A Different Kind Of Feeding Frenzy

You enter the warm, tropical waters above a spectacular coral reef, adjust your mask, and start swimming. In seconds, you are mobbed by schools of damselfish, chubs, wrasses, and other deadbeat fish hovering just centimeters from your fingers. You wave your hand to shoo them away, but some of these moochers are real bullies and charge--mouths open--straight for your hands. Some will even nip at exposed areas of skin on your legs or arms. If you've snorkeled or dived any of the popular coral reef destinations of the world, you're familiar with this scenario. You're witnessing some of the more visible impacts of fish feeding.

Trying to eliminate fish feeding is one of the more contentious topics when discussing sustainable marine tourism. It's contentious because the outcome is closely tied to the happiness of two major players: tourists and tourism businesses. How do you make tourists happy? Well, if they are on a dive or snorkel boat, you make certain that they see lots of fish and can leave with lots of great pictures. And how do tourism businesses ensure this? They make certain that every tourist who enters the water has some fish bait in their hands. And what also makes this a big win-win situation for operators is that tourists are happy to shell-out hard, cold cash to buy that fish food from them. Fish food sales can be a very attractive boost to their bottom line. Happy tourists are also inclined to be tipping tourists which, not surprisingly, results in happy tourism business employees. So, everyone ends up happy. Tourists are happy. Operators are really happy. Fish? Not so much.

While fish get the immediate gratification of a full stomach, it comes at a cost. Often the "foods" provided lack anything resembling their nutritional requirements. I once dove with a group who emptied no less than 2 full cans of Easy Cheese into the ravenous mouths of fish. I mean, this shit is barely food for humans. If you hear someone rationalize fish feeding by saying, Well the data is unclear on the negative effects of fish feeding, I suggest treating their motives as suspect. Chances are they have some materially invested reason for that neutral position (or they are just blatant shills for the fish feeding crowd.)

Feeding wildlife habituates the fed animals to expect handouts and become less interested in seeking out their normal food as grazers or predators. Haven't decades of experience with bears in national parks taught us anything? Further, surveys of divers and snorkelers have also demonstrated that visitors to reefs are increasingly seeking an authentic experience with nature, not a contrived experience mediated by the offering of food. Savvy tourists are using criteria such as whether or not an establishment feeds fish in order to choose which company to patronize.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, fish feeding also makes fish more aggressive and less cautious around humans. Again, I bring up the lessons learned from overly "friendly" bears as a result of handouts. Human feeding of bears in national parks (either intentional or accidental) has resulted in the death of too many bears who have become habituated to human presence and, as a result, have become a threat to safety. I'm honestly not that torn-up over pictures of the random bites (or missing fingers) that a tourist incurs as a result of fish feeding. It's karma balance in my mind. But what does trouble me is that aggressive, non-shy fish make for easy targets to spearfishers. Do we really need to make their job any easier?

But hope and ingenuity will perhaps prevail in Hawaii. Boss Frog’s Dive & Surf Shops and Frogman Charters became the latest Maui-based business to cease fish food sales as the Take a Bite out of Fish Feeding campaign is launched. A joint effort between conservation NGO's Project S.E.A.-Link and CORAL, and the state of Hawaii's Division of Aquatic Resources, the campaign objectives are to eliminate fish feeding, along with other actions such as handling marine life when engaged in snorkeling or diving. That's Liz Foote, Project S.E.A.-Link Director and CORAL's Hawaii Field Manager with Boss Frog's Retail General Manager/Buyer Michael Webb (left) and General Manager Chris Kasper (right), displaying the "Fish Friendly Establishment" decal at their Lahaina, Maui, location.

Our belief is that tourists and operators generally want to do the right thing. They just lack awareness on the issues. We think this campaign can be a starting point for that awareness building. Perhaps armed with information of the potential risks to fish, humans, and overall reef health, dive and snorkel businesses will be convinced that selling fish food is worth reconsidering in the long view. If not, perhaps their operation may lose some of their tourist appeal (and local credibility) when compared to more sustainable businesses in the same destination. Customers certainly have no dearth of otions in selecting a dive or snorkel business in tourism destinations. Let's see what happens.

Putting The Pee In MPA

Compile a short list of some of the biggest threats to coral reefs today and you might include climate change, coral bleaching or disease, coastal development, and unsustainable fisheries. Admittedly, these are global threats and can seem daunting or formidable for local communities to try to reduce on their own. But part of my approach to coral reef conservation is also working with local communities in project sites to identify their top perceived local threats to their reefs which they they could, through community-based conservation projects, measurably reduce or eliminate. This sort of list is always fascinating to compile and uniquely representative of the destination. Recently I've been noticing two perceived local threats to reef health appearing more and more often: too much pee and too much sunscreen from tourists.

A little background is needed before we get into pee-talk. The majority of marine protected areas (MPAs) that have been established in coral reef destinations are set-up for multiple use. Which generally means that while the area receives either formal or informal protection (no collecting/extraction, monitoring and research, etc.) other activities or uses (such as marine tourism or limited/seasonal fishing) can occur there as well. In fact, it's because of their popularity as dive or snorkel attractions that MPA status is sought in the first place. In theory, the MPA allows for the natural resources to be effectively and actively managed. Or that's the idea, anyway.

How does the multiple use protected area model work on land? Anyone who has visited Yosemite National Park, especially during the Memorial Day weekend, knows it can be a madhouse. The park loop road is often gridlock, parking is nonexistent, and popular spots like Yosemite Falls or the Half Dome views are packed with Ansel Adams wannabes. It's practically impossible to find a solitary moment with nature in the park. As a result of all the car traffic, air quality in Yosemite valley can be worse than in a city. And other than habituated black bears looking for that bag of Doritos in your car, no self-respecting wildlife bothers to hang around the valley with all the noise and congestion.

By comparison, the island of Cozumel in Mexico, Bonaire in the Dutch Antilles, and Honolua Bay in Hawaii are all tremendously popular "parks" as well, albeit marine parks. They are all designated, in whole or in part, as MPAs. And just like the situation I described for Yosemite, visitors to these MPAs can generally expect an absolute cluster-fuck of users. In Hawaii, for example, a 2003 study of tourist traffic through MPAs found that between 28,000 and 100,000 people visited just four coral reef sites per year, with diving and snorkeling being the most popular marine recreation activity. A 1999 study of tiny Honolua Bay on the northwest coast of Maui showed an average traffic of 250 tourists per day and up to 700 per day during peak season. I can say with confidence these numbers have increased.

It's a surreal experience to watch a catamaran pull into Honolua Bay and begin disgorging dozen after dozen of its snorkelers onto the shallow reefs. If I weren't so close to the whole conservation thing, I'd probably find the scene comical. So many clumsy snorkelers all in the same place at the same time... fins slapping each other as they attempt to swim, heads bumping, and the periodic gagging as inexperienced snorkelers swallow another pint of seawater. And with so many humans packed together, the odds are pretty good that more than just a few are "peeing in the pool," as it were. (I promised I'd get back to the pee-talk.)

Now don't sit there feeling all superior like you've never pee'd while swimming. I've done it. You've done it. We all do it. It's not like it's planned. There's just something about being in water that gets the plumbing flowing. Hell, I've pee'd in many a wetsuit while diving just to stay warm! Now a single bladder-full of human urine is no big threat to ocean health. Besides, nitrogen––a major component of urine––is limited in the ocean, and pee is likely to be used quickly in any of a variety of animal or plant metabolisms.

But what about a boat-load of urine? Or many boatloads of urine each day, 365 days a year? Is that a problem? And as an added complexity, what about the fact that almost every one of those happy tourists dropping into the water is wearing sunscreen or sunblock. After all, this is the tropics. Sunscreen is specifically designed to block ultraviolet radiation. A good portion of that same invisible spectrum of light is used by zooxanthellae, the algal endosymbiont living within coral tissue, and is necessary for photosynthesis to occur. So what happens if that sunscreen washes off those hundreds of bodies each day? Could it possibly float as a film on the surface of the water and effectively block corals from photosynthesizing?

These are fair questions, and like I said earlier the perceived potential coral threat from pee and sunscreens seems to be a growing concern to stakeholders I talk to. My job is to listen to stakeholders and help where possible. So is there any science out there to provide some guidance? The research and evidence to date has been lacking or inconclusive. Many factors contribute to making an easy answer difficult. A few of these might include volume and frequency of human traffic, amount of snorkelers wearing sunblock, physical parameters of the destination (embayment, open water, shallow, deep, etc.) and degree of wave action and oceanic circulation in the site. Finally, what sort of equation or methodology do you use to estimate how many snorkelers or divers are actually peeing? Exit interviews? Would you be honest? While I have at least seen a few papers raise the question of the impact of urine on coral reef health, I've yet to find one that addresses the sunscreen issue. If readers know of any, I'm all ears.

Lacking conclusive evidence, I prefer to take a precautionary approach and encourage snorkelers to empty their bladders before suiting-up and to avoid sunblocks altogether and invest in an inexpensive snorkel/surf skin or suit (an ultra-thin Lycra or Spandex material that is close-fitting to the skin and blocks 100% of harmful UV radiation.) These shirts and suits are also known as rash guards as they are effective at preventing stinging marine life (jellies and their kin) from using their nematocysts to sting.

However, even if no empirical link can be made between pee, sunscreen, and coral health, the fact that they have risen in people's perceived ranking of coral threats is still an interesting sociological phenomenon. And there remains the very real consideration of a coral destinations' capacity to support mass tourism. This consideration is known as the tourism carrying capacity (borrowing an ecological term of the same name referring to the number of individuals in a population that the resources of a habitat can support) and requires a comprehensive site analysis. The idea behind conducting tourism carrying capacity studies is in part to determine whether visitation caps might be required to maintain the ecological integrity of a coral destination. But these sorts of studies don't have universal buy-in from reef resource managers around the world. Some managers have said tourism carrying capacity studies are more art than science.

The state of Hawaii has invested in numerous tourism carrying capacity studies for popular coral reef destinations. The incredibly popular tourist attraction of Hanauma Bay on Oahu has put these findings into practice and capped visitation,

In order to protect the quality of Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, no more than 2,000 people may access the lower level of Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve at any one time. This number may be adjusted based on future studies or reports.

In addition, Hanauma Bay is closed to the public every Tuesday to allow for at least some degree of recovery. With tourism generating more than $10.1 billion to the economy annually, the state is caught between providing for the seven million visitors they receive each year, and preserving its coral reefs—a primary attraction for those visitors. And if the urine threat proves to be valid, I presume that will also mean investing in a few more Porta Potties for the MPA parking lots.

What's So Funny?

A reader wrote me with a question. And for the record, it's perfectly okay to leave comments on my blog! Really! Even if it's a question... it gives me hope. Anyway, he or she (no name) said,

I like your blog. It's funny. Are you?

It immediately caught my attention for it's haiku-esque economy of verbage. But there are a lot of ways I could interpret this. Are they talking "Ha Ha" funny or "strange" funny? I'll go for the, Are you a funny person in person? line of questioning. And the answer is, I dunno. I mean it's hard to say because I'd hate to be one of those people––we all know at least one––who thinks they are incredibly funny, but au contraire.

I suppose another way of formulating an answer would be to wonder what someone might say about me at a eulogy, assuming anyone showed-up. Here, again, I'm stumped. There's too much of a temptation to over-inflate my own self image. I'm just an average schmo, trying to do the right thing most of the time. Here and there I've gotten off course, but I think I'm a fundamentally nice and good-hearted guy. Mind you, I'm no Pollyanna. I don't suffer fools gladly and am unrelentingly skeptical. But these are good things, right?

Which doesn't answer my readers question. So I think I'll take a mulligan on the answering directly and just say that if you mixed a big serving of


with a much-missed portion of


and a fabulous slice of


it would sort-of approximate my in-person person.

Thanks for the fun question!

Fijian Bloggers Undermine National Security?

In the interest of balance, I though I'd share a different take on the Fijian blogger brouhaha currently underway. From the military perspective, bloggers in question are promoting hate speech, not free speech. An article on FijiLive.com outlines the interim government position.

The public should be aware that people disseminating blog messages which undermine national security or safety cannot seek refuge in freedom of expression or speech because section 30 (2) of the Constitution places limitations on such civil liberties in the interests of public safety, security and rights and freedoms of others.

Read the full story for more details.

Personally, I've read all of the blogs in question and while I wouldn't say they paint the coup or interim administration in a favorable light, what the interim government is calling hate speech is a world of difference from what I'd tag with that label. And I'd certainly have to balk on calling it a threat to national security. You can decide.

By the way, the reason I've been focusing on this issue so much is merely to illustrate the complexities of trying to accomplish effective biodiversity conservation in some of the places I work. With a government busy hunting down bloggers, how am I supposed to convince them they should be more concerned with the health of their reefs (on which their economy is based?)

Brave New World?

It took me till the age of 37 to see my first Lionfish in the wild. I was leading an ecotourism expedition to Palau. I dropped into the warm water at the popular Big Drop-Off, an enormous coral wall off the island of Ngemelis. As soon as all the bubbles cleared around me and I could orient myself to the reef edge, right there–out in the open in full daylight–were two big and beautiful Lionfish. A rare sighting as they are crepuscular and nocturnal fish and prefer dark overhangs and other nooks during the day. The point of this preamble is that I waited almost half-a-lifetime to see an amazing fish that has been an icon of vibrant coral reefs since I was a child.

Imagine my mixed feelings when, while perusing images from various Earth Day 2007 clean-up efforts by ocean-loving people around the world, I came across pictures of a Lionfish eradication project. A group of 44 volunteers set sail through the western Bahamas collecting data and Lionfish specimens for further examination. This was a concerted effort to remove an invader... in this case Lionfish. I scanned through, to me, startling images of clean-up bags stuffed with Lionfish. Lionfish lined-up on the dock for counting and dissection. And a close-up of a speared lionfish. Come-on... people spear-fish all the time. I had to temper my affinity for lionfish with the reality of these animals as a harmful, invasive species.

I've known for quite a while that the Common or Red Lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) sightings have been escalating in the Western Atlantic. Lionfish are native to the Indo-Pacific region, and their introduction and range expansion has negatively impacted coastal ecosystems and the services these ecosystems provide. Evidence seems to point to aquarium specimen release as the likely vector for Lionfish populations taking-hold in the Caribbean. Whatever the source, Lionfish are establishing themselves and hardy populations are out-competing native or endemic species in the Bahamas and along the coast of Florida.

Lionfish are voracious ambush predators. In areas of the Western Atlantic where Lionfish populations have established, they have quickly decimated native juvenile populations of many native species. Stomach contents of the Lionfish posted here from the Bahamas showed juvenile wrasses, damsels, even small crustaceans. Lacking natural predators–and with a diet essentially mirroring that of groupers–Lionfish expansion in the Western Atlantic can quickly spell the demise of an important local food fish. Conversely, some dive tourism providers are doing what they can to capture tourist interest (and dollars) in seeing Lionfish in the Atlantic. After all, it's a lot cheaper than a flight to Australia.

While the upper range for Lionfish sightings was presumed to be Florida and perhaps as far north as the Carolina's, a recent Lionfish incursion as far north as Jamestown, Rhode Island was recorded in October 2006. Why so far north? In part it has to do with the Gulf Stream which seasonally pushes warm Caribbean water up the eastern US coast till it hits Cape Cod and is then deflected to Ireland.

But short- and long-term climate changes and their impacts on ocean temperatures can also influence the distribution of fish species in their range. The ecosystem consequences of these interactions are even more poorly understood than the consequences of invasive species alone. I'll show a little home team favoritism and refer you to the excellent work of Jay Stachowicz, at UC Davis' Bodega Marine Lab. Part of his research interests involve climate change and biological invasions. (I spent many a memorable summer working with ocean science-geek high school students at BML in beautiful Bodega Bay, California, and thought I'd throw a little link-love in their direction).

Last week, the journal Science published an ecology news story, Back to the No-Analog Future? (Science 11 May 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5826, pp. 823 - 825). In it, John Williams of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Stephen Jackson of the University of Wyoming in Laramie––scientists studying transitions in terrestrial North American ecosystems––have uncovered a process that I find potentially analogous to and foreshadowing of the Atlantic Lionfish situation,

During the last North American ice age, as the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated into Canada 17,000 to 12,000 years ago, the region from Minnesota to Ohio to Tennessee supported a forest of spruce, sedge, oak, ash, and hophornbeam--an ecosystem that simply doesn't exist today, despite the fact that all of those species still survive. These odd communities--called "no analog" ecosystems because no modern counterparts for them exist--likely arose from odd combinations of climate variables such as precipitation, temperature, and seasonal variations that also don't exist today.

They think this process is at play today based on climate records and models which indicate, at least for land, novel climates are likely to develop no-analog ecosystems as early as 2100.

The report describes that new terrestrial climates are expected to cause ecosystem reshuffling as individual species, constrained by different environmental factors, respond differently. One of the biggest issues raised by novel and disappearing climates is whether species whose preferred climates disappear locally can migrate to other areas where suitable climates still persist.

Which brings me back to Lionfish. While oceanic systems are more stable than terrestrial, let's assume that climatic changes and ecosystem reshuffling to no-analog states could occur in marine ecosystems as they do on land. What, then, defines an "invasive species?" For sure, Lionfish in the Western Atlantic present a rather more clear-cut case as their presence is most likely the result of human introduction. But as novel oceanic climates allow other non-native species to expand their range, how do we define "invasive species" then? Who's a native or non-native as ranges expand in response to climate change? Ecosystem reshuffling has happened numerous times in the history of life in the ocean. But it's the tempo of the looming oceanic reshuffling that is particularly worrisome.

It's All About Product Placement

How do you make two attractive residents of the CNMI look even better while cleaning-up a beach? Put them in fabulous green T-shirts. Here's Angelo Villagomez and Bree Reynolds with the results of their clean-up efforts (1350 lbs of marine debris) on Tank Beach, Saipan.

Read all about it at the Hafa Adai, Welcome To Saipan! blog.

Congrats to you all! And sorry for the shameless marketing.

Something That Made My Day

I came to work today to find a surprise on my desk. A stack of our fresh-from-the-printer publication of Marine Recreation Standards of good environmental conduct for scuba diving, snorkeling, and boat operations along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (MAR). Three years in the making, involving four nations, dozens of partners, hundreds of participants, complimentary initiatives focused on improved watersheds and sustainable fisheries, and a whole lot of outreach and awareness building on the ground.

But the end product resulted in a set of ground-breaking standards and a code of conduct, unanimously approved by all participants, strategically designed to reduce tourism's footprint on coral reefs. Kudos to Rich Wilson, CORAL Caribbean Program Manager (currently on assignment in Mexico) who has been the driving force and manager on this ambitious project. You did it, Rich!

Now comes the real work of implementing the standards across the MAR and testing them with marine tourism operators to determine if they are effective, affordable, and attainable. We already have operators in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras who have agreed to implement the standards and participate in self assessment, peer assessment, and secret shopper evaluations. This is a first for the marine tourism industry and conservation world. We have built an unprecedented level of consensus around the understanding that marine tourism with environmental standards, properly implemented, can build reef resilience. What we ground truth here can have ripple effect throughout coral reef tourism destinations worldwide.

Stay tuned for updates.

Bottom Trawling: Before and After

It should come as no surprise that I'm a big fan of shallow-water, tropical, reef building (scleractinian) corals. It's not just the coral themselves that I find amazing, it's the tremendous biological diversity they support as habitat. But the deep, cold ocean has corals too. And while not as architecturally impressive as their tropical cousins, they still provide refuge and habitat, and therefore support greater biodiversity.

I've posted before on the devastating effect of bottom trawl fishing. But nothing quite carries the impact of images. Here are a few shots of deep sea coral habitats before and after bottom trawling:

BEFORE: Rockfish and coral, Canada
AFTER: Same habitat after bottom trawling
BEFORE: Deep water soft coral and sponge habitat, Australia
AFTER
BEFORE: Oculina soft corals and grouper, off Florida coast
AFTER

Funnier If It Weren't So True

What We Call the News | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

With thanks to Mark Rovner at Sea Change Strategies for featuring this on his blog.

The Pokémon of Thirst Quenchers

In what I can only assume was the next step in satiating a ravenous appetite for dietary extremes, Japanese consumers were paying top dollar for desalinated or '"as is" Hawaiian deep-sea water, which has been marketed as a dietary supplement that aids weight loss, stress reduction, improved skin tone and digestion. Small bottles of Hawaii Deep Marine Inc.'s Kona Nigari (in the above image) sell for $33.50 at the Key of Life store in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. Kona Nigari is a seawater mineral concentrate intended to be mixed with fresh water.

But it seems like the boom is about to bust. An article last week in the Honolulu Advertiser portends that the shine may be coming off Hawaii's exported deep-sea water. Recent sales of the product are sluggish and future plans for expansion are currently on hold.

The deep-sea water business had grown so large and quickly that Gov. Linda Lingle decided to issue an official Hawaii deep-sea water certification. The state charged companies a fee to use a special logo, certifying that the seawater is from Hawaii. The program was hoped to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for the state.

Most of the deep sea water is pumped from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority pipeline, which extends 2,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) is a state agency that operates a unique and innovative ocean science and technology park in Kailua-Kona on the island of Hawaii––strategically located adjacent to one of the steepest bathymetric offshore slopes in the Hawaiian Islands. To qualify as the real thing, deep-sea water must be retrieved from deeper than 200 meters below the surface where photosynthesis cannot occur. In Hawaii, the deep seawater is extracted from a depth of 915 meters after allegedly drifting the deep sea from the north Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific ocean for more than 2000 years.

Perhaps it's the longevity of water molecules coursing their way along the ocean bottom that provides the alleged longevity of life as it courses through your veins? Hard to know, but I won't be putting my retirement investments into desalinated deep-sea Hawaiian water anytime soon. Craig McClain over at Deep-Sea News wrote about this (then growing) snake-oil industry of deep-sea water last January. And I'll close with his take on the biz from his expert vantage,

A researcher here at MBARI actually uses DDT signals in deep-sea sediments to assess their age. Deep-sea systems are not isolated from surface processes and it is unlikely that contaminated materials would not make it there. I am checking on all the trace mineral garble.

In conclusion, deep-sea water has the same medicinal value as does shallow water...none. I have been working with deep-sea water and sediments for a few years and it has done nothing to prevent hair loss. You should only buy these products if you want the novelty of telling your friends that you experienced the "benefits" of the deep. If you still do not trust me on this, then for $50 I will send you 5 oz of deep-sea mud which is endorsed by a doctor (of course its me and I have no formal biochemical or medical training but that doesn't matter).

Too Easy, Eh?

A few friends have remarked that my little quiz in the previous post tasking readers to figure out which fish was red snapper vs tilapia was way too easy. So I've decided to give you a real stumper this time.

Look closely at the images above. Nine out of ten British housewives can't tell the difference between President George W Bush and a dead crab? Can you? Good luck!

With apologies to Monte Python.

Something's Fishy

Look closely at the two plates of fish fillets in the image above. One plate holds red snapper (a marine fish), the other tilapia (a farmed freshwater fish). Can you tell one from the other? Tough call, huh? What if I said that both fish have pretty much the same texture, firmness, and taste. What's the difference then? Red snapper sells for about $10 a pound. Tilapia about $2.50 a pound. And according to several news reports, including studies reported by the Seafood Choices Alliance, cases of fish fraud exposed at the retail and restaurant levels are demonstrating that consumers can be at risk of a very costly bait and switch.

UK consumers learned last week that the government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) found 15% of salmon, 10% of sea bass and 11% of sea bream sold as "wild" is actually farmed. The FSA survey of retail outlets across Britain, which sampled 128 fish, marks the third major exposure of farmed fish fraud in recent years. Mark Powell over at blogfish has recently been featuring some very interesting posts on the challenge of defining what "wild" seafood actually means these days considering that many wild caught salmon (for instance) may very well spend their early life in hatcheries. Not to sound overly Clintonian, but it may all depend on what your definition of the word wild means to you.

Also last week, the revelation that many Chicago sushi restaurants claiming to serve red snapper were, in fact, using cheaper substitutes, namely tilapia. Beyond simply being unethical business practice, this sort of substitution is fraud, clear and simple. And more worrisome is that species substitution may be increasing.

So how do you know that the fish you get at restaurants or from your local fish monger is the real thing? Beyond investing in a portable gene sequencer for rapid DNA verification, one partial answer is looking for Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification or other similar eco-labeling programs that attempt to verify that the fish sold at markets is harvested sustainably. Beyond that, however, there is little assurance consumers have that restaurant and market owners are actually doing the right thing and not committing fish fraud. Ultimately, I suppose, it boils down to trust, relationship building, and supporting small, local markets and suppliers.

And in case you must know, the plate of fish in the image on the left is red snapper, and tilapia is on the right. Myself, I'm a big fan of tilapia... it's sustainably farmed, cheap, and very yummy in a balsamic and butter reduction. Let me know if you'd like the recipe.

Global Climate Change Is A Lie And Humans Are Not To Blame

Convinced? Neither am I. Apparently Alexander Cockburn's Jedi mind trick has failed. Then again, perhaps the force was never with him.

In case you haven't heard (and quite frankly why should anyone be keeping up on the crazed ramblings of a once semi-respected and now ludicrous, self-serving political pundit?), Cockburn's been using his column in The Nation to spout his climate change denialist screed to anyone interested in wasting the 4.5 minutes of their lives to try to follow his train-wreck of half truths, lies, conspiracy-theorizing, and stellar demonstration of lack of scientific understanding.

At first I found his climate change denial annoying yet predictable... just another flailing, inconsequential, end-of-career commentator publicly coughing-up his sputum and capitalizing on an alleged controversy to appear au currant (or at least newsworthy). On later reflection, I decided I was right. All Cockburn has done is join the ranks of other conspiracy nut-jobs like Holocaust denialists or 9/11 "truthers."

For some real entertainment though, check-out George Monbiot's debunking of Cockburn's position. A little bit of Monbiot goes a long way. But at least he begins his response with some well-placed hubris:

Let me begin this response with an admission of incompetence. I am not qualified to comment on the scientific claims made in Alexander Cockburn's article. But nor is Cockburn qualified to make them.

2007 Darwin Awards Contenders

H.R. 1205: Coral Reef Conservation Amendments Act of 2007

So I can't seem to go on a holiday without missing exciting coral reef news. And this news is a doozie. With his approval ratings scraping the ground, President Bush seems to have decided that he stands a better chance of history remembering him favorably for marine conservation rather than nation-building in Iraq or human rights in Guantanamo Bay. First he designated the world's largest marine protected area, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument–formerly the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument (which by the way was the result of a process which predates the Bush administration and began under legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton.)

On Tuesday, May 8, 2007, the administration continued to find ways of salvaging its reputation and delivered (to my delight) proposed legislation to Congress calling for greater protection for the nation’s coral reefs. The bill, the Coral Reef Ecosystem Conservation Amendment Act of 2007, reauthorizes the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000 and adds greater protections for coral reefs while enhancing marine debris removal and increasing the government’s ability to work through cooperative partnerships. Pending reauthorization by Congress, the act will provide strong protection for all of the US state and territory shallow-water coral reef ecosystems and build a wider foundation for the federal government's coral reef conservation activities.

The Administration's proposal specifically addresses the following issues:

Adds new areas of emphasis to the National Program and Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) to address new and emerging threats to coral reef ecosystems;

Provides for consistent guidelines for maintaining environmental data, products, and information;

Augments authorities to allow for stronger partnerships between the federal government and its partners. These partners include state governments, who are responsible for managing much of the nation's coral reef habitat;

Provides a suite of tools to facilitate response to and restoration of injury to coral reefs. With this proposal, the federal government would be able to conduct emergency response activities to address coral damage, carry-out long-term restoration on impacted coral reefs, and hold responsible parties liable for injury to coral resources;

Provides for direct removal of marine debris by the federal government. Marine debris is a chronic and long-term threat to the health and stability of US states and territories shallow-water coral reefs; and

Enhances the Department of the Interior's ability to provide technical assistance to states and territories and carry out their research and management objectives.

This Act is a big deal for US coral reef conservation. Why? If reauthorized it provides regulatory teeth to stop damaging activities–like ship groundings–and ensures investigation and funds for restoration when they do. The act also authorizes more granting authority for coral reef conservation projects, education, and outreach.

But for reauthorization to be successful, it requires Congressional approval. That means you can help by writing to your US Representative and US Senator urging them to reauthorize this bill. While you're welcome to write your own endorsement, feel free to cut and paste from the handy boilerplate text below:

Dear Representative or Senator,

I am urging you to support H.R. 1205, the Coral Reef Conservation Amendments Act of 2007, which reauthorizes the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000. This reauthorization strengthens the protection and restoration of our nation's coral reefs by providing expanded authorities to the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of the Interior.

Coral reefs are vital to ocean ecosystems and promote biodiversity not only along the reefs themselves, but to the wider ocean basins. Healthy reefs provide protection for harbors and beaches from heavy waves caused by intense coastal storms. Healthy reefs and their associated mangrove forests have also proven to reduce coastal damage from devastating tsunamis. Many coastal communities in US states and territories rely upon healthy local coral reefs for their primary source of protein. And science has validated that the ocean’s biodiversity may depend on healthy coral reefs. Unfortunately, many US state and territory reefs today are declining due to human induced or exacerbated causes.

Please support authorization of H.R. 1205. By supporting this legislation, coral reef ecosystems will not only continue to be protected, but increased mechanisms for accountability and enforcement will be ensured.

Sincerely,
Your name and address here

Call It Coercion

It didn't take long to work my blood pressure up to a boil this morning. Angelo Villagomez, AKA The Saipan Blogger over on Saipan, CNMI, posted this video he took of a boat dragging its anchor across healthy, living coral. He mentions on his blog that this anchor belongs to a boat registered as the Pioneer III and owned by Danilo T Anguilar.

I've seen this sort of irresponsible marine tourism operator behavior in every dive destination I've visited around the world. And the sad truth is that if rules against anchoring on coral actually exist, the capacity to enforce these regulations is inadequate (or lacking). Which gave me an idea. If irresponsible operators can't (or won't) be fined, then perhaps they can be publicly humiliated. And if enough of the public can see this sort of behavior (and the boats and operators responsible), perhaps that may be impetus for them to stop anchoring and use a fucking mooring ball.

So, I invite any of you divers or snorkelers who witness anchoring on coral to capture a picture or video of the anchoring incident AND also follow the anchor line up to the boat and capture the boat's name or registration number. Send the images or video my way and I'll add it to my Hall of Shame. Send me mugshots of the owners or boat operators too since they deserve special recognition for their unsustainable behavior. Maybe if we get enough links and pester the local authorities with the evidence, we can get a few of the flagrant offenders to reconsider their behavior.

Blackmail is such an unsavory word. Call it coercion.

Back To Work Already?

Fresh back from vacation in Mendocino and I'm seriously contemplating giving-up my day job and moving up there to live the quality life of stunning natural beauty, numerous locally-owned coffee shops, kick-ass microbreweries, and comfy organic cotton and hemp clothing. Then again, there's that pesky problem of how to pay for that lifestyle. While I figure that out, enjoy a few choice pics from the trip. Back to regularly scheduled conservation commentary and political rants tomorrow!

Gimme A Break!

After a long run of months without a break and a more-than-full workload of proposals, reports, strategic planning, budgets, many, many meetings, and coordinating conservation activities in one domestic and six international project sites I'm ready for a little down time. Manuel and I are headed for a much needed vacation and we're doing it up right with a roadtrip tomorrow to Mendocino, California. It's our first visit to this cozy north coast town which is supposed to be the next best thing to New England on the West Coast. Think New England charm meets world-class California wine country. And then there are all those happy California cows and goats churning out amazing artisanal cheeses. I could go on.

I see lots of sleeping-in, mid-day naps, tidepooling for spectacular seaweeds, nudibranchs and Giant Pacific Octopus, working on a stack of backlogged reading while sipping wine on our deck overlooking the ocean, and evenings quaffing many pints of North Coast Brewing's best microbrews. Did I mention the private deck overlooking the ocean? And yes, that's our room in the picture. While I expect to be blissfully free of cell phone reception and broadband internet access, I'll certainly be bringing along a digital camera to record my own personal rapid ecological assessment of amazing north coast marine life. Expect a slew of photos from my bioblitz efforts next week. Stay outta trouble, y'all.

Knut Loses His Cute?

It's tough being a polar bear. Forget about humans tainting the environment and food chain with assorted toxins that concentrate in polar bear fatty tissues and reproductive organs or the loss of arctic ice and access to food that's forcing bears to resort to cannibalism or (worse) having to eat from human garbage dumps. The real tragedy is that they lose that cute face way too quick. Or so it seems to Sky News.

I don't know what these hacks are talking about. I think these marine mammals are adorable... even full-grown, walrus-killing, seal-crunching adults.

Size Matters

LONG POST: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Start with your typical American outdoor mall experience, like the self-proclaimed urban oasis of Santana Row in San Jose, California. Here you'll find over 70 shops, 20 restaurants, 5 spas, 1 hotel... all for your shopping pleasure.

Not good enough? Well, how about if it's all enclosed in climate controlled comfort. After all, there's no need to sweat while you shop. And let's throw in a casino and a few nightclubs to keep the party going all night long. Oh, and don't worry about carrying cash around. It's not even accepted in any of the shops! Got kids? No problem, there's a movie theater, video arcade, water park, and even roving Disney characters to keep the tots smiling. And when dad gets his fill of shopping and starts rolling his eyes, just send him to the driving range or rock climbing wall. Finally, to ensure that everyone stays happy, the on-site hotel can accommodate every single visitor. Lovely idea, but impossible you say? Impractical? Fantasy, right?

Well, take this entire self-contained urban/suburban fantasy oasis and float it inside one of these:Welcome to the reality of cruise ship tourism, the fastest growing segment of "sun and sand" tourism and perhaps the greatest recreational threat to coral reef health today.

Why such a threat? It's a matter of scale. With an 8% annual growth since 1980, cruise tourism has increased at almost twice the rate of tourism overall. A record 8.35 million people took cruises worldwide in 2005. By 2010 that number is expected to double. The North American market (which includes the Caribbean) is the dominant one, and in 2005 it grew by 8.6% to reach 3.4 million cruise passengers (a 6% increase over 2004.) In 1998, 71 cruise ships (which can carry over 93,000 passengers) from 24 lines plied the Caribbean, some year-round and some seasonally.

While new cruise markets begin to expand in the Pacific, the Caribbean is likely to maintain its position as the most popular cruise destination in the world because of increasing preference for shorter cruises and an ever-younger market. The 2-5 day cruise accounts for some 37% of the total product. Its convenient proximity to North America makes it an easily accessible "pleasure periphery" (actual industry term) for that market. Miami has ensured its place as the major hub from which most ships into the region operate, with up to 30 departures a week. Other major destinations include the Mediterranean (15%), Alaska (8%) trans-Panama Canal (6%), west Mexico (5%) and northern Europe (4%). The length of the cruise season in these locations, however, is determined by climatic conditions.

The South Pacific as a destination attracts only 2.2% of the world's biggest and most lucrative cruise market, North America, and Australia's own cruise passenger generating capacity has remained consistently low and very specific in its product requirement.

The "big three" cruise companies are Carnival, Royal Caribbean International, and Princess that collectively control over two-thirds of the North American market. Star Cruises, a Malaysian-based company which caters primarily to Asian tourists aims to be the fourth largest. On the Asian ships a high percentage of passengers cruise in order to access gambling facilities that are not readily - or legally - available in their home countries, while the ships provide many activities to occupy their families.

Anticipating the explosive growth in cruise tourism, Royal Caribbean International is about to debut its modern day Titanic of cruise ships: the Genesis Class. The first ship of this class, as yet unnamed (though, if it follows suit of previous lines, it will likely be named Genesis of the Seas), is expected to surpass the Freedom-class ships as the world's largest passenger ship in autumn 2009. It will be able to accommodate up to 5,400 passengers, will have a gross tonnage of about 220,000 tons and has cost the line around US$1.24 billion.

It has been estimated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that up to two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of waste per passenger per day is generated aboard cruise ships. While some cruise ships have their own waste-processing facilities (as an interesting aside, I have colleagues who report cruise line execs demonstrating the efficiency of their on-board waste processing facilities by drinking a glass of the final processed product), many more do not. When ships rely upon ports of call to process their waste, it puts extra strain on the land-based facilities of islands. In fact, the reason why not all countries have signed the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution From Ships (or MARPOL, short for marine pollution) is that to sign it would increase the pressure on their own land dumps. By not signing it, countries are not obliged to provide waste-disposal facilities and can refuse to accept garbage from cruise ships. Yet according to the IMO, this tempts cruise ships to dump at sea, whether legally or illegally.

But what if all ships could clean-up their act and process their wastes? Do cruise ships still pose a threat to coral reefs or ocean health? Consider that when these behemoths visit ports of call, a large percentage of the passengers (when not shopping) will disembark and board smaller boats (local snorkel and dive companies holding contracts with the cruise lines) that ferry them to the reefs and drop them into the water en masse. Important to note is that the vast bulk of these reef recreationists receive no environmental briefings on coral-safe snorkel or dive behavior, are either inept or inexperienced snorkelers or divers who have a tendency to "go vertical" in the water where their fins can do the most damage to fragile coral, and the majority of these tourists are poorly supervised. Now repeat this process daily, 365 days a year and you start to get a sense of the impact. You have likely experienced this daily reality if you've visited Cozumel.

The largest inhabited island in Mexico and the oldest in the Caribbean group, Cozumel is located 12 miles off the eastern coast of the mainland (Yucatan Peninsula.) The island is 34 miles long (north to south) and 11 miles wide (east to west.) Cozumel is one of the top 5 dive destinations in the world thanks to the stunning coral reefs that are located just off it's southwestern coast. These reefs comprise the northern section of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, second largest barrier reef on the planet (second only in size to the Great Barrier Reef off Australia) and stretch from Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala to the Bay Islands of Honduras. In 1998, 742 cruise vessels were reported in Cozumel and the maximum at one time was 11, although there are berths for up to 13 ships. With larger ships, many arriving at once, the numbers stress the existing capacity of the small town of San Miguel, as well as the available infrastructure.

Though receiving heavy use, tourism on Cozumel's reefs is not quite a free-for-all. The Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park was created by Presidential Decree in July of 1996. It embraces the southwest, south and southeast coast of the island and covers about 85% of the diving sites around the island, a total area of 67,133 acres. The Marine Park's goals are to protect the islands natural resources and to conserve and sustain their use over the long term. Park Manager, Robert Cudney, has instituted a variety of management strategies including scientific research, monitoring, regulation of commercial activities, education for environmental awareness, and promotion of ecologically-based (eco) tourism. But effective management is expensive. To achieve its objectives, the Marine Park, with municipal authorization, requires all visitors in the park pay a tourism/user fee of $20 pesos ($2.00 US) per day per person. The funds raised (according to the marine park website) are supposed to be used exclusively for purposes of reef conservation in the Cozumel Reefs National Park. On the ground evidence suggests this may not be entirely factual.

But again, I mention the problem of scale. To make conservation work, efforts cannot solely target the small operators carrying the cruise passengers to reef encounters. Conservation efforts must target the cruise lines themselves. The overwhelming majority of Caribbean cruise passengers are interested in swimming along coral reefs. Several interesting strategies are currently underway to test whether the cruise industry has the will and vision to preserve these Caribbean reefs and, ultimately, their bottom line. The Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) has been working in four nations along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef for the past three years to help codify marine tourism standards for best environmental behavior by tourism operators. Conservation International and their Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB) has been working with cruise industry executives to build awareness and agreements to partner with conservation. The message is a simple one: Healthy reefs means healthy business. Together, CORAL and CELB are working both ends of the supply chain to drastically reduce tourism's footprint on Caribbean reefs.

But enormous businesses, just like enormous ships, don't turn on a dime. That's why it's important to simultaneously maintain a bottom-up approach to conservation efforts. While the hope is that cruise lines will have the vision to arrange contracts with operators in each port who are operating in an environmentally sustainable manner and are implementing marine tourism standards, we are hedging our bets and working with as many small operators as possible so that ultimately the only kind of marine tourism available in destinations like Cozumel is reef sustaining.

I have no delusions that this will be easy. In addition to reef damage from mass tourism, we still have all the other local and global reef threats to contend with. But I believe in resilience, I believe in the power of collaboration and conservation partnerships, and I believe that people will only change behaviors when they care. But caring requires understanding. Maybe this post began that process for you.