DOUBLE TROUBLE
The number of animal species in Brazil known to be endangered has
nearly doubled since 1989, reaching 398, according to a three-year
study conducted by the Brazilian government and released last week.
Tropical wolves, rare parrots, and exotic frogs and turtles are among
the many threatened creatures. The comprehensive survey of animal
and plant life in the country found that natural habitats were
increasingly threatened, from the nation's famed Amazon Rainforest to
the enormous Pantanal wetlands to the highland Cerrado savanna. And
Brazil could be on the verge of losing many more animal and plant
species than it knows; only about 200,000 species have been
identified in the country, but scientists estimate that some 2
million species exist in Brazil, making it one of the world's richest
spots for biodiversity.

CHANNEL ISLANDS: REELING IN THE BIG ONE
Despite a lawsuit by the fishing industry, the Channel Islands marine reserves are at last a reality. In October 2002, after four years of negotiations, the California Fish & Game Commission approved a network of reserves covering 175 square miles around the islands. A ban on fishing in these areas will allow struggling species including white abalone, Pacific red snapper and giant seabass to rebound. NRDC intervened in a lawsuit filed by fishing industry groups, and the reserves took effect in April 2003 after a judge denied the groups' request for a temporary restraining order.
SHELL MOVES AHEAD WITH GAS EXPLORATION IN CASTLE-BIGHORN
Shell Canada, a subsidiary of energy giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group, is preparing to begin surveying for gas reserves in Alberta's Front Range Canyons, along the eastern edge of the Canadian Rockies. Shell's expanded gas exploration in the area, part of the Castle-Bighorn BioGem, threatens a critical link in a Yellowstone-to-Yukon wildlife corridor that provides essential habitat and mating range for bears, wolves and cougars. A coalition of Canadian and U.S. conservation groups, including NRDC, is pressing the Alberta government to designate the Castle wilderness as a "wildland provincial park," banning industrial development within its boundaries.

INTO THIN AIR, AND THICK REFUSE
In the 50 years since Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary first
scaled Mt. Everest, so much refuse piled up on the world's highest
mountain that some took to calling it the world's highest garbage
dump. By the early 1990s, an estimated 50 tons of metal, glass, and
plastic, including many hundreds of abandoned oxygen canisters, had
been left behind by climbers struggling to reach the summit. The
Nepali government has made notable progress during the past decade in
tackling the trash problem, slapping fines on climbers who don't
bring their oxygen bottles and other equipment down with them and
organizing cleanup expeditions, some of which were funded by
royalties paid by climbers. The main source of pollution now is
human excrement left behind by climbers, said Ken Noguchi of Japan,
who has led four cleanup missions on the mountain since 2000. Even
as climbers become more conscientious about treading lightly, the
high-altitude landscape continues to be threatened by an ever-growing
number of expeditions that try to make it to the top each year.

DATA DUMPING
Think the U.S. EPA is keeping tabs on water pollution around the
country? Think again. The agency's computer system for tracking and
controlling water pollution is outmoded, riddled with bad data, and
lacks information on thousands of sources of serious pollution,
according to a report released last week by the EPA's inspector
general. Efforts to fix the computer system have been slow,
underfunded, and mismanaged, throwing into question the efficacy of
the agency's entire system for administering permits for water
discharges, the main tool by which it enforces the Clean Water Act.
Shortcomings in the system could be allowing mining and oil companies
and developers to release large quantities of pollution into
waterways unchecked. "The deliberate neglect of this project is a
perfect example of the Bush administration's effort to dismantle the
Clean Water Act with as little public awareness as possible," said
Daniel Rosenberg, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense
Council. The EPA denies that computer troubles are undermining
enforcement of the Clean Water Act, but admits that the system needs
a major overhaul and that funding for the project is inadequate.

 

THE ESA'S NEW BLUE FRONTIER?: A new study, in the journal Nature, has
found that "fully 90% of the world's large ocean species, including
cod, halibut, tuna, swordfish and marlin, has disappeared from the
world's oceans in recent decades" says the Washington Post 5/15.
According to the Canadian research, industrial fishing operations have
"become so efficient that it typically takes just 15 years to remove
80% or more of any species that becomes the focus of the fleet's
attention. Some populations have disappeared within just a few years,
belying the ocean's reputation as a refuge and resource of nearly
infinite proportions." "But it doesn't matter where you look, the
story is the same. We are really too good at killing these things,"
said one of the study's authors, Boris Worm.

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE, UNTIL IT'S GONE: Britain's Royal Society
is warning that "global efforts to save endangered species are being
hampered by a lack of accurate information about how badly individual
species and their habitats are suffering" says the Financial Times
5/20. Scientists, however, are "confident that biodiversity is being
lost at an unprecedented rate, despite the gaps in their knowledge,
with about "one in 10 of all the world's bird species and a quarter of
its mammals officially listed as threatened with extinction" and "up to
two-thirds of other animal species also endangered." The Royal Society
criticized world governments "for reluctance to fund projects that
would bring together data quickly," and for inadequate "monitoring
programmes."

BIRDS FOLLOWING ANCESTORS, THE DINOSAURS: A new report by WorldWatch
Institute singles out humans "as the cause of what many scientists
believe is the biggest mass extinction of animals in 65 million years"
says National Geographic News 5/16. BirdLife International documents
that in the last two-hundred years, "over 100 bird species have
disappeared" and "another 1,200 - 12% of the planet's total - face
extinction this century." According to the report "human factors are
central to declining bird life," with habitat loss having the "most
serious impact" - between 50,000 and 170,000 sq. km. are deforested
each year, "putting 85% of the world's most threatened bird species at
risk."