Outdoor Recreation: A Lucrative Ecosystem Service

How much is a fishing trip, whale watch, or snorkel or dive trip worth to you? If you're an average American, apparently it's worth a lot. America's passion for wildlife and the outdoors continues to be a major engine of the nation's economy, according to preliminary survey data released in June by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 2006, more than 87 million Americans, or 38% of the United States' population age 16 and older hunted, fished or observed wildlife. They spent $120 billion that year pursuing those activities; an amount roughly equal to Americans' total spending at all spectator sports, casinos, motion pictures, golf courses and country clubs, amusement parks and arcades combined.

Preliminary data from the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation shows the importance of wildlife-related recreation to the American people. Of all Americans age 16 or older,

• 30 million or 13% fished and spent $41 billion on their activities;
• 12.5 million or 5% hunted and spent $23 billion; and
• 71 million or 31% observed wildlife and spent $45 billion.

This survey shows in real economic and participatory terms the impact that wildlife and healthy ecosystems have on the nation's economy. This expenditure of $120 billion highlights the benefits of these activities on national and state economies, said Survey economist Jerry Leonard. It is roughly equivalent to one out of every one hundred dollars of goods and services produced in our economy. And much of this activity occurs in places which rely significantly on wildlife-related recreation expenditures for their economic well being.

But simply talking about dollars and cents doesn't fully capture the importance and value of wildlife, does it? Nature is far more than merely the backdrop of human enterprise, drama, and recreation. Thoreau and Muir in different ways emphasized hands-on interactions with wilderness. In doing so, they introduced the radical notions that wild nature is in many respects superior to civilization and its products, and that harmonious, non-exploitative encounters with it are of transformative value. We are part of nature, not masters of it (contrary to what our quail bagging, salmon killing Vice President Cheney might hold true.)

From my vantage point as an ocean conservationist, the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report only emphasizes what Rachel Carson powerfully conveyed in The Sea Around Us. She understood the creativity and majesty of the ocean's power, and awakens us to the life-sustaining qualities of the sea and our relationship with water. In accepting the 1952 National Book Foundation Award for Nonfiction, Carson herself admitted, If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.

If only an economic valuation could quantify poetry.

How Would Jesus Dive?

You'll have to excuse me for commenting on old news, but I've been buried in grant writing all week. I had a real yuck-fest with one of my field managers today that must be shared. So we were talking about how to do successful outreach to tourists who are, for the most part, blithely ignorant of environmentally safe snorkel behavior around coral. After much discussion, my manager suggested a new campaign with the tagline: How Would Jesus Dive? I almost suffered a hernia from laughter.

But after the humor subsided, I started to wonder how this would be any less ridiculous than the Vatican recently releasing a set of "Ten Commandments" for drivers, telling motorists to be charitable to others on the highways, to refrain from drinking and driving, and to pause to pray before you even buckle up to ensure that you make it to your destination.

Which of course led to further Friday mirth and humor among us godless conservationists. But I'm a pragmatist, so whatever works, right? If a set of Vatican approved diving commandments get people to snorkel and dive in an environmentally conscious way, then so be it. So the challenge is thrown down! If anyone would like to propose the "Ten Diving Commandments," feel free to contribute your thoughts. Reminders that I'll burn in everlasting hell for my "sacrilege" are also welcome. I could use more laughs.

From So Simple A Beginning

With the exception of bryozoans, every metazoan phylum with hard parts, and many that lack hard parts, made its first appearance in the Cambrian approximately 540 million years ago. This stunning and unique evolutionary flowering is termed the Cambrian Explosion, taking the name of the geological age in whose early part it occurred. But as Stephen Jay Gould often reminded readers, geologic explosions have very long fuses. The Cambrian explosion seems to have happened in a range of about 30 million years, and some stages took 5 to 10 million years. Still pretty quick in earth time.

A big question that remains is what set off this explosion of evolutionary diversity and innovation. A new paper in Science perhaps provides some interesting clues. Coralline sponges are members of the earliest branching metazoans (sponges) to secrete a calcium carbonate (CaCO3) skeleton. As a result of this evolutionary innovation, they were major contributors to the first metazoan reef-building processes in the early Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. A sponge paleogenomics study by researchers in Germany and Australia demonstrates that not only were these sponges prolific reef builders, but that their ability to biocalcify was inherited from the first multicellular genetic toolkit from the last common ancestor.

Calcification is a process perhaps more closely associated with corals than sponges. Corals are the main builders of the reef framework through the accumulation of limestone by the calcification process, but a diversity of other biocalcifying organisms (encrusting coralline algae, foraminifera, molluscs, and echinoderms) are also needed in the building of the reef. Coral calcification is intimately related to the internal symbiosis with zooxanthellae. The coralline sponge studied, Astrosclera willeyana, secretes CaCO3 in the form of aragonite through the presence of carbonic anhydrase, a gene family required for biocalcification.

Does the surge in early Cambrian calcification reflect a common inheritance of this key genetic toolkit, or did the ability to biocalcify evolve independently in different lineages? More analysis will be needed to answer these questions. But the authors infer that various modern metazoan lineages inherited this toolkit and have added to and elaborated upon its key elements to guide, enhance, and inhibit the deposition of CaCO3 in the spectacular variety of ways we see on todays reef systems.

Source: Science
Sponge Paleogenomics Reveals an Ancient Role for Carbonic Anhydrase in Skeletogenesis
Daniel J. Jackson, Luciana Macis, Joachim Reitner, Bernard M. Degnan, Gert Wörheide

Something To Amuse Yourselves With While I'm Busy With Grants

Sorry for the lack of content this week, but I'm buried under grant deadlines. As much as I love to blog, it doesn't pay the bills. However, one of my managers gave me a heads-up on a very cool website that's sort of Google Earth meets coral reef GIS.

Cruise on over to Ocean Dots and check out some amazing satellite imagery of islands around the world (I did a screen capture of the middle of Saipan, CNMI.) If you squint really hard, you can see Angelo Villagomez, aka The Saipan Blogger, planting Flame Trees.

Hooper Drives The Boat, Chief!

At the risk of my close friend Tjie calling me Sophia, allow me to begin with, Picture this: Cape Cod, 1975. Gerald Ford is President, gas is .53 cents a gallon, and a carefree, 11 year-old yet already ocean-nerd, future coral conservationist/blogger is spending the summer with family in the sleepy town of Orleans, Massachusetts, right on Nauset Beach.

This is the summer he's been waiting for... the summer of the cinematic release of Jaws. Together with his brother and cousins, he begs the adults to take them to the opening night. No dice, but cousin Monica is 19 and has a drivers license! They all load into the enormous station wagon (with genuine 1970's fake wood panels) and wait in line for at least an hour with other summer tourists for this gala event.

Finally seated (with many boxes of buttery popcorn) the lights dim, the low basso strings start-in with the now famous Dum dum, Dum dum, Dum dum, Dum dum. Cheers erupt! Could it possibly get any better than watching a shark terrorize a New England resort town while staying in a New England resort town? The young boy is ecstatically happy. That is until the severed head pops out of the boat! The boy doesn't sleep well nor swim in the ocean for the rest of the summer. But oh, what a summer nonetheless.

The reason I'm walking you down my memory lane is that I found my childhood ocean scrapbook while cleaning out some storage boxes this week. News and magazine clippings, photos, and other paper odds and ends that I collected as a child as part of my early ocean obsession. I guess it was my pre-internet version of information at my fingertips. The scrapbook has held up well over 40 years though it has that old library smell to it. Inside, I found the entire June 23, 1975 issue of Time magazine with a cover story on Jaws. I still remember finding the cherished issue in the morning pile of mail and immediately spiriting it away to my room before anyone else could see it.

While my professional ocean science curiosity over the years would see me pursuing interests in seaweeds, evolution, and tropical ecology, it was sharks that initially got me hooked. And the summer of Jaws was just fuel for the fire. I've lost count of how many times I've seen Jaws since that summer of 1975. But I remember thinking, even as an 11 year old, when I became a marine biologist I wanted to be as cool as Richard Dreyfuss' Hooper. The left arm, head, shoulders, sternum and portions of the rib cage are intact... Do not smoke in here, thank you very much.

As an added bonus to rediscovering this gem of an issue, I got a quick reality check on how much has changed in 32 years. Aside from the full page cigarette ads on practically every other page, other notable ads popped out. First of all, were cars really this cheap?



And then there's the 1975 version of word processing:



But of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same:

The Truth Is Out There

These pics have been cluttering-up my inbox for over a year, so I'm finally doing a purge. But I thought they would make for perfect friday fodder. This fella allegedly crawled ashore for a nap in Cebu, Philippines, and evidently hit the snooze button a few too many times. Damn, I bet they are good eatin'! But are they sustainable?

Guess You Should Set Your Parental Controls For This Blog

Mingle2 has a strange little widget that scans your blog content and displays a film rating for it. Shocked! Shocked I am that timid, meek, mild, and huggable Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets gets an R rating.

And why? The rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

gay (8x)
queer (4x)
dead (3x)
ass (1x)

Gay and queer throws a site into the "restricted" zone? That's just bullshit. (Do I get an X Rating now?)

What's The World's Oldest Environmental Profession?

I received a Google alert today that pinged a Palm Beach Post editorial lamenting the Lake Worth and Florida Department of Environmental Protection's efforts to convince people that dumping waste from a water treatment plant won't harm a treasured reef.

The article featured the use of my favorite biologist-for-hire pejorative: biostitute. Florida is where the term biostitute - a combination of biologist and prostitute - was coined, explained Michael Risk, a professor emeritus at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada and former consultant to Florida DEP projects. Things generally accepted elsewhere, he said, have to be proven time and again here.

While state hired biologists attempted to explain the negligible effects that a wastewater outfall would have on the reef, they apparently failed to understand the public desire for a precautionary principle. Considering all of the other threats to reef health already underway, why compound the environmental insults with yet another stressor?

Maui Manta Mystery: Part Deux

As a scientist, I tend to subscribe to Occam's Razor when formulating explanations. So when I was sent images from Maui last week of Tiger sharks feeding on a dead manta stuck in a mooring line, the initial explanation offered seemed simple and plausible. The manta died or was killed by a Tiger shark and then got tangled in the mooring line. But Pauline Fiene of Mike Severns Diving wrote me today suggesting that the evidence tells a different story.

Look at the image at the top of the post. It's a big manta (Pauline actually measured the wingspan at 15 feet) resting on the bottom with the mooring ball just above it. Now this picture was taken at a depth of 115 feet. The mooring line is 7/8th inch thick and is about 80 feet in length. That's a lot of weight! The mooring ball, which normally sits 20 feet below the surface, is now down at 115 feet with the ray. If you're doing the math along with me, you must realize that it takes a significant investment of strength to pull a mooring ball and 80 feet of heavy, thick line down to 115 feet. Pauline suggests that contrary to the original hypothesis, the manta did not get tangled after it was dead.

If you have been fortunate to witness mantas performing huge underwater barrel rolls as they feed on plankton swarms, it's not a far stretch to imagine an animal accidentally becoming entangled. Frantic thrashing and rolling could result in the line winding around the body as seen in the images. While mantas breath via ram ventilation, requiring a steady passage of oxygen rich water across their gills, if entangled it's still conceivable a manta could survive for a time. Pauline explains that when she first arrived on the scene, she believes the manta was indeed still barely alive. However, one of the Tigers took a decisive bite that resulted in heavy blood loss (see below image) which apparently finished-off the manta.

Other documented cases of a manta becoming entangled in a mooring or anchor line have been documented in Hawaii and along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. Thanks, Pauline, for a fresh (and well reasoned) explanation. It's great to be reminded that things aren't always what they seem.

Oh Well... At Least He Got The Laws Of Motion Right

Better look busy! Armageddon is just 57 years away by the calculations of Britain's most famous scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, according to newspaper reports.

Must have been the arsenic in the wig.

How Many "Straight" Men Will Be Running For The Mirror After This Post?

Since it's Pride month, I've been looking for some cool, queer science to report. I gave up on any chance of finding the magical trifeckta of queer ocean science as tantamount to chasing rainbows (pun intended).

But sure enough, New York magazine has a feature story on The Science of Gaydar that has left me feeling mixed. Are sexual orientation and the physical traits that make people seem gay biological? The essay seeks to explore this question through some novel approaches. First of all, who knew that there is a small yet committed cadre of researchers out there who are cataloging the traits and characteristics that, though more pronounced in some than in others, not only make some of us gay but also make us appear gay.

Take the image above, for instance. From new data collected, gay men are allegedly more likely than straight men to have a counterclockwise whorl of hair. I'm about 20 years too late to perform this test on my shiny dome, and sadly I have very few hair whorl pics laying around the house so I can't verify this claim.

You'll have to read the full story to learn about other phenotypes that have been documented as new evidence of sexual orientation. I must admit leaving with a bad taste in my mouth after reading through the whole essay. I generally treat with suspicion studies that seek to declare a biological mandate for the diversity of human behavior. I hold a similar distrust for studies that attempt to demonstrate a biological basis for intelligence across races. What social agenda is behind such studies and to what end will the findings be used?

If a biological basis for sexual orientation is identified, isn't that just the first step for haters to seek ways of preventing same-sex attraction at the genetic level and begin treating homosexuality like a birth defect? Particularly if sexual orientation is determined to be set in utero.

At the same time, a biological basis for sexual orientation would perhaps put an end to pernicious programs (Exodus International, NARTH, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, Love in Action, Courage UK, Courage International, and True Freedom Trust) that in the name of religion seek to brainwash individuals into "giving-up their gay lifestyle choices" and join the ranks of "ex-gays."

And what about this whole business of appearing gay? As a queer man, I'm not even quite sure what that's supposed to mean. Of course there is the stereotype of the masculine lesbian and feminine gay man, but what does masculine and feminine mean really? Why is it so vital to quantify behavior as being indicative of "types" instead of celebrating the remarkable diversity of behavioral expression on our rather un-diverse branch of primates?

Where I agree with the essay (and something I've embraced for some time now) is that instead of picturing gender and orientation along a line or continuum, with straight men and women on either end and gay people in the middle, perhaps a matrix might be a more accurate way to map the possibilities. I wouldn't mind hearing from readers, of all orientations and genders, to share their thoughts on the article.

What A Great Dive?

Working in the coral reef conservation biz, I get the opportunity to dive on a lot of reefs. Don't hate me. And since I'm no longer a spring chicken, I've also accumulated a lot of first hand observations of changes over time. As a former east coast boy who learned his tropical and subtropical ecology in Florida and the Eastern Caribbean, I've witnessed dramatic changes and shifts (mostly not for the better) in once favorite dive destinations of Jamaica and Florida. Yet it never fails that I'll surface after a disappointing dive--where I documented anchor damaged coral heads, huge fields of dead and broken elkhorn coral, algae dominated reefs, and nary a big fish--only to hear squeals of delight from other (generally younger) divers proclaiming, "What a great dive!"

No, I didn't miss something. I've simply got front row seats to the shifting baseline of coral reefs.

Florida is a particularly good example. Florida is the only state in the continental United States to have extensive shallow coral reef formations near its coasts. These reefs extend from near Stuart, on the Atlantic coast, to the Dry Tortugas, west of Key West, in the Gulf of Mexico. The most prolific reef development occurs seaward of the Florida Keys. The reefs here are spectacular and rival those of many Caribbean areas. Approximately 6,000 coral reefs are found between Key Biscayne and Dry Tortugas.

Florida's coral reefs came into existence 5,000 to 7,000 years ago when sea levels rose following the Wisconsin Ice Age. Reef growth is slow; estimates range from one to sixteen feet every 1,000 years. As sea levels continued to rise, new coral tracts formed parallel to the coastline. Sonar scans of the continental shelf clearly show these belts of fossil coral tracts in deep water.

Modern coral tractways off Fort Lauderdale and Miami have been particularly fascinating because of their high diversity and concentration of gorgonians. Often mistaken for plants, gorgonians are non-reef building soft corals (octocorals) such as sea fans and sea whips. These tractways are also home to amazing sponge aggregations of every shape, size and color. I remember first seeing these vibrant tracts while diving in South Florida in the early '80's. While the reefs seemed spectacular to me then, I too was victim to shifting baselines. Colleagues were quick to inform me that South Florida reefs had been much more robust in the 60's and 70's before the explosion in coastal development.

Having been familiar with it's former condition, it's difficult for me to dive the South Florida reef tract today. In fact, I have conservation colleagues who feel so defeated that they refuse to dive there any longer. Algal growth, spurred-on by nutrient loading from land-based sources, now dominates many areas. Black-band disease is prevalent and other types of band diseases can destroy a 200-year-old coral head in a single summer. Elkhorn and staghorn corals, once so common to Caribbean reefs that texbooks labeled sections of coral reef as the "Elkhorn or Staghorn Zones" are all but gone. Many of the sea fans now show lesions from fungal infection. Anchor damage still continues to be a problem. Extensive coastal modifications such as breakwaters, groins, and jetties have affected water circulation and resulted in sedimentation or smothering of some portions of the tractway. And here and there you can observe sections of the tract completely obliterated, literally sucked-up and carted away as part of Miami's beach renourishment (AKA "Dredge and Kill") projects.

A weekend AP news story outlines the precarious situation facing Florida's reefs as well as some of the efforts to save them. The story details efforts ranging from coral nurseries, to curtailing wastewater and nutrient runoff, to exploring the use of artificial reefs. I have to admit that I struggled to not roll my eyes while reading what, to me, seemed like a PR love letter to NOAA and Florida's environmental chief Michael Sole. Any efforts to mitigate further reef damage will be difficult. There is a history of distrust between resource managers and resource users. South Florida reefs have multiple users and stakeholders and any legislation that restricts use will surely be contentious.

But Florida has launched a few strategies in an effort to restore trust and increase public awareness and dialogue. In 2003, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission coordinated the formation of a team of interagency and non-agency marine resource professionals, scientists, resource users and other stakeholders to form the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative (SEFCRI).

SEFCRI is charged with developing a local action strategy targeting coral reefs and associated reef resources from Miami-Dade County, through Broward, Palm Beach and Martin Counties. These counties are particularly important to target because their associated coral habitats are close to shore and co-exist with intensely urbanized areas that lack a coordinated management plan (like that of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary). SEFCRI hopes to improve the coordination of technical and financial support for the conservation and management of coral reefs in these counties.

I've been fortunate to work with some of the SEFCRI Awareness and Appreciation and Fishing, Diving, and Other Uses teams. All very passionate and motivated individuals who are working against tremendous odds to preserve a nationally significant marine resource. I can't hazard a guess as to the ultimate outcome of their efforts. I only know that it would be a tragedy if the Florida reefs I so fondly remember will survive only as memories.

How To Burn Through A Nonprofit Paycheck: No. 1 In A Series

I gave-up long ago trying to curb my addiction. My name is Rick... and I'm a Book-aholic, um, bibliophile... I'm hooked on books. My paycheck took a ding yesterday at the bookstore where in addition to a bunch of other titles, I picked-up The Silent Deep by Tony Koslow.

The Silent Deep tells the stories of discovery of the deep sea, the ecologies of its ecosystems, and of the impact of humans, highlighting the importance of global stewardship in keeping this delicate ecosystem alive and well. Lots of attention to deep sea corals, which is an added bonus. While not packing the full visual oomph of The Deep, my new favorite coffee table book of deep sea critters by Claire Nouvian, it makes up for it in content.

Plus, it kicks off with a classic 1983 New Yorker cartoon by Charles Saxon. I thought I'd include it only to goad the boys over at Deep Sea News.

Regard, Regard, PZ Myers And Burn With Envy!

Today in a local bookshop, I may have found the grand grimoire of practical and potentially life-saving tips for handling daily encounters with giant squid. Animals of the Ocean: In Particular the Giant Squid is Volume 3 of the Haggis-On-Whey World of Unbelievable Brilliance series.

From the very first page, author Dr. Doris Haggis-on-Whey sets the record straight,

Dear Reader,
You have purchased this book and now you will learn. The ocean has been on the earth for thousands of years. It is generally blue and nearly always viscous. Most people feel that the ocean is not interesting to study because of these factors, but I think the ocean is not so bad. There are many misconceptions about the ocean, generally perpetuated by the world's religions and poets. What is in the ocean, you ask, besides water and tuna? The answer is not much. In researching this book, we spent many hours in the ocean, sometimes fully submerged, and we saw very little. That is why this book is slimmer than we had planned.

There's so much more sage wisdom, but you'll have to find out for yourselves.

Inside, you'll also learn everything you need to know about giant squid: squid history (they came from the center of the earth through the same tunnels the molemen once used), squid dating do's and don'ts (Do Not eviscerate your date with your beak), and the daily diet of giant squids (surprisingly, it's pie, followed closely by cobbler and craisins.)

Of particular value is a handy guide of important questions to ask yourself should you suspect you are being eaten by a giant squid. I don't know how I've managed to get this far without it.

The Wonderful Thing About Tigers

CORAL Hawaii Field Manager Liz Foote sent me some amazing pics from Maui today that I must share. Seems a manta ray carcass got entangled in a mooring line out at Molokini in about 125 feet of water. Coincidentally, it was stuck in a Manta mooring!

With this much tasty bait in the water, you can bet that the man in the gray suit would show up. Sure enough, Liz reports that several Tiger sharks were observed by divers throughout the day. The sequence of images--some stills and others screen captures from video--are courtesy of several divers (Liz, can you help me with credits?) Check out the distended belly on one of them. Mahalo to Andy Schwanke for sending me the high res images from video he took (and my respect for his having the composure to actually film this!)

In addition to Tigers, Liz reports that some gray reef sharks dropped by for a nibble as well as supposedly-vegetarian surgeonfish. How did a manta get entangled in the first place? Russell Sparks, Marine Ecologist and Education Specialist for the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources, Maui Office, thinks that the sharks killed it and/or it died, and then it got tangled up as the sharks were feeding on it.

Wish I could have seen it myself!

Roe v. Hague

Seeing as how I'm losing my battle to remain cheery in light of today's flip-flop decision by CITES to not grant international protection to red and pink coral, I thought I'd turn my focus to another near miss, wild beluga sturgeon.

CITES declined emergency procedures to curb trade of caviar (roe) from the rare beluga sturgeon. Most of the world's caviar comes from sturgeon of the Caspian Sea, an inland sea located between Russia and Iran. Three species of sturgeon produce most of the world's caviar: beluga sturgeon produces beluga caviar; Russian sturgeon produces osetra caviar and stellate sturgeon produces sevruga caviar. Caspian Sea sturgeon are emblematic of the major problems facing fish worldwide - overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. In this instance, overfishing is fueled largely by the market for Caspian caviar, a luxury product for which there are a number of viable alternatives.

Despite not granting formal listing for wild beluga sturgeon, CITES did throw a bone to conservationists by adding provisions to strengthen scientific oversight of the wild caviar trade in general. Conservationists said the most significant change to the caviar trade resolution was the addition of clauses to increase the transparency and international scrutiny of the quota-setting process. These include:

• Caviar export quotas must be based on a conservation strategy and cannot be detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild;
• The CITES Secretariat will be required to share scientific data submitted by range states for the establishment of caviar quotas with any member nation upon request; and
• The CITES committee of wildlife biologists (called the Animals Committee) has been granted the power to convene international experts for a triennial assessment, beginning in 2008, of Caspian states’ scientific surveys of sturgeon populations and their progress, or lack thereof, in implementing required conservation measures.

“The jury is out on whether this new resolution will save Caspian sturgeons from extinction,” said Dawn Martin, president of SeaWeb and one of the Caviar Emptor awareness campaign partners. “The fate of sturgeons now rests largely in the hands of consumers, who can choose not to eat the eggs of an endangered species. Caviar connoisseurs can help save this ancient species by switching to farmed caviars, which are of the highest quality and are a better choice for the environment.”

Now I'm Really Seeing Red: An Update

Friday, 15 June, 2007 UPDATE
So cheers may have turned to tears. I was celebrating on Wednesday the news that red and pink coral received international protection by CITES. Seems that some last minute lobbying has resulted in no Appendix II listing for these threatened species of coral. Read on for the original post below and then join me in a collective smack to our foreheads over the lack of vision of the assembly (and I suspect the greed of special interest groups.)

Wednesday, 13 June, 2007 ORIGINAL POST
There's some reason to celebrate today. This week, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES (pronounced sight-eeze), is meeting in The Hague. CITES is an international agreement between governments that aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. The reason I'm feeling celebratory is that red and pink corals (genus Corallium) received international trade protection today after 62 countries voted to list these over-harvested species under the CITES Appendix II listing.

CITES can confer listing of species as either Appendix I, II, or III. Appendix I includes species threatened with extinction. Trade in specimens of these species is permitted only in exceptional circumstances (usually having something to do with research and conservation). So if you were hoping to receive a Spiny Echidna, Honey Badger, or Binturong for your birthday, forget it... they are all Appendix I listed. Appendix II includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which trade must be controlled in order to avoid depletion of the species or elevation to Appendix I status. Appendix III contains species that are protected in at least one country, which has asked other CITES Parties for assistance in controlling the trade.

The U.S. government had originally proposed that CITES list red and pink coral species on Appendix II of CITES. This newly approved designation will require that any government that exports or imports items made of red and pink coral demonstrate that trade in these species does not adversely impact its future survival.

Consumer items made from red and pink coral are very popular right now in the form of jewelry and decorative items. With a finished necklace retailing for up to $20,000 US, precious red corals are among the world’s most valuable wildlife commodities. Since 2005 there has been a worldwide resurgence in coral popularity, and it is in high demand for jewelry, art and curios, particularly in Europe and Asia. An Appendix II listing will be a strong step to improve the monitoring and tracking of red coral trade. There are also interactions between this potential ruling and bottom trawling regulations.

To help spread the word and build public awareness of this issue, SeaWeb has launched a fantastic new campaign, Too Precious To Wear. The beautiful logo (pictured at the top of this post) is specifically designed to capture the eye and attention of consumers. Beyond just designing a pretty logo, SeaWeb has secured the support and commitment of The Tiffany & Co. Foundation. Tiffany & Co. (begin humming Moon River here) is arguably the world's preeminent retailer of exquisitely designed, high-value jewelry. Recognizing the growing demand for jewelry materials sourced sustainably and ethically (think Blood Diamond) from the land and ocean (diamonds, pearls, coral, shell, etc.) the company established an environmental policy. Their environmental statement reads that,

It is from nature that Tiffany & Co. draws the raw materials and inspiration that have shaped the company's design heritage. The mission of the foundation's Environment Program is to support organizations dedicated to the conservation of natural resources in the areas of responsible mining, coral reef conservation, and land protection.

Way to go SeaWeb, and Tiffany & Co. Foundation! It's important to see big corporations like Tiffany not take the path of greenwashing. They're partnering with marine conservation organizations and investing to help preserve an ecosystem on which their company depends. When so much of the ocean environmental news is grim, the occasional good news like this is incredibly welcome.

First Buoy To Monitor Ocean Acidification Launched

NSF today announced that the first buoy to monitor ocean acidification has been launched in the Gulf of Alaska. If you've forgotten why the threat of ocean acidification keeps coral reef conservationists awake at night, refresh your memory here.

Anchored in water nearly 5,000 meters deep, the buoy (pictured above) began to transmit data via satellite once it hit the water. I'm guessing the oceanographers pictured atop the buoy are not permanently attached to the rig, but you never know with physical oceanographers. The instrument package attached to the buoy will, however, measure the air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen gas in addition to the pH of the surface waters. Information from this buoy will lead to a better understanding of ocean acidification--a growing threat to the world's oceans--by helping scientists determine exactly how physical and biological processes affect carbon dioxide in the north Pacific Ocean, said Fred Lipschultz, program director in NSF's division of ocean sciences.