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Large vessels need to be in safe hands when transiting through the Great Barrier Reef, and this means local pilots with local knowledge, WWF said today. The global conservation organisation has called for immediate improvements to the way shipping is managed in the Great Barrier Reef after the Chinese-owned bulk coal carrier Shen Neng 1 slammed into the reef on the weekend. [...] WASHINGTON- On Wednesday President Obama released details of a new national offshore oil-drilling plan that would greatly expand oil leasing far beyond that which was ever authorized by the Bush administration. Prime polar bear habitat in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska, opened for leasing under the Bush administration, would remain open to development, while large swaths of the Atlantic Coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico would be opened for the first time. [...] © Edward Parker/WWF-Canon Demand for tiger body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine and habitat fragmentation from unsustainable regional infrastructure development have driven the decline of the region’s Indochinese tiger population. * Full Interpol article about Operation Tram WWF hails the efforts of a recent worldwide Interpol operation to curb the illegal trade in traditional medicines containing endangered animal and plant species. ‘Given that this crosses many borders, co-ordinating effective efforts to tackle the illegal trade in wildlife is not easy,’ said WWF-UK’s wildilfe trade advisor, Heather Sohl. “It’s great to see 18 countries all working simultaneously to investigate and curtail the trade in traditional medicines containing threatened species. This can be a blueprint for future action on other areas of illicit wildlife trade too.’ [...] Central America, 1 March 2010 – For the first time in Central America Caribbean, Spiny lobster fishing will be banned from the region’s waters during the species’ reproductive season, raising hopes for more responsible fishing practices in the region. Of all the fishing resources in this region, spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) is the most important income source for a large number of coastal communities, especially as it fetches high market prices. [...] A new draft compromise on whaling released by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) today set a dangerous precedent that the international community must reject, WWF said. Amsterdam, International — Greenpeace today called for a proposal by a working group of the International Whaling Commission that would allow the return of commercial whaling to be rejected out of hand, describing it as a dangerous throwback to the 20th century when whales where hunted to near extinction. “The proposal rewards Japan for decades of reprehensible behaviour at the International Whaling Commission and in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary,” said John Frizell, Head of the Greenpeace Whales Campaign. “We are at a critical junction for both whaling and ocean conservation. A return to commercial whaling would not only be a disaster for whales but will send shock waves through international ocean conservation efforts, making it vastly more difficult to protect other rapidly-declining species such as tuna and sharks.” [...] “More and more utilities are beginning to realize that building large power plants just to handle peak daily and seasonal demand is a very costly way of managing an electricity system,” says Lester R. Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, in a recent release, “Smarter Grids, Appliances, and Consumers.” “Existing electricity grids are typically a patchwork of local grids that are simultaneously inefficient, wasteful, and dysfunctional in that they often are unable, for example, to move electricity surpluses to areas of shortages. The U.S. electricity grid today resembles the roads and highways of the mid-twentieth century before the interstate highway system was built. What is needed today is the electricity equivalent of the interstate highway system.” [...] |
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