Tag: marine environment

On 20 January 2015, the Philippine Government received from the US government the full requested amount of Php 87,033, 570.71 as compensation for the damage caused to Tubbataha Reef by the grounding of the USS Guardian.  All Posts The compensation will be utilized for the protection and rehabilitation of Tubbataha Reef Natural Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Portions of the fund will also be used to further enhance capability to monitor the area and prevent similar incidents in the future.  In addition to the compensation received, the US government is also providing additional assistance to the Philippine Coast Guard to upgrade the PCG Substation in Tubbataha. Source: Philippine GovernmentIn the onset, I was explicit with you propecia before and after has changed my essence. It has become much more fun, and now I have to run. Just as it is improbable to sit.

The World Heritage Listed Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia will be the focus of a new marine research partnership between CSIRO and BHP Billiton Petroleum. Ningaloo Reef is the largest fringing reef in the world, extending for 300 kilometres along the northwest coast of Australia. The five-year, jointly-funded $5 million research program will include both deep and shallow reef research, turtle and shark tagging, a PhD scholarship scheme and opportunities to engage the local community, including BHP Billiton Petroleum employees, in Exmouth, WA. Minister for Industry and Science Ian Macfarlane, joined CSIRO Executive Director Environment, Dr Andrew Johnson, and BHP Billiton Petroleum General Manager, Doug Handyside to launch the partnership in Perth. Mr Handyside said the investment in marine science would help the oil and gas industry to better understand the reef and help target conservation efforts. "We are dedicated to ensuring the knowledge on which we base our operational decisions is entrenched in science," Mr Handyside said. "The partnership between CSIRO and BHP Billiton supports this valuable scientific research to provide baseline data on the condition of the ecological values of the reef, which will allow assessments over time to determine any changes. "This enables us to uphold our ...

A new report by the International Council on Clean Transportation finds that emissions from Arctic shipping traffic could rise 150-600 percent by 2025. As global warming intensifies and Arctic sea ice melts, marine vessel traffic is expected to increase and amplify the levels of harmful pollution emitted into the atmosphere. These pollutants include carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and particulate matter, including black carbon. The ICCT report outlines a number of options to mitigate harm from shipping emissions in the U.S. Arctic. Such possibilities include vessel speed limits and more stringent fuel requirements, which would end the use of heavy fuel oil -- the bottom-of-the-barrel fuel still used by many ships. Ships would, instead, switch to using higher quality, lower sulfur distillate fuels that would not only reduce adverse impacts in the event of an accident and fuel spill, but also dramatically decrease the amount of deleterious air emissions produced. John Kaltenstein, marine policy analyst at Friends of the Earth, issued the following response: Unrestricted and weakly regulated shipping in the Arctic paints a grim outlook for fragile polar environments and for efforts to combat climate-forcing emissions such as black carbon. In just two months, the U.S. will assume the ...

An innovative online portal has been launched to provide easy access to modelled marine data.  This will help inform the development of future marine policies and management strategies by illustrating the state of the marine environment in four European regional seas over the last 20 years. The Operational Ecology (OPEC) project, funded by the European Commission and led by PML, created this novel portal for use by marine management authorities, government departments, coastal managers, NGOs and marine industries, to support their quest to understand, forecast and balance the multiple pressures facing important marine ecosystems. The Marine OPEC Data Portal consolidates a range of data streams into a simple user interface and contains data from 1990 to 2014 for the NE Atlantic, Baltic Sea, Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The portal was developed following the EU’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) descriptors of good ecological status to ensure relevance and usefulness to the target users. Users are able to access the data associated with these regions and produce tailored maps and graphs for each area, covering a range ecosystem indicators such as temperature, salinity, nutrients and biomass. This information can then be used to estimate potential impacts to the relevant ecosystem ...

GREEN4SEA has announced the successful completion of COMPLIMENTARY MASTERCLASS on latest environmental updates on WED 21 January 2015, in Piraeus Marine Club, Greece.Masterclass attracted more than 355 delegates representing a number of 140 Companies. The Agenda covered the following issues:IntroductionGreen Shipping BackgroundEmissions – NOx issuesEmissions – CO2 issuesEmissions – SOx issuesEPA Vessel General PermitLNG vs Scrubber vs MGOBallast ManagementOWS Case StudyClosing Concluding the Masterclass Mr Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor of GREEN4SEA, thanked all the participants for their attendance and support and the overall warm reception of the event.Speaker Presentation in PDF and certificate of attendance will be available at no additional cost to Digital Subscribers of GREEN4SEA.  

Model prediction of global count density (pieces km−2; see colorbar) for each of four size classes (0.33–1.00 mm, 1.01–4.75 mm, 4.76–200 mm, and >200 mm). Nearly 269,000 tons of plastic pollution may be floating in the world's oceans, according to a study published December 10, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Marcus Eriksen from Five Gyres Institute and colleagues. Microplastic pollution is found in varying concentrations throughout the oceans, but estimates of the global abundance and weight of floating plastics, both micro and macroplastic, lack sufficient data to support them. To better estimate the total number of plastic particles and their weight floating in the world's oceans, scientists from six countries contributed data from 24 expeditions collected over a six-year period from 2007-2013 across all five sub-tropical gyres, coastal Australia, Bay of Bengal, and the Mediterranean Sea. The data included information about microplastics collected using nets and large plastic debris from visual surveys, which were then used to calibrate an ocean model of plastic distribution. Based on the data and model, the authors of the study estimate a minimum of 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing nearly 269,000 tons in the world's oceans. Large plastics appear to be abundant ...

Why has the Commission issued yellow cards to Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as non-cooperative third countries? The decision highlights that these countries are not doing enough to fight illegal fishing and that they do not currently fulfil their duties as flag, coastal, port or market State in line with international law. The Commission has identified concrete shortcomings, such as a lack of a sanction system to deter IUU activities or lack of actions to address deficiencies in monitoring, controlling and surveillance of fisheries. For instance, the countries need to amend their legal framework to combat IUU fishing, improve control and monitoring actions and take a proactive role in complying with international law rules, such as the ones agreed by Regional Fisheries Management Organisations. The Commission made the following assessments of each country's systems: Solomon Islands - weak traceability and catch certification system. Tuvalu - lack of control on the fishing activities taking place in waters under its sovereignty Saint Kitts and Nevis - lack of control on the fishing activities by its flagged vessels” Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - lack of control on the fishing activities by its flagged vessels   ...

The second phase of an ambitious project to gather valuable information on ocean processes and marine life using a fleet of innovative marine robots has just reached its conclusion. Co-ordinated by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), the Exploring Ocean Fronts project took place off southwest England and saw the largest deployment of robotic vehicles ever attempted in UK waters. The marine robots, which are powered by a combination of wave, wind and solar power, are controlled by satellite communications and can cover hundreds of kilometres in a single mission. In the latest phase of the project, three unmanned surface vehicles were used to track fish carrying acoustic ‘pingers’ off the Devon coast. About 85 fish, including rays, sole and plaice, were tagged and released by scientists from the Marine Biological Association (MBA), with the aim of understanding how these fish use Marine Protected Areas. The roaming robotic vehicles carried acoustic receivers and worked alongside a series of fixed receivers on the seabed in order to track fish movements inside and outside of the protected sites. Commenting on the fish-tracking trial, Professor David Sims of the MBA said: “The patrolling robots successfully located tagged fish, and also tracked the movements of ...

In close cooperation with the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) and the Centre of Documentation, Research and Experimentation on Accidental Water Pollution (Cedre), EMSA created the MAR-ICE Network in 2008. The idea behind the Network is to provide information and expert advice on chemicals involved in maritime emergencies. The service is available to national administrations 24/7 via a dedicated contact point. MAR-ICE offers remote product and incident-specific informationand advice within 1 hour of the request and more detailedinformation shortly thereafter. Information provided within 1 hour- Safety data sheets- Marine chemical information sheets (MAR-CIS data sheets)- Relevant data from international codes & regulations Information provided shortly thereafter on a case-by-case basis- Additional information on product properties from a knowlegeable chemical company (if necessary) For cargoes spilled at sea- 2D or 3D drift and weathering models, indicating areas potentially impacted by the pollution- Estimation of the mass balance of the chemical spilled according to time elapsed For containers- Assessment of the behaviour of a container lost at sea- Advice on methods to locate and recover the containers For cargoes on board disabled vessels- Risk assessment for responders and the environment- Advice on response methods and options. Learn more information by reading EMSA_MAR-ICE 2015.pdf Source: EMSA    In ...

As the Earth warmed coming out of the last ice age, the rate of plankton production off the Pacific Northwest coast decreased, a new study has found, though the amount of organic material making its way to the deep ocean actually increased. This suggests that during future climate warming, the ocean may be more efficient than previously thought at absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – at least in some regions – but raises new concerns about impacts on marine life. Results of the study are being published online today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The ocean absorbs carbon dioxide like a sponge; scientists say that about one-third of all CO2   emitted historically by burning fossil fuels is now in the ocean. “This is a good news/bad news situation,” said Alan Mix, an Oregon State University oceanographer and co-author on the study. “It helps to slow the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, but it makes the ocean more acidic.” A major uncertainty has been how life in the ocean will respond to increasing CO2   and global warming. Growth of phytoplankton (microscopic plants such as diatoms) near the sea surface converts carbon dioxide into organic matter. When ...