Swayed by strong support from Latin American nations, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) voted March 14 to restrict trade in five species of threatened shark and two species of manta ray. The 177-nation convention, which meets every three years, had previously been unable to reach a decision on protecting the sharks, which are in steep decline because of the multibillion dollar trade in shark fins, used primarily in Asia for shark-fin soup. The population of manta rays also has fallen dramatically because of the demand for their gill plates in Chinese medicine. The decision at this year’s Cites meeting, held in Bangkok March 3-14, was made possible by determined Latin American support for the...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Buffeted by controversy over its handling of the environment, Bolivia’s government has notched a conservation victory with the designation of nearly 7 million hectares (17 million acres) of seasonally flooded savannah and rainforest in the Amazon as a Ramsar site. The designation of the Llanos de Moxos by the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance has made the species-rich area near the borders with Peru and Bolivia the world’s largest protected wetland under the international convention. It also means Bolivia’s Ramsar sites now cover 15 million hectares (37 million acres), giving the country the largest total area under Ramsar protection among the convention’s 164 participating nations. Countries that participate in the Ramsar process commit to maintain the ecological character of...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Unsafe levels of mercury detected in fish and people in Peru’s Madre de Dios region point to a serious environmental health problem, according to a new study that analyzed hair from residents of the city of Puerto Maldonado and fish sold in markets there. Average mercury levels in nine of the 15 most commonly consumed fish species were above the limit recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Large, carnivorous catfish had the highest levels, while farmed fish had the lowest levels, according to Luis Fernández of the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, who led the study. Hair samples showed that 78% of 226 adults tested in Puerto Maldonado had mercury levels that were more than twice the recommended...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Fishermen in the southern Chilean town of Coronel claim that two thermoelectric power plants have raised water temperatures in the adjacent Coronel Bay and are responsible for a die-off that this month sent waves of dead shrimp ashore. Endesa, the Spanish energy company that owns the two Bio Bio region plants, known as Bocamina I and Bocamina II, has promised to investigate. But Marcelo Álvarez, the company’s manager of projects in Chile, says company findings to date tie the die-off to natural environmental causes linked to an influx of seawater from a deep, relatively cold band of water on the continental shelf. Álvarez says the influx appears to have been caused by wind and currents, and included “a large load of biomass.” A...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
