Posted on 08 July 2010
Gland, Switzerland: New evidence suggesting
sea levels will rise to double expected
levels this century and that fewer baby
fish will grow successfully
to maturity in more acidified oceans underline
the urgent need for decisive action on climate
change, WWF said today.
The Australian Earth
Sciences Convention has heard that cores
drilled up to two kilometers below the Antarctic
ice have outlined an earth with a similar
climate to the warmer earth projected in
current climate assessments.
The new evidence was
presented by Professor Tim Naish, director
of New Zealand’s Antarctic Research Centre,
recently named a lead author for the next
climate change assessment from the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
It supports other recent
modeling suggesting an average sea level
rise this century of one metre or more –
double the upper estimate issued by the
IPCC.
“Given many climate
models predict the planet will warm by the
same two to three degrees over the next
50 to 100 years, scientists need to urgently
understand how temperature changes will
affect the polar ice sheet and the speed
of likely change,” Professor Naish said.
“A couple of degrees
of temperature change can lead to quite
dramatic changes across the world.”
Nemo wouldn’t be able
to find way home in a carbonated ocean,
study finds
Some 150 million people
live within a one metre elevation from sea
level and much greater numbers would be
vulnerable to impacts that include higher
storm surges and saline intrusion into coastal
aquifers supplying water and supporting
food production..
“New studies are all
the time painting an ever-worsening picture
of what we are facing with climate change,”
said Gordon Shepherd, interim leader of
WWF’s global climate deal. “And what we
are facing is not just worse projections
for impacts we know about but left fielders
that we never anticipated.
“For instance, the same
conference has heard that baby fish will
become more vulnerable to predators as oceans
acidify in the process of absorbing excess
CO2.”
“This is another threat
joining an already long list of climate
change threats to our food supplies.”
The ocean acidification
study, conducted by Australia’s highly regarded
Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies,
found that as carbon levels rise and ocean
water acidifies, the behaviour of baby fish
changes dramatically.
The behaviours of concern
include being attracted to predators rather
than cautious of them and a decreased sense
of smell. Early experiments using clown
fish – the Nemo of the film – found them
unable to find their way home in carbonated
water.
Overall, the behavioural changes decrease
larval fish chances of survival by 50 to
80 per cent.
+ More
Milestone tiger meeting
set to create strong recovery agenda
Posted on 11 July 2010
Bali, Indonesia – WWF Indonesia CEO Dr.
Efransjah and WWF Tiger programme leader
Michael Baltzer issued the following statement
ahead of the pre-Tiger Summit meeting starting
Monday in Bali.
“Individual governments
have come to Bali with strong national plans
to help tigers recover in their countries,
but they cannot do it by themselves,” Baltzer
said. “These governments now must collectively
lay the groundwork for a global plan to
save wild tigers ahead of the Tiger Summit
in Russia.”
“They must come together
with a cohesive strategy to ensure the survival
of this iconic species.”
Senior government officials
from the 13 tiger range countries (TRCs)
– Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia,
Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal,
Russia, Thailand and Vietnam are attending
the meeting.
“Indonesia has seized
the opportunity to further this process,
showing a special commitment to saving wild
tigers after President Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono
agreed to the recent partnership with Norway
to stem forest loss, which will also save
critical tiger habitat”.
“The Bali meeting is
the perfect stage for Indonesia to make
even stronger commitments to conservation,”
Dr. Efransjah said. “WWF supports Indonesia
bid to save tigers in the wild globally
while preserving its own forests, which
will reduce emissions and protect its natural
heritage.”
The Bali meeting is
expected to produce a draft Global Tiger
Recovery Programme and a “Leaders Declaration,”
which will be discussed at the Tiger Summit
in Russia.
World tiger experts
and representatives from other NGOs, including
the Global Tiger Initiative, also are attending.
The meeting is a prelude to the Heads of
Government Tiger Summit, scheduled to be
held in St. Petersburg, Russia from 15-18
Sept. 2010.
The Bali meeting is
a follow up to earlier governmental meetings
on tiger conservation. The first in Kathmandu,
Nepal in October 2009, recommended a series
of 15 global actions that need to be taken
to change the trajectory of tigers from
extinction to recovery, as well as commitments
from several tiger range countries. The
Kathmandu meeting was followed by the first
Asian ministerial conference on tiger conservation
held in Hua Hin, Thailand in January 2010,
and which adopted the goal of doubling the
number of wild tigers by 2022, the next
Year of the Tiger.
Tigers are in a dire
situation. The global wild population is
reduced to an estimated 3,200 individuals.
From nine tiger sub-species, only six exist
today — the Sumatran, Bengal, Amur, Indochinese,
South China and Malayan tiger. Threats to
the tiger include massive habitat fragmentation
and destruction, loss of prey, poaching
and illegal trade. Tigers are also lost
due to retaliatory killing when they come
into conflict with villagers living around
tiger habitat.
With an estimated 400
Sumatran tigers left, or 12 percent of the
global tiger population, Indonesia has a
key role to play in the global tiger recovery
programme.
