Biodiversity

ENVIRONMENT: New Biosafety Treaty Faces Tough Tests Ahead

By IPS Correspondents
A new international treaty on the safe use of modern biotechnology has just come into being, but developing countries say the real challenge lies in how its lofty ideas can be transferred into practical realities.
Land cleared with the slash-and-burn technique, where rainforest used to stand. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

BRAZIL: Environmentalism Not a Top Priority for Voters

By Mario Osava
Getting voters to put a priority on policies that protect the environment is a challenge facing environmentalists and politicians in Brazil, especially in areas lacking in basic infrastructure, like the Amazon jungle.
Lionfish specimen in Jamaican waters. Credit: Dayne Budoo/IPS

JAMAICA: Invasive Lionfish Go From Predator to Prey

By Zadie Neufville
Anxious to prevent the collapse of Jamaica's overexploited marine fisheries, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries is promoting the consumption of lionfish to control its burgeoning population. At risk officials say, are the nation's marine biodiversity, its food security and economic well- being.

Canada Sees Climate Change “Prosperity” Instead of Calamity

By Stephen Leahy
The first comprehensive look at the expected impacts of climate change on Canada offers an embarrassing and misleading "don't worry, be happy" vision, citing more golf days and better access to northern deposits of oil and gas courtesy of global warming, critics say.
Fernando Funes-Monzote wants transparency for transgenics in Cuba. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS

Q&A: Cuba’s GM Maize Debate Opens Up

By Patricia Grogg
The cultivation in several Cuban provinces of genetically modified maize, obtained by the Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, endangers biodiversity and contradicts the government's own agricultural production plan, warns Cuban agro-ecologist Fernando Funes-Monzote.
Tiny, immature fish. Credit: Courtesy of Málaga Classroom of the Sea

Culinary Traditions Exhausting Spain’s Fisheries

By Inés Benítez
"We have little boquerón (a type of anchovy), little jurel (scad), little salmon," recites a server at a restaurant on the coast in Málaga, the southern Spanish city known for its "small fried fish."

GE Salmon an Ambiguous Milestone for Aquaculture

By Matthew O. Berger
The march toward domesticating the last wild food source may be about to take a major step forward in Washington - for better or worse.
At this Bonaire reef, the olive-green coral is alive, but the mottled-gray coral is dead. Credit: Living Oceans Foundation/IPS

Bonaire’s Resilient Reefs Offer Hope for Dying Corals

By Christopher Pala
Scientists are closely examining the reefs of this island just north of Venezuela to determine why it has escaped the devastation that wiped out 85 percent of the Caribbean's corals since the 1970s.

ENVIRONMENT-MALAYSIA: Tougher Wildlife Laws Not Enough, Say Activists

By Baradan Kuppusamy
After years of losing the war against animal traffickers and poachers, Malaysia has finally responded with the passage of a new wildlife conservation law. But experts say it might be too late for some of this South-east Asian country’s endangered species.

PHILIPPINES: Citizens’ Raids Hauling in Smugglers, Illegal Fishers

By Redempto D Anda
Robert Chan shuffles a pile of legal briefs in his temporary office – a wooden cargo vessel that he and a team of volunteer paralegals had apprehended during an operation against smugglers of logs and other forest products from the central Philippine province of Palawan to Malaysia.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Staying Afloat With Submarine Rice

By Ranjit Devraj
South Asian rice farmers are switching to flood-tolerant strains of rice as insurance against inundations.

Biodiversity Talks Bog Down over Genetic Resources

By Aprille Muscara
While officials meeting in Montreal, Canada failed to finalise a key protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Tuesday, biodiversity is scheduled to be at the top of Wednesday's agenda of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
Pacific corals dying off. Credit: Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Australia

Record Temperatures Killing Caribbean Corals

By Stephen Leahy
The waters of the Caribbean Sea are the warmest on record and the region's imperilled corals are bleaching and beginning to die, experts warn.
One third of all species of sharks, rays and reef-building corals are facing extinction. Credit: Scott Perry/creative commons

Locally-Run Protected Areas Could Reverse Fisheries’ Death Spiral

By Stephen Leahy
Local fishers objected to the creation of a new no-fishing marine protected area off the coast of Belize in 1996. Today they are benefiting from the bounty of fish spilling out of the Laughing Bird Caye National Park. Tourism has also boomed, illustrating the multiple benefits and value of marine protected areas, according to a new series of reports released Wednesday by Conservation International (CI).

BIODIVERSITY: Japan Cooks Up New Ideas as Fish Consumption Depletes Stocks

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
A processed fish cake, made of a mixture of deep sea fish species pounded into paste and sold either deep fried or frozen, is the brain child of Takuhira Kaneko, head of Act for Company, which trades in fish and located in western Fukuoka city in Japan.

BP Report on Oil Spill Disaster Met with Scepticism

By IPS Correspondents
The report released Wednesday by energy giant BP of its internal investigation into the catastrophic explosion in April of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the subsequent spill from the Macondo oil well has been met with criticism by watchdog groups who question the company's motives.

Local Decisions Have Big Impact on Ecosystems

By Stephen Leahy
What do New York City, Vienna, Quito and Rio de Janeiro have in common? They all get their high quality drinking water through aqueducts connected to protected areas in nearby hills and mountains.
Mt Mantalingahan

ENVIRONMENT-PHILIPPINES: Mining Project Digs Up Locals’ Ire

By Redempto D Anda
Depending on who one talks to, Mt Mantalingahan is either a treasure trove of untapped minerals lying underneath the earth's crust, or a biodiversity hotspot that is home to some of the worlds rarest and threatened animals.
Fishers in Quintana Roo with their lobster catch. Credit: Courtesy of Equator Initiative

Mexican Fishers Throw a Lifeline to Lobsters

By Emilio Godoy
Faced with the voracious international demand for lobsters from the Mexican Pacific and Atlantic, fishers and environmental organisations have come together to institute sustainable lobstering practices -- although the financial benefits are slow in coming.
A worker at the African Centre for Biosafety

ENVIRONMENT: South Still Battling to Stop North’s Biopiracy

By Hilaire Avril
The United Nations declared 2010 the Year of Biodiversity. But 17 years after the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the issue of biopiracy is still pitching North against South.
Yacaré caimans hunted illegally in the Mamirauá nature reserve. Credit: Juarez Pezzuti

BRAZIL: Laws No Help to Amazon Animals, or People

By Mario Osava
Every year, more than a million Amazonian turtle eggs do not make it to the hatching period, nor do they serve as food for humans in the Tabuleiro de Embaubal, a series of beaches along the final stretch of Brazil's Xingú River.
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