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Low Frequency Active Sonar Affect Whales, Dolphins and Other Sea Life

10:35 PM |

The United States Navy and NATO have been using and testing Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) to detect enemy submarines. Many dolphins and whales who use their own sonar to navigate the oceans have been severely affected. The sound is so loud (over 235dB) that it can and kill and maim whales, dolphins and sea life. LFAS is known to be harmful to humans as well.
Some whale and dolphin strandings are believed to be due to military sonar (Image source: Wikipedia beached humpback and beached orca)
Global protesting and four lawsuits have convinced the US Navy to end its Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) tests early in the waters off Hawaii. In many places, the general public has reacted strongly to the damage inflicted on marine life and the protest is growing fast as more people become aware of the tests. The campaign still goes on to ensure awareness is raised.
Unfortunately, tests still continue and whales and other marine animals are thought to have been being killed as a result. And, according to environmental organization, Natural Resources Defense Council, “the U.S. Navy is now seeking the power to exempt itself from environmental laws” that are designed to address this concern. (See also this link for additional information.)
For more on LFAS:

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Species at risk elsewhere

10:34 PM |

Species at risk elsewhere

While the documentary mentioned above focused on Cameroon, other places in Africa and around the world also show similar relationships between poverty, consumption, and environmental destruction.
Orangutans are found in Indonesia and Malaysia. Indonesia in particular is rich in biodiversity
Image source: Wikipedia
The fourth most populous country, Indonesia, houses 10 percent of the earth’s remaining tropical forests. Not only are forests depleting year by year, but species that depend on the forests are also disappearing, and these species are needed to ensure a stable ecosystem.
The “person of the Forest”, or Orangutan, is one such species at risk due to corruption, excessive logging and poaching. Palm oil plantations have recently been increased because of world demand and their use as biofuels. Mining and fragmentation by roads are other problems they face.
Other species at risk in Indonesia include the Sumatran Tiger, Sumatran and Javan Rhino and the Asian Elephant.
See the following for some more information on related issues:

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Poverty and Conservation; Need to address root causes

10:33 PM |

Poverty and Conservation; Need to address root causes

Chimpanzees and other apes at risk from shrinking habitats
Image source: Wikipedia
On April 16, 2003, Britain’s BBC aired an award-winning documentary titled Ape Hunters, about how apes in Central Africa are being hunted for their bushmeat, almost to extinction.
The documentary also explored the inter-relationship and challenges between
  • Commercial logging
  • Increased bushmeat consumption, and
  • How poachers fared when offered sustainable development as an alternative to hunting
The documentary highlighted that while in the wealthier parts of the world we see conservation as desirable and easily recognize the importance and urgency of protecting the rapidly declining numbers of the great apes, what is less recognized are the complex multitude of causes, of which the wealthy world also plays a negative part. In effect, it has been easier to blame “others” and almost ignoring our own impacts.
That is, as well as hunting for bushmeat leading to concerns about dwindling numbers of animals, the causes of the increase in bushmeat consumption need understanding.
For example, in small villages on the frontiers of the forest, individual bushmeat consumption has been part of local customs for a long time, as there are no domesticated animals, and the forest has been the source of survival for villagers, for most of their requirements.
However, increased poverty in nations such as Cameroon has forced more villagers to the bigger cities to look for work. This has brought the custom of bushmeat consumption to a larger population, thus increasing demand for it.
Commercial logging in Cameroon and elsewhere has threatened forest-dwelling animals with habitat loss
Image source: Wikipedia
In addition, increased commercial logging (about 50% of the timber goes to Europe, the documentary pointed out) has resulted in dense forest being opened up allowing hunters and poachers to go further into the forest than ever before.
Bushmeat hunting is more profitable than other options, even though some hunters pointed out that if there were other options, they would not hunt. Occasionally, illegal logging and commercial logging company employees such as truckers have also been involved in illegal trading of bushmeat.
Sustainable development alternatives have been attempted. For example, projects have promoted the protection of the apes, rather than hunting. This has been through encouraging and provide real incentives for hunters themselves to protect the apes. A focus has been to attract tourists, who would be willing to pay to see these animals in the wild, thus sustaining the people and paying for conservation and other measures.
Hopetoun falls, Australia; an example of trying to preserve nature while allowing tourism. (Source: Wikipedia)
Although this approach has proven successful in other places, it is unfortunately not always guaranteed to work. The documentary followed some former-hunters who were attracted to the idea, but also highlighted the difficulties in this. For example:
  • Causes of poverty were still not being addressed, so it was hard for people to go for alternatives.
  • To pay former hunters, the projects of course needed proof that these people were indeed attempting to find the apes and allow those apes to slowly get familiar and accustomed to humans, so that tourists could eventually be guided in. However, the challenge of often finding and photographing these apes in the dense jungle would sometimes seem futile.
  • Although there were successful sitings and eventual interaction, the promise of tourists has not materialized, and so funding was dwindling.
  • The villagers had also been encouraged to grow small plots of cash crops, such as cassava and plantain. As these were growing near the forests, occasionally a group of apes would destroy those crops in their search for food, causing anger amongst the villagers whose immediate survival depended on those crops, as many people would go hungry otherwise.
In detailing the impact of the logging companies in opening up the forests for increased destruction of habitat and more poaching, some African development organizations also pointed out that western consumer life styles therefore had an impact on the dwindling numbers of apes, because those demands fuel a lot of deforestation.

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Declining Number of Rhinos

10:32 PM |


Rhinos are critically endangered
Although almost all species of rhinos have been recognized as critically endangered for many years, the conservation organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) notes that rhino poaching worldwide is poised to hit a 15-year-high driven by Asian demand for horns.
As with the killing of sharks just for their fins, whereby the body is discarded once the fin is cut off the shark, rhinos are often killed just for the horns. In some Asian countries it is wrongly believed the horns have medicinal value.
The IUCN is finding some 3 rhinos a month are being killed. In some places that number is even higher. In Africa, the total rhino population is estimated to be around 18,000 and in India/Nepal only 2,400.

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Declining Number of Lions

10:31 PM |

Declining Number of Lions

Image source: Wikipedia
And another iconic animal, the lion, is also dwindling in numbers. The BBC reports (October 2003) that fewer than 20,000 lions now survive in Africa, compared to 200,000 in the early 1980s.
Sport or trophy hunting was cited as a major cause, whereby males, older or younger, were often targeted. Another reason was the population pressures that have meant encroachment onto lands closer to lions.
Tourism has not really benefited the people of such communities, and so they do not see the benefit in preserving them.
With such prominent and iconic animals dwindling, what of other less emblematic creatures, the BBC also asks?

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Declining number of polar bears

10:30 PM |

The World Wildlife Fund for Nature lists toxic pollution, oil exploration, and hunting, as well as climate change, as the threats polar bears face.
Polar bears are found throughout the circumpolar Arctic on pack ice, along or near coasts, and on islands:
The situation has become dire enough for the Bush Administration in the US to propose to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The polar bear depends on sea ice. (Source: Wikipedia)
This itself is an interesting turn of events as the Bush Administration has typically been reluctant to acknowledge concerns about climate change, and a lot of lobbying by environmental groups has led to this proposal.
Earlier in 2006, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) had already put the polar bear on their Red List of Threatened Species.

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Science and Sustainable Development

10:28 PM |


Ten years on from the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, thousands of international policy makers gathered in Johannesburg between August 26 and September 4 at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development. Politicians, scientists and pressure groups attempted to set out plans to counter the current global trend: that environmental degradation is the price to be paid for prosperity. Issues high on the agenda included depletion of fresh-water reserves, population growth, the use of unsustainable energy sources, food security, habitat loss and global health - all addressed in the context of social justice in balance with environmental sustainability.
Science is no longer on the fringes in attempting to solve these problems. Unlike Rio in 1992, consultation with researchers from a host of relevant disciplines was widely sought during the summit's preparatory meetings, and organisations such as the Paris-based International Council for Science have been asked to submit formal contributions to the summit.
Over the past few years, Nature has presented articles on many aspects of sustainable development. This web focus brings together a wide selection of recent material, as well as news and features reporting from the Johannesburg summit.

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Food and the Future

10:18 PM |

Food and the Future


From BSE to GM, food is news. One strand unites these issues, and it can be summarized in one word: 'sustainability'. The world's population continues to grow, yet resources are finite. Our mission is to squeeze more crops from the same patch of ground, while preserving that patch in a state fit to pass on to further hungry generations. The quest for sustainability is the theme of this Insight.
After World War II, the 'Green Revolution' averted worldwide famine. Half a century on, the world needs yet greater ingenuity to feed itself. Science is again at the sharp end. The public wants it to deliver food to satisfy an increasing population without compromising the integrity of the landscape we live in. Agriculture in the future must be environmentally sensitive and above all, sustainable.
Much current debate on these issues concerns genetically modified crops, but this is only part of the story. Sustainability has lessons for the whole agricultural enterprise, from high-tech viticulture to the depths of the ocean.
This web focus brings together what seems to be a disparate selection of material recently published in Nature. The wide range illustrates, as well as anything can, how issues relating to food touch every sphere of human life.

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Climate and water

10:17 PM |

As floods devastated central Europe and Asia this summer, climate scientists found themselves in great demand from journalists struggling to explain the connections between recent catastrophic weather and expected long-term changes in climate.
The problem for climate scientists lies in determining whether recent events fall outside natural variability: a single summer of excessive rainfall could be just the 100-year or even 1000-year flood. But it is clear that water and climate are — and always have been — intricately linked. Changes in climate are likely to bring changes to the hydrological cycle — the most important feedback cycle in the Earth's climate system.
The oceans play the central role in this feedback loop via heat storage and transport around the globe. Atmospheric water vapour produces rainfall, and acts as the most important greenhouse gas. But through the formation of clouds, water vapour also leads to the reflection of sunlight back into space. And over geological time-scales, the waxing and waning of ice sheets changes the reflection of the sun's light back into space, and largely determines the sea level.
This web focus encompasses a specially commissioned Insight on Climate and Water, together with a selection of recent articles handpicked from the pages of Nature, all of which illuminate the connections between climate and water in ice, oceans and atmosphere.

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Philippine Wonders of Nature

9:41 PM |

The wonders of nature found in the Philippines. Some of the featured places are included in the on-going search for the seven wonders of the world.

If you are a nature lover, you will like it here in the Philippines. It is here where some of the most beautiful wonders of nature are found. These world-renowned wonders of nature are sights to behold and to enjoy by citizens of the world.
Listed here are some of the great wonders of nature found in the Philippines. I have chosen 10 places that in my opinion are the best places to see in the country.

Banaue Rice Terraces

This beautiful place is located in the northern part of the country. This wonder of nature is known to Filipinos as the 8th wonder of the world. This rice terraces has been carved into the mountains by the indigenous people of Mountain Province and Ifugao more than 2000 years ago. The Banaue Rice Terraces is included in the Unesco World Heritage List in 1995.

Tubbataha Reef Marine Park

This Unesco World Heritage-listed marine park is located in the Municipality of Cagancillio, Province of Palawan. Tubbataha is made of about 10,000 coral reefs lying in the middle of Sulo Sea. Tubbataha is a nesting place for green sea turtles. It has almost 500 species of fish, about 45 species of birds, 9 species of dolphins and whales and it has about 400 species of corals.


Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park


This great wonder of nature is another sight to enjoy. It is located in Palawan, Puerto Princesa, about 50 kilometers north of the Capital City. It has about 8 kilometers of navigable Underground River considered to be the longest in the world and features a limestone karsts mountain landscape. The river winds through a cave before it flows directly to the sea. This underground river has several chambers and also contains major formations of stalactites and stalagmites. Like the Tubbataha Reef, this nature park is included in the Unesco Heritage List.

Chocolate Hills

Chocolate Hills is located in Bohol, Philippines. It is made up of around 268 small cone-shaped hills that are almost of the same size and spread over an area of about 50 square kilometers. These coned-shaped hills are covered with grass and turns brown like a dark colored chocolate during summertime


Mayon Volcano

Mount Mayon is located is located in the province of Albay and about 15 kilometers northwest of the capital city of Legaspi.
Mount Mayon is an active volcano and has erupted about 47 times in the last 400 years. The volcano is known the world over as the most perfect cone shape volcano.


Read more in Philippines
« Three Best Places for Backpackers in the Philippines
Sojourn in Palawan »
The most destructive eruption of Mount Mayon occurred in 1814 when lava flows emanating from the volcano buried the nearby town of Cagsawa, leaving only the bell tower of the church visible from the ground.. In this worst eruption, more than 2,000 people died.

Boracay Beach

Boracay Island is located in the province of Aklan with a land area of about 10 square kilometers. The island is famous for its powdery white sand and now considered as one of the best beaches in the world. From an unknown travel destination years ago, Boracay is now teeming with upscale tourists from all over the world.

Siargao Island

Siargao Island is located in the province of Surigao del Norte. It has a land area of over 400 square kilometers. Siargao is known the world over as one of the best Surfing destinations. It is home to Siargao Cup, a Philippine and International Surfing competition sponsored by the local government of Surigao.

Hundred Islands of Pangasinan

Hundred Islands is located in Pangasinan. These islands are scattered in deep blue waters of Ligayen Gulf. Some of the bigger islands have white sand beaches and dining facilities for visitors to enjoy.

Pagsanjan Falls

Pagsanjan Falls is located south of Metro Manila in the province of Laguna. The place is very popular among domestic and international travelers. Shooting the rapids is its major attraction. Boatmen will take you in their banca (wooden boat) to the river upstream, go swimming and shoot the rapids on your way downstream.

Taal Volcano

Taal Volcano is located in the island of Luzon in the province of Batangas, about 50 kilometers south of Manila. It is an active volcano with a large lake in its crater. The lake is popular fishing ground for residents living in the vicinity of the volcano.

Read more: http://trifter.com/asia-pacific/philippines/philippine-wonders-of-nature/#ixzz1GGe8ovgK

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A Natural Way of Reversing

7:16 PM |

diggsdigg

Diabetes is a growing bloom botheration in the United States and has risen about six-fold back 1950, now affecting about 20.8 actor Americans. About one-third of those 20.8 actor do not apperceive that they accept the disease. Reversing blazon 2 diabetes is a achievability for millions of bodies with the illness. A accustomed diabetes assay can be acclimated application advantageous amoebic foods in the appropriate combination. Diabetes has become an catching that affects one out of every 12 developed New Yorkers, for example. It is a ache in which the anatomy does not aftermath or appropriately use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is bare to catechumen sugar, starches and added aliment into activity bare for circadian life. Diabetes is a ataxia of metabolism-the way the anatomy uses digested aliment for advance and energy. Most of the aliment bodies eat is burst bottomward into glucose, the anatomy of amoroso in the blood. A accustomeddiabetes assay reduces the claret amoroso akin through able bistro habits. Diabetes disrupts the accustomed antithesis amid insulin and glucose. After a meal, carbohydrates usually are burst bottomward into glucose and added simple sugars. You charge to accumulate clue carefully of your burning of key foods. There is software to do that. One affairs is alleged Diabetes Pilot. It organizes the advice you need, whether you're at home or on the go. The adaptable versions of Diabetes Pilot works as a aggregation with Diabetes Pilot Desktop - advice you access in one can be transferred to with the other. Diabetes Pilot annal glucose measurements, insulin and added medicine, meals, exercise, claret pressure, assay results, and added notes. It advance the carbohydrate, calories, fat, protein, fiber, sodium, cholesterol and added nutrients in the foods that you eat.Diabetes Pilot has an chip aliment database with advice on bags of foods, including hundreds of fast foods. It helps you see trends in your claret sugars, medications, diet, and added areas with assorted letters and graphs. It lets you assort annal by time of day or any added arrangement that you'd like, added allowance you to acquisition important patterns. It additionally allows you to alteration your abstracts in assorted means for added assay and advice with your bloom affliction team.

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Vital Facts About the Dead Sea's Climate

7:13 PM |

If you are attractive for one of the best altered and abnormal places on earth, again clearly Dead Sea is a name apart. It lies at the Jordan valley's southern end and advised as a terminal basin of the Jordan Breach Valley. On the apparent of the Earth, Dead Sea is accepted as the everyman point (1300 anxiety beneath sea level). Location It is amid amid Israel andJordan in the Syro-African rift. The arctic allotment belongs to Jordan and southern allotment is disconnected amid Israel and Jordan. The sea is basically fed by River Jordan , in the north, and by abiding streams and springs from the west and east. Saline water The baptize is acclaimed for absolute accomplished akin of body and salinity in the world, which is affluent in magnesium, potash, boiler as able-bodied as in automated salts. Due to aerial absorption of alkali in the water, actuality of beastly or beastly activity seems like abroad dream over here. The baptize is accepted as six times saltier than added oceans and salinity keeps on increasing, the added you go. Climate altitude in the area This breadth (also accepted as Ein Bokek district) is acclaimed for its characteristic acute altitude and action varies as per altered summer and winter seasons. Key credibility apropos this altitude are sorted below: The breadth blossoms with 330 canicule of sunlight in a year with beggarly anniversary condensate of beneath than 50mm. The breadth has hot and dry summers with wet winters. 32 to 39 degrees C is advised as an boilerplate temperature during summers. Whereas, during winters, boilerplate temperature is 20-32 degrees which, usually, do not bead beneath 10c. Sunlight in the breadth is aerial in ameliorative UVA and low in UVB afire rays. Hence, continued acknowledgment involves low-risk and beneath sun-burn. It is not amiss to say that acute altitude are favorable for those travelers who appetite to adore continued insolate for continued periods of time. The abode has aerial barometric pressure, due to which it has been characterized by aerial oxygen content. Pollen-free atmosphere can be enjoyed at this area. 1980 mm/year is boilerplate abeyant dehydration amount in the Dead-Sea.

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Gas and Air why its important

7:07 PM |

Since humans have been on the earth, recycling has been in practice to some extent. Resources, whether plentiful or scarce,  can be reused and fitted to another purpose.
While there are archaeologists who state that recycling was practiced as far back as 400 B.C., the movement did not gain real headway until World War II.  Previous to the 1940s, peddlers would scour cities for bits of metal that could be melted down and reused. With the onset of the Second World War and with war-time production demands to be met, recycling became a mainstream activity. Tin drives, rubber drives, household collection and donation of anything that could be used in the war effort became not so much a matter of industrial efficiency as a patriotic duty.
Several countries continued recycling practices after the war’s end. However, it wasn’t until the 1970s with production costs rising, particularly in the U.S. which was faced with gasoline shortages, that recycling once again became a part of daily life.  The environmental movement of the 1970s aided in the practice again becoming vogue. The 1970s saw the first Earth Day, the Clean Air Act and dozens of other laws past concerning the preservation of the Earth.  It was studied and found that production involving completely new resources take 95% more energy than using recycled goods.  Companies and manufacturers could save time and expenses by reusing recycled products.
During the last decades of the 20th Century and beginning of the 21st, recycling and “thinking green” have become increasingly important, particularly in America.  Grocery stores sell canvas bags for customers to use over and over again, to replace plastic bags. The majority of cities and communities in the U.S. have recycling centers and households can separate their own recyclables from waste. Landfills and dumps, once the only option for waste disposal, now have the ability to create natural gas which can be used as energy. This energy is made from the methane gas created by decaying waste. Landfill gas recovery is just another way that humans are finding to be frugal with resources. Almost without fail, every city now has separate receptacles for regular waste and recyclables; like paper, aluminum, plastic, batteries, and metals.Â
Money is still what makes the world turn for most. Recycling can help make money go further. In addition to the industrial savings it can create, recycling also can save money with end users. Second hand stores like the Salvation Army, Plato’s Closet, and other consignment or donation stores are a form of recycling, even if they are not the first thing that comes to mind. Some states offer a small cash incentive for recycling certain items, like bottles, motivating people to collect these and turn them in for reimbursement.
With humanity doing their part to “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” the world and its resources are in much better shape than previously. Methods like landfill gas recovery and recycling are giving longevity to natural resources.

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Solving the Plastic Bag Pandemic: Natureworks Biodegradable Plastics and Trash Bags

7:05 PM |

Did you know that it’s estimated that the world uses approximately 1 trillion, 500 billion plastic bags a year? That’s equivalent to almost 1 million plastic bags every minute. Per family, that’s 60 bags per every 4 trips to the grocery store.


One of the most problematic issues with our modern world is the accumulation of non-biodegradable trash, specifically plastic bags like grocery bags and shopping bags made of polyethylene. These bags are very popular—approximately four in every five bags handed out at grocery stores are of the plastic variety. Because these plastic shopping bags are handed out abundantly and are rarely recycled, they end up in landfills and municipal trash incinerators. Plastic garbage bags, trash bags, and shopping bags are non-biodegradable and won’t break down easily in the natural environment. Under ideal circumstances, high-density plastic bags take approximately 20 years to degrade. However, in normal circumstances or less than ideal circumstances, a bag can take as long as 1,000 years to fully disintegrate.


Paper bags aren’t much better. In some ways are even worse than plastic. The manufacture of paper bags creates 50 times as much water pollutants and global warming gases. 90% less electrical energy is required to recycle plastic than the equivalent weight in paper. Additionally, paper grocery bags break down most easily in commercial or municipal composting programs.


Natureworks PLA or corn based “plastics” are one example of an alternative to traditional plastic trash bags and shopping bags. Biodegradable bags such as these are ideal for retail settings, offices, at home, or as a substitute for any non-environmentally friendly plastic bag. Natureworks plastic products and other biodegradable plastics are made from biopolymers, like polylactic acid that can be transformed into anything from clothing fibers, packaging materials, food containers, and a variety of other products. Natureworks bio-plastics are one such example of a plastic that’s derived from 100% renewable, yellow corn resources and can contribute to reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Biodegradable trash bags vary in the amount of time they take to degrade, but most break down in 3 to 6 months in good landfill conditions. Unlike petroleum based, conventional plastics, bio-plastics do not contribute to the toxicity of landfills or incinerator stack emissions. Equally important, if bio-based plastics are littered, they don’t degrade into toxic particles that then pollute nearby bodies of water, wildlife, soil, and other sensitive environments.


Uses for Biodegradable Plastic Bags: Natureworks Plastic and Trash Bags


Replacing traditional non-biodegradable trash bags in the kitchen, home, and office, and cleaning up pooch poop and cat litter are good uses for compostable plastic and trash bags. Take the time to learn more about plastic bags and trash bags made from natural plastic and fibers and find out if they’d be a benefit to your home and office and reduce landfill waste.

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