This is part of a trial series
Greenpeace activists hold banners reading "Ban Bluefin Tuna Trade" during a protest to demand immediate action to protect the endangered Mediterranean bluefin tuna from commercial extinction.
The US gets behind the call to ban international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna
The US said on Wednesday they would bring up discussions on the topic during the March 13-25 meetings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which will take place in Doha, Qatar. They will declare the commercial trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna a threat to the species' survival, an issue that has split the EU. "US support could make a huge difference with the EU in particular," said John Hocevar, the oceans campaign director at Greenpeace USA.
See the tuna photo story by The Washington Post.
Stocks of bluefin tuna are on the brink of collapse from overfishing and the methods of catching them are causing devastation to the entire marine ecosystem. Read more here.
Who's got it worse - GE-plants or GE-cows?
Belgian De Standaard reported today on the European Commissions approval of the GE potato developed by company BASF. When making GE plants a antibiotic resistant gene is added, environmentalists fear that this gene in nature will be transferred to bacteria, making it more resistant to antibiotics. Liberation issues a Q&A; with Arnaud Apoteker, Senior GE Campaigner in Greenpeace France, saying that the authorities have broken against their own guidelines by allowing this crop in Europe.
China Daily reports that The Ministry of Agriculture has made it clear that there is no commercial planting of GE crops just yet in China. Thanks to widespread media coverage the Ministry has not yet approved imports of GE crops. Huang Dafang, a member of the Biosafety Committee said that introducing GE crops in China could generate some $4 billion in additional income for about 440 million farmers. What he does not recognise is those profits will most probably only be temporary and the horrific effects the crops and chemicals used to grow them will have on the ecological system.
Clive James, founder of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA) - a nonprofit group that deals with biotechnology applications - China has "already endorsed the use of GM technology" and will "lead other countries in Asia, even the whole world, in using it" . Experts have urged the Chinese government to increase transparency in the process of approval of GE crops.
China Daily also reports on GE debate over the safety of GE food in China, as the government steps up its efforts to develop GE crops to ensure grain security. Some scientists claim that GE food in China is safe for consumption while other experts say that commercialization of GE rice could be approved within three years.
Wall Street Journal publishes an article on GE in India, written by Kameswara Rao, the former Chairman of the Department of Botany and the Department of Sericulture at Bangalore University, whom now is Executive Secretary of the Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education in Bangalore. He thinks that "The government's stand has created huge regulatory uncertainties for no valid scientific reason or environmental concern. No innovator can afford to develop any biotech crop with an uncertain approval process that is divorced from science. Delay in the commercialization of Bt Brinjal will promote its clandestine cultivation, as it has happened with Bt cotton in Gujarat, and elsewhere. This is not in the best interests of India, nor its people."
The European Patent Office has rejected a collective protest against the controversial cow-patent. The decision was made yesterday after a hearing of the parties involved. The patent was issued in 2007 in Belgium and New Zealand and gives biotechnologists the right to certain procedures for breeding cows with higher milk yield. Opposition has called for the complete revocation of the patent. In addition, the cultivation techniques led to a high rate of sick and non-viable animals, which is contrary to the welfare of animals. Various groups have complained, including Greenpeace. The critics of the decision find it unacceptable and will file a complaint said Greenpeace advisor Christoph Then, to Abendzeitung.
Nuclear
Obama announced the first loan guarantee to the nuclear industry in nearly three decades in February - a conditional guarantee of $8.2 billion for two proposed nuclear power plants in Georgia. In this single move, he may have jump-started the nuclear power industry in the US. But the loans come with some strings attached and it is not clear weather companies will accept those. On top of that the US nuclear industry has a history of cost overruns, production delays and the inability to solve the issue of nuclear waste and containment (read more on the Greenpeace USA website). Until these issues are resolved, all the government money in the world may not be able to overcome public opposition and financial common sense.
Evidence of Greenland's glaciers melting faster
"Old Ice" in Sermilik Fjord, next to Ingmikerteq Island, near the mouth of Johan Peterson Fjord. South Eastern Greenland.
In mid February, Nature Geoscience published two studies providing evidence that Greenland’s glaciers are melting faster than they used to, contributing to the rise of sea levels worldwide. While warmer atmospheric temperatures thin all the glaciers from above, scientists have wondered if warmer waters are also melting the many glaciers that flow into the fjords. Four glaciers in West Greenland where investigated by a team of independent scientists on board the Arctic Sunrise and the founding showed that cold melt water from underneath the glacier combines with rising warmer, saltier water from the depths of the fjord. This rises along the underwater face of the glacier, melting it.
(Picture Credit: © Greenpeace / Gavin Parsons, 09/11/2009, Izmir, Turkey) (Picture Credit: © Greenpeace / Nick Cobbing, 07/25/2005, Sermilik Fjord, Greenland)