Tag Archives: marine reserves

How to Dump Oil and Get Away with it

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Up to 100 litres of oil has been dumped in a stream next to Long Bay marine reserve and authorities are struggling to trace the source. Auckland Council's pollution response team was alerted on Sunday when residents noticed a sheen on the water's surface.  Around 60 to 100 litres of waste oil was found, including some in the stormwater lines coming from the residential area on the southern side of Beach Rd.  Absorbent booms and a vacuum truck were used to collect the oil from the surface before it entered the marine reserve.  The booms will remain in place until the team is confident oil has stopped leaching into the stream.  Senior pollution response advisor Aaron Graham said any impact on the environment had been minimised.  "We have had paint and sediment discharges in the past year but this we think is most likely automotive oil," he said.  "We did manage to maintain the majority of the oil, but there was some absorption into the environment like oil sticking to leaves and that sort of thing.  "With the size and nature of this spill there shouldn't be any major impacts on the environment."

Attempts to trace the oil through the stormwater system have been unsuccessful.  "Oil leaves a sheen on the water and so we look to trace this using maps of the stormwater lines and manholes," Graham said.  "In this case we weren't able to trace it as the oil had been washed through the drains because of the rain."  Whoever is responsible could be fined and face prosecution.  Auckland Council warned that stormwater drains were for rain water only, not a dumping ground for other substances.

MARYKE PENMAN, Oil dumped near marine reserve, Auckland Now, Aug. 15, 2012

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Saving the Species; Molibe Marine Protected Areas

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Some of the world's most endangered marine life could be saved from extinction by establishing mobile nature reserves that would protect vulnerable species as they moved around the oceans, scientists say.  The initiative could provide safe havens for endangered loggerhead and leatherback turtles, albatrosses, sharks and other travelling species, and sea life that is abandoning its historic territories in response to climate change.  Under the proposals, trawlers would agree to avoid certain stretches of the sea at set times of the year when endangered species are mating, spawning or passing through. Those ocean regions might move with the seasons, ocean currents and long-term environmental events like El Niño, the researchers said.

Mobile marine reserves could bolster existing protected areas that draw an invisible cordon around fixed regions of the oceans, such as coral reefs and sea mounts, where ecological diversity is linked to geographical features.  Instead of restricting areas by their location, mobile reserves would identify particular conditions that attract marine life "The stationary reserves do little to protect highly mobile animals, like most of the fish, turtles, sharks and seabirds," said Larry Crowder, science director at the Centre for Ocean Solutions at Stanford University. "We think of protected areas as places that are locked down on a map. But places in oceans are not locked down, they move."

The idea was proposed at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver.One potential mobile marine reserve could protect the north Pacific convergence zone, a region where two giant currents meet head-on, bringing plankton, small fish, turtles and major predators together. The zone is always teeming with life, but it moves from season to season.

Hopes of creating mobile marine reserves have been around for more than a decade, but Crowder said that only in recent years has the concept become plausible because of improvements in satellite imaging and GPS tagging of species. With these technologies, marine biologists have learned in great detail the movements of different sea creatures....

The new reserves could work in favour of fisheries by opening areas of the ocean that might otherwise be restricted. Modern trawlers are fitted with GPS equipment and could have maps updated each year or season to make clear which areas were off limits to protect vulnerable species.  The initiative would not prevent unlawful fishing, but would help trawlers that were trying to work the oceans without pushing species to the brink of extinction.

Ian Sample, 'Mobile nature reserves' could save marine species from extinction,Guardian, Feb. 18, 2012

 

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The Elusive Marine Reserves: a reality test

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 100 Chagossians evicted from their Indian Ocean islands returned in 2006 for their first visit in 40 years/image from bbc

A group of leading conservation organisations have hatched a plan to create one of the world's largest marine reserves in British waters. The reserve is to be located in the pristine tropical waters of the Chagos Islands, part of Britain's Indian Ocean Territory, and it would be comparable in size and quality to the Great Barrier Reef.The Chagos Conservation Trust plans to launch the new proposal in early March at the Royal Society in London. The plan will be backed by leading conservation groups, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Zoological Society, the Linnean Society and the Pew Environment Group, a powerful American charity.

The Pew successfully lobbied George Bush, a former American president, for several large new American marine reserves, and it wants to repeat that success globally. It has its sights set on the Chagos Islands, which include the world's largest and most pristine coral atoll, as well as some of the cleanest seas on earth. It is a refuge for rare seabird colonies, turtles and diverse marine life

William Marsden, chairman of the Chagos Conservation Trust, said this is "by far Britain's richest area of marine biodiversity and would be in the big league" of world marine reserves. At about 250,000 square miles (647,500 square kilometres), it would be bigger than Pew's most recent reserve in the Mariana Islands. He noted the reserve would be "compatible with defence and would also do something for the Chagossians".

The Chagossians, however, live elsewhere. In the 1960s, Britain evicted the natives so America could put a military base on Diego Garcia, the biggest atoll in the Chagos archipelago. Chagossians have been fighting, unsuccessfully, to go home ever since; many believe that the case is likely to end up at the European Court of Human Rights.

Julian Hanford, a spokesman for the UK Chagos Support Association, said that the islands are of conservation value today because they were "swept clean and left pristine for 50 years." He worries that plans for the Chagos are again being made without consulting the Chagossians, and the Foreign Office maintains that nobody has the right to live in the British Indian Ocean Territory.

Jeremy Corbyn, a Labour MP and chair of the recently formed Chagos Islands All Party Parliamentary Group, called the people of the island a "positive asset" to any conservation plans. Though he admires what the environmentalists want to do, he warned that "examples of conservation done against the wishes of local people are disastrous."

Last year a report by John Howell, a former director of Britain's Overseas Development Institute, and the Chagos Refugees Group, estimated that of the 800 families (5,000 people) considered eligible for resettlement to the islands, half wanted to return permanently. The report called for a small airport and development for "environmentally sensitive tourism". The cost of this plan was put at-

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Endangered species, mafia dealings and political machinations

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Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve

The Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve, a coral reef reserve that is part of India's first National Marine Park is under threat.  The reef extending 140 km long and 25 km wide is the habitat of whales, dolphins, the Indian porpoise, sharks and sea horses. All of these are poached by fishermen in collusion with mafia and are destroyed by trawler fishing.

The state forest department has not been able to do much to halt the destruction and personnel who tries to curb smuggling has been assaulted. Even evidence is tampered during trials.  This has generated calls to beef up enforcement action in the reserve.

Scientists, however, disagree that more enforcement will cure the ills of mis-management of the reserve.  Scientists have proposed, instead, to make it easier for fishermen to transition from fishing to farming.  Fishermen, for instance, could be trained for mass scale breeding and sea ranching to relieve the pressure on the natural stock.

News Source: Gulf growing between poachers and the law, The Times of India, Apr. 16, 2008

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