Mongabay Blog

A booming “ecotourism” industry is bringing new threats to the Galapagos, reports a feature in the Wall Street Journal.

Unsustainable tourism development, an influx of workers from the mainland, and introduced species are putting endemic biodiversity and habitats at risk.

“The islands’ fragile ecosystem can be easily disrupted, particularly as the increasing number of planes and ships landing in the Galapagos bring foreign species. Whether insects, snakes or feral cats and dogs, the invaders can wreak havoc by destroying plants and other food sources, eating eggs or attacking birds or mammals,” writes Stan Sesser.

While the Ecuadorian government has recently announced measures to control commercial fishing, restrict immigration, and mitigating damage from alien invasive species, its toughest challenge is addressing tourism.

“It’s not a simple solution, because to limit tourism will be to limit income,” Mauricio Castillo, an official for Unesco in Quito, told the paper.

A study suggests that France was once covered with tropical vegetation, reports LiveScience.

Writing in the Jan. 4 issue of The Journal of Organic Chemistry, researchers report “the discovery of a new organic compound in amber called “quesnoin,” whose precursor exists only in sap produced by a tree currently growing only in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.”

The researchers say the amber likely dripped from a similar tree that once covered France millions of years before the continents drifted into their current positions.

LiveScience

Today’s Wall Street Journal [$ubscription required] features a story on the changing PR strategies of zoos in the midst of animal escapes and attacks like the tiger mauling at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day.  The article says that says are increasingly forthcoming in disclosing details about escape incidents and animal deaths.

The nation’s largest zoos are in the midst of a public-relations campaign led by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums — a trade group that accredits zoos — to counter recent accusations by animal-rights groups that captive creatures are mistreated. They’re launching educational campaigns about the animal aging process, for example, to show that when an animal dies it is often due to natural causes. They’re also talking publicly about incidents, including escapes, that they might not have disclosed in the past.

The article says zoo the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) has also beefed up its crisis-management system to handle situations like the tiger attack.  It also notes that as zoos built more naturalistic habitats, animals are healthier and more capable of escaping.

“The more natural you make an exhibit, the more natural behaviors the animal shows,” David Orndorff, director of the Mill Mountain Zoo in Roanoke, told the paper.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119950257310069637.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

In a New York Times editorial published January 2, Jared Diamond examines the large discrepancy between consumption in first world countries versus developing countries: citizens of the rich world consume an average of 32 times the resources as those in poor countries.

The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.

The population especially of the developing world is growing, and some people remain fixated on this. They note that populations of countries like Kenya are growing rapidly, and they say that’s a big problem. Yes, it is a problem for Kenya’s more than 30 million people, but it’s not a burden on the whole world, because Kenyans consume so little. (Their relative per capita rate is 1.) A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans. With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does.

Diamond observes that as poor countries try to catch up with the rich world, resource consumption and resulting pollution will soar.

Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level… China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.

If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned
to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

What’s Your Consumption Factor?

Twin marmosets were born at the Bronx Zoo on November 11 to three-year-old mom, Squirt, and seven-year-old dad, King. Although his name implies royalty, his primary responsibility is child-rearing – shown here giving his little ones a “ride”. This is Squirt’s third litter and the family can be seen at the Bronx Zoo’s Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit. Marmosets are among the world’s smallest primates with their heads just a little larger than the size of a quarter. The Bronx Zoo is open everyday from 10 AM to 4:30 PM in winter; visit bronxzoo.com for more information about wildlife and wild places.  Photo by Julie Larsen Maher | © WCS

After tonight’s caucuses in Iowa, Americans will have a slightly better idea of which candidate will win their party’s nomination (and therefore a slightly better idea of who may be president in 2009).  While the candidates are remarkably varied, one finds hope in the fact that most, if not all, see climate change as a great threat that needs immediate action, unlike the current administration. 

When compared to the republicans the democrats are still the environmental party.  The democrats in general speak about climate change with greater seriousness and urgency, while pledging to do more to prevent and mitigate global warming.  The top three democratic contenders–Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards–have each put forth detailed proposals to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.  Many scientist’s see this as neccesary to avoid the worst effects of climate change.  While the details of their plans vary some, their desire to tackle climate change is clear.  The question now becomes: which candidate is most likely to make good on their promises?      

Unfortunately, no republican candidate has gone so far as the democrats, i.e. putting forth a plan with actual numbers attached.  However, republicans this time around are generally taking the issue more seriously than the current administration.  Both John McCain and Mike Huckabee support a mandatory cap-and-trade system to deal with global warming.  John McCain has been a long spoken out for the need to act on climate change.  Mike Huckabee views the issue as a moral one and wants to break our culture of fossil fuels. 

Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani have not shown the same level of commitment.  When talking about climate change Romney stresses the need for energy independence for national security purposes and is willing to use as much coal as possible to get there.  Rudolph Giuliani’s views climate change as a real and present danger, yet stresses (like the Bush administration) that the US can achieve nothing unless China and India act similarily, in other words he is unwilling to lead on the issue.  He also opposes (like the Bush administration) any cap on carbon, preferring the financial market to solve climate change.  Even though so far the financial market as it is has done little to curb carbon use.  Despite these facts both Romney and Giuliani expressed in a recent debate that they would enact programs akin to the Apollo mission in scale to create energy independence.   

In some ways the political powers that be have come a long way in the last few years.  George W. Bush has changed his mind very infrequently since entering office, but climate change was one of those rarities.  President Bush now states that climate change is real, that it is probably caused by human activity, and that action needs to be taken.  The problem is President Bush has refused to do anything of real consequence to tackle the issue.  America continues business as usual.    

Most Americans believe that we will have to wait out the Bush administration before anything meaningful is achieved regarding climate change.  The Bush administration seems to believe the same thing: they prefer foot dragging and obstruction to action.  Let us hope whoever takes the oath of office next January will not so cowardly leave the burden for another day. 

Today The New York Times featured an article by J. MADELEINE NASH on conflicts between jaguar conservation efforts and cattle ranchers in the Pantanal.  A couple of interesting points:

•  Panthera, a big cat conservation group, has recently acquired two ranches which it plans to operate for the purpose of testing techniques for reducing livestock-jaguar interactions.  The results may help other ranchers in the region to “adopt range management practices that encourage co-existence over conflict.”
• The Pantanal may contain 15 percent of the world’s remaining population of jaguars
• On some ranches jaguars provide landowners with an additional source of income in the form of ecotourism: “several ranches in the Pantanal, San Francisco among them, run ecotourism operations that have turned a liability into a valuable asset.”
• Keeping water buffalo with cattle herds reducing depredation by jaguars.  Buffalo “appear to surround cattle in a broad, protective umbra.”
• While it is illegal to kill jaguar in Brazil, laws are poorly enforced and perverse incentives encourage the practice.
• Ranchers exaggerate their cattle losses to jaguar while understating larger causes of mortality (i.e. disease). Jaguar found scavenging livestock corpses are often blamed for killing animals that died from another cause.

Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has urged large-scale reforestation initiatives to reduce the risk of flooding and landslides that have killed scores of people in East Java’s Madium district, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Earlier this year the Indonesian government annouced plans to plant 2 billion trees in 2007, though it is unclear whether that goal was reached.

BBC news reports on a new study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found the benefits of converting rainforests for agriculture land are short-lived in terms of soil nutrients.

“US researchers studied deforested land in Mexico and found that soil levels of phosphorus, a key nutrient for plants, fell by 44% after three growing cycles. In the long-term, the land risked becoming so degraded that it would be uneconomic to farm.”

The researchers said the loss of forest canopy hampered an area’s ability to replenish phosphorus levels.

In an effort to broaden the “voice” of the site, over the next few months mongabay.com will begin running posts from guest bloggers.