Natural History, Environment and Education
Visit Me! (If you dare...)
A post at Why Evolution is True reminded me of a song that lies close to my heart. I first heard it when performed by the Clancy brothers, so I’ll offer this version as sung by Liam Clancy. The song was written by Michael Peter Smith.
Video provided by IrishandFolkmusic
The Royal Society has launched a new web page to celebrate the end of its 35oth anniversary. Science Sees Further shares the twelve themes of the Royal Society’s 2010 discussion meetings. Each article is written by an expert and has been reviewed by committee to ensure scientific accuracy.
From the introduction by Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society:
This is the first century when one species, ours, risks irreversibly degrading the entire planet’s environment. With rising temperatures, an ageing and ever-increasing population, growing pressure on resources and a genuine fear of the evolution of infectious diseases, issues relating to global health and sustainability are high on the scientific agenda. The risks and dangers need to be assessed and then confronted.
But now is not just a time of challenges and adversity: it is also a time for scientific opportunity. The need to develop ‘clean’ energy, new vaccines and better resources means scientists and national science academies like the Royal Society have a critical role to play over the coming years.
The speakers at each discussion group can be listened to here.
From a Media Release by Living Oceans Society:
VANCOUVER– Fishing is allowed in all but one percent of Marine Protected Areas (MPA) on Canada’s Pacific coast, according to a study conducted by Living Oceans Society and published in Marine Policy this month. This is in spite of the fact tha tover half of the MPAs are officially rated as “strictly protected” and are intended to prohibit all fishing.
Kim Wright, Marine Planning and Protected Areas Campaign Manager for Living Oceans Society
“Marine Protected Areas should be safe havens where species can regenerate, but the great majority of our MPAs are really just paper parks that offer almost nothing in the way of ocean conservation or sustainable fisheries,” says Kim Wright, Living Oceans Society’s Marine Planning and Protected Areas Campaign Manager.
To build an effective network of MPAs, federal, provincial and municipal government agencies that designate MPAs need to ensure that the appropriate fishing closures are put in place by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). The Marine Policy article, Commercial Fisheries Closures in Marine Protected Areas on Canada’s Pacific Coast: The Exception, not the Rule, reveals all levels of government are failing to coordinate their efforts and provide real protection for the ocean ecosystem.
Dr. Isabelle Côté, a Marine Protected Area specialist and professor at Simon Fraser University says that this study emphasizes the need to improve our network of MPAs if we want to reap the benefits. “Marine reserves, in which no fishing is permitted, increase the abundance and diversity of marine life within their boundaries,” says Côté. “This study shows that the MPAs on Canada’s Pacific coast are less likely to show the same positive effects.”
PNCIMA Map
Living Oceans Society is calling on the federal and provincial governments to address this issue coast wide, starting with the region known as the Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area (PNCIMA) which extends from Vancouver Island north to the Alaska Border. The federal government, First Nations governments and stakeholders are currently working together to develop a marine plan for this region. According to Living Oceans Society, this is the perfect opportunity for all parties to work together to upgrade and improve the existing network of MPAs.
This will also help Canada live up to its international commitment, through the Convention on Biological Diversity, to build a network of MPAs by 2012 that encompasses 10 percent of every habitat type globally.
“As the nation with the longest coastline in the world, it is shocking so few MPAs exist and that fishing is allowed in almost all of them, including those classified as strictly protected,” says Wright.
Apparently not satisfied at messing up our health care system, selling-off prairie and encouraging the strip mining in the boreal forests to install shiny new tar ponds, the Conservative Alberta government is now set to weaken our protected areas.
From the Alberta Wilderness Association:
Background
Around 4.5 percent of Alberta is protected by the provincial government. These include some of the most precious and environmentally sensitive lands in the province.‘Parks’ can mean anything from the 1 million-acre Willmore Wilderness down to small campsites and parking lots protected as Provincial Recreation Areas. For this reason, Alberta’s parks system is complex, and necessarily so, with eight different parks designations. Again and again, surveys have found that Albertans love our parks.
The Issue
New legislation - Bill 29, the draft Alberta Parks Act – proposes to throw out all of the existing legislation (with the exception of the Willmore Wilderness Act). In future, all parks and protected areas will be classified as either Heritage Rangelands (for grazing) or Provincial Parks (for a ‘balance’ of conservation and recreation). The huge 445 sq.km White Goat Wildernes Area would have the same level of protections as the parking lot and trails at Elbow Falls. Within the Provincial Park designation, it is suggested that there may be four ‘zones’. These zones may allow for differing focus on conservation or recreation, though this is not specified in the legislation.The proposed legislation also makes it easier for the government to changes park designations in future. Currently this can only be done with changes in legislation; in future, Cabinet will makes changes on its own. Public comment may be required, but not public consultation.
AWA believes that this proposed legislation is so bad, and so fundamentally flawed that it must not go ahead as it currently stands. The vagueness of the legislation is staggering.
AWA has written more detailed comments about the substantial flaws in the proposed legislation. Click here to see AWA’s comments.
Take Action
As mentioned earlier, National Geographic is about to launch a new block-buster series called Great Migrations. This is a seven part series that will travel the world to record the stories of animals and their mass migrations. I have had the pleasure of seeing a pre-release version of the upcoming episode and I would like to give an indication of what you can expect.
When I first heard of this new series and the scope of the production, I knew it would be spectacular. The opening sequence shows salmon jumping, massed monarch butterflies, the skittering crabs of Christmas Island…and it all seemed familiar. Over the years, the BBC, National Geographic and other documentary producers have already shown these events. How would this documentary be different? I was concerned that this would be a rehash of the same material that the other documentaries have already covered – the well-known migrations of wildebeest and zebra that dominated the promotional material seemed to indicate this. Beyond the predictability, I was curious how NG would deal with the effects of climate change, human population growth and general environmental degradation.Would this series just be more ‘old hat’ or would it move into new territory and be a freshly portrayed documentary for a new generation? I was about to find out…
The NCSE has released a free preview of Brian Switek’s new book, Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and our Place in Nature. Brian is the author of the blog Laelaps and the Smithsonian online magazine, Dinosaur Tracking. The preview is an extract from the chapter, “Footprints and Feathers on the Sands of Time”, and it deals with the discoveries of feathered dinosaurs and the origin of birds.
The response to the muzzling of Canadian government scientists, a press release from PublicScience.ca :
Ottawa, October 18, 2010 – Today, the union that represents federal government scientists launches a campaign to put the spotlight on science for the public good.
“Federal government scientists work hard to protect Canadians, preserve their environment and ensure our country’s prosperity but they face dwindling resources and confusing policy decisions,” says Gary Corbett, president of the Institute.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada is a national union. Among its 59,000 federal and provincial members are 23,000 professionals who deliver, among other knowledge products, scientific research, testing and advice for sound policy-making.
The recent decision to end the mandatory long form census is the latest step in a worrying trend away from evidence-based policy making. Restrictive rules are curtailing media and public access to scientists, while cutbacks to research and monitoring limit Canada’s ability to deal with serious threats and potential opportunities.
A new online information and action centre launched today – PUBLICSCIENCE.ca – (http://publicscience.ca) features interviews with the professionals who do science for the public good, experts who understand the critical importance of this work, and Canadians whose lives have been touched by public science.
PUBLICSCIENCE.ca is part of a broader campaign to underline the importance of science for the public good and to mobilize scientists and the public to press politicians to make a clear commitment to policies that support public science.
“Our members are proud of the work that they do as independent and non-partisan scientists and we are going to work with them to tell their stories,” says Corbett. “Their work impacts on the daily lives of Canadians. It is science that is not and cannot be done by industry or by universities.”
Feed Select
