Earthwitness » for a better now.: November 2009

Monitoring vital role of forests

A new scientific organisation is needed to monitor the commitments that will be made by developing countries at Copenhagen to cut their deforestation rates, according to research at the University of Leeds.

Existing government agencies and research groups have failed to make full use of the thousands of satellite images of the Earth's surface collected each week to monitor tropical forests.

As global temperatures continue to rise scientists are presented with the complex challenge of understanding how species respond and adapt. In a paper published in Insect Conservation and Diversity, Dr Francisco Rodriguez-Trelles and Dr Miguel Rodriguez assess this challenge.

Twentieth-Century global warming of approximately 0.6^˚C has already affected the Earth's biota and now the major challenge facing ecologists and evolutionary biologists is to predict how biological impacts of climate change will unfold in response to further projected temperature increases of up to 6^˚C by 2100.

In the film, The Day After Tomorrow the world enters the icy grip of a new glacial period within the space of just a few weeks. Now new research shows that this scenario may not be so far from the truth after all.

William Patterson, from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, and his colleagues have shown that switching off the North Atlantic circulation can force the Northern hemisphere into a mini 'ice age' in a matter of months. Previous work has indicated that this process would take tens of years.

If deforestation continues, the Paraguayan Chaco will soon be reduced to isolated fragments.Photo:Guyra ParaguayBirdLife Partner Guyra Paraguay has warned that if current rates of deforestation continue, the Chaco, currently home to rich and abundant biodiversity, could soon be reduced to the same state as South America's Atlantic Forest: isolated fragments providing a tenuous clawhold for the threatened remnants of its bird species.

Satellite images analysed by Guyra Paraguay shows that habitat losses in 2009 will be far higher than in 2008, when 228,000 ha were bulldozed to make way for agriculture, mainly cattle ranching.

MODIS satellite images covered the Arabian Gulf (yearly average for 2006). This image show that the temperature increases generally towards the coastline. This is perhaps due to the heating effect of the local human activities which take place near the shoreline. The heating is about 2-3 ºC within 20 to 30 km from the shoreline.Credit: NASASince 1985, seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay, northern Arabian Gulf, has increased on average 0.6^°C per decade. This is about three times faster than the global average rate reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Differences are due to regional and local effects.

Increased temperatures are having profound effects on key habitats and on power generation the Arabian Gulf.

WWF welcomes the adoption of the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing at the 36th FAO Conference on November 23, 2009.

IUU fishing is one of the largest threats to sustainable fisheries and as such also to coastal livelihoods and economies. Current estimated value of IUU losses worldwide is between USD10 billion and USD23 billion annually.

Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn's orbit around the sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of methane and ethane lakes over the northern and southern polar regions of the planet's largest moon, Titan. On Earth, similar "astronomical forcing" of climate drives ice-age cycles.

A paper describing the theory appears in the November 29th advance online edition of Nature Geoscience.

Canberra bushfire in 2003Carbon credits bring millions for new jobs in indigenous communities; Australian project a model of opportunity, especially for Africa

A landmark Australian project that mitigates the extent and severity of natural savannah blazes by deploying traditional Indigenous fire management techniques is being hailed as a model with vast global potential in the fights against climate change and biodiversity loss, and for protecting Indigenous lands and culture.

Scientists are gathering for a once-in-a-decade summit on how to protect Britain's most threatened wildlife habitat.

In centuries gone by reed beds were common throughout the UK but today they are mostly confined to isolated coastal areas of East Anglia - in fact if all the reed beds in the UK were gathered together they would cover an area only slightly larger than the London Borough of Ealing. A report published last year stated that out of 20 key sites, 12 were under imminent threat due to sea level rise caused by climate change.

WWF has welcomed the very strong signal from leading emerging economies that the Copenhagen climate change conference is far too important to be stitched up in the usual way by the usual suspects in the developed world.

At a meeting in Beijing Saturday, representatives of Brazil, South Africa, India and China (the BASIC countries) indicated they intend to reject a draft Danish "political agreement" at the Copenhagen climate conference which is regarded as the developed world's preferred outcome for the conference.

Photo:OxfamHurricanes, hunger and homelessness for the people of Haiti if world leaders do not act against climate change

The people of Haiti, having survived political turmoil, food insecurity and four hurricanes last year, could be pushed over the brink if world leaders do not act at the UN climate talks next month, Oxfam warns. In the new report, Haiti: A Gathering Storm, the international development agency highlights how drought and more intense and frequent hurricanes are risking the lives and livelihoods of people trying to make ends meet against the odds.

Finnish food speciality: rye bread with smoked salmon, smetana and dill. Photo:Veronika Susova/WikimediaMulti-year study points the way to sustainable salmon production and debunks food sustainability myths along the way; mode matters more than miles.

Popular thinking about how to improve food systems for the better often misses the point, according to the results of a three-year global study of salmon production systems. Rather than pushing for organic or land-based production, or worrying about simple metrics such as “food miles,” the study finds that the world can achieve greater environmental benefits by focusing on improvements to key aspects of production and distribution.

The annual rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels has more than tripled in this decade, compared to the 1990s, reports an international consortium of scientists, who paint a bleak picture of the Earth’s future unless "CO₂ emissions [are] drastically reduced."

These CO₂ emissions increased at a rate of 3.4 per cent per year from 2000 to 2008, in contrast to 1 per cent each year in the previous decade, scientists from the Global Carbon Project report in the current issue of Nature Geoscience.

The first-ever Australian benchmark of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems and options for adaptation is being released in Brisbane.

The Marine Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Report Card for Australia, and an accompanying website, will provide a biennial guide for scientists, government and the community on observed and projected impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems.

Tristan Albatross are particularlly suceptible to longline fisheries as their dispersal areas overlap that of commercial fisheries.Photo:Richard Cuthbert/RSPBAfter a 3-year seabird risk assessment that found tuna and swordfish longline fishing has significant impacts on Atlantic seabird populations, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) failed to act at a recent meeting in Recife, Brazil.

"Albatrosses and petrel populations in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea are undergoing some of the most severe decreases anywhere in the world", said Dr Cleo Small - Senior Policy Officer for the BirdLife Global Seabird Programme, based at the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK).

Ovenbird.Photo:Cephas/WikimediaEcologists have at last worked out a way of using recordings of birdsong to accurately measure the size of bird populations. This is the first time sound recordings from a microphone array have been translated into accurate estimates of bird species' populations. Because the new technique, reported in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, will also work with whale song, it could lead to a major advance in our ability to monitor whale and dolphin numbers.

Developed by Deanna Dawson of the US Geological Survey and Murray Efford of the University of Otago, New Zealand, the technique is an innovative combination of sound recording with spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR), a new version of one of ecologists' oldest tools for monitoring animal populations.

Photo:Suneko/WikimediaHammerhead sharks are some of the Ocean's most distinctive residents. "Everyone wants to understand why they have this strange head shape," says Michelle McComb from Florida Atlantic University. One possible reason is the shark's vision.

"Perhaps their visual field has been enhanced by their weird head shape," says McComb, giving the sharks excellent stereovision and depth perception. However, according to McComb, there were two schools of thought on this theory. In 1942, G. Walls speculated that the sharks couldn't possibly have binocular vision because their eyes were stuck out on the sides of their heads.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen is taking his pessimism about a legally binding global climate agreement emerging from his capital Copenhagen to the Caribbean, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) starting today in Trinidad and Tobago.

The meeting, which brings together Britain and its former colonies and dominions, is the last significant head of state level meeting before the Copenhagen climate summit in a week's time and has taken the theme Partnering for a More Equitable and Sustainable Future.

An open pit uranium mine in Niger. Photo: David Francois/WikimediaA Greenpeace team visited AREVA's two uranium mines in Niger from 1-9 November. During the visit Greenpeace found dangerous levels of radiation in the streets of Akokan, a mining city located close to both mines. AREVA had earlier declared the streets safe.

Greenpeace has released the first results of its survey to the authorities and companies involved, and calling for an independent inspection, followed by a comprehensive clean-up to address the impacts of the French nuclear company's activities in Niger.

Photo:WWFA new international agreement to better control vessels in the world's ports will cut off access to global markets for pirate fishers, responsible for fuelling overfishing and the illegal seafood trade.

This week, states participating in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) adopted an agreement on port control of vessels engaged in fishing and fish trade, which will greatly reduce illegal fishing.

Nelly Damaris Chepkoskei, working with her community to secure it from already apparent climate change impacts.Photo:WWF-Kenya
In Kericho, Kenya, Christmas always used to be celebrated in heavy rain. "Today, Christmas is usually dry," said Mrs Nelly Damaris Chepkoskei, a 53 year old farmer who works extensively with the women of her community.

With 10 days to go to the opening of the Copenhagen climate summit, Chepkoskei is one of 10 climate witnesses now in Viterbo, Italy for a Greenaccord event to enable journalists to share information and learn from experts about climate change.

Photo of the uncontacted tribe photographed last year in the Brazilian Amazon, near the Peruvian border. Photo: Gleison Miranda/FunaiBrazil's Attorney General's office has warned that uncontacted Indians in the Amazon are at risk of extinction due to a highway that runs through Rondônia state to the Bolivian border.

The Attorney General's office has condemned the Department of Infrastructure and Transport for breaking environmental licensing laws, and has ordered asphalting work on the BR-429 road to be suspended. It has highlighted that the department did not take into account the impact of upgrading the road on indigenous peoples in the region.

Land areas around the world, bigger than Canada, have been identified as having potential to be restored to good quality, healthy forests, a new study has found.

As the global effort to help tackle climate change by reversing the earth's alarming loss of forests steps up, scientists using sophisticated satellite mapping have produced a world map identifying areas in which more than a billion hectares of former forest land and degraded forest land has restoration potential.

Photo:Keng T/WikimediaPlants that cope better with changes in the environment – giving greater crop yields in the face of global warming – could be developed following a study into the weeds in the cracks in pavements.

Dr Giles Johnson and his team at The University of Manchester have identified a protein that helps plants 'track' the environment and increase their capacity to photosynthesise (capturing light energy through the leaves which enables them to grow). This protein is produced according to the expression of a particular gene.

Photo:Acaro/WikimediaAt the beginning of November 2009 the Romanian Parliament cancelled a draft law that would have protected the irreplaceable natural environment of the Danube Delta.

The Danube Delta is one of the world's largest wetlands, home to an extraordinary array of wildlife and to over 320 bird species, such as Vulnerable Dalmatian Pelican Pelecanus crispus and Endangered Red-breasted Goose Branta ruficollis.

Past regional cold and warm periods linked to natural climate drivers

Intervals of regional warmth and cold in the past are linked to the El Niño phenomenon and the so-called "North Atlantic Oscillation" in the Northern hemisphere's jet stream, according to a team of climate scientists. These linkages may be important in assessing the regional effects of future climate change.

"Studying the past can potentially inform our understanding of what the future may hold," said Michael Mann, Professor of meteorology, Penn State.

As Heads of States that represent the Amazon Basin - including French President Sarkozy, representing French Guyana - arrived in Manaus to agree a common position for December's UN Copenhagen Climate Summit, Greenpeace activists today climbed the city's famous opera house and unfurled a large banner in Portuguese, English and French stating: 'Obama, Lula, Sarkozy - Make history, Save the Climate'.

Photo:Harkey Lodger/WikimediaA major project to restore hundreds of square miles of England's finest hill country was given the go-ahead.

Most of north-west England's drinking water is sourced from the hills, lakes and rivers of its uplands. Over the centuries some of these beautiful upland landscapes like the Lake District and the Pennines have suffered from the intensive burning of moorlands, over grazing and the drainage of blanket bogs. This means more impurities and sediment are getting into the water as it flows from these hills.

Obama announcement adds to Copenhagen momentum

International development organisation Oxfam praised today's announcement that President Obama will attend the United Nations conference on climate change in Copenhagen next month. Oxfam America's president, Raymond C. Offenheiser made the following statement in reaction.

"For months, President Obama stated his personal commitment to tackling climate change at the global level. Today, he signalled that he's ready to roll up his sleeves to make a climate change deal happen.

With absolute numbers of hungry pushing past a billion for the first time, the global food and financial crises have ushered in an era of unprecedented food insecurity, the head of the World Food Programme warned this week in Washington.

The risk of hunger, heightened by increasing threats from climate change and the scarcity of land and water, is the "new normal", Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of WFP, warned a panel discussion at the Centre for Strategic and International Relations (CSIS) in Washington recently.

Addressing public health impacts of climate change

New strategies promote health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Strategies to reduce greenhouse gases also benefit human health, according to studies published today in the medical journal The Lancet. The Lancet series highlights case studies on four climate change topics – household energy, transportation, electricity generation, and agricultural food production.

Small faults in southeast Spain reduce earthquake risk of larger ones

A team of Spanish scientists, studying recent, active deformations in the Baetic mountain range, have shown that the activity of smaller tectonic structures close to larger faults in the south east of the Iberian Peninsula partially offsets the risk of earthquakes.

"There are large faults in the eastern part of the Baetic mountain range, which are active and occasionally cause moderate, low magnitude earthquakes (measuring less than 5 on the Richter scale)", Antonio Pedrera, lead author of the study and a researcher in the Department of Geodynamics at the University of Granada (UGR), tells SINC.

River action campaigners met with environment minister Huw Irranca-Davies by the Thames ahead of the publication of controversial plans for the UK’s waterways.

Earlier this year a report revealed that three quarters of rivers in England and Wales are failing European targets on environmental quality. But in the majority of cases the Environment Agency’s official plans – due to be published next month - fail to set out action to tackle the problems such as pollution from fertilisers and over abstraction, which threaten river wildlife.

Photosynthetic organisms need to cope with a wide range of light intensities, which can change over timescales of seconds to minutes. Too much light can damage the photosynthetic machinery and cause cell death. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution were part of a team that found that specific proteins in algae can act as a safety valve to dissipate excess absorbed light energy before it can wreak havoc in cells.

The research, performed mostly by Graham Peers in the laboratory of Krishna Niyogi from the University of California, Berkeley, included researchers at the University of Münster, Germany, and used a mutant strain of the single-celled green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, originally isolated at the Carnegie Institution, to show that a specific protein of the light harvesting family of proteins plays a critical role in eliminating excess absorbed light energy.

Shropshire Wildlife Trust has announced that its plans to buy 527 acres at Catherton Common in the Clee Hills have become a reality as the purchase reached completion on Friday 20 November. "We have been amazed at the success of the appeal," said John Hughes, the Trust's development manager. "Four hundred and twenty people have sent in donations which together with Gift Aid amount to GBP40,000. We are immensely grateful to these individuals for their generosity, without which our bid to buy the common would not have succeeded."

Photo: Matthew R. KloosterA rare woodland plant uses 'cryptic coloration' to hide from its predators

It is well known that some animal species use camouflage to hide from predators. Individuals that are able to blend in to their surroundings and avoid being eaten are able to survive longer, reproduce, and thus increase their fitness (pass along their genes to the next generation) compared to those who stand out more. This may seem like a good strategy, and fairly common in the animal kingdom, but who ever heard of a plant doing the same thing?

ORNL’s Jeff Christian points out the insulating foam used to seal the attic in a deep retrofit house. Photo:ORNLOak Ridge National Laboratory has announced plans to conduct a series of deep energy retrofit research projects with the potential to improve the energy efficiency in selected homes by as much as 30 to 50 per cent.

The projects will be supported by up to USD1.4 million from the Department of Energy's Building America Program, which has received additional funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Green heating and cooling technology turns carbon from eco-villain to hero

Carbon is usually typecast as a villain in terms of the environment but researchers at the University of Warwick have devised a novel way to miniaturise a technology that will make carbon a key material in some extremely green heating products for our homes and in air conditioning equipment for our cars. Most domestic heating and automotive air conditioning requires a lot of energy. Domestic space heating and hot water account for 25% of energy consumption in the UK.

Across the EU, vehicle air conditioning uses about 5% of the vehicle fuel consumed annually, and within the UK it is responsible for over 2 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. To combat global warming, new technologies to reduce these emissions are vital. Researchers at the University of Warwick have been working on practical solutions for many years and are now developing new energy saving technologies. In houses, the best condensing boilers are about 90% efficient.

Without effective intervention, climate change impacts on the remaining n the Upper Guinea Forest of West Africa will be catastrophic. Photo:Guy Shorrock/RSPBBirdLife's regional office for West Africa, in collaboration with the Ghana Wildlife Society (BirdLife Partner), has organised a four-day workshop on climate change mitigation and forest biodiversity conservation for protected area managers from five West African countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana).

The workshop aimed to raise awareness of emerging conservation opportunities to mitigate climate change impacts, such as carbon finance (trading), Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), and Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG).

Climate change accelerating beyond expectations, urgent emissions reductions required

Global ice-sheets are melting at an increased rate; Arctic sea-ice is disappearing much faster than recently projected, and future sea-level rise is now expected to be much higher than previously forecast, according to a new global scientific synthesis prepared by some of the world’s top climate scientists.

In a special report called ‘The Copenhagen Diagnosis’, the 26 researchers, most of whom are authors of published IPCC reports, conclude that several important aspects of climate change are occurring at the high end or even beyond the expectations of only a few years ago.

Greenpeace shuts down climate destroyer in Indonesian rainforest ahead of critical UN summit

Twelve days before the critical UN Copenhagen Climate Summit, today Greenpeace activists shut down the export facilities of a major pulp and paper mill operated by Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) in the heart of Indonesia's rainforests. Sinar Mas, which owns APP, is a leading driver of global climate change due to its widespread role in forest destruction.

Even if the world's policymakers all agree to dramatically reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, and everything were in place by the middle of the century, the world still could not meet the goals of the climate change meetings in Copenhagen, Dec. 8-18, of reducing CO₂ in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm), say Cornell researchers.

If everyone were on board, maybe we could contain CO₂ in the atmosphere to about 400 ppm by 2050, said Cornell climate expert Charles Greene, who has published numerous papers on climate change and global ocean ecosystems.

Rocket science leads to discovery about whale hearing

Rocket science is opening new doors to understanding how sounds associated with Navy sonar might affect the hearing of a marine mammal – or if they hear it at all.

The same type of large industrial sized X-ray scanners that NASA uses to detect flaws in the space shuttle's behemoth solid fuel rockets is now allowing scientists to peek inside the giant head of a whale. The scans are providing detailed three-dimensional replicas of a whale's hearing anatomy using a breakthrough method developed by Dr. Ted Cranford, a marine biologist sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Chief of Naval Operations Environmental Readiness Division (N45).

The broad ranging terms of reference and Royal Commission powers of the West Atlas oil leak inquiry announced by Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson have been welcomed by WWF- Australia.

"We are pleased by the wide ranging powers and scope of this inquiry," said WWF-Australia Conservation Director Dr Gilly Llewellyn.

Photo:Yale UniversityThe world’s oceans are absorbing less carbon dioxide (CO₂), a Yale geophysicist has found after pooling data taken over the past 50 years. With the oceans currently absorbing over 40 per cent of the CO₂ emitted by human activity, this could quicken the pace of climate change, according to the study, which appears in the November 25 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

Jeffrey Park, professor of geology and geophysics and director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, used data collected from atmospheric observing stations in Hawaii, Alaska and Antarctica to study the relationship between fluctuations in global temperatures and the global abundance of atmospheric CO₂ on interannual (one to 10 years) time scales.

Climate change could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan Africa by over 50 per cent within the next two decades, according to a new study led by a team of researchers at University of California, Berkeley, and published in today's (Monday, Nov. 23) online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The study, conducted by researchers at UC Berkeley as well as at Stanford University, New York University and Harvard University, provides the first quantitative evidence linking climate change and the risk of civil conflict.

African clawed frog. Photo:Peter Halasz/WikimediaAmphibians like frogs and toads have existed for 360 million years and survived when the dinosaurs didn’t, but a new aquatic fungus is threatening to make many of them extinct, according to an article in the November issue of Microbiology Today.

The fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd),was found to be associated with waves of amphibian extinctions in Central America and north-eastern Australia in the 1990’s. Bd infects over 350 amphibian species by penetrating their skin, but little else is known about where it came from and how it causes disease.

Aerial view of the San Andreas Fault.Photo:Ikluft/WikimediaUsing a technique normally used for detecting weak tremors, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that the 2004 magnitude 6 earthquake along the Parkfield section of the San Andreas fault exhibited almost 11 times more aftershocks than previously thought. The research appears online in Nature Geoscience and will appear in print in a forthcoming edition.

"We found almost 11 times more events in the first three days after the main event.

Photo:Dr.Andrew Marshall/University of YorkA new species of chameleon has been discovered in Tanzania by a team of scientists.

Dr Andrew Marshall, from the Environment Department at the University of York, first spotted the animal while surveying monkeys in the Magombera Forest when he disturbed a twig snake eating one.The specimen was collected, tested and compared to two others found by scientists in the same area and has now been named Kinyongia magomberae (the Magombera chameleon) in research published in the African Journal of Herpetology.

Study highlights potential of new technique to determine the gender of very young birds

Six-week-old turkey poults could save millions of male chicks from being killed shortly after birth, according to Dr. Gerald Steiner from the Dresden University of Technology in Germany and his team. Their use of infrared spectroscopy to determine the gender of young birds shows that it is a fast and accurate method with the potential to be used by the breeding industry to identify and select female eggs for breeding.

Stronger world food security governance agreed

FAO Conference also approves 2010-2011 budget

FAO's top governing body has cleared the way for setting up a stronger and more effective system of global food security governance. The Conference of FAO's 192 Members, which meets every two years, agreed on Sunday to strengthen the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) so it can become the foremost inclusive international platform for discussion, coordination and policy convergence in order to eliminate world hunger.

When asked to compare apples to apples, consumers said they would pay more for locally grown apples than genetically modified (GMO) apples. But in a second questionnaire consumers preferred GMO apples – that is, when they were described, not as GMO, but as having a Reduced Environmental Impact. The research conducted by University of Illinois economist Michael Mazzocco and Augustana College marketing professor Nadia Novotorova demonstrated that product labelling makes a difference when it comes to consumer acceptance.

By stretching a foam ribbon and dissecting leaves, a mathematical model emerges

Applied mathematicians dissected the morphology of the plantain lily (Hosta lancifolia), a characteristic long leaf with a saddle-like arc midsection and closely packed ripples along the edges. The simple cause of the lily's fan-like shape – elastic relaxation resulting from bending during differential growth – was revealed by using an equally simple technique, stretching foam ribbons.

Biomass feedstock nitrogen study compares four grasses; switchgrass is most efficient.

A USDOE and USDA study concluded that 50 million U.S. acres of cropland, idle cropland, and cropland pasture could be converted from current uses to the production of perennial grasses, such as switchgrass, from which biomass could be harvested for use as a biofuel feedstock. Economically viable production of a perennial grass monoculture from which substantial quantities of biomass are removed annually is expected to require nitrogen fertiliser.

Discovery identifies aquatic bacteria as possible markers for monitoring Arctic climate change

New research on bacterial communities throughout six large Arctic river ecosystems reveals predictable temporal patterns, suggesting that scientists could use these communities as markers for monitoring climate change in the polar regions. The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, shows that bacterial communities in the six rivers shifted synchronously over time, correlating with seasonal shifts in hydrology and biogeochemistry.

Photo:Conservation Fisheries/CBDThe Centre for Biological Diversity and fisheries biologist Mike Sandel has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the spring pygmy sunfish as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. The sunfish is limited to a small stretch of Beaverdam Creek and is threatened by urban sprawl from metropolitan Huntsville, poor agricultural practices, and streamside vegetation clearance.

"The spring pygmy sunfish is only found on one place on Earth," said biologist Mike Sandel. "And that one place is severely threatened by urban sprawl, pollution, and poor management."

The Centre for Biological Diversity filed suit challenging a June 13, 2007 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denying the Colorado River cutthroat trout protection under the Endangered Species Act. The decision relied on a flawed Bush-era policy that allowed the agency to look only at current range when considering whether the trout is endangered.

"The Colorado River cutthroat trout has been lost from most of its range and needs the protection of the Endangered Species Act," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species program director at the Centre for Biological Diversity. "The only reason the trout was denied protection was because of a Bush policy that called for ignoring a species' lost historic range when determining whether a species is endangered."

Kafni glacier. Photo:Anurag Kumar Jain/WikimediaSmaller glaciers in the Himalayas are proving much more vulnerable to climate change impacts than the area's larger glaciers, according to a new report by WWF-India and Birla Institute of Technology (BIT).

The findings of Witnessing Change: Glaciers in the Indian Himalayas have implications for water regimes, the livelihoods of millions of peoples, ecosystems and biodiversity over large areas.