Monday, June 29, 2009

Translocation of trees to save environment?

Now it is translocation of trees to save environment Environment is main concern to every one, the green cover is dwindling day by day and there is concern about large chunk of forest is destroyed for the sake of development. climate change is main concern. There is a big debate about development versus conservation. Of late, in many cities with the road widening many old trees are destroyed and there are large scale protest from the citizens for vandalism done by authorities. We have heard of translocation of tiger from Sarsika tiger sanctuary (Rajasthan, India) to Ranathambore (Rajasthan, India) as the tiger population in the national park is dwindled. Have you heard of the translocation of trees? The planners thought that instead of felling, cutting and destroying the trees, trees can be translocated from one place to other , of course it needs planning, and cost of translocation is much. The tree after translocation has to be nurtured carefully.
How to translocate a tree?
1. The ground around the translocated tree has to be dug up two to three feet depend upon the age of the tree and organic fertilizer to be applied and left for some time. The branches of the tree have to be cut/trimmed and excess roots should be trimmed. For the cut branches fungicide/ insecticide to be applied to avoid any future infection.
2. The place where the tree has to be planted, a pit is dug 2-4 meters and organic fertilizers and chemical and rooting hormone to be added to increase the root growth.
3. The tree is transported to the place to be planted, while transporting care should be taken to cover the root system with jute sacks
4. After planting its new location, enough manure to be supplied and enough water is supplied to the Tran located plant
5. After translocation, the tree will show setting of leaves and roots with in 20-30 days which is the sign of success. It will not give guarantee of 100percent success.

Translocation of trees needs expertise, time and cost, it success all depend on the age of tree and nurturing of the tree after translocation. The experiments were already started by Bangalore Corporation and Hyderabad and many parts of India. Many corporate while constructing the building are trying to translocate trees from one place to other as a corporate social responsibility to save environment. The recent example is TCS while constructing their building in Hyderabad has translocated 100 trees which are 20 years old. ICFAI has translocated many mango, jack fruit and coconut tress. The banyan tree planting near the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is brought from 100 km away. In Bangalore Corporation has translocated many trees while widening of road. National high way authorities also translocated trees while widening of roads. Translocation costs between few thousand to lakhs depend on age of the tree and distance. What every may be cost of translocation, trees will give direct and indirect benefit to human being, the total cost of the services a tree gives is much more than the translocation of the tree.
It is good sign that many individual and companies follow this, and not bother the cost of translocation and do this as a corporate social responsibility and individual social responsibility. Let environment come first.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Green move: US House clears climate bill

The US House of Representatives narrowly approved a historic climate bill for the first time that would force US companies to limit greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming. The 219-212 vote marks a major victory for president Barack Obama, who has made global warming and clean energy legislation a top priority for his administration. But the legislation deeply divided US politicians, businesses and even climate groups.


The outcome of the House vote was uncertain to the very last minute: Only eight Republicans voted in favour and 43 Democrats voted against the measure. The bill now moves to the Senate, which could have an even tougher time getting the measure passed. Groups on both sides have also vowed to continue pushing for changes as the legislation makes its way through the US Congress.


The US, which together with China emits about half of the world’s greenhouse gases, has long faced pressure from other governments to more aggressively reduce its carbon footprint.

Link TOI

Friday, June 26, 2009

Wadden Sea in Germany and the Netherlands, Italy's Dolomite mountains are new World Heritage sites

The tidal flats and wetlands of the Wadden Sea in Germany and the Netherlands, and Italy's Dolomite mountains have been added to UNESCO's World Heritage List, it was announced Friday.
Photo:Wadden sea in Germany and the Netherlands
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also revealed that the Tubbataha Reefs National Park, an existing World Heritage Site in the Philippines and which includes a number of endangered species, has been "significantly extended." The announcements were made on the fifth day of a meeting of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in Seville, Spain.
Photo:Dolomite mountains Italy
The committee, which is meeting until June 30, is deciding which of 27 sites deserve to be added to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's heritage list.
The two new additions, which were based on the recommendations of the IUCN, bring the total number of to 201. The IUCN described the Wadden Sea as "the largest unbroken system of inter-tidal sand and mud flats in the world.
"It is one of the most important areas for migratory birds, with up to 6.1 million birds present at any one time, more than 400,000 breeding pairs and an average of 10-12 million birds which pass through every year," it said in a statement.
Pedro Rosabal of the IUCN's Protected Areas Programme added that: "Coastal wetlands are not always the richest sites in terms of the fauna found there, but that is not the case for the Wadden Sea."
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel welcomed the decision "a great day for the protection of nature in Germany", and said the government now had an "obligation to make protection of the site a priority."
A Dutch environmental organisation, Bund, described it as "a great responsibility" for both countries, which must support "tourism that is sustainable and respectful of nature."
The Dolomites in northern Italy were chosen "due to their outstanding natural beauty and the geological significance of their limestone formations," the IUCN statement said.
"Some of the rock cliff rise more than 1,500 meters and are among the highest vertical limestone walls in the world.
"The fossil record of the Dolomites provides an insight into the recovery of marine life after near extinction more than 200 million years ago," it said.
The IUCN statement said the Tubbataha Reef Marine Park, which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1993, is now "three times bigger than the original, increasing from 33,000 to 97,000 hectares" in line with IUCN recommendations.
Josephine Langley, the IUCN?s World Heritage Monitoring Officer, added that the park, "composed of two atolls and one reef, is home to a number of threatened and endangered species, such as the iconic Napoleon wrasse."
"It is in a unique position in the middle of the Sulu Sea and is the perfect site to study the response of a natural reef system to the impacts of climate change," she said.
UNESCO announced it had removed Dresden's Elbe Valley from its World Heritage List because the eastern German city had gone ahead with the building of a road bridge "in the heart of the cultural landscape."
It is only the second site ever to have been removed from the list, after Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was dropped in 2007.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

World faces risk of abrupt climate change: study

The world faces a growing risk of “abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts’ as fallout from global warming hits faster than expected, according to research by scientists released.

Global surface and ocean temperatures, sea levels, extreme climate events, and the retreat of Arctic sea ice had all significantly picked up more pace than experts predicted only a couple of years ago, they said. The stark warning comes less than six months before an international conference aiming to seal a treaty to save the planet from the worst ravages of global warming. A 36-page document summarized more than 1,400 studies presented at a climate conference in March in Copenhagen, where a United Nations meeting will be held in December to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
The report said greenhouse gas emissions and other climate indicators are at or near the upper boundaries forecast by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose 2007 report has been the scientific benchmark for the troubled UN talks. There is also new evidence that the planet itself has begun to contribute to global warming through fallout from human activity. Huge stores of gases such as methane — an even more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide — trapped for millennia in the Arctic permafrost may be starting to leak into the atmosphere, speeding up the warming process.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Climate change poses serious threat to oysters

Scientists have found evidence that shellfish are being harmed by the effects of global warming. Already endangered by overfishing and disease, the authors of a new study say oysters are becoming smaller and less robust as greenhouse gases alter the acidity of water in estuaries and ecosystems where they live.

Researchers with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland, studied the impact of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere – one byproduct of carbon-rich industrial emissions – on the larvae of two closely-related oyster species – Eastern oysters, which are indigenous to the Atlantic coast of the United States, and Suminoe oysters, which are native to Asia.

Adult oysters are bottom feeders, but as newborn- larvae they float freely to the water’s surface for two to three weeks before settling to the bottom of an estuary and attaching to a hard surface.

Scientists wanted to see how these developing larvae were being affected by the increased acidity of the ocean water caused by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Whitman Miller – an environmental scientist and ecologist with the Smithsonian research center – says oceans normally absorb about half of the carbon dioxide that’s produced by living creatures.
But when excess CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere and dissolves into seawater, that contributes to an acidification, or a lowering of the pH of the oceans. A byproduct of that process – carbonic acid – rapidly converts to carbonate and bicarbonate ions, which Miller says are corrosive to the calcium carbonate shells of oysters and other marine species.
“I was interested in seeing how elevated CO2 and reduced pH would affect their growth and calcification rate. And my hypothesis was that larval oysters would grow more slowly and calcify less under elevated CO2 than under ambient or pre-industrial conditions,” said Mr. Miller.

Researchers cultured Eastern and Suminoe oysters in water that was held to four separate CO2 concentrations, reflecting atmospheric conditions during pre-industrial times, acidity levels today and those predicted for 50 and 100 years from now.

The researchers measured the surface area of the shells to assess their growth and did a chemical analysis to see how much calcium carbonate was in the shells. Calcium carbonate is the building block of oyster shells. “What we found was that the native Eastern oysters from the Chesapeake Bay and the east coast United States were very sensitive to lowered pH that is brought about by elevated CO2, and found their growth was significantly slowed and that their calcification was significantly reduced at these elevated CO2’s,” he said.

The scientists found the shell area of the experimental, pre-industrial oysters was 16 percent greater and their calcium content 42 percent higher compared with those exposed to CO2 levels predicted for the end of this century.

However, Miller says the Suminoe oysters were not affected by the higher acidity levels. Miller thinks the Suminoes may already have adapted to chemical changes in the ocean but that increasing levels of acidity could eventually harm them as well.

Miller says with less calcium in their shells, baby oysters take longer to mature, floating longer on the water’s surface and making them easy prey to other animals.

And now Alan Duckworth – chief scientist with the marine preservation group Blue Ocean Institute – says ocean acidification is threatening to wipe out what remains of oyster beds, which have been decimated by coastal pollution and overfishing. “Shellfish alone are worth about $10 billion globally. So, it’s a massive industry involved with shellfish agriculture. And the problem is that as the oceans become more acidic, it’s possible that these shells will become weaker or in fact as time goes on will even dissolve,” he said.

Link EPOCA

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Bid to increase green cover
The Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Mr Jairam Ramesh, set a target of increasing India’s green cover by 10 per cent from the current level of 23 per cent in the next few years.
Noting that economic development was threatening the biodiversity in the country, the Minister said there was a need for greater sensitivity towards ecological issues.
He was addressing an expert group on Traditional Knowledge for the Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad.
He cited an instance of how about 600 acres of mangrove forest land was sought to be destroyed for building an international airport. “Impact of climatic changes on biodiversity is something we have to deal with more seriously,” he said.
The Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajashekara Reddy, said the State Government had accepted a proposal from the Centre for the latter’s takeover of the Hyderabad-based Environment Protection, Training and Research Institute. “The Centre is willing to take over the institute and develop it on a national level. We have accepted the proposal,” he said.

4TH NATIONAL(INDIA) BIODIVERSITY REPORT: India’s livestock breeds declining
A significant slice of India’s indigenous breeds of livestock such as cattle, goats and sheep are threatened and showing declining trends, according to India’s Fourth National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The report, which was released by the Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Mr Jairam Ramesh, and the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajashekara Reddy, here on Tuesday, says that systematic surveys and programmes are needed to be undertaken on conservation and genetic enhancement for domesticated animal genetic diversity.
India, the report points out, has vast resources of livestock, estimated at 485 million, and poultry at 489 million.
“In terms of population, India ranks first in buffaloes, second in cattle and goats, third in sheep, fourth in ducks, fifth in chicken and sixth in camels in the world.
“There are around 140 listed breeds of livestock and poultry in India, including 30 breeds of cattle, 10 of buffaloes, 42 of sheep, 20 of goat, six of horses and pony, eight of camel and 18 of poultry. But, over the years, animal husbandry has intensified in India, with widespread introduction of exotic breeds. This has led to the reduction in total genetic variability and population size of many local breeds,” the report says.
It further says that of the indigenous breeds, 14 of cattle, three of buffaloes, nine of sheep, four of goat and almost all breeds of horse and poultry are showing declining trends in the country.
“Estimates indicate that 50 per cent of indigenous goat, 30 per cent of sheep, 20 per cent of cattle and almost all poultry breeds are threatened,” it added.
In this context, the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR) is undertaking suitable programmes for identification, evaluation, characterisation, conservation and sustainable utilisation of animal genetic resources.
Various steps have also been taken to protect and check the bio-piracy of indigenous animal genetic resources, including allotment of accession numbers to each of the extant breeds.
Another factor contributing to the trend is that only a few indigenous breeds of cattle and buffalo, which are relatively well-known and economically important, are maintained at State-owned organised farms, where information on growth and production is carefully recorded.
“For others, there are very few farms where performance parameters are recorded regularly,” the report points out.
Link BL
INDIA'S ECOLOGY FACING THREAT
Sri Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for environment and forest, conceded on Tuesday that the ecology of of the country was being threatened due to the thrust on economic growth and called for a balance between the two.
Expressing shock over mindless deforestation, he said lately he had come to know that a 600-acre mangrove was earmarked for clearing up to construct an airport. Several similar developments came to his notice.
“It should have been raining here (in Andhra Pradesh) today. What happened to the monsoon? We know what is happening to the Himalayan glaciers. The situation is grim”, he warned.
The minister who took charge of his portfolio on May 29 said that a target had been set to increase the green cover in the country to 33 per cent from the present 23 per cent in the next 10 years. The country, he added, while working on increasing GDP, should focus on enhancing GPG, that is Green Product Growth to 9 per cent per annum.
Ramesh was speaking at the third and final meeting of an expert group on traditional knowledge of biological diversity at the MCR Institute of Human Resources Development, which was inaugurated by chief minister Y S Raj a s e k h a r a Reddy.
The minister said that India was losing out on patenting of its biological products to Europe and the US. There are plans to make a traditional knowledge digital library (TKDL) with over two lakh formulations on native medicines accessible to the West. Once the entities in the West know what India already has in its TKDL, they would be careful in patenting them. He asked the experts to expand the TKDL base by incorporating the oral tradition.
Health and climate change vie for boost in Congress

Barack Obama may be pressuring Congress as no U.S. president has for decades as he aims to get two big domestic goals passed this year -- reforming health care and fighting global warming.
"It's not impossible to do both, but that would be more than a Congress has ever given a president, maybe since the first First 100 Days," said Brookings Institution senior fellow Stephen Hess, referring to the start of Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" presidency in 1933.
A further time constraint may be the pressures imposed by the campaign next year for congressional elections in November when the seats of all 435 U.S. representatives and a third of the 100 senators are up for grabs.
Congress in the past often has shown itself to be unable to handle more than one big issue a year, but Obama and his fellow Democrats, who control the Senate and House of Representatives, see a window of opportunity this year to pass two long-standing Democratic goals.
Expanding health care to the uninsured and reducing pollution associated with climate change would have an economic impact on nearly every consumer and most U.S. companies -- from health insurers and utilities, to oil refineries, ailing automakers, steel manufacturers and small businesses.
Nonetheless, Democratic leaders are giving it a run, placing both initiatives on a fast track -- with or without much Republican support.
"The one that has the highest probability of making it is health care," said Bruce Josten, an executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He noted a full legislative agenda later this year, including annual spending bills, a Supreme Court confirmation and tax legislation, could crowd out a climate bill debate in the Senate.
Nevertheless, several congressional committees are pushing ahead with their review of the bill that aims to cut industry's carbon dioxide emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 with alternative energy sources and energy efficiencies.
The bill's prospects are strengthened by an unusual coalition of environmentalists, corporations and labor unions that have joined the effort. Obama is trying to sell climate change legislation as much more than doing something good for the environment. "Green" job creation and weaning the country off of foreign oil are his major talking points.
According to several Democratic lawmakers, the White House is already working hard to woo Senate Democratic and Republican moderates who will hold the keys to obtaining the needed 60-vote majority in the 100-member Senate.
In the meantime, environmentalists are heartened that four months into Obama's presidency such wide-ranging legislation is advancing, even with its concessions to some industries.
"If it became law today it would be the most important piece of energy and environmental legislation Congress ever produced," said one activist.
HEALTH CARE IN THE LEAD
Of the two, health care might be the bill that is more likely to reach Obama's desk for enactment by year's end. Both houses of Congress hope to blend their respective bills into a compromise measure by October -- Obama's deadline.
Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy has a major role in drafting the new health care bill as head of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The bill would require individuals and businesses to purchase insurance and prohibit insurance companies from refusing to cover anyone because of health history.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said for the next five weeks, the Senate's normal three-day work week will be extended to five so a health care reform bill can be passed.
"I want to emphasize what the president said, that health care is an absolute priority," said Representative Chris Van Hollen, a member of the House Democratic leadership, when asked by Reuters about the two bills' prospects. "But we believe we're going to do both" in the House, he added.
In the midst of a deep economic recession and with medical bills contributing to an estimated 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, providing health care for those without insurance is paramount to Obama.
Fifteen years ago, then-President Bill Clinton tried to keep a campaign pledge to enact universal health care, only to fail miserably. That contributed to significant Democratic losses in the 1994 congressional elections.
Since then, the health care problem has worsened with medical costs escalating and 46 million uninsured. Democrats claim they've learned their lesson about unfulfilled promises.
They still have to find a sound way to pay for expanding health care, a tough job amid staggering U.S. budget deficits.
Republicans keep hammering away at any proposed government-run health insurance. "A government plan could undercut private health plans, forcing people off the health plans they like," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned.
Behind the scenes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pressuring her lieutenants to speed up work on the climate change legislation, which won strong backing last month from the politically diverse House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Pelosi hopes to pass this bill in June or July. Even if the legislation were to go no further this year, Obama would have a major accomplishment to tout in December, when world leaders are set to meet in Copenhagen to discuss global warming.
But the legislation likely would result in higher energy bills for American consumers, an especially difficult sell during a recession.
Link New Daily