Coastal management and restoration of our planet's coastlines with a particular focus on California, Louisiana and the Pacific. Emphasizing wetland restoration, aspects of agriculture in the coastal plain, fisheries, dealing with coastal hazards, and effective governance.
Wireless networks span the globe, but so far they do not go underwater. That might soon be set to change,however, because researchers from the University at Buffalo, USA, are developing a deep-sea internet.
Let me introduce you to a new bio-optical knowledge recording and dissemination system, responding to the trade name : MAP. "Map" is an unprecedented technol...
Check out this awesome new thing called MAP. It's made of 100% sustainable material, easy to share, unbreakable, fits in your pocket, and most importantly, shares none of your information.
Innovating the Business of Seafood for Communities & Health National Geographic Such a facility would allow artisanal, multigenerational fishermen to catch less fish but generate more income by using higher quality, sustainable methods.
Alaska’s commercial salmon harvest has set an all-time record due primarily to large returns of pink salmon.
The latest statewide total from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) puts this year’s salmon harvest at more than 269 million fish — shattering the previous record of 222 million fish landed in 2055.
Of that, pink salmon made up the majority of the landings with 216 million fish. More than 84 million pinks were taken in the seine fisheries in Prince William Sound and another 47 million were taken in the southern Southeast seine fisheries with another 38 million taken in the northern Southeast seine fishery. The pink harvest in the Kodiak area was well over 28-million fish.
This year’s statewide sockeye harvest totaled more than 29.5 million fish with more than 15.7 million sockeye taken in the Bristol Bay fishery.
The statewide coho harvest was recorded at more than 5.1 million fish and the statewide chum harvest was just over 18 million. The statewide king salmon harvest was about 307,000 fish.
The total harvest is valued at USD 691 million (EUR 511 million), according to figures from ADF&G. Of that, pinks salmon accounted for USD 277 million (EUR 205 million), topped only by sockeye salmon at USD 285 million (EUR 211 million). Chinook salmon is valued at USD 19 million (EUR 14 million), coho at USD 36 million (EUR 26.6 million) and chum at USD 74 million (EUR 55 million).
From Laguna Beach to Mendocino County, Highway 1 offers 735 miles of stunning scenery punctuated with must-stop destinations that deliver the some of the best highlights of coastal California.
The deep sea is increasingly recognized as a fertile area for offshore industrialization. If existing activities in the deep sea continue or are expanded and new deep-ocean industries are developed, there is need to consider what is required to minimize repair resulting in damages to the deep-sea environment. This article in the journal Marine Policy develops the discourse on deep-sea restoration and offers guidance on planning and implementing ecological restoration projects for deep-sea ecosystems that are already, or are at threat of becoming degraded, damaged or destroyed. Two deep-sea restoration case studies in Scotland and Papua New Guinea are described and are contrasted with on-going salt marsh restoration in the San Francisco Bay.
This is more of a concept piece. Please note that the PNG expample mentioned here is no longer in production (and may never return to production). It looks like the Cook Islands might have the most robust and responsible planning for deep sea mining, at least in the Pacific. They are years away from granting such rights to mining companies. It is never too early to start planning, though.
(2013). Considering “Coastal Carbon” in Existing U.S. Federal Statutes and Policies. Coastal Management: Vol. 41, No. 5, pp. 439-456. doi: 10.1080/08920753.2013.822294
Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrasses provide important ecosystem services, including nursery habitat for fish, shoreline protection, and the recently recognized service of carbon sequestration and storage. When these wetland ecosystems are degraded or destroyed, the carbon can be released to the atmosphere, where it adds to the concentration of greenhouses gases (GHGs) that contribute to climate change. Yet, no federal statute, regulation, or policy accounts directly for the carbon held in coastal habitats. This article, featured in the journal Coastal Management, identifies key steps for the inclusion of the ecosystem services of coastal habitats into the implementation of existing federal policies without statutory changes; doing so would increase the degree to which these policies consider the full economic and ecological impacts of policy actions.
Happy World Octopus Day! Here are a few facts about these fascinating marine creatures! (RT @EcotourismAus: Happy World Octopus Day! Here are a few facts about these fascinating marine creatures!
The two-million acre delta where a young Aldo Leopold once paddled his canoe through "a hundred green lagoons” abounding with life (“At each bend we saw egrets standing in the pools ahead...Fleets of cormorants drove their black prows in quest of skittering mullets; avocets, willets, and yellow-legs dozed one-legged on the bars; mallards, widgeons, and teal sprang skyward in alarm…”) today is a vast, empty mud flat.
For years, scientists assumed it was a dead ecosystem.
After all, the free-flowing river itself disappeared at the Morelos Dam a hundred miles upstream, where the meager portion of water left to Mexico after seven US states took their share was then funneled into irrigation canals or off to the residents of the city of Mexicali. No water passed through the dam, much less was left over for the environment: the Colorado is already over-allocated by sixteen percent. Nine-tenths of the original wetlands are gone. Much of the delta has become desert.
But in the 1980s and 1990s, something unexpected happened. During El Niño years, sometimes the Colorado ran high, and then water would be released through the dam to prevent flooding upstream. In the aftermath of these floods, the landscape looked palpably healthier. As a team of scientists wrote in the Southwest Hydrology Journal, “riverbanks once choked with saltcedar and other salt-tolerant shrubs have sprouted new cottonwood and willow trees following each flood event. The floods wash salts from the riverbanks and wet the soil, allowing tree seeds to germinate and grow. The trees grow in stands…that correspond to the high water mark of each flood."
Detailing unsustainable exploitation of fisheries, acidification, global warming and pollution as drivers of decline, Mr Furlan argues that ‘on this Earth, there are seven billion reasons – and the number is rising – why this cannot continue’.
Luiz Furlan is a leading Brazilian businessman and a former Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, who joined the Global Ocean Commission shortly before its second meeting, held in New York at the beginning of July.
At the close of that meeting, the Commission released a statement arguing that all vessels on the high seas should carry a unique, unchangeable International Maritime Organization (IMO) number and a tracking system.
This would increase the security of nations by enabling coastguard authorities to track wrongdoers more easily, and improve the lot of seafarers, the Commission argues. Two years ago, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime concluded that some illegal fishing vessels are used for the trafficking of drugs, arms and people.
Several fishing groups have sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over an abandoned program that sought to establish a sea otter colony on San Nicolas Island.
I am sympathetic to the fishermen's argument that "We agreed to this." But the reality is the goal has always been the restoration of this extirpated population. With the (formal) termination of the reintroduction program, this agreement is also terminated. This is correct. Also correct is that the Serivce should take a very light hand indeed with enforcing Endangered Species Act or Marine Mammal Proteection Act takes. That is both fair and politic.
The most disappointing aspect of this story is that perennially lawsuit-loving, anti-reasonable management group being at it again. It seems as if the Pacific Legal Foundation hasn't found a decision from the Federal Government it has ever liked: if an agency enacts a restriction, the answer is "sue the government." If an agency (as in this case) removes a restriction, the answer is "sue the government." The main theme here, be it coastal development, endangered species management, vegetation management appears to be "sue, sue, sue." I iwsh these folks were truly interested in reasonable management rather than stirring up hornets nests to get donations for their legal fund.
LOS ANGELES (AP) â€" A marine science instructor snorkeling off the Southern California coast spotted something out of a fantasy novel: the silvery carcass of an 18-foot-long, serpent-like oarfish. The last oarfish we saw was three feet long.
Moderate growth in seafood exports FIS The volume of exports between January and July 2013 also rose: it experienced an increase of 6.2 per cent, changing from 771,170 in 2012 to 819,170 tonnes this year, the Undersecretariat of Fisheries and...
In a fish-eat-fish ocean filled with sharks and other fierce swimmers, how has the delicate jellyfish survived – and thrived – through hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary culling?
DENVER (AP) — Scott Carpenter, the second American to orbit the Earth, was guided by two instincts: overcoming fear and quenching his insatiable curiosity.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Roma Joy Armbrust, the retired schoolteacher who helped bring Ormond Beach and its remarkable biodiversity to the attention of many throughout Ventura County.
Our friends Roma Armbrust and Jean Harris were fantastic folks and true engaged citizens in the best sense of the word.
I am honored that CSU Channel Islands hosts the Jean Harris archive for local environmnetal history that (among other things) fostered the grasroots movement that saved the Ormond Beach wetlands on the edge of Oxnard California. When fully restored, this nearly 1,000-acre area of the southern California Bight will be able to deal with both rising seas from climate change and offer safe harbor to the critters who will be looking for a place to rest their weary heads (human, plant, and animal alike).
Cape Town entrepreneur Alan Fleming has designed a shipping-container fish farm he says is profitable, affordable, repeatable, transportable and stackable.
Dan Delany took a simple look at furloughed employees due to the government shutdown. There are tickers for duration, estimated unpaid salary, and estimated food vouchers unpaid, but the main view is the interactive tree map that shows furloughed proportions by department.
I normally avoid such discussions on my site here, but this one is quite interesting. If you look at the first plot (Furloughed Employees), just about every federal agency I frequent/collaborate with has all or virtually all of their employees stuck at home (Department of Defense being the lone expection): National Parks, NOAA, EPA, NSF, and on and on and on...
This is crazy. I think the children in the big play pen in Washinton D.C. need to take a time out and not have access to any toys for awhile. Or perhaps a spanking is in order???
Parliament endorsed the current protocol to the EU-Mauritania fisheries partnership agreement (FPA), on Tuesday, despite objections from some MEPs that it imposes higher licence fees and reduced fishing opportunities, e.g. it excludes octopus. The protocol has applied provisionally since 1 August 2012.
"We now have to prepare for the renewal of this agreement, due to expire at the end of 2014, to ensure that the next protocol improves the current conditions and that Commission negotiators make sure it includes the whole sector", said rapporteur Gabriel Mato Adrover (EPP, ES), who recommended rejecting the protocol.
He especially regretted that no access was granted to the cephalopod (octopus) fishing fleet, leading to job losses especially in the Spanish regions of Galicia and the Canaries.
MEPs who favoured the protocol argued that it is more sustainable than the previous one, and is consistent with the rules of the new Common Fisheries Policy, which have yet to enter into force. They also argued that it would serve the needs of the local population better, inter alia because the protocol includes a special contribution in kind by the EU fleet to meet their nutritional needs. It also provides more job opportunities for Mauritanian seamen.
Under the protocol approved today, EU fishing vessels are allowed to catch various species of fish and shellfish in Mauritanian waters in exchange for an EU payment of €70 million a year, of which €3 million is development aid for the local fisheries sector. Seven EU countries use the protocol at present, but Spain is the main beneficiary. The agreement is the biggest of the EU’s fisheries agreements in terms of the volume and variety of fisheries products as well as the financial contribution.
The protocol will be in force until the end of 2014. Up to now, most licences have been purchased by Spanish operators, followed by France and various other countries.
The resolution was passed by 467 votes to 154, with 28 abstentions
Lampedusa has had enough tragedies. The death of more than 230 African migrants aboard a boat headed for Italy's now infamous island has finally given Europe its "never again" moment. European Union ministers are due to meet in Luxembourg today to thrash out a plan of action on how to prevent more deaths like these — starting by sending EU search and rescue boats to patrol the entire Mediterranean on the lookout for migrant ships.
Such ships are, it's no exaggeration to say, death traps. Divers scouring the wreck of the one that went down last week say they have "unpacked a wall of people," finding corpses so tightly entwined that it was a struggle to pull them out. The alleged skipper is in custody, facing multiple counts of manslaughter. But it's round the negotiating table in Luxembourg that the lessons from Lampedusa's latest disasters most sorely need to be learned.
The Department of Defesne has in my opinion made some errors, but by in large and done a very good job with preserving and managin species on lands it controls. You can do amazing things when you can shoot noxious predators, keep out unwanted human trespassing, etc.
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