FW: Campaign to save Barrier Reef from industry

 

 

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Posted on: Sunday, April 28, 2013 08:51
Author: Science Yahoo UK
Subject: Campaign to save Barrier Reef from industry

 

Conservationists accused Australia of failing to protect the Great Barrier Reef from massive industrial development as they launched a multi-million dollar campaign to drum up awareness. The move follows UNESCO demanding decisive action to protect the world's largest coral reef from a gas and mining boom and increasing coastal development, or risk the embarrassment of seeing it put on its danger list. The government says it is "absolutely committed" to the reef and in February outlined to UNESCO how it planned to improve management and protection. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee will consider the response at its annual meeting in Phnom Penh in June. In the lead-up to the meeting and in an election year, the Australian Marine Conservation Society and WWF-Australia launched an advertising blitz to highlight increased "dredging, dumping and shipping in the marine park". "The reef is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, but our governments seem to have forgotten that fact," said Bob Irwin, father of late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, who is the face of the TV, radio, online and newspaper campaign. "The reef belongs to all of us, not to big industry to use as a dredge, dumping ground and shipping superhighway. The Australian people are the only ones who can make a difference to protecting the reef." Australia is riding an unprecedented wave of resources investment due to booming demand from Asia, with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of resource projects in the pipeline. Last year, UNESCO said the sheer number and scale of proposals, including liquefied natural gas, tourism and mining projects, could threaten the reef's status. The Australian Marine Conservation Society's Felicity Wishart claimed the Queensland state government was fast-tracking mega ports along the reef and planned to dredge and dump millions of tonnes of mud and rock in its waters. "In 2012, less than half a million tonnes of dredge spoil was dumped in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. In 2015 it's predicted that figure will explode out to 23.5 million tonnes -- a massive 50-fold increase," she said. "The Great Barrier Reef is a major tourist destination generating $6 billion a year and supporting 60,000 jobs. No one is going to want come half way around the world to see mega industrial ports." According to WWF-Australia, recent polling it conducted showed 91 percent of Australians think protecting the Great Barrier Reef is the country's most important environmental issue in 2013. The Queensland government was not immediately available to comment.

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FW: Iranian scientist freed by U.S. returns home - local media

 

 

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Posted on: Saturday, April 27, 2013 18:56
Author: Science Yahoo UK
Subject: Iranian scientist freed by U.S. returns home - local media

 

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iranian scientist held for more than a year in California on charges of violating U.S. sanctions arrived in Iran on Saturday, Iranian media reported, after being freed in what the Omani foreign ministry said was a humanitarian gesture. Mojtaba Atarodi, 55, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Iran's Sharif University of Technology, had been detained on suspicion of buying high-tech U.S. laboratory equipment, previous Iranian media reports said. The trade sanctions were imposed over Iran's nuclear programme, which Iranian officials say is for peaceful energy purposes only but Washington says is secretly geared to developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency said Atarodi arrived in Tehran on Saturday, after a stopover in Muscat on Friday. Upon arriving at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport on Saturday, Atarodi told reporters that he had tried to buy simple equipment for his personal lab to conduct academic research when he was detained by U.S. authorities, according to state-run Press TV. There was no immediate U.S. comment on Atarodi's case. Oman, a U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state which also enjoys good relations with Tehran, has previously helped mediate the release of Western prisoners held by the Islamic Republic. Omani authorities had worked with U.S. officials to speed up Atarodi's case and return him home, the foreign ministry in Muscat said in a statement carried by local media. He was released after follow-up approaches by Iran's foreign ministry, its spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA). In a report on its website dated January 7, 2012, Press TV said Atarodi was taken into custody on his arrival in Los Angeles on December 7, 2011, accused of buying advanced lab equipment. Iran and the United States severed relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the pro-Western monarchy in Tehran. In 2011, Iran freed into Omani custody two U.S. citizens who had been sentenced to eight years in jail for spying. Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, among three people arrested while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border in 2009, were flown to Oman after officials there helped secure their release by posting bail of $1 million. They denied being spies. The third detainee, Sarah Shourd, had been freed in September 2010, also by way of Oman. (Reporting by Saleh al-Shaybani and Sami Aboudi; additional reporting by Zahra Hosseinian in Zurich and Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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FW: State of war protects Chad's last elephants

 

 

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Posted on: Saturday, April 27, 2013 17:58
Author: Science Yahoo UK
Subject: State of war protects Chad's last elephants

 

In an isolated wilderness in Chad, a war is being fought to save central Africa's decimated elephant herds from gangs of ivory poachers. The frontline is the southern Zakouma National Park: a 3,000-square-kilometre (1,900-square-mile) sanctuary that has lost 90 percent of its elephants in the last 10 years. Numbers plunged from 4,300 in 2002 to some 450 a decade later, thanks to a poaching bloodbath. The reserve now uses paramilitary-style tactics, with 60 guards who act like soldiers and a new 15-member rapid reaction force. "The poachers are heavily armed, determined, motivated," said Patrick Duboscq, a former police officer from France who trained the group. The shift to beef up the protection came two years ago when the South African conservation group African Parks took over management of Zakouma. The first step was establishing a permanent presence in the reserve, which had been abandoned in the summer wet season when most of the park is under water. Airstrips were built and the monitoring system was streamlined -- including fitting 14 elephants with satellite tracking devices that transmit their location six times a day. Being aware of the elephants' movements means that the anti-poaching patrols can be sent out to the right spots in and around the vast park. "The only way we can save the elephants in Chad is by knowing where they are going," said Lorna Labuschagne, head of logistics in Zakouma. As a result the elephant massacre has been stemmed -- just 13 have been lost since 2011. And the once highly stressed animals have started to breed. But the takeover did not go smoothly. In September 2012, six guards were killed in a suspected reprisal attack a few days after raiding a poaching camp northeast of the park. "It had a huge impact on our operations and on the morale of the guards. We were quite shocked that guards out there just to protect elephants were just slaughtered like that," said Rian Labuschagne, Zakouma's manager. The information collected then confirmed what the conservationists already knew: based in Sudan, the poachers are heavily armed, well-organised and have a good knowledge of the bush. Several are Janjaweed, the state-backed militias known for atrocities in Darfur in western Sudan, which was plagued by a bloody civil war for 10 years. "Now that they do not get the support of the Sudanese government, all those groups are still there, the Janjaweed are a sidelined group of people, very frustrated," he told AFP. "They have been involved in ivory hunting for years," he added. With cheap firearms and ammunition and the rocketing price of ivory, more people are getting involved. In response, the park's show of force has been accompanied by a strengthening of the information network among locals. "Even if we tripled the guards, physically you are not going to be able to protect these elephants in the last areas they move, you have to rely on good information and cooperation with the communities and with the local authorities," said Rian Labuschagne. "And that will enable you to put your guys in the right place at the right time." And there are worries that Zakouma's toughest fights may yet be ahead. Conservationists fear that once the gangs have torn through the region's easier targets, they will turn to Zakouma. According to the latest figures available, some 25,000 elephants died in Africa in 2011 alone, about five percent of the entire population, with central and west African elephants hard-hit. The bloodbath is being driven by poaching gangs who move with impunity between Sudan, Cameroon, Chad and the Central African Republic. "Zakouma is the only protected area" in Chad, said Stephanie Vergniault, a Frenchwoman who founded the SOS Elephants association. Some 89 elephants were killed in one night in Southwestern Chad in March by a gang of suspected Sudanese poachers who had killed more than 300 elephants in Cameroon last year. "One by one, all the other elephants in Chad are being slaughtered before our eyes," said Vergniault.

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FW: Permit delays raise US-Canada pipeline costs: company

 

 

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Posted on: Saturday, April 27, 2013 02:15
Author: Science Yahoo UK
Subject: Permit delays raise US-Canada pipeline costs: company

 

Delays in greenlighting TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline will increase construction costs and postpone its in-service date by at least six months, the company said Friday. "Due to ongoing delays in the issuance of a (US) presidential permit for Keystone XL, we now expect the pipeline to be in service in the second half of 2015," TransCanada said in its quarterly financials. "Based on our pipeline construction experience, the $5.3 billion cost estimate will increase depending on the timing of the permit." TransCanada originally hoped to have finished by early 2015 building the 1,179-mile (1,897-kilometer) pipeline from the Canadian province of Alberta to the US state of Nebraska, where it would hook up with a new southern leg to bring the oil to refineries in Texas. But the proposal stirred up a lot of controversy. Pipeline supporters say the project would generate much-needed jobs for the sluggish US economy, while opponents warn it could have a dire impact on the environment and vital groundwater resources. The State Department is expected to make a final recommendation on the project to US President Barack Obama in the coming months.

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FW: C.Africa elephant population down 62% in 10 years: NGOs

 

 

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Posted on: Saturday, April 27, 2013 02:12
Author: Science Yahoo UK
Subject: C.Africa elephant population down 62% in 10 years: NGOs

 

Poaching on an "industrial" scale has slashed the elephant population in the countries of central Africa by nearly two-thirds, a group of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said on Friday. "A recent study shows that the population of forest elephants has dropped by almost two-thirds or 62 percent in the past 10 years, victims of large-scale ivory poaching," the group of eight NGOs said in a statement. "The situation is dramatic and worrying. It's very dangerous," Jerome Mokoko, assistant director of the Wildlife Conservation Society, told reporters at a news conference in Brazzaville. "Nearly 5,000 elephants have been lost in the northern zone of Congo between 2009 and 2011," said Mokoko. He added there were 80,000 elephants in the Central African Republic just 30 years ago but their number has been reduced to just a few thousand. "The Democratic Republic of Congo alone is home to 70 percent of the elephant population of central Africa. But now there are only between 7,000 and 10,000 elephants in the DRC," Mokoko said. Jules Caron, head of communications for the World Wildlife Fund in central Africa, said the elephant poaching situation had changed "dramatically." "We are no longer talking about small-scale poaching but poaching on an industrial scale, all run by highly organised and well-armed gangs of international criminals," added Caron. The NGOs said poachers were seizing on weapons, especially Kalashnikov rifles that have become widespread due to several civil wars flaring in the region. "The ivory trade begins and ends in south-east Asia, notably China and Thailand, respectively the world's biggest consumer and the world's biggest legal ivory market," Caron told AFP. He called on heads of state to "take on the fight against poaching, criminal activity surrounding animal parts and illegal trade in wild species."

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FW: India predicted to receive normal monsoon rains

 

 

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Posted on: Saturday, April 27, 2013 00:08
Author: Science Yahoo UK
Subject: India predicted to receive normal monsoon rains

 

India will receive normal monsoon rains this year, the government said on Friday, boosting prospects of a stronger performance this year by Asia's third-largest economy. The pounding rains that sweep across the continent from June to September are dubbed the "economic lifeline" of India, which is one of the world's leading producers of rice, sugar, wheat and cotton. "The southwest monsoon rainfall for the country is most likely to be normal," said Science Minister S. Jaipal Reddy. "The monsoon rainfall is likely to be 98 percent with a margin of error of five percent," he added. But monsoon rains in the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu may be delayed or could be below normal levels, government officials said. More than 70 percent of Indians depend on farm incomes, and at least 60 percent of the nation's farms lack irrigation, meaning they depend entirely on the rains that fall in intense bursts over the wet season. Last year, India got below-normal rain in the first half of the June to September wet season. The rains picked up in some areas later, but large areas of west and south India did not benefit. The rains are crucial this year for central parts of the western state of Maharashtra, India's biggest sugar-producer, which is reeling from the worst drought in over four decades. The southern state of Andhra Pradesh is also parched. India's weather department defines normal monsoon as seasonal rainfall between 96 percent and 104 percent of the long-term, or 50-year, average. The Congress-led national government's hopes of over six percent economic growth this financial year -- up from an estimated decade low of five percent last year -- hinge on India receiving a normal monsoon. A good monsoon is particularly vital for the government this year ahead of the general elections in 2014 as it struggles to kickstart economic growth in the country of 1.2 billion people. Agriculture contributes about 15 percent to the nation's gross domestic product but the livelihood of hundreds of millions of Indians living in rural areas depend on the farming sector. Memories remain fresh of India's devastating drought in 2009 that came despite the meteorological department's predictions of a normal monsoon. The drought, the worst in nearly four decades, sent food prices rocketing and caused huge hardship for the country's poor.

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FW: Cargo spaceship docks with ISS despite antenna mishap

 

 

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Posted on: Saturday, April 27, 2013 00:01
Author: Science Yahoo UK
Subject: Cargo spaceship docks with ISS despite antenna mishap

 

An unmanned cargo vehicle on Friday successfully docked with the International Space Station, in a delicate manoeuvre after its navigation antenna failed to properly deploy following launch, Russian mission control and NASA said. Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko and Pavel Vinogradov first oversaw a so-called partial "soft docking" of the Progress craft at 1225 GMT, careful to make sure the unopened antenna did not cause any damage. Around 10 minutes later the full docking was completed with "hooks closed" and the cargo ready to be taken on by the crew into the main station modules. "We have capture between the ISS and Progress," a NASA commentator said after the soft docking completed while the space station was over Kazakhstan. The full docking, which was considerably slower than normal, was then completed at 1234 GMT. The cosmonauts were on standby for possible manual docking, but in the end it was done automatically, a spokesman for Russian mission control told Russian news agencies. The failure of the Kurs antenna on the craft to properly deploy after launch from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier this week had raised fears about whether the docking manoeuvre could be successfully carried out. It was also mooted a spacewalk could be required to check the antenna, but in the end mission control deemed that this would not be necessary. Launched on Wednesday, the Progress vehicle took two days to reach the ISS, bringing with it about three tonnes of cargo. Besides fuel, spare parts, oxygen and water, space station crew received packages from their families, books, fresh fruits and some specially requested foods. "By special request, we are sending some garlic and chili pepper sausages to the station," Alexander Agureyev of the Russian Academy of Sciences biological institute, which oversees the ISS rationing, told Interfax news agency. The cargo vessel, like its predecessors, will be filled with trash and released from the station on June 11, according to NASA. The crew of six at the ISS currently includes Russian cosmonauts Romanenko, Vinogradov, and Alexander Misurkin, as well as NASA astronauts Tom Mashburn and Chris Cassidy, both American, and Canada's Chris Hadfield, who is currently ISS commander.

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