels off the northeast coast of North America could rise by 30 - 50cm (12 to 20 inches) more than other coastal areas if the Greenland glacier-melt continues to accelerate at its present pace, the researchers reported.
This is because the current rate of ice-melting in Greenland could send so much fresh water into the salty north Atlantic Ocean that it could change the vast ocean circulation pattern sometimes called the conveyor belt. Scientists call this pattern the meridional overturning circulation.
"If the Greenland melt continues to accelerate, we could see significant impacts this century on the northeast U.S. coast from the resulting sea level rise," said Aixie Hu, lead author of an article on the subject in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "Major northeastern cities are directly in the path of the greatest rise," said Hu, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
This is an even bleaker assessment than an earlier study indicated. A March article in the journal Nature Geoscience said warmer water temperatures could shift ocean currents so as to raise sea levels off the U.S. northeast coast by about 20cm (8 inches) more than the average global sea level rise.
NOT LIKELY BUT POSSIBLE
However, this earlier research did not include the impact of melting Greenland ice, which would speed changes in ocean circulation and send 10 - 30cm (4 to 12 more inches) of water toward northeastern North America, on top of the average global sea level rise. That could put residents of New York, Boston and Halifax, Nova Scotia, at risk since these cities and others lie close to sea level now, Hu said in answer to e-mailed questions.
Not only would coastal residents be at direct risk from flooding but drainage systems would suffer as salty ocean water would move back into river deltas, changing the biological environment, Hu wrote in an e-mail. (Editing by Bill Trott) Ecological disaster facing the Amazon by Peter Alyne
Between 20 & 40% of Amazon's trees at risk.Photo GETTY
Even small rises in temperature could destroy large swathes of the jungle, they believe.
Changing rainfall patterns already under way could leave up to three quarters of the forest dry and withered by the middle of the next century.
The result would not only be an ecological "catastrophe" but could also turn the global weather system on its head, the researchers said.
The findings were presented to the climate summit in Copenhagen by scientists at the Met Offices Hadley Centre in Exeter, which specialises in climate prediction and research. The team has calculated that if, as widely anticipated, the worlds average temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from the pre-industrial levels of around 14C (57F) by the middle of the century, then between 20 and 40 per cent of the Amazons trees will disappear.
The process, once started, could take hundreds of years to reverse. Even the most modest predictions of a 1 degree C rise will see some irreversible damage to the tree coverage.
Dr Chris Jones, co-author of the study, said: 'On any level of pragmatic timescale we should see any loss of the Amazon forest as irreversible.'
The team believes that the process, known as dieback, will begin when average global temperatures reach around 15C. Weather system changes will mean less rainfall on the jungle which will result in saplings failing to reach maturity while older trees die and wither away.
Once the process begins it will feed on itself as less tree cover will mean less water evaporation to create more rain. Eventually it could have the effect of turning more than a million square miles of the jungle in Brazil into savannah.
The process would be accelerated by logging, which often involves burning down the wood, releasing carbon, to clear it for agriculture. However, a reduction in logging would help the rainforest to survive changes in climate.
Prof Peter Cox, Met Office professor of climate system dynamics at the University of Exeter, said: 'Ecologically, it would be a catastrophe and it would be taking a huge chance with our own climate. "The Tropics are drivers of the worlds weather systems and killing the Amazon is likely to change them forever.'
National Geographic: excellent resources for general environmental interest, including materials for teachers and students. Includes Audio / Video resources.
www.nationalgeographic.com/education - includes Education Network (EdNet), teacher's store, JASON project - your gateway to adventure. Also: Maps, Photos, News and Audio/Video links
http://www.ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0512/index.html - National Geographic Magazine Online Note: section of the address '0512' links to May's edition. Subsitute '0412' for April issue etc, or search for back-copies, archive features / topics.
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Time-line for Copenhagen Click image
Between 20 & 40% of Amazon's trees at risk. Photo GETTY
