Natural Environment Blog

The Nature Conservancy is continuing to offer green gifts this year, with its Green Gift Guide. You may remember that it launched its Green Corporate Gift-Giving Center last year.

Included in this year’s gift guide are TNC’s “Top 5 Eco-Friendly Holiday Gifts”.

1. Adopt an Acre ($50 per acre)

   Help protect threatened habitats by adopting acres in critical locations around the world at only $50 per acre. Adopt an acre in one of the following places:

   • Africa’s Grasslands and Savannas
   • Austalia’s Gondwana Link
   • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula
   • The Appalachians in the United States
   • Las Californias in the United States
   • Southern Coastal Plain Forests in the United States
   • Brazil Atlantic Forest
2. Plant a Tree in the Atlantic Forest ($1 per tree)

   One dollar plants one tree and helps support the Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.

   When you give Plant a Billion Trees as a gift, you can select the number of trees you plant and to help save paper, you can set up an e-card to announce your gift on any day you choose.

3. Adopt a Coral Reef

   The Adopt a Coral Reef program raises funds for important coral reef projects in the Dominican Republic, Palau and Papua New Guinea. The program provides critical funds for the permanent protection and restoration of these reefs.

   As some of the most biodiverse and wondrous places in the world, coral reefs need our immediate attention. If the present rate of destruction continues, 70% of the world’s coral reefs will be destroyed by the year 2050.

4. Help Save the Northern Jaguar.

   Deforestation and hunting have led to the decline of the northern jaguar. Your gift helps protect the habitat that northern jaguars need to survive and flourish.

5. Give Clean Water

   Every time a free-flowing river is altered, a lake is fouled by toxic runoff or a wetland is drained, the ability of freshwater systems to sustain life is disrupted and weakened. Your gift will help to finance conservation activities such as restoring riparian forest, setting up environmental education projects, installing equipment that tracks pollution and sedimentation rates in rivers and streams and giving families peace of mind that the water they drink is safe and clean.

So there you have it. The top 5 eco-friendly holiday gifts from The Nature Conservancy. Be sure to check out their other gifts at the Green Gift Guide.

Colorful fish at Rapture Reef, French Frigate Shoals of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

According to the Australian newspaper, several scientists have downplayed the significance that global warming will have on our coral reefs.

Specifically, they respond to a recent comment by University of Queensland’s Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, that sea temperatures are likely to rise 2C over the next three decades, which would undoubtedly kill the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, also of the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS), has spent the past 15 years warning us about the impact of climate change on the coral reefs.   

But Dr Andrew Baird principal research fellow at CoECRS says that this is a pessimistic view, and that there are serious knowledge gaps about the impact that rising sea temperatures would have on coral. 

Baird believes that coral has the ability to adapt to climate change.

“I believe coral has an underappreciated capacity to evolve. It’s one of the biological laws that, wherever you look, organisms have adapted to radical changes.” he said.

However, Dr Baird did acknowledge that we need to do something about the impact of climate change on coral reefs.

“There will be sweeping changes in the relative abundance of species,” he said. “There’ll be changes in what species occur where.

“But wholesale destruction of reefs? I think that’s overly pessimistic.” he added.

Russell Reichelt, chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority shared Dr Baird’s sentiment.

“I think that he’s right,” he said. “The reef is more adaptable and research is coming out now to show adaptation is possible for the reef.”

Dr Reichelt, a marine scientist, believes that the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef is water quality. In particular, he refers to the coastal regions where sediment and fertilizer is draining into the ocean and therefore threatening the future of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef.

“If a reef’s going to survive bleaching, you don’t want to kill it with a dirty river,” he said.

Coral can Cross-Breed

Baird and Reichelt aren’t the only ones who believe that coral could adapt to climate change.

Recent studies carried out by CoECRS have found that at least one species of coral can cross-breed and create a hybrid species, suggesting that coral may in fact be able to adapt to climate change.  

Ocean Acidification

Rising sea temperatures isn’t the only threat to our coral reef systems. Ocean acidification has been recently cited as a major threat.

At least three recent studies - one of which professor Hoegh-Guldberg was involved in - have concluded that rising CO2 emissions is a major threat to coral reefs around the world. This is because increased CO2 leads to increased ocean acidification - which in turn, destroys coral reefs.

Three separate investigations from three different parts of the world have drawn the same conclusion; that rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels will have a far greater impact on the world’s coral reefs than previously thought.

In particular, it is the CO₂ derived from human activities that will cause this greater impact and is likely to cause the death of coral reefs around the world. 

The Three Studies

The three different studies were carried out by:

• A team in Australia, led by Dr Ken Anthony of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the University of Queensland
• A team in Taiwan, led by Allen Chen, an associate researcher at the Research Center for Biodiversity, Academia Sinica
• A team in the United States, involving oceanographers Long Cao and Ken Caldeira from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University in California

The Findings

All three studies concluded that anthropogenic CO₂ - carbon dioxide derived from human activities - causes increased ocean acidification, which in turn, leads to coral bleaching and eventually, the death of coral reefs.

Cao and Caldeira from the U.S. study said that the main contributor of anthropogenic CO₂ is the burning of fossil fuels.

Dr Anthony from the Australian study said “Every time you start your car or turn on the lights, half the CO₂ you emit ends up in the oceans, turning them just a tiny bit more acidic, as well as causing the climate to warm. What is new is an understanding of how these two effects interact to affect the corals and reef building algae.”

Caldeira issues a bleak forecast, “If current trends in CO₂ emissions continue unabated, in the next few decades, we will produce chemical conditions in the oceans that have not been seen for tens of millions of years. We are doing something very profound to our oceans. Ecosystems like coral reefs that have been around for many millions of years just won’t be able to cope with the change.”

Chen, from the Taiwanese study says, “Coral ecosystems could disappear completely by the end of the century if measures are not taken to reduce carbon emissions.” 

Chen also said, “The disappearance of the coral ecosystem would produce a ripple effect and be detrimental to human survival.”

The beautiful Great Barrier Reef - if climate change doesn't destroy it first, sediment and runoff will. Photo: Copyright (C) Richard Ling (rling.com)

Anna Bligh, Premier for the Australian state of Queensland, has indicated that she would move to introduce farm regulation in order to save the Great Barrier Reef.   

Ms Bligh’s announcement came on Friday, during the Reef Water Quality Summit in Parliament House, Brisbane.

The summit was being held in response to a recent report on the water quality around the reef. The report shows that the water quality around the reef is not improving. Sediment and phosphorous discharge levels are four times higher than they were prior to European settlement, and nitrogen discharge levels are five times higher.

Much of the discharge comes from farms and mining sites located on the mainland adjacent to the reef. 

Reef Water Quality Action Plan

In order to address this issue, the State Government launched a 10 year Reef Water Quality Action Plan with the Federal Government in 2003. Ms Bligh said that, since launching that plan, her Government has invested about $25 million per year in protecting and managing reef catchments.

The goal of the Reef Plan is to: 

halt and reverse the decline in water quality entering the Reef within 10 year

The plan aims to acheive this goal with following two objectives:

1. Reduce the load of pollutants from diffuse sources in the water entering the Reef; and
2. Rehabilitate and conserve areas of the Reef catchment that have a role in removing water borne pollutants.

To date, no regulations or penalties have been included in the plan. Instead, farmers have been given financial incentives to improve land practices.

Voluntary Action is Not Enough

But Ms Bligh says that after 5 years, not enough is being done. 

“We want to work with farming groups, we want to work with scientists, but after five years of a voluntary approach the science is telling us it’s just not working” she said.

“We need tougher action and a renewed sense of urgency”.

Ms Bligh indicated that the voluntary system wasn’t working and needed to be replaced by regulation.

“The science cannot be ignored and new action will be needed. That means moving from a voluntary regulated system and making the financial commitment needed to make it work” she said.

Responses to The Premier’s Announcement

John Cherry, CEO of the Queensland Farmers Federation, wasn’t happy with the announcement. 

“We believe we can move a lot more farmers to best practice through voluntary measures,” he said.

“We are concerned that regulation will undermine goodwill and make it harder to achieve that.”

Brett de Hayr, CEO of broadacre farm lobby AgForce shared this sentiment.

“Industry certainly recognises we need to look at controls for those people who won’t do the right thing, but for states to move down a purely regulatory approach - you don’t get best practice from regulation, you get the lowest common denominator.”

But Andre Leu, chairman of the Organic Federation of Australia, welcomed the news. He hoped that the premier’s announcement would lead to the farming and research community working together with the federation on ways to adopt commercially proven methods to reduce pesticides and synthetic fertilisers.

The Australian federal government has announced that it will roll out $23 million over the next few weeks in order to help improve the water quality around the Great Barrier Reef.

The money has already been set aside as part of “Reef Rescue”, a $200 million budget allocation set aside to tackle climate change and improve water quality around the Great Barrier Reef, located in Queensland Australia. 

“Most of this $23 million will help farmers in the sugar, horticulture, grazing, cropping and dairy industries to continue that good work, which will boost productivity and reduce costs” said Tony Burke Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

The intention with the Reef Rescue package, is for regional and industry organisations to work together with private landholders and land managers in order to help the Great Barrier Reef resist the impacts of global warming.

As part of the allocation:

• Five regional organizations will each receive up to $7 million to work with industry organisations, land managers and landholders to give the Reef a better chance to survive climate change impacts.
• In addition, just over $1 million will support a partnership between five primary production industry organizations, the Queensland Farmers’ Federation and the Regional Groups Collective to raise awareness of the need for land management changes.

The five regional organizations are:

• Burdekin Dry Tropics NRM: to receive $3,546,300
• Burnett Mary Regional Group: to receive $3,063,000
• Fitzroy Basin Association: to receive $3,611,654
• Reef Catchments (Mackay / Whitsunday): to receive $5,808,124
• Terrain Natural Resource Management (Wet Tropics): to receive $6,804,650

The details of the allocation was announced today by Mr Burke and Australian Government Environment Minister Peter Garrett, who will also be attending the Reef Water Quality Summit today in Brisbane.

“I am very pleased that through this program Rudd Labor Government is bringing together farmers, land managers, environmental groups and the industry in an unprecedented way to ensure that the Great Barrier Reef has the best chance of survival, particularly in the face of dangerous climate change,” said Mr Garrett.

The Reef Water Quality Summit will be held today to address urgent concerns about the water quality of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

The summit was prompted by a 2007 report entitled 2007 Water Quality Report for the Great Barrier Reef, which was released earlier this month.

The report found that the water quality issue is worse than previously thought.

Agforce president, John Cotter says that farmers have been working with conservationists and the Federal Government to reduce farm run-off to the reef.

“The last thing that will get the best outcome for the reef is to have a series of blunt instruments or regulatory tools imposed on both not only the agricultural industry but the development industry,” he continued.

In response to the report, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said “We have had a lot of effort put in over the last five years, but recent scientific reports indicate that that effort has not been enough and it has not been happening fast enough”.

“So I want to hear from all those groups who are using the reef and who are concerned about it, ideas to accelerate the work that we are doing to improve water quality” she continued.

The summit, which will include Queensland and federal governments, conservation groups, farming groups, and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, will take place in Parliament House in Brisbane today (24th October, Australian time).

A couple of days ago I wrote about the new report for the Great Barrier Reef. In that article, I spoke about the Queensland and Australian governments agreeing to update their plan for protecting the Great Barrier Reef.

Well, the Queensland Farmers Federation (QFF) have now accused the state government of overreaction. 

The QFF are concerned that the government will try to regulate the farming industry to protect the reef. QFF spokesman, John Cherry, believes that this isn’t necessary (yet). Mr Cherry says:

Efforts are being made by a whole range of bodies up the coast and well-funded by the Federal Government are underway. None of that is occurring from the State Government and I think the State Government is a group here who hasn’t done anything else but talk about it.

Ms Bligh has indicated that the current arrangement - voluntary land management improvements - are not working. She says that there may need to be regulation of farm and mine run-off. Ms Bligh says:

Not enough is happening and not quickly enough … we are already seeing irreparable damage to our reef, so the time to act is now.

It’s nice to think that some farmers and mining companies are making voluntary changes in order to protect the reef. I’d be interested to know how many farmers and mining companies are actually voluntarily improving their land management practices - just for the reef? 

Farmers are in business. So are the mining companies. Not many are going to change their practices unless it’s financially viable to do so. If it makes sense financially, then I’m sure we’ll see some results. 

When it boils down to it, the government has three choices:

1. Raise the financial incentive for improving land management practices
2. Regulate farm and mine run-off
3. Come up with something better…

A new report released yesterday shows that the Great Barrier Reef is in dire need of help - and it’s more urgent than previously thought. 

The report, released by the Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, shows that the water quality around the reef is not improving. The report 2007 Water Quality Report for the Great Barrier Reef was the first in a regular series of reports on the health of the Great Barrier Reef - the largest natural feature on earth.

The water quality around the reef has been deteriorating over the last 150 years due to sediment run off from the mainland. This sediment is mainly caused by activities such as agriculture, grazing, tourism, mining and urban development.

Monitoring at the end of rivers, in priority catchments, has revealed that approximately:

End of river monitoring in priority catchments shows an estimated:

• 6.6 million tonnes of sediment is discharged in the reef lagoon – four times higher than estimated pre-European settlement levels;

• 16,600 tonnes of nitrogen – five times higher than estimated pre-European settlement levels; and

• 4,180 tonnes of phosphorous – four times higher than estimated pre-European settlement levels.

When announcing the report, Ms Bligh said: 

Our Great Barrier Reef is one of the natural wonders of the world,

She continued:

It fringes our north east Australian coast for approximately 2,000 kilometres, covers 348,000 square kilometres and has more than 3,200 coral reefs with a stunning array of marine habitats and species.

Ms Bligh says that both she and Peter Garrett (the Australian Environment Minister) agree that more needs to be done to protect the reef. Ms Bligh says that they will be updating the existing plan to “give it more grunt”.

I wonder if this means that the government will place more funding than the current $200 million it has allocated to “Reef Rescue”?