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Results tagged “coral” from NatGeo News Watch

Philippines President Arroyo Briefs Nat Geo on Coral Triangle Initiative

Posted on August 4, 2009 | 0 Comments

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After meeting with President Obama last week, Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo stopped by National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., to talk about conservation in the Pacific's Coral Triangle region.

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Spread across a vast swath of ocean spanning Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, and the Solomon Islands--an area half the size of the United States--the Coral Triangle has the highest diversity of marine life of any area on Earth.

The Philippines and other Coral Triangle nations this year launched officially the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security, It is the largest reef conservation program ever undertaken. (Read more about this here.)

Arroyo (in the picture on the left) was a featured speaker during a program at National Geographic, and she also met privately with NGS President and CEO John Fahey (in the center of the picture) and National Geographic Fellow and marine ecologist Enric Sala.

"President Arroyo has shown global leadership in marine conservation," Sala said after the meeting. "She is one of the key leaders of the Coral Triangle Initiative, an example of international cooperation to ensure economic and ecological sustainability in a region of unique biodiversity value.

"As President Arroyo said, 'this is not an either-or choice.' We must ensure a healthy environment for the sake of healthy and wealthy coastal communities. This includes the people who don't live in the Coral Triangle region but who enjoy the goods and services provided by the marine ecosystem of the region, such as tuna," Sala said.

Fahey and Sala briefed Arroyo on National Geographic's developing ocean initiative, and offered to help publicize her pioneering efforts in order to inspire other leaders to follow. "She was happy to hear about our plans and agreed to help," Sala said.

Fahey presented Arroyo with a framed clown fish photo taken by NG photographer David Doubilet in the Philippines.

NGS photo by Mark Thiessen, reporting by Karen Gilmour

Wildlife Crisis Worse Than Economic Crisis, IUCN Says

Posted on July 2, 2009 | 0 Comments

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Wildlife is under serious threat across the planet, despite the commitment by world leaders to reverse the trend of biodiversity loss by 2010, according to a detailed analysis of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

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Asian Wild Ass (Equus hemionus). Threat category Endangered

Photo © Jean-Christophe Vié

The IUCN assessment, which is published every four years, has been released just before the deadline governments set themselves to evaluate how successful they were in achieving the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss.

Deadline will not be met

The IUCN report, "Wildlife in a Changing World," shows the 2010 target will not be met, the organization said in a statement today.

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"When governments take action to reduce biodiversity loss there are some conservation successes, but we are still a long way from reversing the trend," says Jean-Christophe Vié, deputy head of IUCN's Species Program and senior editor of the publication.

"It's time to recognize that nature is the largest company on Earth working for the benefit of 100 percent of humankind--and it's doing it for free.

"Governments should put as much effort, if not more, into saving nature as they do into saving economic and financial sectors."

IUCN is the world's oldest and largest global environmental network. Based in Switzerland, it is a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.

Its report analyzes 44,838 species on the IUCN Red List and presents results by groups of species, geographical regions, and different habitats, such as marine, freshwater and terrestrial.

The Red List is the most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of species. It is based on an objective system of assessing the risk of extinction for a species. Species listed as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable are collectively described as threatened.     

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"A minimum of 16,928 species are threatened with extinction."

 

The updated list shows 869 species are Extinct or Extinct in the Wild, and this figure rises to 1,159 if the 290 Critically Endangered species tagged as Possibly Extinct are included, IUCN said.

"Overall, a minimum of 16,928 species are threatened with extinction."

Considering that only 2.7 percent of the 1.8 million described species have been analyzed, this number is a gross underestimate, IUCN added. "But it does provide a useful snapshot of what is happening to all forms of life on Earth."

Shoebill-picture.jpgShoebill (Balaeniceps rex). Threat category Vulnerable  (
Photo © Jean-Christophe Vié)

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Ocean Atlas Showcases Lifegiving Power of the Sea

Posted on February 24, 2009 | 0 Comments

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It is only relatively recently that it has dawned upon humans that the ocean is not something that can be taken for granted.

Vast, deep, unfathomable in so many ways, the great body of liquid that envelops our planet at an average depth of some six miles acts as the main regulator of our weather and climate, generator of our atmosphere, and provider, directly and indirectly, of our food and freshwater.

As we begin to grasp how totally dependent we are on the sea for our survival, so do we also understand how much we have harmed it.

"We have learned more about the ocean in the last half century than in all of preceding history," says Sylvia Earle, marine biologist and co-author of National Geographic's new book, "Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas."

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But at the same time, more has changed, she told me. "We have lost more than 90 percent of the big fish in the sea and many of the smaller ones too. Half the coral reefs are gone or in serious decline. There are an amazing number of dead zones. That's the bad news.

"The good news: Now we know. It's only when we know that we can care and act to secure for ourselves an enduring place within the natural systems that sustain us."

NGS photo

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Ocean Acidification Threatens Food Webs, 150 Scientists Warn

Posted on February 2, 2009 | 1 Comments

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NASA

We hear a lot about how carbon dioxide emissions are warming the atmosphere and changing climate in ways that are damaging, if not catastrophic, for life on Earth.

Increasingly we are also learning about the impact of carbon dioxide on the oceans. As the sea absorbs carbon from the air its chemistry is changing, becoming more acidic. This also is likely to have a profound impact on life, experts warn.

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More than 150 marine scientists from 26 countries called for immediate action by policymakers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions sharply so as to avoid widespread and severe damage to marine ecosystems from ocean acidification. They sounded the alarm in the Monaco Declaration, released Friday, according to a news release by Unesco.

Ocean acidification could affect marine food webs and lead to substantial changes in commercial fish stocks, threatening protein supply and food security for millions of people as well as the multi-billion dollar fishing industry, the Monaco Declaration says.

"Coral reefs provide fish habitat, generate billions of dollars annually in tourism, protect shorelines from erosion and flooding, and provide the foundation for tremendous biodiversity, equivalent to that found in tropical rain forests," the Declaration says.

"Yet by mid-century, ocean acidification may render most regions chemically inhospitable to coral reefs. These and other acidification related changes could affect a wealth of marine goods and services, such as our ability to use the ocean to manage waste, to provide chemicals to make new medicines, and to benefit from its natural capacity to regulate climate.

"For instance, ocean acidification will reduce the ocean's capacity to absorb anthropogenic CO2, which will exacerbate climate change."

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Why National Geographic Is Watching Its Seafood Diet

Posted on January 14, 2009 | 1 Comments

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seafood-1.jpgPhoto by James L. Stanfield/NGS

For Enric Sala, saving the oceans is personal.

By personal he doesn't mean only himself. He means me, and you, and every one of our six billion fellow humans.

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"If we all did something it would be huge," he said at a lunchtime forum at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., today.

Sala is a marine ecologist and a National Geographic Fellow. His research was used to justify scientifically the proclamation of vast new marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean, announced by President Bush earlier this month.

Photo by James L. Stanfield/NGS

Sala also has been educating National Geographic employees about the consequences of eating certain types of seafood.

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Vast Tracts of the Pacific Saved for Conservation

Posted on January 6, 2009 | 0 Comments

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Photo courtesy Enric Sala

Three new marine national monuments proclaimed by President Bush today won him a standing ovation in the final weeks of his Presidency.

"These locations are truly among the last pristine areas in the marine environment on earth," Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality James Connaughton said in a media call yesterday.

"We should be very happy because it's the largest marine area ever protected," said Enric Sala, a marine ecologist and National Geographic fellow and emerging explorer. "We don't need more research to know that more of these remote intact places need to be protected," he told National Geographic News.

Sala helped conduct the only scientific surveys of the Pacific region, particularly in the pristine Kingman Reef., one of the areas protected in today's proclamation. Some of the pictures he made at Kingman are featured in this blog post.

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Indonesia's Corals Recovering Rapidly From Tsunami

Posted on December 26, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Four years after the tsunami, corals are thriving in this transplant site on Achech, Indonesia.

Photo courtesy WCS

Coral reefs in areas of Indonesia devastated by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean four years ago today have made a rapid recovery, a team of scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) reports.

The scientists, working in conjunction with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (ARCCoERS) along with government, community and non-government partners, has documented high densities of "baby corals" in areas that were severely impacted by the tsunami, the WCS said in a statement.

"On the 4th anniversary of the tsunami, this is a great story of ecosystem resilience and recovery," said Stuart Campbell, coordinator of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Indonesia Marine Program. "Our scientific monitoring is showing rapid growth of young corals in areas where the tsunami caused damage, and also the return of new generations of corals in areas previously damaged by destructive fishing.

"These findings provide new insights into coral recovery processes that can help us manage coral reefs in the face of climate change."

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Coral Triangle Rescue Plan Gathers Momentum

Posted on November 11, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Photo courtesy ARC Centre of Excellence

Spread across a vast swath of ocean spanning Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, and the Solomon Islands -- an area half the size of the United States -- the Coral Triangle has the highest diversity of marine life of any area on Earth.

This "Amazon of the Seas," as it has been called by the WWF, contains three quarters of the world's known coral species, a third of the world's coral reefs, more than 3,000 species of fish, and the world's richest mangrove forests.

Home to more than 150 million people, the Coral Triangle generates billions of dollars in sea products each year, supporting the livelihood of more than two million fishers. The region is a major spawning ground for tuna, yellowfin and other valuable species that contribute to a perhaps as much as a third of the regional economy.

But all this is at risk from overfishing (including destructive fishing using dynamite and cyanide), coral bleaching and ocean acidification, tourism (including scuba diving), pollution, and sedimentation due to coastal development.

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Mass Extinctions Loom in Ocean Habitats, Scientist Warns

Posted on August 14, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par with vast ecological upheavals of the past, a sea scientist warned this week.

Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in the photo on the right, believes that overfishing, pollution, and climate change must be addressed to halt the spiral of the world's oceans into catastrophe.

"Only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing," he said in a paper published by the science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Play Jackson Video.mov

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