Africa drought pushes Kenya and Somalia into pre-famine conditions

The worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, the United Nations has said.

More than 10 million people are now affected in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and the situation is deteriorating, it said (see map at right).

"Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told a media briefing. "There is no likelihood of improvement until 2012".

Food prices have risen substantially in the region, pushing many moderately poor households over the edge.

A UN map of food security in the eastern Horn of Africa shows large swathes of central Kenya and Somalia in the emergency category, one phase before what the UN classifies as catastrophe/famine – the fifth and worst category.

Child malnutrition rates in the worst affected areas are more than double the emergency threshold of 15 per cent and are expected to rise further. High mortality rates among children are also reported.

Drought and fighting are driving ever greater numbers of Somalis from their homeland, with more than 20,000 arriving in Kenya in just the past two weeks, the UN refuge agency UNHCR said on Friday. It voiced alarm at the dramatic rise, noting the average monthly outflow had been about 10,000 so far this year.

Almost half the Somali children arriving in refugee camps in Ethiopia are malnourished, and those arriving in Kenya are little better, Byrs said.

UN humanitarian appeals for Somalia and Kenya, each about $525m, are barely 50 per cent funded, while a $30m appeal for Djibouti is just 30 per cent funded, she said.

Source:
The Guardian,"Africa drought pushes Kenya and Somalia into pre-famine conditions", accessed June 29, 2011
WorldBulletin, "Worst drought in 60 years hitting Horn of Africa: UN", accessed June 29, 2011
Reuters,"Worst drought in 60 years hitting Horn of Africa: U.N.", accessed June 29, 2011

West Antarctica’s Biggest Glacier Is Melting 50% Faster Than 17 Years Ago

West Antarctica’s biggest glacier is melting 50 percent faster than in 1994, adding to a global increase in sea levels, U.S. and U.K. scientists found.

The Pine Island glacier is losing about 78 cubic kilometers (30 cubic miles) of ice per year, the researchers at Columbia University in New York and the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, said today. That’s up from 53 cubic kilometers in 1994. The study in the journal Nature Geoscience (at right) is based on data from a 2009 expedition.

Scientists are grappling to understand how much Antarctica’s ice could contribute to higher sea-levels after the United Nations in 2007 predicted they’ll rise by 18 to 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches) this century. Just how much of that will come from the southern continent remains uncertain.

“The glaciers from the Amundsen Sea region are contributing more to sea-level rise than any other part of Antarctica, so it’s imperative we understand the processes involved,” Adrian Jenkins, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey and a co-author of the paper, said in an e- mailed statement.

The Pine Island glacier and smaller glaciers that flow into it contain enough ice to boost sea levels by 24 centimeters, according to Columbia.

The regional increase in ocean temperatures of 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit) isn’t enough to cause the increase in melt at Pine Island, the researchers said.

They sent a robot submarine beneath the floating portion of the glacier and determined that the ice mass had previously been grounded on a ridge. The ice melted free from the ridge, opening room for warmer waters to circulate, they said.

“More warm water from the deep ocean is entering the cavity beneath the ice shelf, and it is warmest where the ice is thickest,” Stan Jacobs, an oceanographer at Columbia’s C and the study’s lead author, said in an e-mailed statement.


Source:
Bloomberg News,"West Antarctica’s Biggest Glacier Is Melting 50% Faster Than 17 Years Ago", accessed June 28, 2011
Earth Institute Columbia University, "No Longer Anchored, Antarctic Ice Stream Surges to Sea", accessed June 28, 2011

Marine turtle movements tracked.

A University of Exeter team has monitored the movements of an entire sub-population of marine turtle for the first time. The study tracked 68 adult female turtles between 1998 and 2008, one of the largest sample sizes to date, for 372.2 ± 210.4 days.

Although satellite tracking has yielded much information regarding the migrations and habitat use of threatened marine species, relatively little has been previously published about the environmental niche for loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta in north-west Atlantic waters. The study confirms that through satellite tracking the day-to-day lives in migration and habitat usage of marine species can be monitored and used to accurately predict their migrations and help direct conservation efforts.

Writing in the journal Diversity and Distributions, lead author and University of Exeter PhD student Dr Lucy Hawkes (now at Bangor University) describes the migrations of a population of loggerhead turtles in the US Atlantic Ocean over a decade (1998-2008). The findings reveal that, despite travelling thousands of miles every year, they rarely leave the waters of the USA or the continental shelf. This discovery could help the US direct conservation efforts where it is needed most.

The loggerhead sea turtle is a wide-ranging species, occurring throughout the temperate sub-tropical and tropical regions of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. In the Atlantic, the loggerhead turtle's range extends from Newfoundland to as far south as Argentina. This study focused on monitoring adult females that nest along the coast from North Carolina to Georgia each summer and showed that they forage in shallow warm waters off most of the United States eastern seaboard. The study also revealed that the turtles which travel as far north to forage as New Jersey have to head south to avoid the cold winter there.

The study's conclusion stated: "Findings show that adult female loggerhead turtles display predictable, repeatable home range behavior and do not generally leave waters of the USA, nor the continental shelf. These data offer insights for future marine management, particularly if they were combined with those from the other management units in the USA."

Dr Lucy Hawkes (left) said: "This is the first time, to our knowledge, that anyone has been able to say precisely where and when you would find an entire sub-population of marine turtles. This is incredibly useful for conservation as it tells us exactly where to put our efforts. We knew that satellite tracking was a valuable tool, but this study highlights how powerful it is -- without it we would still be guessing where these beautiful but vulnerable creatures live."

Dr Brendan Godley (right) who led the University of Exeter team has been using satellite tracking to monitor sea turtles since 1997. He said: "By attaching small satellite tracking devices to turtles' shells, we can accurately monitor their whereabouts. Working with biologists and conservation groups around the world we are starting to build a much clearer picture of the lives of marine turtles, including their migrations, breeding and feeding habits. These findings form a valuable resource for conservation groups, who are concerned with protecting turtles from threats posed by fishing, pollution and climate change."

Source:
University of Exeter. "Marine turtle movements tracked." ScienceDaily, 23 Jun. 2011. Web. 27 Jun. 2011.

Original Journal Source:

Lucy A. Hawkes, Matthew J. Witt, Annette C. Broderick, John W. Coker, Michael S. Coyne, Mark Dodd, Michael G. Frick, Matthew H. Godfrey, DuBose B. Griffin, Sally R. Murphy, Thomas M. Murphy, Kris L. Williams, Brendan J. Godley. Home on the range: spatial ecology of loggerhead turtles in Atlantic waters of the USA. Diversity and Distributions, 2011; 17 (4): 624 DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2011.00768.x

Caribou in Alberta's Oil Sands Stressed by Human Activity, Not Wolves, Research Suggests

Caribou have been dwindling in Alberta, Canada for several decades and some scientists believe they could be gone entirely in 70 years. In the area of the petroleum-rich Athabasca Oil Sands in the northern part of the Canadian province, some say they could disappear in as little as 30 years.

Research by Stan Boutin of the University of Alberta, who has studied the caribou population for the past 15 years, shows that the caribou population decline has been so drastic, Boutin says, that caribou numbers have dipped to a point in many areas where they are in very big trouble and in great danger of disappearing completely".

According to Boutin, the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range herd has declined 74 per cent since 1998, while the East Side Athabasca River herd has shrunk by 71 per cent since 1996.

Efforts have begun to remove wolves from parts of Alberta to reduce caribou predation, but new research suggests that human activity related to oil production and the timber industry could be more important than wolves (left: photo courtesy of National Wildlife Federation) in the caribou population decline. Woodland caribou, once common in the boreal forest of Alberta, are now threatened with extinction in the region by rapidly expanding developments extracting oil from the tar sands.

In fact, while the drop in caribou and moose numbers in recent decades is unmistakable, the populations have held relatively steady in the last four years, said Samuel Wasser, a University of Washington conservation biologist who is the lead author of a paper describing the research published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a journal of the Ecological Society of America.

The paper advocates specific options to control the impact of human activities in the area before resorting to more drastic actions such as predator removal. Co-authors are Jonah Keim of Matrix Solutions Inc. in Edmonton, Alberta; Mark Taper of Montana State University and Subhash Lele of the University of Alberta.

Northern Alberta's oil sands deposits are so large that the region (left: map courtesy of Wikipedia) is second only to Saudi Arabia as a potential petroleum source. The Athabasca deposit is the largest of three that cover about 54,000 square miles.

In 2005, North American Oil Sands Corp. asked for Wasser's help to determine what was happening to caribou, moose and wolf populations in the Athabasca Oil Sands region south of the city of Fort McMurray, where the company held oil leases. Wasser began using non-invasive methods he had developed to acquire DNA and hormone data from scat samples located by dogs.

In 2007 the company was acquired by Norway-based Statoil, which continued to fund the research. The research became more focused on whether the caribou population decline resulted from habitat changes because of roads and other infrastructure associated with the oil and forestry industries, from physiological stress caused by human activity, or from excessive wolf predation brought on by increased numbers of deer and, consequently, wolves. Wasser joined with Keim and Lele, habitat selection experts, and Taper, a population modeler, to try to answer those questions.

The oil sands are in an area covered largely by forests and peat bogs, and most human activity takes place from mid-December to mid-March, when the otherwise marshy ground is frozen and ice roads can be used.

Scat samples from caribou, moose and wolves, well preserved because of sub-freezing temperatures, were collected in the winters of 2006, 2007 and 2009. In 2009, four teams of highly trained scat-detection dogs led to the recovery of 2,000 samples of caribou, moose and wolf scat in 10 weeks.

In examining the samples, the researchers determined habitat preferences for each species, their abundance, the type and quality of food consumed and hormone levels that could indicate whether the animals were under psychological or nutritional stress, or both. They found that deer made up 80 percent of wolves' diet, with caribou and moose each accounting for about 10 percent.

Moose favored habitat associated with food and didn't seem particularly concerned about people. The result was that their scat had low levels of stress hormones and high levels of nutrition hormones.

But caribou proved to be much more skittish. They chose open, flat areas where, presumably, they could see and hear predators and escape. That also made it easier for them to see and hear humans on the landscape. Their scat reflected high stress and low nutrition in areas nearer roads when humans were most active.

It turned out that wolves mostly favored areas inhabited by their favorite food source, deer, which also is habitat with few caribou.

Removing wolves actually could have unintentional consequences, Wasser said, because with a much-reduced wolf population the number of deer would probably increase rapidly. The deer could alter the habitat and perhaps reduce the caribou food supply. Deer also carry multiple diseases that could jump to the caribou population. Until there is evidence to the contrary, changing human activity patterns is safer, he said.

The research also produced the first precise numbers of the caribou, moose and wolf populations in this wooded habitat. As of 2009, the scientists estimated 330 caribou, 387 moose and 113 wolves within the small section of oil sands included in the study. The caribou population was more than double the highest previous estimate. None of the populations changed significantly during the four years of the study.

Wasser said the work provides options that can help reduce impacts from human development. For example, instead of roads or pipelines being routed in a straight line on open, flat terrain, they could wind through more complex wooded terrain and avoid areas that caribou prefer for food and security.

The tools developed to evaluate scat samples for evidence of habitat selection, population changes, nutrition and stress will also provide the means to tell quickly whether mitigation efforts are working or if changes are needed.

"They would be able to make course corrections quickly and effectively," Wasser said.

Canada's native Aboriginal populations are also a concerned stakeholder in the caribou activities. They call to ban development so that enough woodland caribou will be spared to maintain the traditional aboriginal harvest, the First Nations group said.

"The extinction of caribou would mean the extinction of our people. The caribou is our sacred animal; it is a measure of our way of life," Chief Vern Janvier of the Chipewyan Prairie Dene said in a statement.

"When the caribou are dying, the land is dying. We see no respect from government for the caribou or for us as humans. The way Alberta is operating, profit for the oil industry is number 1, and everything else can be sacrificed."

Source:
University of Washington. "Caribou in Alberta's oil sands stressed by human activity, not wolves, research suggests." ScienceDaily, 22 Jun. 2011. Web. 27 Jun. 2011.
CBCNews, "Alberta First Nations urge caribou protection", accessed June 27, 2011

From the Inbox - Stop palm oil slavery

		Tell Cargill to keep slave labor out of America’s food supply. Dear Supporter, The palm oil plantations that Cargill has purchased from—and distributed to America’s household food brands—are rife with human rights violations, including slavery. Want to remove this shocking reality from your pantry? Start by letting Cargill know that slave labor is unacceptable. In Java last year, I interviewed two men with identical stories of being lured away from their hometowns with the promise of well paid work by Cargill supplier Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK). The two were exposed to toxic chemicals in the palm oil fields with no protection and kept under lock and key at night by armed security. Each finally escaped these horrendous slave labor conditions without ever being paid. I need your help to convince Cargill to stop filling America’s food supply with palm oil that causes environmental and human rights violations like these. You’ve already been a massive help in putting Cargill on the path to protecting Indonesia’s rainforests. Just last week, Cargill announced it will finally be offering North American customers palm oil certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Just two years ago Cargill claimed this was impossible. Your pressure made it happen. Thank you. We’ve clearly got a few more steps to go to ensure Cargill’s on the right side of rainforests, and I’m asking you to take those steps by my side. Are you with me? For the forests, Ashley Schaeffer Rainforest Agribusiness Campaigner Twitter: @probwithpalmoil
Rainforest Action Network 221 Pine Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104 USA Phone: (415) 398-4404 Fax: (415) 398-2732

This message has been posted as a courtesy to Rainforest Action Network. Please follow their links if you wish to obtain more information or make a donation.

From the Inbox: Invisible Enemy

Dear Supporter,

Invisible enemy: Dolphins at risk

Protect them from offshore drilling - donate by June 27

In the peaceful waters just off the coast of Belize, oil companies are preparing to drill in the Barrier Reef.

Secret government deals have given these companies the right to send booming sound waves from oil-seeking air guns reverberating through the reef, hurting sensitive dolphins – and even leading them to beach themselves and die.

But with your help, we can protect these dolphins and the reef they call home. Oceana is working with the people of Belize to put a national referendum in place that would stop offshore drilling in Belize for good.

Will you join the fight and donate $40? We have just $13,000 to go to meet our $30,000 goal!

Belize’s citizens should decide the future of the reef – not oil companies in secret back-room deals.

That’s why, with your help, we’re working with the people of Belize to run a nationwide campaign that includes educational ads on the dangers of drilling, developing scientific reports that underscore the importance of the reef, and house-to-house canvassing so every citizen knows what’s at stake.

But we need to match the oil companies’ money, influence and connections. Your support today will help ensure we have the resources to win, and that the people of Belize can act to protect their dolphins and barrier reef from deadly offshore drilling.

Will you stand with us to save the dolphins’ home and protect the world's oceans? Make your gift today to support our campaign – our deadline is June 27.

Thank you for joining us in this fight.

For the oceans,
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
Vice President, Oceana Belize

P.S. Time is running out. Please help us reach our $30,000 goal by June 27 so we can save Belize's dolphins and our barrier reef.

This message has been posted as a courtesy to Oceana Belize and no renumeration has been received by this blog for the posting. If you are interested in finding out more or interested in contributing please follow their links to their site. Thank you.

From the Inbox - Help block the Dirty Water Act of 2011 (HR 2018)

Dear Supporter,

Yesterday in the House of Representatives, a bill was passed out of committee that would gut the EPA's ability to regulate mountaintop removal coal mining and instead turn that authority over to individual states.

We have witnessed the overarching influence that the coal industry has had on state elected officials and regulators in Central Appalachia. Giving over the power to regulate mountaintop removal coal mining to the states would ensure the continued devastation of the region and the communities that have lived there for generations.

We need your help to protect EPA’s ability to enforce our nation’s clean water laws: http://ilovemountains.org/dirty-water-act-2011

The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act would gut the Clean Water Act by giving the states, rather than the EPA, the ultimate decision-making authority over our nation’s water quality standards. This would spell disaster in states where mountaintop removal coal mining is practiced, as seen by the states’ abysmal record on permitting and enforcement. In Kentucky and West Virginia alone, companies commit tens of thousands of violations of water quality standards that go unnoticed and unpunished every year by state regulators. EPA oversight is vital to ensure some layer of protection for communities and the environment.

Take action today - ask your Congressional Representative to vote NO on this blatant attempt to weaken the Clean Water Act:

http://ilovemountains.org/dirty-water-act-2011

Big Coal’s allies in Congress are determined to undermine the EPA, not just on coal mining, but on greenhouse gas regulations, water quality standards, and clean air act laws. Your dedication has made all our progress in protecting Appalachia possible.

Don’t let Congress take that all away with one vote. Please ACT NOW and call your Congressional Representative and urge them to oppose on HR 2018, The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011.

For the mountains,

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

P.S. -- Please help us spread the word on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

This message has been posted as a courtesy to Appalachian Voices. This blog receives no renumeration for the posting. If you are interested in supporting their cause or making a donation, you can find more information on their website. Thank you.

Justices reject multistate lawsuit over global warming

The Supreme Court on Monday, June 20th, unanimously tossed out a massive lawsuit brought by several states against five big private power companies whose greenhouse-gas emissions are accused of presenting a "public nuisance." The decision was the court's most important environmental ruling since 2007 and a victory for the utilities and the Obama administration.

The justices unanimously overturned a ruling by the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the lawsuit now involving six states can proceed in an effort to force the coal-burning plants to cut emissions of gases that contribute to climate change.

In a defeat for environmentalists, the Supreme Court agreed with the companies that regulating greenhouse gases should be left to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the clean air laws.

The ruling stemmed from a 2004 lawsuit claiming the five electric utilities have created a public nuisance by contributing to climate change. The lawsuit wanted a federal judge to order them to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.

Lawyers for the power companies, including an Obama administration attorney representing the government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), said the scope of the lawsuit was unprecedented, involving national and international issues outside the power of federal judges.

The utilities -- American Electric Power Co Inc, Southern, Xcel Energy Inc and Duke Energy Corp, along with TVA -- account for about 10 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

The states of California, Connecticut, Iowa, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont said their citizens have been harmed by global warming and wanted their lawsuit to proceed to trial.

"The Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency action the Act authorizes, we hold, displace the claims the plaintiffs seek to pursue," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (left) said for the court.

The ruling involved the most important climate change case to reach the Supreme Court since its landmark 2007 ruling that authorized the EPA to regulate greenhouse emissions

At issue was whether the federal courts can intervene and unilaterally establish targeted pollution emission levels, or whether federal government regulators under the Environmental Protection Agency should have the final say. The justices were clearly concerned that the scope of the problem and the possible solutions would be too much for courts to tackle.

"We have before us, to put it plainly, a 'who decides' question," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "The EPA is currently engaged in a rulemaking to decide whether the agency should set limits on emissions from domestic power plants......The critical point is that Congress has vested decision-making authority in the EPA," she said in summarizing the ruling from the bench.

The energy companies, backed by the Obama administration, had agreed, saying federal judges should not be setting environmental policy, especially on such a complex issue as clean air standards.

The EPA claimed it has been actively working to beef up rules to control carbon dioxide emissions that cross over state lines from individual power plants.

But several states, backed by land trusts and environmental groups, had sued five private utilities and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority, saying U.S. authorities have not been aggressive enough in curbing emissions, which they say has led to increased smog, soaring temperatures and loss of forests and cropland.

The high court's decision allows environmental groups to continue to press their climate change claims, but in a different judicial forum.

The carbon dioxide produced from the burning of coal, petroleum, and other fossil fuels has contributed to global warming, in the estimation of most of the scientific community. The plaintiffs allege the utilities being sued have together been spewing 650 million tons of CO2 each year, about 10 percent of the annual U.S. output. They say feasible, cost-effective alternatives have been ignored.

The companies have countered that the proposed changes could make electricity rates quadruple, devastating the economy and families. They also worry that losing the case could lead to a flood of lawsuits against small companies, individuals using gas-powered lawn mowers, and even dairy farmers with cows that naturally emit methane gas.

Supported by a range of business interests, utilities say the two other government branches are better equipped than the judicial branch to handle what they consider a "political" issue on public policy.

The current appeal offered the high court another chance to debate the larger implications of separation of powers, and the roles the judicial, legislative and executive branches should play. The justices for now only decided whether the lawsuit could proceed to trial.

In response to the ruling, David Doniger, policy director of the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council environmental group, said, "Today's ruling reaffirms the Environmental Protection Agency's duty under the nation's 40-year-old Clean Air Act to safeguard public health and welfare from dangerous carbon pollution. Now the EPA must act without delay."


Source:
CNN,"Justices reject multistate lawsuit over global warming", accessed June 21, 2011
Reuters, "Supreme Court rejects global warming lawsuit.", accessed June 21, 2011