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Global Warming Adding to Pollution and Over-Harvesting Impacts on World's
Key Fishing Grounds, Says New UNEP--'In Dead Water'--Report

10th Special Session of UNEP's Governing Council/Global Ministerial
Environment Forum, Monaco, 20-22 February

MONACO/NAIROBI, 22 February 2008---Climate change is emerging as the latest
threat to the world's dwindling fish stocks, a new report by the UN
Environment Programme (UNEP) suggests.

At least three quarters of the globe's key fishing grounds may become
seriously impacted by changes in circulation as a result of the ocean's
natural pumping systems fading and falling, it suggests.

These natural pumps, dotted at sites across the world including the Arctic
and the Mediterranean, bring nutrients to fisheries and keep them healthy
by flushing out wastes and pollution.

The impacts of rising emissions on the marine world are unlikely to end
there. Higher sea surface temperatures over the coming decades threaten to
bleach and kill up to 80 per cent of the globe's coral reefs---major tourist
attractions, natural sea defences and also nurseries for fish.

Meanwhile, there is growing concern that carbon dioxide emissions will
increase the acidity of seas and oceans. This, in turn, may impact calcium
and shell-forming marine life including corals but also tiny ones such as
planktonic organisms at the base of the food chain.

The findings come in a new rapid response report entitled "In Dead Water"
which has for the first time mapped the multiple impacts of pollution,
alien infestations, over-exploitation and climate change on the seas and
oceans.

 ...

This 10-15 per cent of the oceans is far higher than had previously been
supposed and is "concurrent with today's most important fishing grounds",
including the estimated 7.5 per cent deemed to be the most economically
valuable fishing areas of the world, it adds.

...
It is the largest gathering of Environment Ministers since the UN Climate
Convention Conference in Indonesia just over two months ago where
Governments agreed to the Bali Road Map aimed at delivering a deep and
decisive climate regime for post-2012.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director,
said...

"Climate change threatens coastal infrastructure, food and water supplies
and the health of people across the world. It is clear from this report and
others that it will add significantly to pressures on fish stocks. This is
as much a development and economic issue as it is an environmental one.
Millions of people including many in developing countries derive their
livelihoods from fishing while around 2.6 billion people get their protein
from seafood", he said.

...

In Dead Water Key Findings

* Half the world's catch is caught along continental shelves in an area of
less than 7.5 per cent of the globe's seas and oceans.
* An area of 10-15 per cent of the world's seas and oceans cover most of
the commercial fishing grounds.
* 80 to 100 per cent of the world's coral reefs may suffer annual bleaching
events by 2080 under global warming scenarios.
* Those at particular risk are in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean,
the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and in the Caribbean
* Over 90 per cent of the world's temperate and tropical coasts will be
heavily impacted by 2050. Over 80 per cent of marine pollution comes from
the land. Marine areas at particular risk of increased pollution are
South-east and East Asia.
* Increasing concentrations of C02 in the atmosphere are likely to be
mirrored by increasing acidification of the marine environment.
* Increasing acidification may reduce the availability of calcium
carbonates in sea water, including a key one known as aragonite which is
used by a variety of organisms for shell-building.
* Cold-water and deep water corals could be affected by acidification by
2050 and shell-building organisms throughout the Southern Ocean and into
the sub-Arctic Pacific Ocean by 2100.
* Climate change may slow down the ocean thermohaline circulation and thus
the continental shelf "flushing and cleaning" mechanisms, known as "dense
shelf water cascading", over the next 100 years. These processes are
crucial to water quality and nutrient cycling and deep water production in
at least 75 per cent of the world's major fishing grounds.
* Dead zones, areas of de-oxygenated water, are increasing as a result of
pollution from urban and agriculture areas. There are an estimated 200
temporary or permanent dead zones up from around 150 in 2003.
* Up to 80 per cent of the world's primary fish catch species are exploited
beyond or close to their harvesting capacity. Advances in technology,
alongside subsidies, means the world's fishing capacity is 2.5 times bigger
that that needed to sustainably harvest fisheries.
* Bottom trawling is among the most damaging and unsustainable fishing
practices at the scales often seen today
* Alien invasive species, which can out-compete and dislodge native ones,
are increasingly associated with the polluted, over-harvested and damaged
fishing grounds. The report shows that the concentration of "aliens"
matches with some precision the world's major shipping routes.

Dr. Christian Nellemann, who headed up the rapid response team that
compiled the report, said: "We are already seeing evidence from a number of
studies that increasing sea temperatures are causing changes in the
distribution of marine life."

Some of these changes are being found from the Continuous Plankton Recorder
survey of the North-east Atlantic.

Warmer water copepod species or crustaceans have moved northward by around
1,000km during the later half of the 20th century, with the patterns
continuing into the 21st century.

"Further evidence of this warming signal is seen in the appearance of a
Pacific planktonic plant in the North-west Atlantic for the first time in
800,000 years by transfer across the top of Canada due to the rapid melting
of the Arctic in 1998", said Dr. Nellemann. "We are getting more and more
alarming signals of dramatic changes in the oceans. It is like turning a
big tanker around. Our ability to change course and reduce emissions in the
near future will be paramount to success."

The link between healthy and productive fishing grounds and ocean
circulation or "dense shelf water cascading" is in some ways only now
emerging.

Three years ago the Hotspot Ecosystem Research on the Margins of European
Seas, of which UNEP is part, documented such a phenomenon in the Gulf of
Lions in the north-western Mediterranean.

A quantity of water equal to two years-worth of the river discharge from
all rivers flowing into the Mediterranean is, in four months, transported
from the Gulf of Lions to the deep western Mediterranean via the Cap de
Creyus canyon.

It has a critical impact on the population of the heavily harvested deep
sea shrimp Aristeus antennatus, the crevette rouge, by bringing food that
in turn triggers a sharp increase in young shrimp resulting in plentiful
catches three to five years after the "cascading" event.

 "Imagine what will happen if climate change slows down or stops these
natural food transport and 'flushing' effects in waters that are often
already polluted, heavily fished, damaged and stressed", said Dr.
Nellemann. "We are gambling with our food supply."

Dr. Stefan Hain, of UNEP's World Conservation Monitoring Centre, said it
was critical that existing stresses were also addressed in order to
conserve fish stocks and coral reefs in a climate constrained world.

He said there was growing evidence that coral reefs recover from bleaching
better in cleaner, less polluted waters.

Dr. Hain cited monitoring of corals around the main Seychelles island of
Mahé which were among corals world-wide that suffered from the high sea
surface temperatures of the late 1990s. Here coral reef recovery rates have
varied between 5 to 70 per cent.

"Coral reefs recovering faster are generally those living in marine
protected areas and coastal waters where the levels of pollution, dredging
and other kinds of human-induced disturbance are considered low", he said.

Notes to Editors

The report "In Dead Water: Merging of climate change with pollution,
over-harvest, and infestations in the world's fishing grounds" can be
accessed at www.grida.no, at www.unep.org or www.globio.info, including
high- and low-resolution graphics for free use in publications.

The 10th Special Session of UNEP's Governing Council/Global Ministerial
Environment Forum is taking place between 20 and 22 February in Monaco; see
www.unep.org/gc/gcss-x/

The theme is Globalization and the Environment--Mobilizing Finance to Meet
the Climate Challenge.

The host country Monaco's web site is available at:
www.unep2008.gouv.mc/pnue/wwwnew.nsf/HomeGb

Source: AllAfrica/Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)

22 February 2008
Posted to the web 22 February 2008
Kigali

FDLR-FOCA rebels have become well-entrenched in the South and North Kivu provinces of eastern DR Congo and have developed diversified sources of financing that can keep them going for years, UN investigators have reported.

The rebels under the banner Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda-Forces combattantes abacunguzi (FDLR-FOCA) are said to control mineral rich areas where they massively export deposits for revenue and arms. FDLR is the political arm and the FOCA stand in as the military wing.

According to a report by five experts for the UN Security Council, the FDLR-FOCA control cassiterite deposits north of Lulingu, in Shabunda region (South Kivu), in Nyabiondo, Walikale region (North Kivu), and in Lemera (South Kivu). They also manage gold deposits in Kilembwe (South Kivu).

These minerals are transported to general collection points near the mining deposits. The output is typically transported by road and air by comptoirs (buying houses) to their headquarters, many of which are located in Goma and Bukavu - capitals of North Kivu and South Kivu respectively.

To export the minerals, according to the investigators, the rebels use mainly boats on numerous rivers and particular routes such as Kanvinvira-Uvira-Bukavu-Hombo-Itebero-Kibua and Uvira-Kilembwe (South Kivu), as well as Ishasha-Nyabiondo-Remeka-Kibua, Ishasha-Nyabiondo-Kimua-Kibua Ishasha-Nyabiondo-Kishanga, Ishasha-Nyabiondo-Pinga, Kasindi-Butembo-Lubero-Kasuo, Kasindi-Butembo-Lubero-Kasuo-Ikore-Pinga-Nyabiondo (North Kivu).

For the full article, please visit: http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200802220753.html \\

We hope you will join us for our next meeting of the Environment-Security Cross-Cutting Initiative on "Conservation and Peacebuilding". The meeting will be held on Monday, March 10th from 12:00pm - 2:00 pm.

We will be joined by guest, Dr. Saleem Ali, who will explore the findings of his most recent edited volume, Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press, September, 2007)

PLEASE RSVP to Jen Mulvey at jmulvey@ciesin.columbia.edu or 845-365-8988 by March 7, so we can order the right amount of food.

Saleem H. Ali Bio:

Associate Professor of Environmental  Studies at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Natural  Resources, and  on the adjunct faculty of Brown  University's   Watson Institute for International Studies For the 2007-2008 academic year, he is  also serving as the Associate Dean for Graduate Education in Natural  Resources at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on the  causes and  consequences of environmental conflicts and how ecological factors can  promote  peace. He is also on the visting faculty for the United Nations mandated University for Peace (Costa  Rica), where he teaches a course on Indigenous Environment and  Development Conflicts. Much of his empirical research has focused on  environmental  conflicts in  the mineral sector and he is the author of  Mining, the Environment and Indigenous Development Conflicts (published the University  of Arizona Press,  fall 2003). His most recent edited volume isPeace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press, September, 2007),  which has received cover endorsements from E.O.  Wilson, George Schaller and Achim Steiner, and a foreword by Julia  Marton-Lefevre.

Dr.  Ali is also a member  of the expert advisory group on  environmental conflicts for the United Nations Environment Programme  with a  specific interest in transboundary conservation zones. As part of this  effort, he is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas and the IUCN Taskforce on Transboundary Conservation. He has also been involved  in promoting environmental education in  madrassahs (Islamic religious schools) and using techniques from  environmental  planning to study the rise of these institutions in his ethnic homeland  -- Pakistan,  under a grant from the United States Institute of Peace.

 Some  of his current research on environmental health perception in mining  areas and social resposibility in the mining sector is supported by the  Tiffany &Co. Foundation .
 

Prior  to embarking on an academic career, Dr. Ali has worked  as an environmental health and safety professional atGeneral Electric   (based at GE headquarters in Fairfield,  CT, and at silicone resin  manufacturing sites in New  York). He has served  as a consultant for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Health Canada  as an Associate at the Boston-based consulting firm Industrial Economics Inc.   Pro bono projects include a mining impact prospectus for the Crowe  Tribe of Montana  and research assistance to Cultural Survival (an indigenous rights NGO).
 

He is  also a professional mediator and has conducted workshops on  consenus-building for private and public interests, as well as peer  review of research publications for the World Bank, the [International Institute for Sustainable Development|http:\\www.iisd.org], The  Woodrow Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
, the Journal of Environmental Management, the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, the Natural Resources Forum  and Yale University Press.
    
 Research appointments include a Public Policy Fellowship at Griffith University in Brisbane,  Australia, a Baker Foundation Research Fellowship at Harvard Business  School and a parliamentary internship at the U.K. House of Commons. Teaching  experience includes courses on environmental planning, conflict  resolution,  industrial ecology, research methods and technical writing. Professor  Ali  received his doctorate in Environmental Planning from the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an  M.E.S. in environmental law and policy from Yale  University, and his  Bachelors in  Chemistry from Tufts University (summa  cum laude). 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/955c1844-e09d-11dc-b0d7-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1 

By William Wallis

Published: February 21 2008 19:13 | Last updated: February 21 2008 19:13

The blast from a bus horn disturbs the calm of dawn in the city of Kisumu, western Kenya, signalling the arrival of another cargo of traumatised passengers.

At a makeshift transit centre near the shores of Lake Victoria, where local church groups are providing food, medical care and onward passage to victims of violence further east, the vehicle pulls in. Its passengers step down to recount the terrifying ordeal that has forced them back to a region many left generations ago in search of better livelihoods. Some were witness to forced circumcisions and beheadings. Others were warned to leave or expect the same.

The bomb that detonated when incumbent President Mwai Kibaki seized a dubious election victory last December from the jaws of defeat has provoked an exodus that risks permanently fracturing Kenya's multi-ethnic society. What started as a wave of protests centred in Nairobi slums and the opposition stronghold of Kisumu turned rapidly into a cycle of communal violencethat has swept across the fertile Rift Valley in-between.

Within the confines of a Nairobi hotel, Kenya's rival politicians are now wrestling with each other in negotiations mediated by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general. Outside, the nation has been crumbling as they speak.

These deliberations have resonance far beyond Kenya's borders. The country's stability as a regional entrepot is essential for the economic health of east and central Africa and for the regeneration of neighbouring states wracked by war. Until recently, it was central to a narrative that saw the continent turning a corner, drawing in more investment, consolidating peace and attaining unprecedented levels of economic growth. The speed with which this has unravelled has forced the world to think again.

...
Bars and restaurants in Nairobi's wealthier neighbourhoods appear at first to be part of a different reality. They have filled up again with the fashion-conscious and well-to-do, jiving to the sounds of Swahili rap. But conversation can turn acid in an instant, with former friends from across the political divide retreating from each other into ethnic identities that mattered less before. Under threat from vigilante gangs, landlords in the bustling capital have started throwing out tenants if they belong to the wrong ethnic group.

...

Mr Annan, after weeks of mediation efforts, has at least secured agreement from rival negotiating teams on a putative agenda for reform. This would include revision of the constitution and an independent review of the electoral process. It would also address inequities in the distribution of land, power and wealth.

On paper, this tackles some of the issues that have turned once-peaceful Kenya into a powder keg. Yet there are few precedents in Africa for a transition to more equitable rule led by the very politicians who have most to lose. Moreover, in the slums of Kisumu and Nairobi, in camps for the internally displaced and among the pro-opposition tribes at the forefront of ethnic cleansing, grievances that predate the elections have been magnified tenfold since.

With the economy in freefall, the means to address these grievances have also diminished. Official estimates suggest 50,000 Kenyans have lost their jobs in a month. The real number, given that 12 times as many have been uprooted, may be far higher. In Kisumu, a city of half a million, the consequences are stark.

...
The city's other main employers were Kikuyus, who owned hotels, transport businesses and shops, and also staffed the hospitals and schools. Some are still hiding with friends. But the majority have fled. Their houses have been looted so comprehensively that there is no longer evidence they were anything but empty plots. As the price of food rises and crime picks up, wealthier members of the Luo community fear they may be next.

... 

"There has been no boom here. Enterprise in the town is owned by very few people. Most of them are Indians. The Kikuyus owned the retail and transport businesses," says Joshuah Nyamori, who hopes to become the town's mayor in a council vote next week. "This was unsustainable. With almost nil ownership among the local population and wages below the official lowest government rate, they did not see the economy's relevance."

Each region in Kenya has its own dynamic, and large parts of the country have remained calm. But such inequities are mirrored everywhere.

In the four decades since independence, successive constitutional amendments have concentrated power in the presidency, which became the anchor for a system oiled by patronage and graft. Mr Kibaki pledged to reform this. In his first term, the economy was doing better - growing at close to 7 per cent. But grand-scale corruption was still rife and for most Kenyans little changed.

In a climate seething with frustration, it was easy for the opposition coalition led by Mr Odinga to crystallise resentment around ethnicity. His campaign spoke of devolution but for many, it now seems, this was understood as kicking the Kikuyu out.

...
There have been 81 military coups in sub-Saharan Africa in just over half a century and at least 125 further failed attempts. But apart from six hours in 1982 when Hezekiah Ochuka, a private in the Kenya Air Force, tried and failed to overthrow the government, Kenya has been spared this scourge, write William Wallis and Matthew Green.

Its army has built a reputation for professionalism, especially in the period since Ochuka's attempt to drag it into politics claimed 145 lives. Over the years it has insulated Kenya from wars across its borders in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda, and led Africa in peacekeeping training.

Partly to guard this reputation, senior commanders have been reluctant to be dragged into the crisis sparked by December's flawed elections, which has claimed more than 1,000 lives. According to separate sources close both to the government and the military, President Mwai Kibaki has considered imposing a state of emergency at least once since December when violence seemed to be spinning out of control. But the army resisted, fearing that if it takes a position in the deadly rivalry pitting Mr Kibaki against Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, their own ranks will split.

"The role of the military is to set and sustain the stage for political action. The question the army has been asking is, is this a legally elected government? If not, and they deploy, are they supporting a 'civilian coup?'" says one person close to the senior command.

...
Instead the army has played a low-key role, distributing food and opening up blocked transport links. On at least one occasion, however, it did step into the fray: according to witnesses in the Rift Valley town of Nakuru, the army last month intervened and prevented a fight between hundreds of ethnic Kalenjin and an equal number of armed Kikuyus.

If negotiations towards a power-sharing government fail and violence escalates, an interim military administration ahead of fresh elections might also be seen in opposition circles as a possible last resort.