Environment

September, 2009

• 19 September

  Birth control could help combat climate change

  

  Giving contraceptives to people in developing countries could help fight climate change by slowing population growth, experts said Friday. More than 200 million women worldwide want contraceptives, but don”t have access to them, according to an editorial published in the British medical journal, Lancet. That results in 76 million unintended …
• 17 September

  Climatic irony of an Arctic shipping lane

  

  The world media reported last week the successful sailing of two German cargo ships through the fabled “Northeast Passage” from South Korea along Russia”s Arctic coast to Siberia and reaching Rotterdam in the Netherlands. My first reaction to the news was: One of the last virgin oceans on Earth will …
• 16 September

  Festival to screen Taiji dolphin-slaughter film

  

  Bowing to international pressure, the Tokyo International Film Festival announced Wednesday it will screen the controversial award-winning American documentary about the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, at the nine-day event in October. “It”s a really good day for dolphins and Japanese people,” director Louie Psihoyos told The Japan …
• 14 September

  Jakarta police seize boat carrying explosive materials

  

  The Jakarta Metropolitan Marine Police seized a fishing boat carrying 15 kilograms of explosive materials at the Kali Baru port, North Jakarta, on Monday. The suspects had used explosive materials to catch fish in the sea five times before. With one explosion, they could haul in up to 2.5 tons …
• 12 September

  Arctic May Be Changed Forever, Study Finds

  

  The dramatic changes sweeping the Arctic as a result of global warming aren”t just confined to melting sea ice and polar bears — a new study finds that the forces of climate change are propagating throughout the frigid north, producing different effects in each ecosystem with the upshot that the …
• 9 September

  Huge demand for omega-3 fatty acids depleting oceans worldwide for aquaculture

  

  The ever-growing demand for fish and fish oil due to their omega-3 fatty acids has led to exponential growth in the aquaculture industry—and depletion of the world”s oceans. While aquaculture is farmed fish, the fish are fed with wild marine species. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the …
• 9 September

  Arctic oil exploration attracts bird predators

  

  Opening the Arctic to oil development could have the unintended consequence of creating “subsidised housing” for predators that feed on native nesting birds, according to a new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the US Fish and Wildlife Service and other organisations. Opportunistic predators like Arctic fox, ravens and …
• 9 September

  Grizzlies starve as salmon disappear

  

  As salmon numbers drop, bears are also few and far between along B.C.”s wild central coast – signalling what conservationists say is an unfolding ecological disaster. “The chum runs have been fished out. We”ve seen the biological extinction of a [salmon] species, and now we”re seeing the impact on bears.”
• 8 September

  Dead dolphins, turtles found in Moreton Bay

  

  Environmentalists are questioning the health of Moreton Bay after five dolphins, two dugongs and dozens of turtles have been found dead in the past three weeks. This week an adult female dugong washed up on Amity Point on Stradbroke Island, a day after a guest at Tangalooma Island Resort in …
• 7 September

  Battle to save stricken whales in Madagascar fuel spill

  

  Rescue workers in Madagascar were battling to save a group of humpback whales beached on the southern tip of the island, where a fuel spill from a Turkish freighter threatens an ecological disaster, local media reported Thursday. The MS GULSER ANA, bound for India with a cargo of 39,000 tonnes …
• 3 September

  Fish fears after sea farm escape

  

  Conservation groups have condemned a salmon producer after 37,000 juvenile fish escaped from a farm on Mull. The Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland (Rafts) and the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards (ASFB) said the escape would endanger wild stocks. Roger Brook, chairman of Rafts, said the escaped fish posed …
• 1 September

  UN for creation of monitoring system for marine environment

  

  Warning that there exists a significant gap in the understanding and management of the complex processes and trends at work in oceans and seas, a top UN officials today said asked governments to approve expert recommendations establishing a system that plugs the holes. Addressing a UN meeting Marine Environment, Deputy …