http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/15/biodiversity.scienceofclimatechange
Alok Jha in Boston
The Guardian
Friday February 15 2008

Fishing, climate change and pollution have left an indelible mark on virtually all of the world's oceans, according to a huge study that has mapped the total human impact on the seas for the first time. Scientists found that almost no areas have been left pristine and more than 40% of the world's oceans have been heavily affected.

"This project allows us to finally start to see the big picture of how humans are affecting the oceans," said Ben Halpern, assistant research scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who led the research.

"Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me."

Human impact is most severe in the North Sea, the South and East China Seas, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Gulf, the Bering Sea, along the eastern coast of North America and in much of the western Pacific.

The oceans at the poles are less affected but melting ice sheets will leave them vulnerable, researchers said.

The study found that almost half of the world's coral reefs have been heavily damaged. Other concerns rest with seagrass beds, mangrove forests, seamounts, rocky reefs and continental shelves. Soft-bottom ecosystems and open ocean fared best but even these were not pristine in most locations.

Previous studies of human impacts have focused on a single activity or on an isolated ecosystem, and rarely on a global scale.

Fiorenza Micheli, an associate professor of biology at Stanford University, said the maps should guide ocean management in future.

"By seeing where different activities occur and whether they occur in sensitive ecosystems we can design management strategies aimed at shifting activities away from the most sensitive areas."

To make the map scientists compiled global data on the impacts of 17 human activities including fishing, coastal development, fertiliser runoff and pollution from shipping traffic.

http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/briefingnotes/bn_asia_up_in_smoke_nov07

The human drama of climate change will largely be played out in Asia, where over 60 per cent of the world's population, around four billion people, live. Over half of those live near the coast, making them directly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Disruption to the region's water cycle caused by climate change also threatens the security and productivity of the food systems upon which they depend. This report looks at positive measures that are being taken - by governments, by civil society and by people themselves - to reduce the causes of climate change and to overcome its effects.

Summary and overview
The human drama of climate change will largely be played out in Asia, where over 60 per cent of the world's population, around four billion people, live. Over half of those live near the coast, making them directly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Disruption to the region's water cycle caused by climate change also threatens the security and productivity of the food systems upon which they depend. In acknowledgement, both of the key meetings in 2007 and 2008 to secure a global climate agreement will be in Asia.

The latest global scientific consensus from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that all of Asia is very likely to warm during this century. Warming will be accompanied by less predictable and more extreme patterns of rainfall, including droughts and more extreme inundations. Tropical cyclones are projected to increase in magnitude and frequency, while monsoons, around which farming systems are designed, are expected to become more temperamental in their strength and time of onset. Ironically, if certain types of industrial pollution are reduced, the temporary cooling effect that results from having blankets of smog, could lead to very rapid warming. But existing projections are already bad enough.

There is growing consensus about the current challenges facing Asia and what is needed to tackle them. Many of these are elaborated in this report. There is reason to hope. There is already enough knowledge and understanding to know what the main causes of climate change are, how to reduce future climate change, and how to begin to adapt.

This report looks at positive measures that are being taken - by governments, by civil society and by people themselves - to reduce the causes of climate change and to overcome its effects. It gives examples of emissions reduction; alternative water and energy supply systems; preservation of strategic ecosystems and protected areas; increasing capacity, awareness and skills for risk and disaster management; and the employment of effective regulatory and policy instruments. The challenge is clear and many of the solutions are known: the point is, to act.

By Jonathan M. Katz
Associated Press
Sunday, February 17, 2008; Page A22

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/16/AR2008021602511.html 

GRAND COLLINE, Haiti, Feb. 16 -- Far from the spreading slums of the Haitian capital, past barren dirt mountains and hillsides stripped to a chalky white core, two woodcutters bring down a towering oak tree in one of the few forested valleys left in the Caribbean country.

Fanel Cantave, 36, says he has little choice but to make his living in a way that is causing environmental disaster in Haiti. And these days, he and his son, Phillipe, 15, must travel ever farther from their village to find trees to cut.

...

For example, the U.S. Agency for International Developmentembarked on an ambitious $22.8 million project in the 1980s to plant about 30 million trees that could provide income for peasants. But the project focused on trees that can be made into charcoal for cooking, and nearly all were eventually cut down.

Environmental Minister Jean-Marie Claude Germain said reforestation projects and efforts to preserve trees in three protected zones were set back by the violent rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and prompted the United Nations to send in thousands of peacekeepers to restore order.

"Even though there were agricultural laws, the laws were not respected," Germain said. "We are trying to create order now."

Stability returned with the 2006 election of President Ren¿ Pr¿val and U.N. military action against powerful gangs in Port-au-Prince, the capital. But in a nation where 80 percent of the 8.7 million people live on less than $2 a day, trees mean income for those lucky enough to have access to them.

Some groups say they've found success on a limited scale by planting fruit trees and protecting hardwoods through micro-loans and agricultural assistance. Floresta USA, based in San Diego, has been working in Haiti for the past decade and is planting about 33,000 fruit and hardwood trees a year. The Organization for the Rehabilitation of the Environment, based in southern Haiti, has produced more than a million fruit trees since it began work in 1985.

Compared with USAID's failed plan, smaller programs have had more luck by focusing on fruit trees, which farmers are more likely to preserve to sell the fruit. And smaller organizations are able to work with farmers and tailor planting to the needs of specific areas.

"People aren't excited about 'Hey, let's go plant trees.' They're excited about 'How can I feed my family? How can I make ends meet?' " said Scott Sabin, Floresta's leader.