Waves and high tides are eating away at the beaches in Costa Rica’s Cahuita National Park, where the vegetation is uprooted and washed into the sea. Credit: Diego Arguedas/IPS

By Bradnee Chambers
BONN, Jun 3 2014 (IPS)

It’s beginning to sink in that our climate is changing more rapidly than at any time in recorded history and it will have profound and irreversible effects on the planet. On World Environment Day on Jun. 5, let’s stop for a moment to consider in particular the devastating impact that climate change is having on small island states and their wildlife. 

Forty years ago Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring”, helped launch the environmental movement. The image of a Silent Spring shocked readers because it evoked the idea that if we did not care for the environment then one spring very soon the birds would stop singing because they would have vanished.

Today in order to gain support for critical environmental issues such as climate change, many complex integrated models and economic analyses have to be prepared to convince people that our climate really is changing. Let’s hope that it will not require small islands states to have submerged beneath the waves before the skeptics are convinced.

Thinking back to a simpler age not so long ago – to the time when Carson wrote her seminal work – appreciation of the sheer wonder of nature was sufficient to move us to act. With what do we associate small islands?

Groynes installed at Folkestone Beach in Barbados to prevent beach erosion. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Blue lagoons, palm-lined golden beaches, coral reefs and majestic atolls. These tropical idylls are the epitome of beauty and part of their attraction as holiday destinations is their rich wildlife, much of which is migratory. But the islands are vulnerable to sea level rises and other effects of climate change. And so too are the features contributing to their appeal and that includes the species that live on and around them.

Migratory animals, which can be among the most vulnerable of all species because of their dependence on particular habitats at specific stages of their life cycles as they undertaken their epic journeys spanning continents and oceans, are subject to unprecedented changes.

We are observing threats to migratory species caused by increased temperatures that will lead to the loss of vital habitat while at the same time oceanic food webs linked to changing zooplankton abundance are starting to collapse.

Sharks are moving into warmer waters outside their normal boundaries of their migrations, increasing the frequency of attacks on people. Warmer beaches are affecting hatching patterns of marine turtles: cool beaches produce predominantly male hatchlings while warm beaches produce mostly females.

Hawksbill turtle, Komodo, Indo-Pacific. Credit: Courtesy of Image Broker/Robert Harding

So scientists are seeing the feminisation of marine turtle populations which will have an impact on the ability of turtles to reproduce. Large baleen whales such as the Blue Whale, the largest creature on earth, must make longer journeys between their feeding grounds in warmer waters to their breeding grounds in cooler parts of the sea. The whales’ main food source of krill is declining because of changes in temperature and acidification of the oceans due to climate change.

Islands are critical stopover, nesting and breeding sites for migratory birds. Albatrosses that wander the oceans for much of the time seek out tiny dots of land to build their nests and raise their young.

Islands provide much needed opportunities for rest and refuelling with food for birds flying between Eurasia and Africa – especially when the birds have completed their crossing of the Sahara.

The evidence is heaping up telling us that climate change is happening and the reality is that the temperatures will rise. What we must avoid is rapid changes or temperature increases so severe that we cross a point of no return.

This is a vitally important factor for species’ survival. Like humans, some animals can adapt and migratory animals are more likely to be able to adapt because they are mobile in nature and therefore potentially able to disperse other areas to mitigate environmental changes.

This is why getting a deal in Paris for the post Kyoto Protocol is so critical. A global deal now would mean we can keep the planetary temperature rise within a manageable limit and then concentrate international efforts on assisting people and their ecosystems, including migratory species and other threatened species by climate change, to adapt if possible.

If there is no deal, we will go beyond the manageable limits and we can foresee devastating impacts on humans and wildlife. On World Environment Day, let’s not forget the beauty that nature holds and just how very vulnerable it is, and know that the fight against climate change has many dimensions, including conserving the magnificent beautiful small island states and their wildlife.

Excerpt:

Hawksbill turtle, Komodo, Indo-Pacific. Credit: Courtesy of Image Broker/Robert Harding

By Bradnee Chambers
SAN JOSÉ, Apr 9 2014 (IPS)

There are few experiences more frustrating than a delay in travel plans caused by bad weather. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this may be something we will have to get used to in the future.

In March 2014, the IPCC released the 5th assessment of the impacts, adaptation strategies, and vulnerabilities related to global climate change. The report makes it clear that travelling in the future will become more of an ordeal.

Extreme weather events related to climate change, such as heat waves, storms and coastal flooding, are predicted to increase in frequency with only a 1°C increase in average global temperature – and current trends indicate even higher rises in average temperature. Besides the more serious effects, this is a recipe for more travel delays, larger numbers of travellers stranded and a greater overall risk associated with travelling.

And the news gets worse if your destination involves beaches or coral reefs.

As more ice melts from the polar regions, the world’s oceans creep higher. Coastal regions and low-lying areas could suffer from submergence, flooding, erosion of coastlines and beaches, and saltwater pollution of the drinking water supply.

At sea, normally colourful corals are experiencing “bleaching” or turning white as a stress response to changes in the water itself. Carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, is dissolving into the world’s oceans, making them more acidic.

These changes are problematic for human communities. But people aren’t the only global travellers affected by climate change.

Nobody knows this better than the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), which is dedicated, as its name indicates, to conserving international migratory species.

Migratory animals face many of the same challenges that humans do: having to choose when to travel, what route to take, where to eat and rest, and how long to stay before returning home. Unfortunately, these choices that are seemingly so trivial for humans are life-or-death decisions for migratory animals.

Migratory animals are potent symbols of our shared natural heritage, with their migrations often spanning continents. With warmer, wetter winters, migratory birds in Europe will be forced to migrate to breeding grounds earlier or face population declines, shrinking ranges, and the worst possible outcome: extinction.

The Monarch Butterfly undertakes an impressive migration spanning multiple generations, traversing vast distances across the North American continent. Climate change is transforming the current wintering habitats of this butterfly in Central America, making it more prone to wet freezes resulting in catastrophic mortality events.

Severe droughts, meanwhile, threaten one of the greatest migrations in the world, involving hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and other animals travelling across the Serengeti Plains of Africa.

In the world’s oceans, the planet’s largest fish species, the Whale Shark, is also threatened by climate change. Changes in global ocean temperatures and chemistry may cause declines in the numbers of this species in the future.

In marine turtles gender is determined by sand temperature on the nesting beaches, with cool beaches producing more males and warm beaches more females. Increasing sand temperatures mean that more females than males are born, thus affecting the optimal gender ratios. 

In light of these concerns, the Convention on Migratory Species is holding a workshop with national representatives and scientists in Limón, Costa Rica Apr. 9-11, 2014.

The goal of the meeting is to develop a Programme of Work on climate change and migratory species, addressing the need for monitoring, conservation, and adaptation strategies that accommodate the unique needs of migratory animals in the face of climate change.

The results of the workshop will be presented to the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CMS which will take place in Quito, Ecuador, Nov. 4-9.

Professor Colin Galbraith, the CMS Scientific Councillor for Climate Change, said: “The workshop has confirmed that climate change is one of the most important threats to migratory species and the ecosystems on which they depend. Participants have stressed the need for urgent international actions to address the complex threats from climate change. It is encouraging to see delegates from around the world working together to outline a Programme of Work for countries in the CMS to combat the effects of climate change on migratory animals.”

The prospect of having to sit even longer in airport terminals is doubtless frustrating for poor weary human travellers, but it pales into insignificance when compared to the ever worsening odds that migratory species are facing in their struggle for survival.

Climate change is a complex and daunting problem. The plans to reduce our impact on climate are important and so are the plans to mitigate the damage we’ve already done. Hopefully, through cooperation and active effort, we can conserve the beauty of travel and our travelling animals for future generations to come.

Excerpt:

Forest elephants have been described by conservationists as gardeners of the forest. Credit: Richard Ruggiero/USFWS/CC by 2.0

By Bradnee Chambers
BONN, Mar 20 2014 (IPS)

Of the endangered species listed for protection under the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) a great many are forest dwellers – West African elephants, gorillas, bats and many birds.  

And it is not simply a case of the animals depending on the forest for food and suitable habitat to breed and raise their young — the forest often depends on the animals too.

Conservationist and CMS ambassador Ian Redmond describes elephants and gorillas as “gardeners of the forest”. Elephants provide an invaluable service by uprooting trees, thereby making holes on the jungle canopy which allows light to reach plants closer to the ground and encourages their growth.Forest ecosystems, the most biodiverse of all terrestrial habitats, are often very finely balanced.

Gorillas eat fruit and the seeds pass through their digestive tract to be deposited as fertiliser. Tropical fruit bats also play an important role in the pollination of plants.

Forest ecosystems, the most biodiverse of all terrestrial habitats, are often very finely balanced. The more diverse, the more robust they are and the better they are at doing what we want – and need them – to do.

While usually many species perform the same function, the removal of a top predator, pollinator or seed disperser can set off a chain reaction, with far-reaching consequences.

A reduction in the forest’s resilience, increasing the likelihood of further species loss, can impinge on its ability to provide the ecosystem services, such as water purification and the production of oxygen upon which human well-being depends. The livelihoods of as much as a fifth of the world’s population are directly linked to forests, which also provide a home for 300 million people.

The presence (or absence) of an animal as significant as elephants can have huge effects on the character of the habitat, as has been demonstrated by comparing two similar forest landscapes in Uganda.

Douglas Sheil and Agus Salim Center for International Forestry Research, Jakarta, Indonesia found in 2004 that the patterns of succession and regeneration in Budungo forest, which has no elephants, are totally different from those in Rabongo forest. Both forests are in Uganda where there exists a large elephant population.

It has been estimated that approaching one sixth of all greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to deforestation and forest degradation.  

A similar proportion of human-generated carbon dioxide can be removed from the atmosphere by forests acting as “carbon sinks” through sequestration. Tropical forests also help to cool the planet as large quantities of water evaporate forming clouds that reflect sunlight away from the surface.

Dr. Bradnee Chambers says many endangered migratory species cannot do without forests; and the forests need the migratory species. Courtesy: Francisco Rilla / CMS

Eco-tourism is a booming business worth billions of dollars a year and wildlife watching forms a significant part of the sector. Sensitively managed, all players reap the benefits – the tourist gets the “close to nature” experience, employment opportunities are created in the local economy and the animals are seen as a valuable asset, not as an irrelevance, nuisance or a threat and therefore worth protecting.

Visitors are prepared to pay fees of 750 dollars to see the mountain gorillas of the Virunga National Park in Rwanda, where 10 groups of the reclusive animals have now been habituated to human visits. The visits are conducted under strict conditions: no more than eight tourists at any time; no noise; no approaching the animals; no litter; and, given the gorillas’ susceptibility to human diseases, no participants who are visibly ill.

During the 1990s the mountain gorilla numbers rose by 17 percent, with the greatest increase amongst those groups habituated to tourists and researchers. Without gorilla watching and the associated conservation efforts it is probable that the mountain gorilla subspecies would not have survived.

Instead it is estimated that today there might now be as many as 1,000 Mountain gorillas – still too few for the International Union for Conservation of Nature to regard them as anything more secure than critically endangered. The outlook is less rosy for the more numerous lowland gorilla subspecies, which are seeing their habitat destroyed by logging and conversion to agriculture and which are hunted for bushmeat, with some of the traumatised, orphaned young ending up in the exotic pet trade.

The baby animals certainly look appealing and generally gorillas are characterised by their gentle demeanour, but they do not stay young and cute for long. They are totally unsuited for domestication with a two-metre adult male weighing in at over 200 kgs.

Many endangered migratory species cannot do without forests; and the forests need the migratory species.

Humans need both as they contribute to a healthy environment, a benign climate, a sustainable economy and to a shared natural heritage that enriches our live in ways that cannot be expressed in monetary terms.

Excerpt:

It is not only Africa’s mineral wealth but its wildlife resources that are being misused. Elephants across the continent and being killed for their tusks and many are not even safe in national park. Credit: Nalisha Adams/IPS

By Bradnee Chambers
BONN, May 31 2013 (IPS)

More civil unrest in Africa, another coup d’état, more reports of child soldiers in the front line, involvement of foreign troops, the poorest of the poor losing what little they have – and all the while the proceeds of a country’s wealth are diverted from much-needed social and economic development to financing death and destruction. 

It is an all too familiar tale, a previous though somewhat different chapter of which was brought to the attention of a wider audience through Edward Zwick’s film “Blood Diamond”.

Zwick recounted the story of the civil war in Sierra Leone, where the conflict was financed through the illegal trafficking of precious stones. National Geographic and World Wide Fund for Nature have already likened this trade to recent developments.

Now, however, it is not Africa’s mineral wealth but its wildlife resources that are being misused – for “blood diamond” read “blood ivory”. And it is the blood of Africa’s fast-diminishing population of elephants that is being spilled.

In February 2012, around 200 elephants were killed in Cameroon’s Bouba N’Djida National Park. Outgunned by well-armed militiamen, the rangers were powerless to protect the animals, which were killed for their valuable tusks.

In January 2013 an entire family of elephants – 11 adults and a calf – was slaughtered in the worst single incident of its kind to have occurred in Kenya since the 1980s, an event described as “an unimaginable, heinous crime” by the Kenyan Wildlife Service.

Dr. Bradnee Chambers says the blood of Africa’s fast-diminishing population of elephants is being spilled. Courtesy: Francisco Rilla / CMS

Two months later 86 elephants were reported killed in the course of a single week in south-western Chad on their migration to the Central African Republic and Cameroon. The poachers were armed with AK47s and used hacksaws to remove the tusks.

The latest incident to reach the ears of the world’s media in April 2013 has seen at least 26 elephants killed at Dzanga Bai, a clearing in the forest which acts as a wildlife viewing site in Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central African Republic (CAR).  The site is inscribed in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List and is located near the borders with Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo.

Disaster fatigue is a real danger here. We cannot just shrug our shoulders and no longer be shocked by the human and environmental disasters unfolding before our very eyes.

A recent international conference organised by their Royal Highnesses Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge focussed world attention on the urgent need to win the battle against the illegal trade in wildlife to avoid “an irreversible tragedy”.

Wildlife crime, often perpetrated by the same shady networks that traffic arms, drugs and people, has become a serious threat to the security, political stability, economy, natural resources and cultural heritage of many countries. The response required to address this threat effectively is often beyond both the capacity and sole remit of environmental or wildlife law enforcement agencies, or even of one country or region alone.

For those instigating and perpetrating these acts, the phrases “sustainable use,” “harvesting” and “livelihoods for local communities” are not part of their vocabulary – these are totally alien concepts to their way of thinking.

Like the seafaring raiders of old, they pillage and burn, taking what they want, leaving behind devastation before moving on to the next place to plunder. Spurred on by the need to fund their political cause or just out for financial gain, they are encouraged in their wantonness by the high prices that ivory currently commands, fuelled by record levels of demand in emerging markets in Asia.

The Wildlife Conservation Society estimates that in the central African country of Gabon alone, some 11,000 elephants have been killed illegally since 2004 – but here at least, political leaders are showing the will to resist.

Stockpiles of confiscated ivory were torched on the orders of President Ali Bongo Ondimba, emulating a similar act in Kenya some years before. President Ondimba has now offered his country’s support to his counterpart in CAR, Michel Djotodia. The renowned conservationist Mike Fay has been despatched as head of a team to combat poaching and to make the Dzanga-Ndoki National Park safe enough for conservation work to carry on.

The international community can also act. The scene of the latest massacre is a National Park, which is part of a transboundary World Heritage Site shared by CAR, Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo.

Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, has already called on the three governments to collaborate in combating the growing threat of poaching in the region.

Parties to CITES, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species, signalled at their conference in Bangkok earlier this year that they meant to get tough, placing eight countries – both supply and consumer states – on notice to get their house in order and take the requisite steps to eradicate the illegal trade in ivory products.

The Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) has a strong mandate to conserve endangered species such as elephants. Most of the Range States of the two species of African Elephant are parties to CMS and are therefore obliged to try to improve these animals’ conservation status, and maintain and restore their habitats.

If the population of African Elephants in this region were put on CMS Appendix I, it would commit parties and all Range State Parties to afford the species strict protection, including the prohibition of all taking. CMS is unique in having this nature of obligation to strictly protect species inside a country. CMS also has an agreement on West African Elephants that could act as a regional institutional framework for consolidating actions.

As a vehicle for fostering international cooperation within the framework of the U.N., CMS stands ready to answer our member governments’ call to act. It is still not too late. But it will be soon.

*Dr. Bradnee Chambers is executive secretary of Convention on Migratory Species.