Slaughter of whale sharks on the rise

• 
  The HinduA file photo of a whale shark being slaughtered by fishermen at Kumbhabhishekam in Kakinada. — Photo: By Special Arrangement

According to records, in the past 13 months as many as 15 whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) have been killed in the Godavari region.

In a short span of 13 months, from February 2013, as many as 15 whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) have been slaughtered in the Godavari region. The figure is quite alarming, as the official records indicate that the number of giant fish being slaughtered in a period of 100 years from 1890 was 20. The whale shark is the biggest fish (largest living non-mammalian vertebrate) in the world reaching lengths of 40 feet (12 meters) or more and a weight of more than 21.5 metric tonnes.

Moreover, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers the species vulnerable as it is protected as Schedule-I species on a par with tiger under the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

This Act envisages award of stringent punishment including imprisonment up to seven years to those found guilty of poaching and illegal trading of this animal and its products.

It is a target fishery in many parts of the world. According to records, the fish was killed in large numbers in Gujarat during the 1990s. But, in the Godavari region, it is not target fishery. If it is caught, the massive fish is dragged to the land and slaughtered.

If this fish is caught, the fishermen lose fishing nets worth Rs.30,000 to Rs. 40,000, besides spending Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 5,000 on its cutting. As it has less meat and fin value than the other sharks, it fetches a meagre amount to the fishermen.

The fishermen, however, prefer to kill in the event of catching it. Members of fishermen community said one shark of 22 ft was sold for Rs.15,000 in Bhairavapalem last year.

Another 15ft shark was sold for Rs. 10,000 at Kumbhabhishekam in Kakinada in March this year.

No incentive

“Most of the fishermen are unaware of the provisions put in place by the government for protecting sharks. The fishermen are sure that they will any way lose their nets in the event of the mammoth caught in them. That is why they are resorting to kill it,” says P. Sathiyaselvam, conservation biologist of the EGREE Foundation.

In Gujarat, he said, fishermen are rewarded with a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 if they release the giant fish from the net whenever caught in the net.

Emulating the scheme, the foundation launched a pilot project in the district and provided log books to 52 mechanised fishing boats.

“The main idea is to stop killing of sharks and assess the losses incurred to the fishermen. We are also working on the possibility of introducing the compensation scheme here,” Mr. Selvam explains.

Original Story 

Sri Lanka on world map of biodiversity hotspots

Sri Lanka is the home for a rich biodiversity, which is a part of its natural wealth. The country has a high endemism - 30% of its vertebrate animals and 28% of its flowering plants are found only in Sri Lanka. This diversity and the multiple threats faced included the country’s southwestern region among the ‘biodiversity hotspots’ designated about two and half decades ago.

Biodiversity hotspot concept emerged as an effort to identify conservation priorities and it was to define the areas that are the most immediately important for conserving biodiversity. The hotspots are locations that hold especially high numbers of endemic species, in a limited area of occupation which was under imminent threat.This concept was somewhat widely discussed in the conservation arena of the country and was used for decision making and policy issues related to biodiversity. 

A recent global study has pinpointed a list of most important protected areas specially for the conservation of bird, amphibian and mammal diversity. This is a result of the work of an international team, whose study was published in the world renowned journal Science few weeks ago. The most important issue is the fact that two Sri Lankan sites are among these ‘irreplaceable protected areas’.

New study

There is no doubt about the significance of protected areas for the conservation of biodiversity and conservation action which are centered on these at present. However, some of these protected areas may be highly important in terms when we consider the threatened biodiversity they harbor. This new study is an effort to identify such protected areas.  

‘Irreplaceable protected areas’ – the protected areas the researchers mention are defined as the protected areas most critical to prevent extinctions of the world’s mammals, birds and amphibians.Through their analysis, the researchers identified 137 protected areas situated in 34 countries, as “exceptionally irreplaceable”. These sites are the home for about 627 birds, amphibians, and mammals, and 319 of them are listed as globally threatened. More than half of the distribution of these animals is confined to these protected areas.This shows that the importance of these protected areas in terms of conserving these taxa of animals, but they have also calculated the overall irreplaceability based on the all species available in these protected areas.

These are being calculated comparing each protected area’s contribution for the survival of the species. Extensive data available for 173,461 terrestrial protected areas in the world and assessments of 21,419 species on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species have been used for this analysis.

Protected areas

According to the list of the identified protected areas, Sri Lanka has two sites, namely the Central Highlands World Heritage Site and Kanneliya Forest Reserve. These areas are well known protected areas in Sri Lanka in terms of their biodiversity as well as endemism. 
Central highlands complex is a world Heritage Site designated in 2010 and consists of three main protected areas – the Peak Wilderness Protected Area, the Horton Plains National Park and the Knuckles Conservation Forest.These forests include the largest and least disturbed remaining areas of the submontane and montane rain forests of Sri Lanka and these protected areas cover an area of 537 square kilometers. More than half of the country’s endemic vertebrates, half of the country’s endemic flowering plants are found in these forests and grassland ecosystems.However, these protected areas are threatened with anthropogenic causes. For instance, the Knuckles area is highly threatened with cardamom cultivation and the Peak Wilderness is threatened with encroachments.

Kanneliya forest reserve is located in Galle District in the southwestern region of the country. Kanneliya Forest is a part of the Kanneliya-Dediyagala-Nakiyadeniya International Biosphere Reserve under the Man and Biosphere Program of UNESCO in 2004.With a 62 square kilometer area, it is mentioned as the most extensive surviving block of low land rainforest next to Sinharaja forest. However the highest percentage of endemic woody species of any wet zone forest in the country (i.e. 60%) is recorded from Kanneliya. It is rich in faunal species too.

Clear message

The key message issued by this study is clear. These identified protected areas must be considered as crucial in conservation of biodiversity as they harbour a considerable high number of endemics and threatened animals – birds, amphibians and mammals as well as other species.Hence conserving those should be a high priority in those countries.

Dr. Ana Rodrigues, one of the authors of the above research paper pointed outin an email conversation that their main aim is to raise the profile of these exceptional sites, to improve their conservation prospects. This analysis provides practical advice for improving the effectiveness of protected areas in conserving global biodiversity. There are numerous challenges in the conservation of these protected areas, despite decades of conservation efforts worldwide.As we know, conservation itself is a struggle in the socio-economic context in the world, particularly in developing countries.
This research or its relevancy to Sri Lanka was not much highlighted in Sri Lankan media. This issue should be taken in to consideration of conservation authorities, when designing conservation strategies and action as the importance of these protected areas has been defined scientifically.

Pics by Bushana Kalhara

Origanal Story

Countries adopt pledge to protect elephants

NIRMALA GEORGE

NEW DELHI (AP) — Representatives of eight countries with large wild elephant populations pledged Tuesday to eradicate poaching of the animals and smuggling of ivory to ensure their survival for future generations.

The environment ministers and officials from Asia and Africa also urged all 50 nations with significant numbers of elephants to meet in two years to adopt a shared vision for promoting their conservation and welfare.

Delegates at Tuesday's "Elephant 8 Ministerial Meet" underscored threats to elephant habitats from mining, deforestation and land development.

Although the threat to elephants is not as dramatic as that facing tigers, the steady decline of their population is worrying, Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

"Unlike the tiger, which faces a crisis of extinction, the elephant in India faces a crisis of attrition," he said.

In less than a century, the number of Asian elephants has fallen by 50 percent.

According to the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature, 38,500 to 52,500 wild elephants survive in Asia and another 15,000 in captivity.

The larger African elephant, although more numerous, is also listed as an endangered species, subject to threats from poachers, mining and deforestation. There are around 470,000 to 690,000 African elephants.

Environment ministers or officials from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Botswana, Congo, Kenya and Tanzania attended the meeting in New Delhi.

Full Story

Pea sized frog found on Borneo island

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered a frog the size of a pea, the smallest found in Asia, Africa or Europe, on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo.

The frog species Microhyla nepenthicola, discovered in Borneo. Photograph: Indraneil Das/AFP/Getty Images

Adult males of the new micro-species range in size from 10.6 and 12.8 millimetres and the pea-sized amphibian has been named Microhyla nepenthicola after the plant on Borneo on which it lives, according to taxonomy magazine Zootaxa.

Dr Indraneil Das of the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak said the sub-species had originally been mis-identified in museums.

The Microhyla nepenthicola. Photograph: Indraneil Das/AFP/Getty Images

"Scientists presumably thought they were juveniles of other species, but it turns out they are adults of this newly-discovered micro species," he said.

Das published the paper with Alexander Haas of the Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum of Hamburg, Germany.

The mini frogs were found on the edge of a road leading to the summit of the Gunung Serapi mountain in the Kubah National Park in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

The scientists said they tracked the frogs by their call, a series of "harsh rasping notes" that started at sundown.

They then made the frogs jump onto a piece of white cloth to study them.

The find was part of a global search being undertaken by Conservation International and International Union for Conservation of Nature's Amphibian Specialist Group to "rediscover" 100 species of lost amphibians (www.conservation.org/lostfrogs).

(Reporting by David Chance; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

© Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved

Link to news on Reuters

Ayurveda out of balance: 93 percent of medicinal plants threatened with extinction

Traditional Ayurvedic medicine could face an uncertain future as 93 percent of the wild plants used in the practice are threatened with extinction due to overexploitation, theTimes of India reports.

The Botanical Survey of India recently prioritized 359 wild medicinal plant species and conducted an assessment throughout the country to determine their health. The news wasn't good. Of the 359 species, 335 were categorized as critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or near-threatened.

The survey used criteria and categories established by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its Red List of Threatened Species.

According to India's Ministry of Environment and Forests, 95 percent of plants used in Ayurvedic medicine are collected from the wild, and about two-thirds of that harvest uses "destructive means" that can damage or kill the plants.

To help keep these plant species from going extinct, the Indian government in 2008 initiated a program (pdf) to relocate species from the wild, study how to domesticate them, and promote sustainable harvest protocols. This survey is the latest step in that program.

Aside from its historical and cultural significance, Ayurvedic medicines could bring profits to India's coffers. The Department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) is currently exploring export opportunities for Ayurvedic medicine through Indian Medicines Pharmaceutical Corporation Limited, a company owned by the Indian government. Already, Ayurvedic treatments, vacations and consultants are popular among some alternative health consumers in the U.S.

Of course, other traditional Asian medicines have been attacked for their use of parts from endangered animals, such as tiger bones and rhino horns, but Ayurveda has so far avoided such criticisms.

Image: Dhanvantari, the Hindu god of Ayurveda, via Wikipedia

Story

93% of wild medicinal plants in endangered list: Study

NEW DELHI: Ninety three per cent of wild medicinal plants used for making ayurvedic medicines in the country are endangered and the government is trying to relocate them from their usual habitat to protect them.

The threat to the plants came to the fore in an assessment exercise in different states carried out by the Botanical Survey of India.

The assessments were done for a total of 359 prioritized wild medicinal plant species. Out of this, 335 have been assigned Red List status ranging from critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable to near-threatened.

In addition, a total of 15 such species recorded in trade have been found threatened, officials in the health ministry's Ayush department said.

Some of the rare plants reported to be threatened, have been relocated during the last decade, including Utleria Salicifolia and Hydnocarpus Pentandra in Western Ghats, Gymnocladus Assamicus and Begonia Tessaricarpa from Arunachal Pradesh and Agapetes Smithiana in Sikkim.

The assessments have involved conducting Conservation Assessment and Management Prioritisation using International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List Categories.

The officials said the medicinal plant resources in the country are threatened by over exploitation to meet the demand of herbal industries.

As per the information received from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, about 95 per cent of such plants are harvested from the wild, primarily from forests.

The National Medicinal Plants Board constituted in November 2000, has been implementing a Central sector scheme for development and cultivation of medicinal plants since 2000-01.

This scheme was revised and renamed as "Central Sector Scheme for Conservation, Development and Sustainable Management of Medicinal Plants" during 2008-09.

States forest departments have been given assistance for protection and propagation of such endangered species, especially used by the herbal industries.

Projects for setting up of 29 Medicinal Plants Conservation Areas (MPCAs) have also been implemented in the states covering mainly the medicinal plants viz Asoka, Guggal and Dashmool varieties.

The scheme is being implemented with an outlay of Rs 321.30 crore during the 11th Plan.

In addition, a new "Centrally Sponsored Scheme of National Mission on Medicinal Plants" with a total outlay of Rs 630 crore is being implemented since 2008-09 by National Medicinal Plants Board. A total of 24 states have been covered under the scheme.

Story

Pictures: 7 Cat Species Found in 1 Forest—A Record

Leopard Spotted

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

Caught by a camera trap, a leopard prowls under the dense canopy of the Jeypore-Dehing lowland rain forest in the northeast Indian state of Assam (map).

Released in February, the picture was taken during a two-year survey supported by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, the Rufford Small Grants Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The research found seven cat species in a 354-square-mile (570-square-kilometer) range—the highest diversity of cat species yet photographed in a single area.

Wildlife biologist Kashmira Kakati had been studying the gibbons of Jeypore-Dehing and became curious about the predator tracks she kept finding on the ground.
"I said, I need to find out what's there," Kakati told National Geographic News. "Nobody had any clue. People who had been in the forest 30 years didn't know."

With 30 digital camera traps, Kakati captured not only the cats but a number of other rare forest animals between 2007 and 2009. "Even I was surprised by the result," she said. (See related pictures of a rare Chinese wildcat snapped by a camera trap.)

(Related: National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative.)

Cloudy Coat

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The camera-trap pictures include this night shot of a rare clouded leopard, so named for the nimbus-like pattern of its coat.

The clouded leopard is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which means the species faces a high risk of extinction. The cat's population is on the decline, mostly due to loss of habitat from deforestation. (See a picture of rare clouded leopard cubs born at a Virginia zoo.)

In Jeypore-Dehing, the cat is so seldom seen that local villagers don't even have a name for it, Kakati said.

Little Leopard

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

Seen in another Jeypore-Dehing camera-trap picture, the leopard cat is a diminutive and distant relative of the better-known spotted predator from which it takes its name.
The species is commonly recorded across its range in Asia, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Leopard cats are considered to have generally stable populations, except for a few subspecies that are close to extinction.

Golden Moment

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The Jeypore-Dehing rain forest also houses the Asiatic golden cat, which is listed as near threatened—but on the verge of becoming vulnerable—by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In addition to the seven cat species, Kakati's camera traps recorded 12 other carnivore species in the Jeypore-Dehing range, including a dhole, or Asiatic wild dog; the Malayan sun bear; and several species of the catlike mammal the civet.

Jungle Cat

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The Jeypore-Dehing range is hemmed in by oil, coal, and logging operations that threaten wildlife, Kakati said. Just 69 square miles (111 square kilometers) of the forest, an area known as the Dehing-Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary, is off-limits to development.

In addition, some animals—including the jungle cat pictured above—appear to be migrating to Jeypore-Dehing from adjoining forests to escape severe poaching, Kakati said.

"The range has become a refuge," she said. "Somehow the animals have managed to hold on."

Rear March

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The camera traps recorded about 45 species of mammals—including primates, deer, porcupines, wild pigs, and rodents—that likely serve as prey for the rain forest's carnivores, such as the female tiger pictured above. (Related: "India's Tigers Number Half as Many as Thought.")

Although many cat species are at risk due to poaching for their bones and pelts, people in Jeypore-Dehing don't hunt the cats themselves, Kakati said. But locals do poach the wild deer and pigs, cutting in on carnivores' food sources.

Spotty Protection

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The researchers hope the discovery of so many rare cat species in Jeypore-Dehing, including this threatened marbled cat, will encourage the Indian government to protect a wider portion of the Eastern Himalaya region from development and poaching.

"The entire forest here should be protected as a single conservation landscape, free of disturbance and connected by wildlife corridors between the disjunct sections," Ravi Chellam, of the Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program, said in a statement.


—Dan Morrison
Story

National Geographic Daily News

Butterflies, beetles, and dragonflies declining in Europe

Habitat loss is having a serious impact on Europe's butterflies, beetles and dragonflies, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said today.

Nine percent of butterflies, 11 percent of saproxylic beetles (beetles that depend on decaying wood) and 14 percent of dragonflies are threatened with extinction within Europe, the Switzerland-based conservation organization said in a news release.

Photo of beautiful demoiselle (Calopteryx virgo meridionalis) by Jean-Pierre Boudot

"Some species are so threatened that they are at risk of global extinction and are now included in the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species," IUCN said.

"When talking about threatened species, people tend to think of larger, more charismatic creatures such as pandas or tigers, but we mustn't forget that the small species on our planet are just as important, and are also in need of conservation action," said Jane Smart, Director, IUCN Biodiversity Conservation Group. "Butterflies, for instance, play a hugely pivotal role as pollinators in the ecosystems in which they live."

Nickerl's fritillary (Melitaea aurelia)

Photo by Chris van Swaay, De Vlinderstichting/Dutch Butterfly Conservation

According to the new studies commissioned by the European Commission and carried out by IUCN, Butterfly Conservation Europe and the European Invertebrates Survey, nearly a third (31 percent) of Europe's 435 butterfly species have declining populations and nine percent are already threatened with extinction.

"For example, the Madeiran large white butterfly (Pieris wollastoni) is Critically Endangered (possibly extinct), having not been seen on Madeira for at least 20 years, and the Macedonian grayling butterfly (Pseudochazara cingovskii) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is also Critically Endangered because quarrying activities are reducing its habitat," IUCN said.

Coenonympha orientalis

Photo by Neil Thompson

A third of Europe's butterflies (142 species) are found nowhere else in the world, and 22 of these endemic species (15 percent) are globally threatened.

"Most butterflies at risk are confined to southern Europe; their main threat is habitat loss, most often caused by changes in agricultural practices, either through intensification or abandonment, or to climate change, forest fires and the expansion of tourism,"' said Annabelle Cuttelod, IUCN Coordinator of the European Red List.

For the first time, saproxylic beetles have been assessed for the IUCN Red List.

Cucujus cinnaberinus

Photo by Nicolas Gouix and Hervé Brustel

"These beetles are unique because they are highly dependent on decaying wood, particularly in forests, and play an essential role in recycling nutrients," IUCN said.

"A third of the 431 species assessed are unique to Europe. Almost 11 percent (46 species) are at risk of being lost from the region, and seven percent (29 species) are threatened with extinction at the global level. A further 13 percent (56 species) are listed as Near Threatened within Europe."

The main long-term threats to saproxylic beetles are habitat loss due to logging and the decline in the number of mature trees.

The violet click beetle (Limoniscus violaceous) is an Endangered species that typically lives in large tree cavities containing wood mould. It is under threat from changing woodland management practices, IUCN said.

Dragonflies occur almost everywhere in Europe, with the highest numbers in southern France, the foothills of the Alps and parts of the Balkan Peninsula, accfording to the IUCN study.

Black percher (Diplacodes lefebvrii)

Photo by Jean-Pierre Boudot

"Fourteen percent of the 130 dragonfly species assessed are at risk; five of these are threatened with global extinction. A further 11 percent are considered Near Threatened within Europe.

"Like butterflies, most of the threatened species are confined to southern parts of Europe. Increasingly hot and dry summers combined with intensified water extraction for drinking and irrigation are causing the dragonflies' wetland habitats to dry up."

Three of the most threatened dragonflies of Europe are endemic to the brooks and small rivers of Greece and nearby countries, including Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey. If no action is taken species like the Greek red damsel may become extinct during the first half of this century, IUCN said.

"Nature's future is our future, and if it fails, we will fail too," said EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik. "The ecosystem services nature provides, like the provision of food and water and climate regulation, are the vital backbone of our future prosperity. So when a Red List like this raises the alarm, the implications for our own future are clear. This is a worrying decline."

Story

NatGeo News Watch

Biodiversity Loss Is 'Wake-Up Call', Warns UN

by Richard Black

The UN launches the International Year of Biodiversity on Monday, warning that the ongoing loss of species affects human well-being around the world.

The rate of species loss leads some biologists to say that we are in the middle of the Earth's sixth great extinction, the previous five stemming from natural events such as asteroid impacts. (photo by flickr user _PaulS_)

Eight years ago, governments pledged to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, but the pledge will not be met.

The expansion of human cities, farming and infrastructure is the main reason.

Dignitaries including German premier Angela Merkel will speak at the launch in Berlin, with a video message from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Mr Ban is due to say that human expansion is wiping out species at about 1,000 times the "natural" or "background" rate, and that "business as usual is not an option".

The Secretary-General is expected to argue that the failure to protect biodiversity "should be a wake-up call", leading to effective ways of protecting forests, watersheds, coral reefs and other ecosystems.

The UN says that as natural systems such as forests and wetlands disappear, humanity loses the services they currently provide for free, such as the purification of air and water, protection from extreme weather events and the provision of materials for shelter and fire.

The rate of species loss leads some biologists to say that we are in the middle of the Earth's sixth great extinction, the previous five stemming from natural events such as asteroid impacts.

Cash log

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, alongside the climate change convention.

But it acquired its key global pledge during the Johannesburg summit of 2002, when governments agreed to achieve a "significant reduction" in the rate of biological diversity loss by 2010.

Conservation organisations acknowledge that despite some regional successes, the target is not going to be met; some analyses suggest that nature loss is accelerating rather than decelerating.

"We are facing an extinction crisis," said Jane Smart, director of the biodiversity conservation group with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

"The loss of this beautiful and complex natural diversity that underpins all life on the planet is a serious threat to humankind now and in the future."

A large on-going UN-sponsored study into the economics of biodiversity suggests that deforestation alone costs the global economy $2-5 trillion each year.

In his speech at Monday's event, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner is due to highlight problems caused by invasive species, and the potential for ecosystems such as forests and wetlands to absorb and store carbon from the air.

The UN hopes some kind of legally-binding treaty to curb biodiversity loss can be agreed at the CBD summit, held in Japan in October.

One element is due to be a long-awaited protocol under which the genetic resources of financially-poor but biodiversity-rich nations can be exploited in a way that brings benefits to all.

However, given the lack of appetite for legally-binding environmental agreements that key countries displayed at last month's climate summit in Copenhagen, it is unclear just what kind of deal might materialise on biodiversity.

Political football

The UN has been pursuing new ways of raising public awareness on the issue, including a collaboration with the Cameroon football team taking part in the African Nations Cup finals.

Many environment organisations will be running special programmes and mounting events during the year.

"The big opportunity during the International Year of Biodiversity is for governments to do for biodiversity what they failed to do for climate change in Copenhagen," said Simon Stuart, a senior science advisor to Conservation International and chair of IUCN's Species Survival Commission.

"They have the chance to make a major difference; and key to this will be halting species extinctions, the most irreversible aspect of biodiversity loss."

WWF is highlighting 10 species it considers especially threatened, ranging from commercially significant ones such as bluefin tuna to the Pacific walrus and the monarch butterfly.

In the UK, the national IYB partnership - hosted from the Natural History Museum (NHM) - is asking every citizen to "do one thing for biodiversity" in 2010.

Story

World's biodiversity 'crisis' needs action, says UN

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

The Giant Jewel of West Africa is threatened by loss of forest

The UN has launched the International Year of Biodiversity, warning that the ongoing loss of species around the world is affecting human well-being.

Eight years ago, governments pledged to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, but the pledge will not be met.

The expansion of human cities, farming and infrastructure is the main reason.

Speaking at the launch in Berlin, German premier Angela Merkel urged the establishment of a new panel to collate scientific findings on the issue.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), urged governments and their leaders to renew their commitment to curbing biodiversity loss even though the 2010 goal will be missed.

The big opportunity during the International Year of Biodiversity is for governments to do for biodiversity what they failed to do for climate change in Copenhagen Simon Stuart Conservation International/IUCN World 'to fail' on nature target

"The urgency of the situation demands that as a global community we not only reverse the rate of loss, but that we stop the loss altogether and begin restoring the ecological infrastructure that has been damaged and degraded over the previous century or so," he said.

The UN says that as natural systems such as forests and wetlands disappear, humanity loses the services they currently provide for free.

These include purification of air and water, protection from extreme weather events, and the provision of materials for shelter and fire.

With species extinctions running at about 1,000 times the "natural" or "background" rate, some biologists contend that we are in the middle of the Earth's sixth great extinction - the previous five stemming from natural events such as asteroid impacts.

Cash log

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, alongside the climate change convention.

FROM BBC WORLD SERVICE More from BBC World Service

But it acquired its key global pledge during the Johannesburg summit of 2002, when governments agreed to achieve a "significant reduction" in the rate of biological diversity loss by 2010.

Conservation organisations acknowledge that despite some regional successes, the target is not going to be met; some analyses suggest that nature loss is accelerating rather than decelerating.

"We are facing an extinction crisis," said Jane Smart, director of the biodiversity conservation group with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

"The loss of this beautiful and complex natural diversity that underpins all life on the planet is a serious threat to humankind now and in the future."

Mrs Merkel backed the idea of forming a scientific panel to collate and assess research on biodiversity loss, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assesses evidence on climatic indicators.

"The question of preserving biological diversity is on the same scale as climate protection," she said.

"It would be sensible to have an interface between the politics and the science to integrate knowledge."

Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'

A large on-going UN-sponsored study into the economics of biodiversity suggests that deforestation alone costs the global economy $2-5 trillion each year.

The UN hopes some kind of legally-binding treaty to curb biodiversity loss can be agreed at the CBD summit, held in Japan in October.

One element is due to be a long-awaited protocol under which the genetic resources of financially-poor but biodiversity-rich nations can be exploited in a way that brings benefits to all.

However, given the lack of appetite for legally-binding environmental agreements that key countries displayed at last month's climate summit in Copenhagen, it is unclear just what kind of deal might materialise on biodiversity.

Political football

The UN has been pursuing new ways of raising public awareness on the issue, including a collaboration with the Cameroon football team taking part in the African Nations Cup finals.

Many environment organisations will be running special programmes and mounting events during the year.

"The big opportunity during the International Year of Biodiversity is for governments to do for biodiversity what they failed to do for climate change in Copenhagen," said Simon Stuart, a senior science advisor to Conservation International and chair of IUCN's Species Survival Commission.

"They have the chance to make a major difference; and key to this will be halting species extinctions, the most irreversible aspect of biodiversity loss."

WWF is highlighting 10 species it considers especially threatened, ranging from commercially significant ones such as bluefin tuna to the Pacific walrus and the monarch butterfly.

In the UK, the national IYB partnership - hosted from the Natural History Museum (NHM) - is asking every citizen to "do one thing for biodiversity" in 2010.

Story

Creating Conservation Communities

There's a bold new idea on the front edge of conservation: Let's treat people as well as we treat animals.

By Elizabeth Hightower

	Courtesy of Mark Godfrey/The Nature Conservancy

IN MAY AND JUNE 2004, scientists from the Nature Conservancy ran a Rapid Ecological Assessment of the Solomon Islands. For 35 days, they cruised 2,000 miles down the 950-island archipelago in their liveaboard dive ship, counting spinner dolphins and clownfish, Maori wrasses and beaked whales. The place was an astonishing hot spot of bio­diversity, teeming with 494 coral species and at least 1,019 species of reef fish, including several previously unknown to science.

The scientists also found significant evidence of overfishing, confirmation that these waters needed protection—and fast. But what they did next reflects an ongoing shift in conservation philosophy. Instead of just setting up a marine park to keep local fishermen out, the Nature Conservancy and its partners engaged the islands' tribal leaders, allowing them to manage the fishery for their own long-term economic interests. The conservationists scrapped pristine nature as the goal and put people first; the people, in turn, found a way to both create a protected area and keep fishing. Sea turtle numbers have almost tripled. And livelihoods have doubled.

The rest of the world is not made up of "affluent white people who enjoy nature hikes," says Nature Conservancy scientist Peter Kareiva. Conservation today means meeting everybody's needs.

"Too much conservation is about sequestering nature," TNC's chief scientist, Peter Kareiva, says. Environmentalists have always worked with local people, he points out; that's not new. "The difference is that now we're being more explicit about it. Instead of collecting data to see how the birds and trees are doing, we do household surveys to see, if we set up a marine protected area, whether the people in those communities feel better off. That's a down-to-earth, concrete change."

People? Really? Since John Muir first walked the Sierra, hasn't the point of conservation been to protect nature from people?

Not anymore. In a slow but dramatic shift, the world's biggest environmental NGOs—the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, and Conservation International—have retooled their goals. Saving chunks of nature by fencing people out is too piecemeal, too arrogant, they've come to believe. What's more, it doesn't work on the scale we need.

"The historic approach will fail," says Peter Seligmann, Conservation International's co-founder and CEO. If we don't rethink our tactics, he believes, "we will have islands in a sea of development, and islands are always eventually eroded."

That's a strong statement coming from Mr. Biodiversity himself. CI invented the term "hot spots"; since its founding, in 1987, when Seligmann and others peeled off from the Nature Conservancy, the group has championed the preservation of wild places above all else. But over the past two years, CI has embarked on a painful journey of consultant-aided soul searching. This fall, it announced a new mission: "to empower societies to responsibly and sustainably care for nature for the well-being of humanity."

In some ways, CI can afford this kind of drama; it's the only big conservation NGO not beholden to public members. But the turnaround required some harsh reexamination of its past successes. "With our conservation partners, we've put some 500 million acres of priority lands and waters in protected status," Seligmann told me. "That's an area about 30 miles wide that wraps around the equator. It seems really big—until you go to outer space and you look at the earth and you see it's actually a tiny bit of land. You look at the issues of climate change, consumption, and the state of the world's oceans and you realize that, although we've succeeded in putting a lot of land and waters into what I like to refer to as ‘the conservation pantry,' we haven't changed the hunger of development, nor have we reduced the capacity of development to reach into that pantry whenever they want something and pull it out."

Biodiversity is still crucially important to CI, he says, "but it has now become the indicator of the health of the ecosystem we're focusing on, as opposed to the driver of where we're going to work."

On the face of it, using biodiversity—the glorious variety of nature in all its forms—in the service of human well-being sounds pretty cynical. Tough times, snail darter! Nice knowin' you, polar bear! For those of us raised on the American idea of wilderness—on the sacred mission of keeping some places immune from being paved, bulldozed, and mined—scrapping that notion rips at the foundation of our beliefs. When I brought this up with Kareiva, he reminded me, quite gently, that the rest of the world is not made up of "European or North American affluent white people who enjoy taking nature hikes."

"As the conservation movement has gotten outside of the U.S.," he said, "it's had its eyes opened to global realities, and the realities are that it's not about the affluent U.S. having nature reserves. It's about meeting lots of needs."

Some of those needs have been ignored ever since the U.S. first pushed Native Americans out of Yosemite, in 1864. "Fortress conservation," the practice of fencing off protected forest or savanna, has created a new class of "conservation refugees"—people forced from subsistence living within a landscape to straight-up poverty outside of it after it gets "preserved."

"If we continue to embitter millions of people by moving them off the land and settling them in these shabby little settlements outside their land, many of them are going to go back in and poach and cut trees and sell trees and make life impossible for conservation," says Mark Dowie, author of the book Conservation Refugees, a searing indictment of the big NGOs published last spring. "We said, Duh—it's not working."

A couple of things finally led the big NGOs to their "a-ha moment," as Kareiva describes where we are today. One was a global pushback from local people, which led the World Wildlife Fund to adopt a set of principles for the treatment of local peoples as early as 1996 and which has gained more steam in the past ten years. In 2003, Nelson Mandela told the World Parks Congress, "I see no future for parks, unless they address the needs of communities as equal partners." The next year, Masai leader Martin Saning'o stood up at the Bangkok summit of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), speaking on behalf of more than 100,000 Masai herders who'd been displaced in the name of biodiversity. "We were the original conservationists," he said. "Now you have made us enemies of conservation."

Like the UN, the IUCN has limited authority. But it can, and did, adopt resolutions concerning the treatment of traditional people, which filtered down to the foundations that fund the big NGOs. One way to look at this awakening is that, to get funding, they had to play nice. The other is that more and more scientists, especially younger ones, became convinced that the old ways wouldn't work.

"There's been a growing awareness among conservation biologists that, even in the best projections, we won't secure more than 5 percent of the world's biological diversity in protected areas," says Steve McCormick, president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (conservation's single biggest foundation funder) and the former Nature Conservancy CEO who pushed TNC in this direction as early as 2001. Meanwhile, he says, "scientists are making the direct correlation between conservation and human well-being. To me, that is a very hopeful precept."

That's the second factor in this shift: the rise of a powerful conservation idea called ecosystem services. Think of the economic value of the Louisiana wetlands in mitigating storm surges, or tropical forests in sequestering carbon. This idea will play big in December at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Copenhagen, where proponents will push a program called REDD (short for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). To grossly oversimplify, REDD involves the West paying developing countries to keep forests intact.

But conservation for people is anything but unanimous. Noticeably absent from this trend is the fourth major NGO, the Wildlife Conservation Society. "The Nature Conservancy has made aggressive statements in the last few years about the need to reorient their targets toward places and dimensions that meet human needs," says Kent Redford, director of the Wildlife Conservancy Society Institute, WCS's internal think tank. "Now, that is a shift. We're not doing that, and we're not going to do that. We are a proud and unabashedly a nature-conservation organization focusing on wild­life and wild places."

There are several flaws in the new philosophy, says Redford. First, if you work primarily where you can help people, you're going to be working in places where wildlife is not. Second, conservationists should keep their eye on the ball. If you're saving tigers in the Hukong Valley, in Burma, count tigers. If you're saving people, do that. The WCS works with local populations all the time, he says, "but that's not because we're interested as an organization in making their lives better. It's just that making their lives better is an important thing to do to achieve the conservation of the forest and the animals living in it."

The link between conservation and poverty alleviation is highly contested, Redford says. "It's a leap of faith on the part of many of us in our profession. And it's closing your eyes and jumping and just hoping somebody's got a big sheet at the bottom."

"This is not without controversy," agrees McCormick. "In some cases where you have human activity, it's not going to be 100 percent conservation. For those for whom it's all-or-nothing, accepting some loss of [wildlife] populations because humans are taking some use of landscapes—that's not acceptable."

Am I one of those all-or-nothing people? I don't like to think so, but I wonder, Is it OK to tell the polar bear and the Siberian tiger to just hold on, that we'll save them by saving ourselves? Realism has its promise—we'll never succeed by merely putting Band-Aids on hot spots. But I miss that romantic old idea that other species have as much right to this world as we do.

For Kareiva, that's what it comes down to: a matter of rights. "For me at least," he wrote on TNC's blog this spring, "the rights of people for self-determination take supremacy over any species or biodiversity tally." When I asked him about that, he brought up a riddle, an impossible dilemma first posed by conservation biologist Michael Soulé.

"You're down to one snow leopard, and that leopard is a pregnant mom," Kareiva said. "And if she lives and has a litter of four or five, you could maybe recover the whole species. And you're up on a ridge and she's creeping up and about to kill and eat a small two-year-old child. You have a gun, and you have a choice: You can either kill the leopard and save the child's life, or you can sit by and watch the leopard kill it. That's your only choice. I would save the child."

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Species' extinction threat grows

The Kihansi spray toad is now considered to be extinct in the wild

More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned.

Out of the 47,677 species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 17,291 were deemed to be at serious risk.

These included 21% of all known mammals, 30% of amphibians, 70% of plants and 35% of invertebrates.

Conservationists warned that not enough was being done to tackle the main threats, such as habitat loss.

"The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting," warned Jane Smart, director of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Biodiversity Conservation Group.

At what point will society truly respond to this growing crisis? Professor Jonathan Baillie, Zoological Society of London In pictures: Threatened species

"The latest analysis... shows that the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met," she added.

"It's time for governments to start getting serious about saving species and make sure it's high on their agendas for next year, as we are rapidly running out of time."

The Red List, regarded as the most authoritative assessment of the state of the planet's species, draws on the work of thousands of scientists around the globe.

The latest update lists amphibians as the most seriously affected group of organisms on the planet, with 1,895 of the 6,285 known species listed as threatened.

Of these, it lists 39 species as either "extinct" or "extinct in the wild". A further 484 are deemed "critically endangered", 754 "endangered" and 657 "vulnerable".

The Kihansi Spray Toad (Nectophyrnoides asperginis) is one species that has seen its status change from critically endangered to extinct in the wild.

It was only found in the Kihamsi Falls area of Tanzania, but its population had crashed in recent years from a high of an estimated 17,000 individuals.

Conservationists suggest that the rapid decline was primarily the result of of a dam being constructed upstream from the toads' habitat, which resulted in a 90% reduction in the flow of water.

"In our lifetime, we have gone from having to worry about a relatively small number of highly threatened species to the collapse of entire ecosystems," observed Professor Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation programmes at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

"At what point will society truly respond to this growing crisis?"

The updated data from the 2009 Red List is being made publicly available on the IUCN website on Tuesday. [IUCN Red List]

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Giant fish 'verges on extinction'

By Jody Bourton
Earth News reporter

A river giant vanishes

One of the world's largest freshwater fish is on the verge of going extinct.

A three-year quest to find the giant Chinese paddlefish in the Yangtze river failed to sight or catch a single individual.

That means that the fish, which can grow up to 7m long, has not been seen alive for at least six years.

There remains a chance that some escaped the survey and survive, say experts, but without action, the future of the species is bleak.

The concern for the Chinese paddlefish is that its fate will parallel that of the Yangtze river dolphin, a large mammal species that was once abundant in the Yangtze river system, but has recently been declared extinct.

Some people call it the 'elephant fish' and we found out it swims on the surface of the water like a whale Professor Wei Qiwei Chinese Academy of Fisheries Science

A number of fish species vie for the position of the world's largest freshwater fish, including the arapaima (Arapaima gigas) of the Amazon river and the Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas).

At up to 7m, the Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) is much longer than either, though it may not exclusively live in freshwater.

The fish is suspected to be anadromous, meaning it spends some of its life in marine waters before returning to the river to spawn. But it is so rare that little is known about its behaviour, life history, migration habits and population structure.

It is endemic to the Yangtze river system in China.

"It has special characteristics such as its sword-like rostrum. Some people call it the 'elephant fish' and we found out it swims on the surface of the water like a whale," says Professor Wei Qiwei, one of the leaders of the research team from the Chinese Academy of Fisheries Science in Jingzhou, China.

The last confirmed sighting of a Chinese paddlefish was made in the river on 24 January 2003.

Now scientists have published in the Journal of Applied Ichthyology the results of a three-year survey to find and locate the fish.

Professor Wei and colleagues surveyed the upper Yangtze river between Xinshi, Sichuan Province and Chongqing, covering a distance of 488.5km.

Most of this stretch of water lies within the Upper Yangtze National Nature Reserve, a protected area.

Elusive target

Between 2006 and 2008, the team used a number of boats to deploy 4762 setlines, 111 anchored setlines and 950 drift nets in a bid to catch the fish.

They failed to catch a single individual.

The team also used hydroacoustic equipment that beams sound through the water to create a picture of the river and anything in it.

This identified nine possible targets, of which two could be paddlefish, say the researchers. But they could not confirm these finds.

The fish now appears on the brink of extinction, say the scientists.

FRESHWATER GIANTS Record-breaking freshwater fish (weights not included if unknown): Mekong giant catfish 2.7m, 293kg European or wels catfish 4.57m, 336.3kg White sturgeon 3.8m Amazon arapaima 2.48m, 147kg Chinese paddlefish 7m

They speculate that some paddlefish may have eluded the research team, avoiding its nets and capture methods.

Professor Wei also thinks that some younger, smaller paddlefish may also still exist.

"The individuals born in the late 1980s and early 1990s should survive in the wild, since the Yangtze river system is large and it has some complicated habitats where the paddlefish could hide," he says.

But without intervention, the future for the species is bleak.

"It is not a good future for the species. Maybe we have only ten years to save the species according to the estimated life span of 30 to 40 years," Professor Wei says.

"The offspring born in 1990 will be 30 years old by 2020. It is impossible for the species to be a viable population by natural reproduction. With the current situation of ecology and environment in the Yangtze river, man assistant measures have to be taken."

With so few fish left the team proposes that modern reproduction methods need to be considered, such as using surrogates to rear the fish in captivity.

Other techniques may include preserving genetic material, cloning, or gynogenesis, where fish eggs are coerced into developing via parthenogenesis.

However the team need to find live paddlefish in order to be able to start this process.

From the middle of last century the population of Chinese paddlefish has declined rapidly due to overfishing, habitat degradation and pollution.

The construction of the Gezhouba dam in 1981 on the Yangtze river also created a barrier to the migrating fish which further affected fish stocks.

The species has been listed as critically endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species since 1996.

Last chance to find

The team believe the upper Yangtze is probably one of the last places that the fish may be present and propose to focus their efforts there.

They also hope to be in a position to act if any fish materialise on the river.

"In the last three years, we have been trying to set a quick-response network along the upper-stem of the Yangtze river to save accidental catches of the paddlefish," Professor Wei says.

"However, the network not only costs money and time, but is also a great challenge."

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