Bιντζότρατες τέλος

Ένα δυνατό όχι είπε σήμερα η Ευρωπαία Επίτροπος για την Αλιεία κα. Μαρία Δαμανάκη στο Υπουργείο Αγροτικής Ανάπτυξης, απορρίπτοντας το αίτημα της Ελλάδας για ακόμη μια παράταση στη λειτουργία της βιντζότρατας. Η Greenpeace χαιρετίζει την απόφαση αυτή ως το πρώτο ουσιαστικό βήμα στην εφαρμογή της ευρωπαϊκής νομοθεσίας για την αλιεία και περιμένει από την πολιτική ηγεσία να προχωρήσει στην ουσιαστική προστασία των θαλασσών μας και των εθνικών μας πόρων.

Συγκεκριμένα, με επιστολή της προς τη Διεύθυνση Αλιείας του Υπουργείου, η Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή επισήμανε στη χώρα μας ότι η προθεσμία παράτασης έχει λήξει και ότι οι επιστημονικές πληροφορίες που έστειλε σχετικά με την κατάσταση των αλιευτικών αποθεμάτων στα οποία στοχεύει η βιντζότρατα, είναι ελλιπείς ή ανύπαρκτες. Τόνισε επίσης ότι, δεδομένης της δραστηριότητας αυτού του εργαλείου πάνω από τα λιβάδια της Ποσειδωνίας, η Ελλάδα δε θα ήταν σε θέση να αποδείξει στην Επιτροπή ότι το εργαλείο αυτό περιορίζεται μόνο στο 1/10 των εθνικών μας λιβαδιών όπως ορίζει η νομοθεσία. Και πως θα μπορούσε άλλωστε, όταν η χώρα μας δεν έχει προχωρήσει στη χαρτογράφηση του σημαντικού αυτού θαλάσσιου οικότοπου.
«Επί σειρά ετών, το Υπουργείο Αγροτικής Ανάπτυξης είναι ο ηθικός αυτουργός στην υποβάθμιση των θαλασσών μας. Η σημερινή απόφαση της Επιτροπής βάζει ένα φρένο σε αυτή την κακή πολιτική», δήλωσε η Άντζελα Λάζου, υπεύθυνη εκστρατείας για το θαλάσσιο περιβάλλον στο ελληνικό γραφείο της Greenpeace. «Ωστόσο, για την ουσιαστική διατήρηση των φυσικών μας πόρων, περιμένουμε από την Επιτροπή να πιέσει την Ελλάδα να προχωρήσει στις απαραίτητες αποφάσεις και ρυθμίσεις προστασίας των θαλασσών, όπως είναι η δημιουργία θαλάσσιων καταφυγίων», πρόσθεσε η Λάζου.
Η Greenpeace ζητά από το Υπουργείο Αγροτικής Ανάπτυξης να προχωρήσει ταχύτατα:
* στον καθορισμό θαλάσσιων καταφυγίων για την προστασία των αποθεμάτων των ψαριών και του θαλάσσιου περιβάλλοντος.
* στη χαρτογράφηση των λιβαδιών Ποσειδωνίας και την προστασία των λιβαδιών που έχουν ήδη χαρτογραφηθεί.

Πηγή: http://www.greenpeace.org/greece/news/4800003

Coral Loss Slowed, Reversed by Marine Protected Areas

A new worldwide study shows marine protected areas (MPAs), underwater parks where fishing and other potentially harmful activities are regulated, provide an added bonus – helping coral reef ecosystems ward off and recover from threats to their health...

Researchers also found the protective effects of MPAs generally strengthen over time.

The findings, published in the Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010, issue of the journal PLoS One, are the first comprehensive global study to gauge the impact of marine protected areas on the health of corals.

Such havens have proved successful in protecting fish, leading to optimism among researchers that they may also indirectly help corals by restoring reef-based food webs. Previous studies also suggested that such conservation zones can directly protect reefs from problems such as overfishing, anchor damage and sediment and nutrient runoff pollution from adjacent land.

Marine scientists Elizabeth Selig, Ph.D., and John Bruno, Ph.D., from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, analyzed a global database of 8,534 live coral cover surveys conducted between 1969 and 2006. They compared changes in coral cover in 310 marine protected areas to those in nearby unprotected areas, looking at 4,456 reefs in 83 countries. Coral cover, or the percentage of the ocean floor covered by living coral tissue, is a key measure of the health of coral ecosystems.

“We found that, on average, coral cover in protected areas remained constant, but declined on unprotected reefs,” said Selig, the study’s lead author, who completed the work for her doctoral dissertation at UNC. She is now a researcher with Conservation International.

Bruno, associate professor of marine sciences in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences, said the results also suggest the protective benefits of such areas increase with time. Initially, coral cover continued to decrease after protections were put in place. However, several years later, rates of decline slowed and then stopped.

For example, in the Caribbean, coral cover declined for about 14 years after protection began – possibly due to the time it took for fisheries to rebound – but then stopped falling and began to increase. In the Indo-Pacific, cover kept declining for the first five years after protections were established, then began to improve, eventually reaching growth rates of two percent yearly after two decades.

“Given the time it takes to maximize these benefits, it makes sense to establish more marine protected areas. Authorities also need to strengthen efforts to enforce the rules in existing areas,” Bruno said.

From 2004 to 2005, the most recent complete year in the database, coral cover within protected areas increased by 0.05 percent in the Caribbean and 0.08 percent in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. In contrast, coral cover on unprotected reefs declined by an average of 0.27 percent in the Caribbean, and 0.41 percent and 0.43 percent in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, respectively.

The paper noted that the results may even be a conservative estimate of the benefits because regulations aimed at controlling fishing, poaching and other activities in many MPAs in the tropics are poorly enforced. In addition, most areas have only recently been established (almost 60 percent of the surveys in the analysis were from areas less than 15 years old).

“Although the year-to-year changes in coral cover may seem trivial over the short term, the cumulative effects could be substantial over several decades,” Selig said.

However, Selig and Bruno said it remains to be seen whether the observed benefits of MPAs are sufficient to offset coral losses from major disease outbreaks and bleaching events, both of which are predicted to increase due to climate change. That concern is backed by their finding that widespread warming events like the strong El Niño climatic event of 1998 drastically reduced the positive effects of protective zones. “Marine protected areas are clearly a key tool for coral reef conservation, but we will still have to focus on implementing policies that will reduce climate change,” they said.

The research was supported by funding from UNC, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.

The study, titled “A Global Analysis of the Effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas in Preventing Coral Loss,” is available at www.plosone.org.

Images of UNC researchers conducting coral reef surveys in Belize in 2009, can be found here. To see underwater video from the Belize surveys, go to www.youtube.com.

Source: University of North Carolina

Marine Protected Areas Conserve Mediterranean Red Coral

A team of Spanish and French researchers has undertaken a pioneer analysis of red coral populations in the oldest Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in the Mediterranean and the impact that fishing activity has had. Results show that MPAs are a guarantee for conserving this species...

Mediterranean red coral (Corallium rubrum) has been highly valued for jewellery since ancient times. But intensive fishing, particularly in shallow waters, has transformed populations and hindered the recovery of this species along the Mediterranean coastline, where the colonies of coral at depths of less than 50 metres are now very small. Fishing and now climate change threaten the persistence of this slowing growing species which also boasts slow population dynamics.

A team of scientists has analysed the three oldest Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean – Banyuls, Carry-le-Rouet and Scandola, off the island of Corsica – to quantify the impact of human activity and ascertain how efficient MPAs are in conserving red coral, as the latter are "a vital tool" when it comes to observing the evolution of populations in the absence of fishing.

"The problem with studying a species that grows so slowly is that populations need to be monitored over long periods of time to guarantee sufficient data are obtained to estimate how populations have evolved," Cristina Linares, the author of the article and a researcher from the Department of Ecology at the University of Barcelona told SINC.

The study, which was published recently in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, shows that MPAs are "a slow but effective tool for conserving Mediterranean red coral populations," Joaquim Garrabou, co-author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences (CSIC) declared.

According to the scientists, Mediterranean red coral cannot be considered an endangered species. This opinion is justified by the extensive distribution of dense populations all over the Mediterranean Basin and the fact that some colonies with basal diameters of less than two millimetres are now sexually fertile.

Three Decades of Protection
The researchers chose these three Marine Protected Areas because they are 30 years old. They forecast the structure of red coral populations when they were created, and three decades later, they have returned to repeat the process.

According to Linares, "these MPAs are home to extraordinarily large colonies, at depths of less than 50 metres and also deep-dwelling populations, in comparison to the populations studied previously". This confirms that MPAs are effective as measures to conserve this species, "providing, as is the case in these three MPAs, that they are well managed and that constant surveillance guarantees the protection of this species," the authors state.

"But the forecast for the future of populations reveals that 30 years of protection are not enough to allow colonies to reach the size of those observed in the 1960s (with diameters of around 45 mm)", Garrabou underlines.

Linares warns that if the colonies continue to diminish, the resilience of this species (its ability to absorb disturbances without suffering changes) will be affected. "The lack of large colonies has significant implications for future of populations, because it is these colonies that contribute to reproduction and, therefore, the persistence of these populations," the researcher says.

Source: EurekAlert

New Hope for Missing Scuba Divers with New Surface Detection Device

A revolutionary new product for scuba divers could put an end to worrying trend of divers being lost at sea. The H.E.L.P. (Handheld Emergency Location Pinpointer) is a simple yet effective piece of equipment that enables divers to signal their location to boats and other potential rescuers. When divers are separated from their boat by currents, engine failure or other circumstances surface currents can quickly cause them to drift out of sight. In the early 1990s a group dubbed the “Palau Six’ by the press went missing in the early 1990’s whilst exploring Peleliu in Micronesia. Despite surfacing from their dive in the vicinity of their dive boat they could not be picked up immediately to engine trouble. It was an hour before the boat was operational by which time the group of five Japanese divers and a dive guide had drifted out of sight. The divers had no effective emergency signaling device and though the boat captain searched for the lost divers for three hours his efforts proved fruitless. A massive search and rescue operation was put in place but it was not until three days later that the bodies of three of the unfortunate divers were located. The others were never found!...

This is exactly the kind of situation in which the new emergency dive flag could be used. With a compact size of just 20cm it will fit neatly in a BCD pocket and so can be carried comfortably by every diver on every dive. When required the H.E.L.P. can be extended to 1.5 metres and is topped with a high visibility flag. Indeed in tests carried out by the British Health & Safety Executive the fluorescent yellow dive flag was one of the most visible pieces of diver safety equipment (it could be seen for up to 3Km). Equipped with a non slip handle and weighing a mere 150g it is probably the best piece of emergency signaling equipment a diver could possess.

Emergency signaling devices for divers have been around for years but this is a new and fresh approach to a serious problem that costs the lives of a number of scuba divers every year. The H.E.L.P. is so compact that it is completely unobtrusive until it is needed yet, when fully extended, it towers above the diver and provides boat crews with the best possible location marker. Even when a diver is drifting amongst waves the bright yellow flag is easy to keep track of in comparison with safety sausages or other devices that divers currently use.

The issue of lost divers has become such a worrying one that some popular diving destinations such as marine reserves in the Egyptian Red Sea have even implemented rules that dictate that all divers should carry emergency signal flags.

Of course emergencies are not the only time when the H.E.L.P. would be of use to divers. In many parts of the diving from a boat is the only way to gain access to certain sites. After a dive it is imperative that the diver is back on the boat as soon as possible. Sometimes, because of tides and currents a diver may not be able to end his dive at the boat and so needs to be collected. In anything other than perfect conditions a diver at the surface can be hard to spot and thus spend a long time in the water before being found. The H.E.L.P. enables a diver to indicate his position to a boat and means that the time spent waiting on the surface is minimized.

In such cases the H.E.L.P. is the perfect solution in that it is small and light, can be seen at considerable distances and yet is inexpensive enough to enable every diver to afford one.

Though many scuba divers recognize the need for an emergency signaling device others can be quite complacent thinking that ‘it won’t happen to me’ or ‘I don’t need a flag because my type of diving doesn’t require one’. The truth of the matter is that all divers need and should be required to carry such a device. When the unlikely becomes reality the only thing separating a diver from the fate of death in the open water could be whether or not they have a dive flag with them.

Source: PR Web

BatMan vs. SpiderMan