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Environmental Conservation News - 2007

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Study: Glaciers contributing more to rising seas
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Don't worry too much, for now, about rising seas caused by melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica. The big threat this century could come from small thawing glaciers, researchers reported Thursday.

Even though these glaciers contain only 1 percent of the water tied up in the great ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, they could account for 60 percent of an anticipated rise in the world's sea level by the year 2100.

Sea-level rise is seen as a key consequence of global warming, and much of the concern has focused on the big ice sheets that contain the vast majority of the world's ice.

Researchers writing in the online journal Science Express estimate melting glaciers, which are located all over the globe including in the tropics, could add between 4 and 10 inches to world sea level this century.

While this may not sound like much, consider that some 100 million people live within 3.3 vertical feet of sea level, said Mark Meier of the University of Colorado-Boulder, a lead author of the study.

"If we had almost a foot (of sea-level rise) just due to the small glaciers, add that to the amount due to the ice sheets, which could be appreciable by 2100, and add to that the ocean warming which will cause it to expand in volume, then we get a rise that we can't ignore," Meier said in a telephone interview.

Even a tiny amount of sea-level rise can make a vast inland incursion of water in flat coastal areas, as much or more than 100 times the distance inland as the height of the rise, he said.

Meier said the huge amounts of ice locked in Greenland and Antarctica hold the potential for "some really horrendous sea level rise" -- as much as 3.3 feet -- if they ever completely melt.

That is unlikely to happen this century, although Greenland's ice sheet currently contributes 28 percent and Antarctica's contributes 12 percent to the total ice-melt that fuels sea-level rise, the researchers found.

"Now don't ask me about 1,000 years from now," Meier said. "But for the next few generations we think that we should not ignore the little glaciers."

There are hundreds of thousands of small glaciers all over the world, including in tropical New Guinea, but the important ones in terms of global sea-level change are in Alaska, Canada, Russia and Scandinavia, Meier said.

Part of the reason glaciers are contributing more to rising seas is because of rapid changes in how they flow, co-author Robert Anderson said in a statement.

Many glaciers are getting thinner and that makes them slide more quickly toward the sea.

"While this is a dynamic, complex process and does not seem to be a direct result of climate warming, it is likely that climate acts as a trigger to set off this dramatic response," said Anderson, also of the University of Colorado-Boulder.

The sea ice that seasonally covers the Arctic Ocean would contribute nothing to sea-level rise, much as a melting ice cube in a glass of water would not make the glass overflow. Rising seas are caused by water from ice that has been locked up on land.

Source: CNN, POSTED: updated 3:00 p.m. EDT, Thu July 19, 2007

Report: Global warming threatens cultural landmarks
NEW YORK (AP) -- Rising seas, spreading deserts, intensifying weather and other harbingers of climate change are threatening cultural landmarks from Canada to Antarctica, the World Monuments Fund said Wednesday.

New Orleans' hurricane-ravaged historic neighborhoods, the Church of the Holy Nativity under Palestinian control in Bethlehem, cultural heritage sites in Iraq and Machu Picchu Historic Sanctuary in Peru are among the locations listed on the fund's top 100 most endangered.

The U.S. locations also include historic Route 66, the fabled east-west highway flanked by eccentric, deteriorating attractions, and the New York State Pavilion, a rusting remnant of the 1964 World's Fair in New York City's Queens borough.

"On this list, man is indeed the real enemy," Bonnie Burnham, president of the New York-based fund, said in a statement. "But, just as we caused the damage in the first place, we have the power to repair it."

This year's list of the 100 most endangered sites includes 59 countries. The United States is home to more listed sites than any other country at seven, including types of development such as "Main Street Modern" public buildings that symbolized progress after World War II. There are six sites listed in Peru and five each in India and Turkey.

This year's list is the first to add global warming to a roster of forces the organization says are threatening humanity's architectural and cultural heritage. Other factors include political conflict, pollution, development and tourism pressures, and a thirst for modernity in buildings and lifestyles.

The list is issued every two years. It is intended as a cultural clarion call, and the organization suggests it has been a successful one.

More than three-quarters of the places listed in previous years are no longer imperiled, according to the organization, which has given more than $47 million to help save about 200 sites since 1996.

A group of experts chose the sites from hundreds of nominations submitted by governments, conservationists and others. The selections were based on the sites' importance and the urgency of the dangers to them, the organization said.

On Herschel Island, Canada, melting permafrost threatens ancient Inuit sites and a historic whaling town. In Chinguetti, Mauritania, the desert is encroaching on an ancient mosque. In Antarctica, a hut once used by British explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott has survived almost a century of freezing conditions but is now in danger of being engulfed by increasingly heavy snows.

Other sites face different perils. Political conflicts are clouding the future of all Iraq's cultural heritage sites and the remains of two ancient, giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan's province of Bamiyan, in the fund's view. The statues were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, but there have been some efforts to restore them.

Growth pressures are being felt in places such as Ireland's Hill of Tara, an earthen fort where Celtic chieftains jockeyed for power and legend says St. Patrick confronted paganism. A planned highway, intended to ease commuting between Dublin and a northwestern suburb, would pass near the hill.

Other places, such as Peru's famed Machu Picchu, are considered threatened by their own popularity. A new bridge recently opened to cater to backpackers headed to Machu Picchu, although government cultural experts said it could bring too many tourists to the delicate Inca ruins.

Source: CNN, POSTED: 2:42 p.m. EDT, June 6, 2007

Related Information

World Monuments Watch

Thunder? It's the sound of Greenland melting
ILULISSAT, Greenland (Reuters) -- Atop Greenland's Suicide Cliff, from where old Inuit women used to hurl themselves when they felt they had become a burden to their community, a crack and a thud like thunder pierce the air.

"We don't have thunder here. But I know it from movies," says Ilulissat nurse Vilhelmina Nathanielsen, who hiked with us through the melting snow. "It's the ice cracking inside the icebergs. If we're lucky we might see one break apart."

It's too early in the year to see icebergs crumple regularly but the sound is a reminder. As politicians squabble over how to act on climate change, Greenland's ice cap is melting, and faster than scientists had thought possible.

A new island in East Greenland is a clear sign of how the place is changing. It was dubbed Warming Island by American explorer Dennis Schmitt when he discovered in 2005 that it had emerged from under the retreating ice.

If the ice cap melted entirely, oceans would rise by 23 feet, flooding New York and London, and drowning island nations like the Maldives.

A total meltdown would take centuries but global warming, which climate experts blame mainly on human use of fossil fuels, is heating the Arctic faster than anywhere else on Earth.

"When I was a child, I remember hunters dog-sledding 50 miles on ice across the bay to Disko Island in the winter," said Judithe Therkildsen, a retiree from Aasiaat, a town south of Ilulissat on Disko Bay.

"That hasn't happened in a long time."

Greenland, the world's largest island, is mostly covered by an ice cap of about 624,000 cubic miles that accounts for a 10th of all the fresh water in the world.

Over the last 30 years, its melt zone has expanded by 30 percent.

"Some people are scared to discover the process is running faster than the models," said Konrad Steffen, a glaciologist at University of Colorado at Boulder and a Greenland expert who serves on a U.S. government advisory committee on abrupt climate change.

In the past 15 years, winter temperatures have risen about 9 degrees Fahrenheit on the cap, while spring and autumn temperatures increased about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Summer temperatures are unchanged.

Swiss-born Steffen is one of dozens of scientists who have peppered the Greenland ice cap with instruments to measure temperature, snowfall and the movement, thickness and melting of the ice.

Since 1990, Steffen has spent two months a year at Swiss Camp, a wind-swept outpost of tents on the ice cap, where he and other researchers brave temperatures of minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit to scrutinize Greenland's climate change clues.

The more the surface melts, the faster the ice sheet moves towards the ocean. The glacier Swiss Camp rests on has doubled its speed to about 9 miles a year in the last 12 years, just as its tongue retreated 10 km into the fjord.

"It is scary," said Steffen. "This is only Greenland. But Antarctica and glaciers around the world are responding as well."

Two to three days' worth of icebergs from this glacier alone produce enough fresh water to supply New York City for a year.

The rush of new water leaves scientists with crucial questions about how much sea levels could rise and whether the system of ocean currents that ensures Western Europe's mild winters -- known as the "conveyor belt" -- could shut down.

"Some models can predict a change in the conveyor belt within 50 to 100 years," said Steffen. "But it's one out of 10 models. The uncertainty is quite large."

If you're a fisherman in Greenland, however, global warming is doing wonders for your business.

Warmer waters entice seawolf and cod to swim farther north in the Atlantic into Greenlandic nets. In this Disko Bay town, the world's iceberg capital, the harbor is now open year-round because winter is no longer cold enough to freeze it solid.

Warmer weather also boosts tourism, a source of big development hopes for the 56,000 mostly Inuit inhabitants of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark.

Hoping to lure American visitors, Air Greenland launched a direct flight from Baltimore last month, and there is even talk of "global warming tourism" to see Warming Island.

One commentator, noting the carbon dioxide emissions such travel would create, has called that "eco-suicide tourism."

Source: CNN, POSTED: 10:44 a.m. EDT, June 6, 2007

U.N.: Melting ice, snow to hit livelihoods worldwide
OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- Global warming that is melting ice and snow will affect hundreds of millions of people around the globe by disrupting rivers in Asia, thawing Arctic ice and raising ocean levels, a U.N. report said on Monday.

Glaciers from the Himalayas to the Alps are in retreat, permafrost from Alaska to Siberia is warming and snowfalls are becoming unreliable in many regions, according to a "Global Outlook for Ice and Snow" written by more than 70 experts.

And it said the changes, widely blamed on greenhouse gases released by mankind's use of fossil fuels, would be felt far from polar regions or high mountain areas.

"Fate of the world's snowy and icy places as a result of climate change should be cause for concern in every ministry, boardroom and living room across the world," said Achim Steiner, head of U.N. Environment Programme of the 238-page report.

He said the findings were relevant "from Berlin to Brasilia, and Beijing to Boston".

The report said that about 40 percent of the world's 6.5 billion population would be affected by retreating glaciers in Asia -- snow and ice in the Himalayas, for instance, help regulate river flows and irrigation from China to India.

And a one meter (3 ft 3 in) rise in world sea levels, linked to expansion of the oceans as they warm and melt from glaciers, could cause almost $950 billion in damage and expose 145 million people to flooding, it said.

Oceans rose by almost 20 centimeters last century and U.N. studies project a further rise of 18-59 centimeters by 2100. Asia would be hard hit by rising seas, especially low-lying Bangladesh, it said.

Environment Day

The snow and ice report was released on the eve of World Environment Day, and two days before a June 6-8 summit by the leaders of the world's top eight industrial powers in Germany.

"The world cannot afford simply to discuss climate change. It has to act," Steiner said.

The report said there were big uncertainties about the fate of ice on Greenland and Antarctica, the world's main stores of fresh water. Greenland contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 7 meters; bigger Antarctica by about 60 meters.

And less snow is falling in many areas, with a 1.3 percent decline per decade since the 1960s in the northern hemisphere.

A one degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) temperature rise would raise the snow line in the Alps by 150 meters, for instance, damaging ski resorts and tourism.

And lifestyles were already changing. Hunters in Qeqertarsuaq in western Greenland were turning to use motorboats rather than dogsleds because the sea ice was no longer solid. Polar bears are among animals under threat from shrinking ice.

The report said the rise in temperatures "has not yet resulted in widespread permafrost thawing." Even so, the report said the quantity of methane being released from permafrost in Siberia may already be five times more than previously supposed. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas stored in vast quantities in permafrost.

Among benefits from melting ice, a northern sea route along the coast of Russia could be open for 120 days a year by 2100 against 30 now.

And the report pointed to dangers of abrupt floods linked to a melting of glaciers that have blocked lakes. In 1998 a so-called glacier lake outburst flood killed more than 100 people in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Source: CNN, POSTED: 5:07 a.m. EDT, June 4, 2007

Japan threatens to quit whaling forum
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) -- Japan threatened to quit the International Whaling Commission Thursday after fierce opposition from anti-whaling nations forced it to scrap a proposal to allow four coastal villages to hunt the animals.

Japan had argued its proposal to catch minke whales should fall under the umbrella of community whaling because whaling has been part of its culture for thousands of years.

It did not call for a formal vote on the proposal when it became apparent it lacked the votes to get the measure passed.

The 77-member IWC voted earlier in the week to allow aboriginal whaling for indigenous people in the United States, Russia and Greenland. Japan endorsed those whaling quotas and had asked for the same consideration. (Full story)

"This hypocrisy leads us to seriously question the nature by which Japan will continue participating in this forum," said Joji Morishita, the deputy whaling commissioner.

Opponents said Japan's proposal was a tacit request for permission to resume commercial whaling, 21 years after the IWC put a moratorium on the practice. Environmentalists credit the ban for saving the Earth's largest creatures from extinction.

Australian Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said passing the coastal whaling proposal would have set a precedent that could not be undone.

"The minute you open the door to commercial whaling, how do you shut it again? That is the problem," said Turnbull.

It was not the first time Japan has threatened to leave the organization.

"The only thing more familiar than their empty threat to leave the IWC is their disregard for decisions they don't like," said Patrick Ramage, head of the International Fund for Animal Welfare's global whale campaign.

Japan had postponed the vote on its proposal Wednesday to allow more time for negotiation with anti-whaling nations, but the two sides failed to bridge their ideological divide.

Morishita suggested earlier in the week Japan was willing to give ground on a controversial plan to start hunting 50 humpback whales next year under its scientific whaling program in exchange for support for its coastal whaling proposal.

Japan -- which leads the pro-whaling bloc and has gathered support from African, Caribbean and some Asian nations -- is allowed to take more than 1,000 whales per year for scientific research. Critics say most of the meat ends up in supermarkets and restaurants and that Japan rarely publishes its findings.

Australia and its anti-whaling allies rejected a deal, saying Japan was attempting to hold humpback whales "hostage."

Humpback whales are noted for the complex songs sung by males and for their acrobatic behavior, making them popular with whale-watching tourists.

Their numbers have recovered somewhat and are estimated at between 30,000 and 60,000. This is still only about a third of pre-whaling levels and the species continues to be classified as vulnerable.

As a last-ditch effort, Japan offered a separate resolution asking the IWC's scientific committee for a method to calculate sustainable catch limits for its coastal villages so that the IWC could review quotas for Japan's coastal villages in 2008.

Japan requested its resolution be passed by consensus vote but decided against raising it for a formal vote after New Zealand and others expressed opposition.

Japan's threat to leave the IWC brought an end to a meeting that was, at times, both testy and conciliatory.

Humpback whales protected
Earlier Thursday, the IWC passed a proposal to let Greenland expand indigenous whale hunting after the Danish territory broke a deadlock by agreeing not to start catching humpback whales.

Greenland's representatives postponed the vote to negotiate and eventually agreed to give up a proposed new hunt quota of 10 humpback whales.

The proposal, first made by Denmark Tuesday, increases western Greenland's minke whale catch limits by 25 a year to 200 in the five-year period ending in 2012 and introduces two bowhead whales into its annual hunt.

Greenland said the catch limits allowed by the IWC over the last 20 years did not meet the dietary needs of its people.

Anti-whaling nations had said there was not enough evidence to accept that a rise in catch limits would be sustainable.

Atlantic minke whale numbers have been estimated at around 180,000, with another 700,000 around Antarctica.

Source: CNN, POSTED: 10:45 p.m. EDT, May 31, 2007

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International Whaling Commission | Other stories

Anti-whaling nations oppose Japan
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) -- Anti-whaling nations said on Monday they oppose Japan's proposal to permit whale hunting in its coastal communities and will push for Japanese concessions on other issues.

On the first day of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting, the United States and its anti-whaling allies said they see Japan's proposal as a way to resume commercial whaling through the backdoor.

"Japan's proposal for coastal whaling is, in effect, a partial resumption of commercial whaling," said Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's environment minister, at a news conference.

The group of allies, which included Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Brazil, Argentina and Germany, said they will not engage in "horse trading," even if Japan compromised on its controversial plan to hunt 50 humpback whales next year as part of its scientific-research program.

Japan, which has obeyed a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling but uses a loophole to hunt whales for scientific research, has argued that it sees no difference between commercial whaling and noncommercial whaling by aboriginal groups.

Japan said it would introduce a proposal this week that would allow four coastal communities to catch a small number of minke whales under a hunting exemption used by aboriginal communities.

Japan also said its proposal would not result in a net increase of minke whales caught, because, if passed, it would reduce the number of minke whales caught under its scientific-research program.

Aboriginal quotas

Joji Morishita, Japan's deputy whaling commissioner, said his country is open to dialogue on all issues, including its plan to add humpback whales to its annual Antarctic hunt, which currently takes minke and fin whales.

Ministers from Australia and New Zealand asked Japan to call off the plans to hunt humpback whales as a sign of goodwill, but said it would not use the coastal-whaling issue as a bargaining chip.

"We know that there are very strong emotions, especially in Australia and New Zealand, about this particular species," Morishita said. "Hopefully we can have mutual acceptance of difference."

Japan is expected to offer its proposal on Tuesday when the commission debates the renewal of five-year aboriginal whaling quotas.

Alaska Natives, who use whale meat as a staple in their diet and for cultural practices, are counting on this international permit that allows them to hunt in the tradition of their ancestors and share meat among fellow villagers.

The U.S. delegation said its top priority will be to obtain a renewed quota that allows Alaska Natives to kill 41 bowhead whales a year.

"It is more than a right. It is an absolute necessity," Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, said in an address to the commission.

Japan's Morishita said it will back renewed quotas for Alaska Natives and will not link its own coastal community proposal with that issue.

Also up for renewal are aboriginal quotas for natives in the Russian Far East, Greenland and other small indigenous communities.

Source: CNN, POSTED: 12:32 a.m. EDT, May 29, 2007

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Aboriginal whaling quotas renewed
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) -- The International Whaling Commission renewed a five-year whaling quota for indigenous people in the United States and Russia on Tuesday, allowing Alaska Natives to continue hunting bowhead whales for subsistence purposes.

By a consensus vote, Alaska Natives and the indigenous people of Chukotka, Russia, were allocated a shared catch limit of 280 bowhead whales over a period ending in 2012. The proposal maintained previous catch limits.

The whaling commission is holding its annual meeting near the icy coasts where Alaska Natives use whale meat as a staple in their diet and for cultural practices. The commission's U.S. delegation said its top priority was to obtain a renewal of their quota.

Japan supported the renewal of aboriginal whaling quotas, but Joji Morishita, Japan's deputy whaling commissioner, asked for "consistency" from the organization when it raises a proposal to allow hunting of minke whales by four of its small coastal communities.

Japan has said its proposal should fall under the umbrella of community whaling, because whaling has been part of its culture for thousands of years.

But Shane Rattenbury, Greenpeace International's head delegate, called the proposal "another example of commercial whaling in disguise."

Japan is expected to offer its coastal whaling proposal on Wednesday. Anti-whaling nations have already voiced opposition to the proposal.

Sanctuary fuels debate
The diplomatic tone of the meeting turned testy after Brazil and Argentina proposed the creation of a South Atlantic whale sanctuary that would extend from the east coast of South America to the west coast of Africa.

Iceland, which opposes the sanctuary, said the proposal runs contrary to the commission's conventions. Pro-whaling nations argue that sanctuaries do not take into account scientific findings about growing whale stocks.

Brazil has proposed the sanctuary every year since 1998, but it has failed to get 75 percent of the votes needed to create a zone free from whaling in the South Atlantic Ocean. The only two sanctuaries that exist today are in the Indian Ocean and the Antarctic, or Southern, Ocean.

The debate will continue, and the proposal is expected to come up for a vote on Wednesday.

Another unresolved matter was a separate proposal by Greenland to expand its indigenous hunting of minke whales. The Danish territory also wants to include humpback and bowhead whales into the annual hunt.

"It is necessary for the needs of the local people of Greenland that have never been met by the IWC quotas of the last 20 years," said Amalie Jessen, a delegate from Greenland, told Reuters. "Eating Westernized food is not healthy."

The proposal, made by Denmark, calls for an increase of western Greenland's minke-whale catch limits by 25 a year to 200 and the creation of an annual hunting quota of 10 humpback whales and two bowhead whales.

Anti-whaling nations said it would support the status quo for Greenland's catch limits, but said there was not enough scientific evidence to accept that an increase in catch limits would be sustainable. The vote was pushed back indefinitely to let Greenland do more negotiations for its proposal.

Other indigenous communities that maintained the status quo for catch quotas had their renewals passed by consensus vote.

The commission also renewed Russia's and the United States' aboriginal catch limits for gray whales in the North Pacific. And St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean also got a five-year catch quota of four humpback whales a year renewed.

Source: CNN, POSTED: 11:59 p.m. EDT, May 29, 2007

Nations seek end to trawling seas
WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 20 nations agreed Friday to discourage unregulated and destructive bottom trawling on the South Pacific high seas, a victory for environmental groups.

The agreement, which takes effect September 30, is intended to protect about a quarter of the world's high seas, a vast area extending roughly from the Equator to the Antarctic Circle and from Australia and New Zealand to the west coast of South America.

Observers and ship locator monitoring systems are to be used, and vessels must remain at least five nautical miles (9,260 meters) from deep-water corals and other vulnerable marine ecosystems.

The agreement reached in Renaca, Chile, follows a U.N. General Assembly resolution in December aimed at getting tough on high-seas bottom trawling, which involves fishing boats that drag giant nets along the sea floor.

Enormously effective at catching fish, the nets also wipe out almost everything in their path, smash coral and stir clouds of sediment that smother sea life, marine experts say.

Orange roughy is the main commercial fish in the South Pacific high seas, mainly caught by New Zealand fishing vessels. Estimates of the fishing trade range up to about $10 million (euro7.4 million).

New Zealand officials agreed to the voluntary restrictions in the South Pacific high seas, but they said the restrictions could "severely constrain" its fishing vessels. The ecological costs of the huge nets are far higher, environmental groups said.

"This area contains thousands of these underwater sea mountains, or seamounts, that are considered to be some of the most ecologically rich habitats in the world," said Joshua Reichert, director of the private Pew Charitable Trusts' environment division, which coordinated the groups' campaign. "For all of us, this really represents a major step forward for marine conservation."

A U.N. report last year called bottom trawling a danger to unique and unexplored ecological systems. It said slightly more than half the underwater mountain and coral ecosystems in the world can be found beyond the protection of national boundaries.

The new agreement is among members of the fledgling South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization: Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cook Islands, Ecuador, the European Commission, Federated States of Micronesia, France, Japan, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, the United States and Vanuatu.

Source: CNN, POSTED: 10:31 a.m. EDT, May 5, 2007

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International Coastal Cleanup

International Coastal Cleanup needs volunteers to help our oceans...

Clean oceans and waterways are vital to our health and safety. The International Coastal Cleanup is the world's largest one-day volunteer effort on behalf of the marine environment. Help us restore health to our oceans and waterways by volunteering in this year's International Coastal Cleanup. Events take place in more than 90 countries and in all 55 U.S. states and territories.

What: The International Coastal Cleanup; The world's largest one-day volunteer effort to remove marine debris.

When: view website at www.coastalcleanup.org for current dates...

Where: At a local beach or waterway near you.

Background: The International Coastal Cleanup is the world's largest one-day volunteer effort on behalf of the marine environment. In 2003 more then 450,000 people from all 55 U.S. states and territories and over 90 countries around the world participated in the cleanup collecting over 7.55 million pounds of marine debris. Volunteers also found 237 entangled animals last year, emphasizing the dangers that marine debris plays in the coastal environment.

From community groups to families and concerned citizens, many of your readers are participating in a local cleanup. Help tell their story and the story of how marine debris is not only an eyesore, but also poses a serious risk to health and human safety and harms wildlife.

To find a Cleanup site near you call
1-800-262-BEACH or log onto www.coastalcleanup.org.

Sea Turtle Conservation Program

Sea Turtles are seriously threatened, many are nearing extinction. Below are a few links to organizations that are making an effort to help save these amazing creatures. Find out how you can become a volunteer by contacting your location environmental group in your area. more...

Save the Albatross Campaign

The problem - Most albatrosses and several other seabird species are heading for extinction. They are being unintentionally drowned in large numbers by "longline" fishing boats. Longlining is the single greatest threat to the world's seabirds. Much of it is carried out by "pirate" fishing boats.

Save the Albatross | Albatross Conservation | Donate: Online ▪ Form (pdf)

World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSAP)

World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSAP) WSPA works to raise the standards of animal welfare throughout the globe and their vision is a world in which the welfare of animals is understood and respected by everyone, and protected by effective legislation.

Through their collaborative projects, WSPA is Campaigning Against Cruelty by exposing animal abuse and enforcing stronger laws; their Animal Rescue teams are working to save abandoned or neglected animals or those stricken by disasters; and by Changing Hearts and Minds amongst people living and working with animals, WSPA is forging a safer future for all animals.

Choose Seafood Wisely

If you’re having trouble keeping track of which species of seafood and shellfish are safe to buy from an ecological perspective, then check out the latest Seafood MiniGuides from the websites listed below. Your seafood choices can really help protect the health of our oceans for future generations. Since many of your favorite kinds of seafood are disappearing from the world's oceans because of over-fishing, habitat destruction and the unintentional catch of other species, being educated about the right seafood to buy at the store or order in restaurants, will make sure our favorite seafood and shellfish will be around for years to come.

In addition to making a difference with your seafood choices, you can take part in local conservation projects as well like beach and river cleanups.

National Audubon Society's Living Oceans Program
Environmental Defense "Which Fish is Best?" - Best & Worst Picks
Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program - National Chart
Marine Stewardship Council
National Audubon Society Right Bite card in PDF format:
Black and White | Color

Links

Atlantis Marine World
Blue Ocean Institute - Seafood Miniguide (pdf)
Endangered Species Act of 1973, US Fish & Wildlife Service
Endangered Species Program, US Fish & Wildlife Service
List of Endangered & Threatened Wildlife Species of New York State
Manatee Junction
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
National Maritime Initiative
National Marine Sanctuary Program
Oceana - campaigns to protect and restore the world’s oceans
OceanNEnvironment
Okeanos Ocean Research Foundation, Inc.
PaleMale: Red-tailed hawk who manages to thrive in New York City ( Links: 1 2 3 )
Peregrine Falcons: Webcam at 55 water street in New York City
SaveTheEnvironment.com
Save the Manatee Club
Sea Turtle Conservation Program
Shark Conservation
The Ocean Conservancy
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
World Wildlife Fund
Zoos and Aquariums of AZA

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