Tag: healthy oceans

The European Council of December 2012 requested the European Commission to present a new macro-regional strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR) before the end of 2014. Building on the lessons learnt and experience from the two current macro-regional strategies (EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EU Strategy for the Danube Region), the Commission adopted on 17 June 2014 a Communication on the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian region, accompanied by an Action Plan. The two general objectives of the EUSAIR are: to promote sustainable economic and social prosperity of the Region through growth and jobs creation, by improving its attractiveness, competitiveness and connectivity, while preserving the environment and ensuring a healthy and balanced marine and coastal ecosystems. And crucially, to contribute to the EU integration of the participating Western Balkan candidate and potential candidate countries, by bringing together countries with much shared history and geography. The idea is to identify concrete joint priorities for the macro-region, making the best use of existing institutions, policies and funds and setting realistic goals for maximum impact. Four themes/pillars have been identified: Blue Growth, aiming at boosting innovative marine and maritime growth by promoting jobs and business opportunities in the ...

Three leading environmental scientists from the UK have been invited to talk about the state of the world's oceans to an audience including US Secretary of State John Kerry at an ocean summit in Washington. They three UK scientists are amongst less than thirty scientists from around the world who will be providing hard-hitting messages about the need for closer co-operation to overcome the challenges facing our oceans. Their invitation to this important and prestigious event is a testament to the excellence of UK environmental science, and underlines its vital role in tackling some of the key challenges facing our society in a rapidly changing environment. Drs Carol Turley and Phil Williamson and Professor Richard Thompson will be speaking at the 'Our Ocean' conference being held at the US Department of State, Washington, DC on 16-17 June. Dr Carol Turley (Plymouth Marine Laboratory and knowledge exchange coordinator for the UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme) will be describing how ocean acidification is caused by CO2 emissions, its rapid rate of progress and early vulnerabilities. She will discuss its potential mitigation by reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Dr Turley has high hopes for wider international recognition of the issue, and a ...

Port Metro Vancouver released its fourth annual Sustainability Report and 2013 Financial Report. Both reports together cover the period of January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013 and provide a summary of Port Metro Vancouver's overall performance. The 2013 Sustainability Report is a Global Reporting Initiative B+ level, independently assured report that provides information on the sustainability topics of greatest significance to Port Metro Vancouver and its stakeholders. It is designed to provide greater transparency and accountability in how Port Metro Vancouver conducts business, and to offer a platform for sharing performance and receiving feedback. The key topics discussed in the report include the industrial land shortage in the Lower Mainland, the movement of coal, noise proximity to residential areas, trucking and tanker safety. Key accomplishments outlined in the 2013 Sustainability Report: Port Metro Vancouver completed 198 environmental reviews on proposed projects and activities to identify and mitigate effects on land, air and water. A 12% increase in participation in the EcoAction program, which promotes emission reduction measures by offering discounted harbour rates to shipping lines. Participation in more than 500 community engagement events. 82 cruise vessels successfully connected to shore power at Canada Place, enabling ships to shut off ...

Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre are preparing to set sail to sub-polar regions on a very technical and scientific challenge - to measure the currents of the northern North Atlantic Ocean from the surface to the seafloor. They hope to discover the key processes that control heat content and heat transport in the sub-polar gyre, and the local and global effects of those changes. The international Overturning in the Sub-polar North Atlantic Programme (OSNAP) has been four years in the planning. In early June, the fieldwork programme will officially commence when the UK research icebreaker RRS James Clark Ross sails out of Newfoundland in Canada with 26 scientists and technicians on board. The ultimate goal of the project is to bring all their measurements together to calculate the total ocean circulation in the region. Dr Sheldon Bacon from the UK's National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is the principal investigator for UK-OSNAP and has overall responsibility for the project and linking with international partners. Dr Bacon said: "It has taken a huge amount of work, both nationally and internationally, to get OSNAP approved and funded. "It is a major research expedition to high latitudes where, in some locations, icebergs and sea ...

The European Commission wants to prohibit the use of any kind of driftnets for fishing in all EU waters as of 1 January 2015. Although rules are already in place to forbid using driftnets to catch certain migratory fishes, the practice continues to be a cause of concern due to the incidental catching of marine mammals, sea turtles and sea birds which are mostly protected under EU legislation. To fight circumvention, the Commission proposal includes a full ban of driftnets fishing in the EU as well as the prohibition of keeping driftnets on board of fishing vessels. Furthermore, to avoid ambiguity, the proposal refines the current definition of a driftnet. Driftnets are fishing nets that can drift and operate close to or at the sea surface to target fish species that swim in the upper part of the water column. Since 2002 all driftnets, no matter their size, have been prohibited in EU waters when intended for the capture of highly migratory species such as tuna and swordfish. However, the current EU legislative framework has shown weaknesses and loopholes. The small-scale nature of the fishing vessels involved and the fact that they do not operate together in the same areas ...

Thousands of shipping containers are lost from cargo vessels each year. Many of these containers eventually sink to the deep seafloor. In 2004, scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) discovered a lost shipping container almost 1,300 meters (4,200 feet) below the surface of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. In the first-ever survey of its kind, researchers from MBARI and the sanctuary recently described how deep-sea animal communities on and around the container differed from those in surrounding areas. In February 2004, the cargo vessel Med Taipei was traveling southward along the California coast when severe winds and seas dislodged 24 shipping containers, 15 of which were lost within the boundaries of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Four months later, during a routine research dive using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV)Ventana, MBARI scientists discovered one of these containers on the seafloor. In March 2011, a research team led by Andrew DeVogelaere of the sanctuary and Jim Barry of MBARI completed another ROV dive at the container. During this dive, they collected extensive video footage, as well as samples of seafloor sediment at various distances from the container. They then compared the animals found on the container, on the ...

Mikhail Ulyanov, an ice-breaking shuttle tanker (ice class - ARC6) belonging to OAO Sovcomflot (SCF Group), has been the subject of a Greenpeace protest, whilst at the Port of Rotterdam carrying a cargo of 67,000 tonnes of crude oil, loaded on the continental shelf of the Pechora Sea, Russia. The actions of Greenpeace have compromised a safe operating environment for the Mikhail Ulyanov, her crew and protesters themselves and exposed the involved parties to the useless and unreasonable risk. Commenting on the Greenpeace action, Mr Mikhail Suslin - Vice President, Head of Safety Department of OAO Sovcomflot said: "We are extremely disappointed that our vessel has been the subject of an irresponsible publicity stunt by Greenpeace, which occurred despite the measures taken by our ship and the port authorities, including the Coast Guard and the Marine Police. Mikhail Ulyanov is an ultra-modern high ice class shuttle tanker, with a technical specification above most of her peers, including conventional tankers transporting crude from oil-fields on the continental shelf of the North Sea. The actions of Greenpeace have caused unnecessary extra stress for the ship's captain and potentially unsafe operating conditions for the vessel when manoeuvring in the restricted area of the ...

A new edition of the ITOPF Handbook is now available for 2014/15. This contains a wealth of valuable information and guidance for those likely to be involved in spills of oil and chemicals from ships. It features information on ITOPF's technical and information services, oil spill statistics, the fate and effects of marine oil spills, clean-up techniques, the organisation of spill response, contingency planning and compensation. ITOPF's Oil Tanker Spill Statistics 2013 published in January, is now available in Chinese   Please click at image below to download ITOPF Handbook  In the outbreak, I was frank with you propecia before and after has changed my being. It has become much more fun, and now I have to run. Just as it is improbable to sit.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report today that says the effects of climate change are already occurring on all continents and across the oceans. The world, in many cases, is ill-prepared for risks from a changing climate. The report also concludes that there are opportunities to respond to such risks, though the risks will be difficult to manage with high levels of warming. The report, titled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, from Working Group II of the IPCC, details the impacts of climate change to date, the future risks from a changing climate, and the opportunities for effective action to reduce risks. A total of 309 coordinating lead authors, lead authors, and review editors, drawn from 70 countries, were selected to produce the report. They enlisted the help of 436 contributing authors, and a total of 1,729 expert and government reviewers. The report concludes that responding to climate change involves making choices about risks in a changing world. The nature of the risks of climate change is increasingly clear, though climate change will also continue to produce surprises. The report identifies vulnerable people, industries, and ecosystems around the world. It finds that risk from a changing climate comes from vulnerability (lack of preparedness) and exposure (people or ...

New NOAA research has revealed unprecedented changes in ocean carbon dioxide in the tropical Pacific Ocean over the last 14 years, influencing the role the oceans play in current and projected global warming and ocean acidification. Natural variability has dominated patterns in ocean CO2 in this region, but observations now show human activity contributes to increasing CO2 levels. "Carbon dioxide in tropical Pacific waters has been increasing up to 65 percent faster than atmospheric CO2 since 1998," says Adrienne Sutton, a research scientist with the NOAA Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington and lead author of the paper in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles. "Natural cycles and human-caused change appear to be combining to cause more rapid change than our models predict." The new research documents the rise in the level of CO2 that the tropical Pacific Ocean gives off into the atmosphere. While this region emits CO2, global oceans overall are an important sink for CO2 and absorb more than 25 percent of fossil fuel emissions annually. But 70 percent of the change from year to year in the global oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO2 is driven by variations in ...