Natural Environment Blog

The tuatara's ancestors roamed the earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago.

The tuatara is the only survivor of a group of reptiles that roamed the earth at the same time as dinosaurs - about 225 million years ago.

There are two species of tuatara, both of which are endemic to New Zealand. The scientific name for the two species are Cook Strait Tuatara (scientific name: Sphenodon punctatus) and Brothers Island Tuatara (scientific name: Sphenodon guntheri). 

Appearance

The tuatara is a greenish, brown reptile that grows to between 50 cm and 80 cm long.

It has distinctive soft spines along the top of its head and down its backbone. Although it looks much like a lizard, tuatara is actually the only surviving member of the order Sphenodontia. 

Tuatara don’t have external ears but they are able to hear. 

The tuatara is famous for its “third eye” or pineal or parietal eye located in the middle of its forehead. The eye has a small lens and retina, but it becomes covered by a thin layer of opaque scales about 4 to 6 months after birth.

The purpose of this parietal eye is unknown, but some scientists have suggested that it is used as a light sensor as opposed to forming visual objects. 

Habitat and Distribution

The tuatara is endemic to New Zealand.

Up until a thousand years ago, tuatara occurred in both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Now, the tuatara can now only be found on islands in the North Island.

Tuatara tend to live in burrows in native forest, but can often be found occupying abandoned sheep pasture. They will often share burrows with seabirds such as petrels and shearwaters.

Growth

Tuatara has the slowest growth rate of any reptile. It can take as many as 30 to 35 years for a tuatara to reach full size. 

Tuatara usually lives to around 60 or 70, but they have been known to live to more than 100. In fact, one tuatara was seen mating last year at the ripe old age of 111.

Diet

Tuatara’s main diet consists of Insects, spiders, earthworms, snails and small lizards. Tuatara have also been known to kill and eat small seabirds and their eggs as well as young tuatara.

Behavior

Tuatara are mainly nocturnal and remain in their burrows during the day and prowl at night. They tend to have a lower body temperature than their environment, and they are active at lower body temperatures than most reptiles. They often come out during the day to bask in the sun.

Although they don’t actually go into hibernation, tuatara will often go six months without food during winter. 

Ancestory

The tuatara’s ancestory dates back to the dinosaur time. Ancestors of the tuatara and many other sphenodons were roaming the world 225 million years ago. This was about the time the first dinosaurs appeared. 

All other sphenodons disappeared around 65 million years ago and exist only as fossils. As a result, scientists often refer to the tuatara as a “living fossil”.

Tuatara Mating & Breeding

Tuatara reach sexual maturity at between 10 to 20 years of age. 

The female, on average, lays between 5 and 18 eggs only once every 4 years, which gives it the longest reproductive cycle of any reptile.

Mating season for tuatara is between January and March. Female tuatara then lay their eggs between October and December.

Hatchlings appear between 12 to 15 months after the eggs were laid. To break the egg, they use their egg tooth (a sharp pointed spike at the end of the snout).

Conservation Status

For millions of years, tuatara populations thrived in New Zealand. Then over the last thousand years or so, tuatara populations declined rapidly, almost to the point of extinction.

The main culprits were introduced rats, cats, dogs, and humans. Not to mention fires and land clearing.

The tuatara, was almost wiped out by the 1700s. In fact, in 1895, the tuatara was one of the first animals in the world to become fully protected by law.

Since then, significant tuatara populations have survived on 32 remote islands around New Zealand. Stephens Island/Takapourewa is home to about 50,000 tuatara, which represents about 90% of the tuatara population.

Since 1996, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has listed the Brothers Island Tuatara as Vulnerable and the Cook Strait Tuatara as Lower Risk/least concern, although IUCN has also stated that this needs updating.

With less than 60 remaining, the Javan Rhinoceros is probably the world's most critically endangered large mammal. This photo shows a young Javan Rhino shot dead by a hunter in 1895 in Ujung Kulon National Park, Java, Indonesia.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has just released its list of threatened species to watch in 2009.

The list, entitled 9 to Watch in 2009, is a list of animals that could be on the verge of extinction.

Included in the list are well-known animals such as tigers, rhinos, elephants and pandas.

WWF says that these species are at greater risk than ever before because of poaching, habitat loss and climate change-related threats.

Tom Dillon, WWF’s senior vice president for Field Programs warns that these creatures could become extinct if we don’t do something to save them.

“If we don’t get serious about saving these spectacular species, it’s quite likely that many won’t be around in the years to come,” he said.  

“The potential loss of some familiar and beloved wildlife should be a wake-up call that immediate action must be taken if we want to live in a world with wild elephants, polar bears, and tigers.” he continued.

Mr Dillon wants to see a major effort to save these animals in 2009.

“At the dawn of the new year, our global resolution for 2009 should be to save these amazing species before it’s too late.”

The 9 Species to Watch in 2009

According to WWF, the 9 species to watch in 2009 are:

1. Javan Rhinoceros

   Population: Less than 60
   Location: Indonesia and Vietnam 

   Probably the rarest large mammal species in the world, the Javan Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) is critically endangered. Poaching and pressure from a growing human population pose greatest risk to the two protected areas where they live. 

2. Vaquita

   Population: 150
   Location: Upper Gulf of California, Mexico 

   The world’s smallest and most endangered cetacean, the Vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is a tiny porpoise that is often killed in gillnets. This mammal could soon be extinct.     

   Other names for Vaquita include “Cochito”, “Gulf of California Harbor Porpoise”, “Gulf of California Porpoise”, “Gulf Porpoise”, “Hafenschweinswal”, and “Marsouin du Golfe de Californie”.

3. Cross River Gorilla

   Population: 300. 
   Location: Nigeria and Cameroon.  

   Possibly the world’s rarest ape, the Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) was once thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in the 1980s. This primate, a subspecies of the western gorilla, lives in the few remaining forest patches of southeastern Nigeria and western Cameroon.    

   But as its forests are opened up by timber companies, hunters move in. Pressure on forests for farming and logging, and on gorillas for bushmeat, is intense in this area.

4. Sumatran Tiger

   Population: 400-500
   Location: Sumatra, Indonesia   

   The Javan and Balinese tigers are already extinct and the Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) is not far behind. Accelerating deforestation and rampant poaching could push the Sumatran tiger to extinction within a short space of time.

   Tigers are poached for their body parts, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine, while skins are also highly prized.  

5. North Pacific Right Whale

   Population: Unknown, but less than 500
   Location: Northern Pacific, U.S., Russia and Japan

   The North Pacific Right Whale (Eubalaena japonica) is one of the world’s rarest cetaceans and was almost hunted to extinction until the 1960s. The large mammal is rarely sighted and has a poor prognosis for survival due to collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing nets and the prospect of offshore oil and gas development in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. 

6. Black-Footed Ferret

   Population: 500 breeding adults
   Location: Northern Great Plains, U.S. and Canada

   Found only in the Great Plains, the Black-Footed Ferret (Mustela nigripes) is one of the most endangered mammals in North America. This is because its primary prey, the prairie dog, has been nearly completely wiped out by ranchers who consider it a nuisance.

   The Black-Footed Ferret is actually recovering from a near brush with extinction. In 1986, it was thought that only 50 individuals remained. Since then, captive breeding and reintroduction has showed signs that the species is slowly recovering. 

7. Borneo Pygmy Elephant

   Population: Perhaps fewer than 1,000
   Location: Borneo, Malaysia

   The Borneo Pygmy Elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis) is a subspecies of the Asian Elephant and is found in northern Borneo. The smallest of all elephants, it must compete with logging and agriculture for space in the lowland forests of Borneo.  

   The Borneo Pygmy Elephant is also known as simply the Borneo Elephant.

8. Giant Panda

   Population: 1,600
   Location: China

   The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces.

   Restricted and degraded habitat is the greatest threat to the giant panda. It once lived in lowland areas, but farming, forest clearing, and other development now restrict the giant panda to the mountains. Also, its forest habitat in the mountainous areas of southwest China has become fragmented, creating small and isolated populations.

9. Polar Bear

   Population: 20,000-25,000
   Location: Arctic

   The polar bear (Ursus maritimus), is the world’s largest predator found on land. It’s native habitat is the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas. 

   The greatest threat to the polar bear today is climate change. Designated a threatened species by the U.S., if warming trends in the Arctic continue at the current pace, polar bears could become extinct within a century.
    

To find out more about what WWF is doing to protect these animals, see the 9 Species to Watch in 2009.

The Gumprechts Green Pitviper is among the 1068 new species discovered in the Greater Mekong Subregion between 1997 and 2007. Photo: Rene Ries.

More than 1,000 new species have been found in the Greater Mekong Subregion over the last 10 years, according to a report from WWF.

The report, entitled First Contact in the Greater Mekong,  says that 1068 species previously unknown to science were discovered in the region between 1997 and 2007.

WWF also say that potentially thousands of new species of invertebrate was also discovered during this period.

Highlights include the discovery of the world’s largest huntsman spider. WWF say the spider has a leg span of 30 centimeters across. That’s 12 inches - about the size of a dinner plate. 

The Gumbrechts Green Pitviper (Trimeresurus gumprechti), a bright green snake first described in 2002, was also a key discovery.

Another star discovery was the dragon millipede, which according to WWF, is “startingly hot pink” in color and produces cyanide.

The New Species

Among the new species discovered in the Greater Mekong were: 

• 519 plant species
• 279 fish species
• 88 frog species
• 88 spider species
• 46 lizard species
• 22 snake species
• 15 mammal species
• 4 bird species
• 4 turtle species
• 2 salamander species
• 1 toad species

Total Species Count in the Greater Mekong

According to WWF, there is more than 23,000 species of fauna and flora in the Greater Mekong.

These include:

• 20,000 species of plant
• 1,200 bird species
• 800 species of reptiles and amphibians
• 430 mammal species
• 1,300 fish species in the Mekong River basin

The Mekong River has more species per unit than the mighty Amazon. This photo was taken where the Mekong and the Nam Kahn rivers converge. Photo: Alcyon.

More Species Per Unit Than The Amazon

Although the mighty Amazon River contains more species than the Mekong River, the Mekong actually contains more species per unit than the Amazon.

This makes the Mekong, by length, the richest waterway for biodiversity on the planet.

Threats to The Greater Mekong

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) encompasses nations and territories located in Mekong River basin. These regions/territories are Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and Yunnan Province of China

Conservation International has ranked the Greater Mekong as one of the top five most threatened biodiversity hotspots in the world.

Specific threats to the Greater Mekong include:

• forest conversion for agricultural plantations
• unsustainable logging and the illegal timber trade
• wildlife trade over fishing
• dam and road construction
• mining

WWF indicates that these threats are increasing due to accelerating economic development, population growth and increased consumption patterns of the region.

Full Report [pdf file, 7.26 MB]

Imagine if you could donate to your favorite charity every time you searched the web. And imagine if it didn’t cost you any money.

Well, GoodSearch enables you to do exactly that.

GoodSearch is a search engine that donates 50-percent of its revenue to charities and schools designated by its users.

How Does It Work?

All you need to do is use GoodSearch when you search the web.

GoodSearch generates income from the advertising displayed on the search results page.

Note that the first time you use GoodSearch, you will need to choose your favorite charity. Once you’ve chosen your charity, you can just return to GoodSearch whenever you need to search the web.

To help your favorite charity:

1. Go to GoodSearch.com 
2. Select your favorite charity (you can either type it in or select it from a list of charities)
3. Search the web as you normally would 

Examples

Here are some pre-made links to help you get the idea. By clicking on these links, the GoodSearch website will open, with the relevant charity already selected:

• Action for Nature
• EarthTrust
• Earthwork Foundation
• The Nature Conservancy
• World Wildlife Fund

GoodSearch is powered by Yahoo! so you know that you’ll get good quality search results.

Does It Cost Me Anything?

No. GoodSearch provides people a way to support their favorite charity or school at no cost. The money comes from the GoodSearch advertisers.

Where Does The Money Come From?

The money comes from the GoodSearch advertisers - companies who pay to advertise on GoodSearch. Here’s how GoodSearch explain it: 

Search engines make most of their money from companies that pay an advertising fee when users click on links during a search. At GoodSearch, we’ve developed a patent-pending way to track and direct these search-generated proceeds to charities. In other words, a portion of advertiser dollars (and not your own!) earned as a result of your search, are now passed along to the organization you’ve chosen to support.

How Much Will My Charity Receive?

GoodSearch estimates that each search averages to around $0.01 for your charity. They have also provided the following estimates to give you an idea of how much money each charity could potentially receive:

Also Checkout GoodShop

GoodSearch have also launched GoodShop, which donates money to your favorite charity when you shop at your favorite online store after clicking through from the GoodSearch website.

Online stores include Walmart, Zappos, Target, Travelocity, and many more.

Environmentalists have concerns over Brazil’s recently announced plan to save the Amazon rainforest. 

The plan, unveiled by the government on Monday, would result in a 72 percent decrease in deforestation by 2017. 

But environmental groups, while commending the government for finally taking action, believe the plan doesn’t go far enough.

Greenpeace Brazil’s View

Greenpeace doesn’t appear to be impressed with Brazil’s deforestation plan. Greenpeace maintains that deforestation of the Amazon needs to be completely eliminated - not just reduced.

Sergio Leitao, Greenpeace director of public politics in Brazil says “In adopting timid targets the government is showing that it is going in the right direction, but at the wrong speed, because the problem requires urgent solutions”

Leitao also suggests that Brazil is using its reliance on funding from rich nations as a convenient escape clause.

“By connecting the reduction of deforestation to obtaining international resources, in a moment of economic crisis, the government has an argument ready for not achieving targets in the future,” he said.  

Greepeace UK’s View

And Greepeace UK has said on its blog:

On the surface, this might sound ambitious and visionary but of course even if these targets are met, they’ll reduce deforestation but they won’t stop it.

Greenpeace UK highlights the fact that Brazil’s government seems happy to lose rainforest:

As environment minister Carlos Minc noted, if all goes to plan then in 2017 we’ll still be losing 5,000 sq km of rainforest every year (although I think he saw that as a good thing)

And, importantly, Greepeace points out that the deforestation plan only appears to be applicable to illegal deforestation.

Therefore, legal clearance of the rainforest will be unaffected. This means that a new bill soon to be voted on in Brazil’s parlaiment would effectively undermine the new plan. The bill, if passed, would allow land owners to clear as much as 50% of their forests (currently, they’re allowed to clear 20%).

On this point, Greenpeace comments:

So right there you can see that, even if illegal deforestation is cut or even eliminated, state sanctioned destruction could balloon in its place and so completely undermine any efforts to bring the rate of deforestation down.

WWF Brazil’s View 

In the meantime, WWF-Brazil has labeled the plan as “commendable but short on ambition and detail“.

However, Carlos Alberto de Mattos Scaramuzza, Conservation Director at WWF-Brazil still agrees that it is “reasonably” ambitious:

“This goal is reasonably ambitious,” he says. “To achieve it, next year deforestation will have to drop 23% in relation to this year.”

But he wants to see a plan that’s more than “reasonably ambitous”.

Instead, WWF-Brazil wants to see a goal of zero deforestation by 2015.

“This goal is achievable if key actors—ranging from indigenous peoples to ranchers—are compensated for conserving the forest and thereby avoiding deforestation” Scaramuzza says.

And WWF-Brazil’s CEO Denise Hamú agrees.

“This fund appears to be geared primarily to supporting government command-and-control programmes,” she says

“To achieve more ambitious reductions in deforestation, it will be effective mechanisms to compensate the key actors on the ground who determine the fate of the forest.”

The Brazilian government has announced plans to slash deforestation in the Amazon region by 72 percent by 2017.

The announcement, made by Environment Minister Carlos Minc in Brasilia on Monday, comes three days after it was revealed that deforestation in the Amazon had increased in 2008 for the first time in 4 years. 

Part of the plan includes adding 3,000 more officers to fight illegal logging in the Amazon.

“This plan improves Brazil’s image, we’ll have more moral authority internationally,” Minc told reporters after announcing the plan.

The 72 percent figure comes from comparing against an annual deforestation average between 1996 and 2005. Minc says the plan would reduce deforestation by 72% when compared with the 7,330 square miles lost on average each year during that period.

Reduced Carbon Emissions

Brazil’s announcement came as this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference commenced in Poznań, Poland. 

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva believes that the plan puts Brazil ahead of many other countries attending the conference.

“We will surely receive criticism, but we can say that we are presenting a better one than China or India, and better than others that still haven’t signed the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.

Minc shares the president’s view ”Just in terms of avoided deforestation in the Amazon, the plan foresees a reduction of 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide that won’t be emitted up to 2018, which is more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries,” he explained.

Reforestation

Brazil not only plans to reduce deforestation, but also plans to double the reforested areas to 11 million hectares by 2020.

“This means that by 2015 we will be planting more trees than cutting,” Minc said.

Brazil’s Forestry Service Welcomes the Plan

The Brazilian government’s forestry service welcomes the announcement.

“We can now adopt targets because we now have the instruments to implement them” said Tasso Azevedo, head of the forestry service.

The ‘instruments’ Azevedo refers to is the new Amazon fund established earlier this year.

The Amazon Fund

The Amazon Fund is a fund established to preserve millions of acres of the Amazon as quickly as possible. 

Through the fund, Brazil hopes to attract $21 billion in donations from rich countries to protect the Amazon.

Norway has already made a pledge of up to $1 billion to the fund. Norway’s contribution will be made by installments, each one being made on the condition that deforestation had reduced during the previous year.

Marine reserves currently provide coral reefs with little protection against global issues such as climate change and disease outbreaks.

Marine reserves, while effective at protecting coral reefs against local issues, are not protecting them against global issues such as climate change, according to Associate Professor John Bruno from the University of North Carolina.

Professor Bruno presented his findings to the Ecological Society of Australia’s annual conference at the University of Sydney.

18 Years of Data

In a speech entitled Climate change and coral reef resilience: are we expecting too much from marine reserves?, professor Bruno and former graduate student Elizabeth Selig compared 18 years worth of data collected from 8,540 coral reefs in the Indian, Caribbean and Pacific regions between 1987 and 2005. 

They found that, while marine reserves are important for protecting fish populations, maintaining coral reef food webs and protecting against anchor damage, they are unlikely to prevent coral loss due to increased sea temperatures.

“We found that while coral loss was reduced in marine reserves, the rate of coral decline with warmer temperatures was just the same in marine reserves as in highly fished areas,” professor Bruno explained.

Largest Threat

Bruno believes that regional and global issues are the largest threats to marine reserves. 

“The biggest stresses put on coral reefs are ocean warming and disease outbreaks,” he says. “These stresses are regional and global in scale and local protection through marine reserves is unlikely to help these reefs resist such changes.”

Older Reserves Are More Resilient

Although marine reserves don’t directly guard against regional and global issues, professor Bruno did find that older reserves are in a better position to protect against coral loss than younger reserves.

“We don’t know the reason for this result, although we can speculate that it could be due to longer-term marine reserves being better managed or established,” he says.

Future Protection

Bruno believes that we need to think long term and establish marine reserves that can protect coral reefs from unknown future threats.

“Restoring and protecting corals from climate change requires urgent implementation of regional and global strategies to deal with the root causes of climate change, including reducing carbon emissions.”

Jon Bon Jovi (above) will be bringing his band, Bon Jovi, to Live Earth India, being held on 07 December. Photo: Artur Bogdanski.

Live Earth has announced the artists that will perform for Live Earth India on December 07 this year.

Famous international and local musicians will perform at the concert that will be broadcast live around the world on the internet. 

The Lineup

The full lineup to date is:

• Bon Jovi
• Amitabh Bachchan
• Roger Waters (from Pink Floyd)
• will.i.am (from Black Eyed Peas)
• Anoushka Shankar
• Abhishek Bachchan
• Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
• Hrithik Roshan
• Preity Zinta
• Bipasha Basu
• Shiamak Davar
• Farhan Akhtar
• Arjun Rampal
• Purab Kohli
• Hard Kaur
• Jalebee Cartel
• Vishal & Shekhar
• Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
• Sunidhi Chauhan
• Sonu Nigam
• Shaan

The show will include appearances and messages from former U.S Vice President Al Gore, IPCC Chairman and Director General TERI India, Dr. Rajendra K Pachauri, and various environmental advocates and celebrities.

About Live Earth India

Live Earth India is a concert being held in India to raise awareness for our planet’s urgent environmental crisis.

“Live Earth’s mission is to leverage the power of music and entertainment to focus the world’s attention on the most pressing environmental issues of our time and then actively affect change. The addition of these celebrated and influential artists will increase the force of our event and shine a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities surrounding climate change issues in India.” said Kevin Wall, Live Earth founder.

Live Earth India will be the second Live Earth concert to date. The first Live Earth concert, “Live Earth: the Concerts for a Climate in Crisis”, which was held on 07/07/07, was the “Most Watched Online Entertainment Event Ever.”

The concerts were hosted on seven continents, broadcast in 132 countries, and inspired 2 billion people worldwide to engage with the issues and the solutions surrounding the global climate crisis.

This year’s concert is to be held at Andheri Sports Complex in Mumbai, India on 07 December. As with last year’s event, Live Earth India will be broadcast by MSN.

Attending/Watching The Event

To attend the concert in Mumbai, you can book tickets online through BookMyShow.com 

If you are unable to attend the concert in person, you can watch it online at msnindia.com/liveearth.

The Bald Eagle is one of the many endangered species to inhabit Hatchineha Ranch, which has been protected by The Nature Conservancy and Hatchineha Ranch LLC. Photo: Paul Resh..

The Nature Conservancy and Hatchineha Ranch LLC just announced that they have protected a 5,134 acre “evironmental jewel” in Central Florida in the United States. 

Hatchineha Ranch, 65 miles east of Tampa and 40 miles south of Orlando, is located within one of the highest concentrations of threatened and endangered plant and animal species in the United States.

The site had been proposed for “Hatchineha Lakes” - a development that, if approved, would have included 5,200 homes and apartments, a small commercial development and an 18-hole golf course. 

Now the land will be restored and preserved.

“This acquisition not only preserves an outstanding natural landscape from development, it connects a complex of conservation lands critical for protection of the headwaters of the Kissimmee River and the Everglades basin,” said Jeff Danter, The Nature Conservancy’s state director.

“We are grateful to the owner for helping us to implement our primary strategy for the northern Everglades, which is to protect natural landscapes with high biological diversity and opportunities for hydrological restoration.”

The Deal

The deal, which has been in negotiation for the past couple of months, has been labelled “a pretty creative deal” by Ernie Cox, Hatchineha Lakes representative. 

As part of the deal, Hatchineha Ranch LLC donated 1,130 acres of the ranch to the Conservancy and the Conservancy purchased a partial interest in the remaining 4,004 acres.

The Nature Conservancy explains that, as tenants in common, the Conservancy and Hatchineha Ranch LLC will jointly pursue multiple strategies for long-term conservation, including wetlands mitigation, conservation banking for imperiled species, and the sale of lands to government agencies as additions to adjacent public holdings.

Cox hopes the deal will provide an example for other landowners.

“If we can monetize restoration efforts, it will offer a stronger incentive,” he said.

Past Conservation Attempts

This is not the first time protection has been sought on the land. The Polk County Board of Commissioners and the South Florida Water Management District have been trying for years to purchase the land for preservation.

“This is fantastic news for environmental lands preservation in Polk County,” said Jeff Spence, Polk County Natural Resources Division director. “Due to its key location, outstanding beauty and great diversity, the county had targeted this particular piece of property for preservation more than 15 years ago. Several past attempts to acquire it were unsuccessful.”

Steve Morrison, who grew up on the Lake Wales Ridge and manages The Nature Conservancy’s Tiger Creek Preserve shares this sentiment.

“This is such great news. I’ve had my heart broken by that place so many times,” he said.

“We’ve tried for so many years to get it into conservation, and every time it would sell again for more money, I would think, ‘There it goes’.”

Numerous Restoration Opportunities

The Nature Conservancy says there are numerous opportunities for habitat restoration including:

• the restoration of cutthroat grass seeps, an imperiled natural community that has been affected by ditching for agricultural purposes 
• the restoration of Catfish Creek, a historical tributary of the Kissimmee River which was diverted decades ago for the creation of pasture and sod farming

Among the endangered species that inhabit the site include the Bald Eagle, Florida scrub-jay, sand skink, crested caracara, gopher tortoise and southeastern kestrel. Also, the Florida panther has been said to use the land at some point. 

Jeff Danter labelled the purchase as “one of the most significant acquisitions in the Florida chapter’s history,”.

Tuna is at risk of extinction following ICCAT's decision to ignore advice from its own scientists, say conservation groups.

A decision by an international organization charged with protecting tuna has been slammed by conservation groups for doing the exact opposite.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), a fishery organization responsible for the conservation of tunas and tuna-like species, recently implemented a catch quota as much as 60% higher than its own scientists had recommended.

ICCAT’s own scientists had recommended a total allowable catch (TAC) of 8,500 to 15,000 tonnes per year. ICCAT ignored this advice and opted for a TAC of 22,000 for 2009.

The catch quota essentially places a restriction on how much the tuna industry is allowed to catch. Without a strict quota, tuna, known for fetching high prices, would almost certainly become extinct.

Obviously, the extinction of tuna would lead to the collapse of the tuna industry so, any ICCAT decision has a direct impact on the future of tuna fisheries, as well as the survival of the species itself.

Greenpeace’s Response

Greenpeace says ICCAT has lived up to it’s reputation as an “international disgrace” and has labelled the decision as “Shameless. Disastrous.” 

It says that this year’s annual meeting in Marrakech “looked more like a bazaar, in which buyers haggled over the last remaining tuna, than an international meeting”.

Greenpeace blames the decision on the European Union.

The European Union, representing the majority of Mediterranean countries with interests in the bluefin tuna fishery,  bullied other parties in the meeting into agreeing to management proposals which completely fail to follow the advice of ICCAT’s own scientific body to substantially reduce fishing and protect the species’ spawning grounds.

“The game is over – ICCAT has missed its last chance to save the bluefin tuna from stock collapse,” said Sebastian Losada, Greenpeace Spain Oceans Campaigner, who attended the Marrakech meeting. “Bluefin tuna has become an endangered species because of ICCAT mismanagement. It’s time to take the fishery out of their hands and look to Conventions like CITES to impose trade restrictions on the species.”

“These past seven days have demonstrated that ICCAT is a farce,” Losada concluded.

Further, Greenpeace has demanded a closure of the fishery until a proper recovery plan is in place. In particular, Greenpeace wants to see:

• a Total Allowed Catch (TAC) in line with the scientific advice
• a seasonal closure covering the months of May, June and July
• the establishment of marine reserves to protect the bluefin tuna spawning grounds

WWF’s Response

WWF has labelled the decision “a disgrace”.

“This is not a decision, it is a disgrace which leaves WWF little choice but to look elsewhere to save this fishery from itself,” said Dr Sergi Tudela, head of WWF Mediterranean’s fisheries programme.

“Any alternative is preferable to an organization which boasts of its respect for science but where in a decade catches have gone from twice to four times the scientific recommendations, with massive legal and illegal overfishing. It is clear that the only thing to slow the fishery with ICCAT at the helm is running out of fish.”

As with Greenpeace, WWF has been pushing for a suspension in the tuna fishery. This option has also been endorsed by the recent World Conservation Congress and recommended by ICCAT’s own internal high-level review. 

WWF has also been pushing for more protection of bluefin tuna.

“WWF will also actively push for a listing under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in the hope that stringent trade controls tied explicitly to the survival of the species will turn around the half-hearted attempt at fisheries management shown here by ICCAT and especially its European contingent.” says Dr Tudela.

An Ongoing Problem

This is not the first time ICCAT has ignored advice from its own scientists.

In 2006, ICCAT set a TAC of 29,500 tonnes, despite its own scientists recommending a sustainable limit of 15,000 tonnes. Since then, ICCAT’s scientists estimate that actual tuna catches in 2007 were 61,000 tonnes.

Following the concerns of the international community, ICCAT appointed a panel to conduct an independent review of ICCAT [PDF document].

The panel had the following to say about ICCAT’s performance:

• Fundamentally ICCAT’s performance to date does not meet its objectives for several of the species under its purview.
• ICCAT’s failure to meet its objectives is due in large part to the lack of compliance by many of its CPCs.
• CPCs have consistently failed to provide timely and accurate data and to implement monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) arrangements on nationals and national companies.
• The judgement of the international community will be based largely on how ICCAT manages fisheries on bluefin tuna (BFT). ICCAT CPCs’ performance in managing fisheries on bluefin tuna particularly in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea is widely regarded as an international disgrace and the international community which has entrusted the management of this iconic species to ICCAT deserve better performance from ICCAT than it has received to date.
• There are concerns about transparency within ICCAT both in decision making and in resource allocation. 
• Most of the problems and challenges ICCAT faces would be simple to fix if CPCs developed the political will to fully implement and adhere to the letter and spirit of the rules and recommendations of ICCAT.

The review found that ICCAT has failed to meet its objectives, but blames this on its members (CPCs).

A simple reading of the state of the stocks under ICCAT’s purview would suggest that ICCAT has failed in its mandate as a number of these key fish stocks are well below MSY. However, the Panel is of the view that rather than ICCAT failing in its mandate it is ICCAT that has been failed by its members (CPCs).

The review concluded that the members’ attitudes need to change.

…the problems of ICCAT would be readily fixed or considerably improved if CPCs changed their attitude towards implementation of and adherence to the rules and recommendations of ICCAT and the adoption of robust Monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) processes.