photo by Noticias de tu Ciudad (Flickr CC)

Rubbish is piling up in Mexico’s capital after the city’s largest waste dump, Bordo Poniente, was closed after the landfill was, for lack of a better word, filled.

The landfill, in fact, was meant to close back in 2005, but the city managed to delay closure by 6 years. Now garbage is accumulating in illegal dumps in Mexico City, on street corners and even in front of monuments.

The fact that Mexico lags behind in waste reducing measures, such as recycling programs, compounds the problem in the DF.

From the Guardian:

The demise of the Bordo Poniente exposed how acutely the Mexican capital is struggling with the challenge of moving from a chaotic refuse collection system to more modern waste management. While Buenos Aires and Bogotá receive regular praise for their efforts to generate less rubbish and recycle more, Mexico City is held up as an example of what not to do.

And it’s not just Mexico City that is suffering from excess trash. Remote deserts on the Mexican-US border are strewn with waste left behind by illegal immigrants crossing into the US in search of a better life.

From the Daily Mail:

The problem was compounded as immigrants and drug traffickers responded to ramped up vigilance on the U.S.-Mexico border by taking increasingly remote routes, leaving more waste behind in out-of-the way and hard-to-clean areas, authorities say.

Clean-up efforts are largely dependent on volunteers from the US state of Arizona.

Then there are the plastic and garbage covered beaches on Mexico’s Caribbean coastline, in an area called Mahahual. This has nothing to do with the habits of locals or tourists, but simply the misfortune of the beaches being located along the path of a regional ocean current which channels the rubbish into the area and washes it up on shore.

The area is home to the Banco Chinchorro, a large coral reef that is a diver’s paradise, and the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, a sprawling, government-protected zone populated by egrets, cormorants and other waterfowl. Tourism tends to be on a small scale, with the exception of cruise ships that pull up to a pier in Mahahual that was rebuilt in 2008, after Hurricane Dean

–Los Angeles Times

According to some estimates 46,000 pieces of plastic waste are in every square mile of the Earth’s oceans. I’m assuming this is an estimated average, but it’s shocking however you interpret it.

Read more on that story in the Los Angeles Times.

Source: Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL

“What is beautiful about this project, is that it doesn’t demand expensive urban areas, while the wildlife on the ”Tree Sea” will affect the areas around it on the distance of many kilometres”, says the architect.

Source: Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL

“Tree Sea” can function at various  altitudes. Its layers – above water – will be a habitat for birds, bees, insects, bats and other small animals. Beneath water, various species of fish and others aqueous creatures will find a shelter. If the climate is suitable, even artificial coral reef might sustain and develop.

Source: Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL

According to Waterstudio.NL  building of this structure would take only two years to complete.

photo by Flip Nomad (Flickr CC)

We’ve got two bits of eco-news from Asia this weekend.

First we’re off to Vietnam to see how megacity Hanoi is coping with a growing waste problem with the help from scientists in Germany.

Enormous amounts of waste, a rising population, over-crowding, and an aging infrastructure: Vietnam’s capital Hanoi is a perfect example of a fast-growing megacity. Scientists at Darmstadt University have developed a pilot project that combines wastewater treatment, waste disposal and energy production in one. Their goal is to design a biogas plant for Hanoi that digests waste to generate electricity and heat.

–Deutsche Welle

Next we jet over to Shandong Province in China, where a cute pair of baby white Bengal tigers strut their stuff in custom made clothing at a local zoo. The tiger species is endangered, with only 210 white Bengals remaining in the wild.

Check out the video from ITN.

Source: US govt (public domain)

It may sound like a convenient excuse: it’s not my fault I’m fat, it’s all those common, everyday chemicals I unwittingly ingest through no fault of my own.

That and all the burgers, fries and milkshakes I eat on a daily basis.

But certain environmental, hormone-altering chemicals, which researchers call ‘obesogens’, may contribute to dramatic weight gain – especially when a fetus is exposed to them in the womb.

If obesogens do cause obesity, what about fatty foods?

Professor Bruce Blumberg of the University of California believes that both junk food and common environmental chemicals cause obesity, sometimes in tandem. Blumberg is quoted in The Ecologist:

The reality is both are happening. We’re being exposed to obesogens and eating bad food. So it’s a double impact. In the US we’re cutting fats yet obesity has doubled. We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing yet we are getting fatter and fatter.

The principal chemicals linked to obesity are bisphenol A, arsenic and other metals, organotins and phthalates, pesticides, persistent organic pollutants (chemicals resistant to environmental degradation) and nicotine.

For more on the story see this article in The Ecologist.

Also check out the following trailer for the Canadian documentary film on obesogens entitled, ‘Programmed to be Fat’.

Image by nilob (source: stock.xchng)

The cargo ship that ran aground on a coral reef off New Zealand’s coast last October broke in half yesterday. Continuous storms of the past several days created a crack in the hull that turned fatal yesterday when heavy storms and 6-meter high waves caused the ship to break in two.

While the bow of the Rena is still firmly stuck on the coral reef, the tail of the ship is now floating some 30 meters away.

The 900 containers that were still on the Rena have now fallen into the sea. As a result, experts fear this will further aggravate what is already known as the worst environmental disaster in the history of New Zealand.

photo by meiaponte farm (Flickr CC)

The original Green Revolution was essentially a Cold War tactic of the United States to win over Third World countries by supplying them with agricultural technology, thereby dramatically increasing their food production. The main recipients of Green Revolution techniques were India, Mexico and the Philippines, as well as some African countries (with markedly less success).

Although the Green Revolution increased food production, it has its drawbacks and criticisms: unsustainable population growth – leading to mass starvation; genetically weak and less biodiverse monoculture farming – meaning crop failures are more likely, requiring more chemical pesticides to compensate for this risk. Monoculture is also a profit-driven, industrial farming model. It is dependent on trade, industrial fertilizers and chemicals, intensive water usage, transportation and even globalization. Traditional polyculture, on the other hand, evolved to serve the complete needs of local populations.

Brazil is currently in the throws of its own Green Revolution, with monocrop agriculture taking over vast amounts of biodiverse regions such as the Amazon and the Cerrado. The Cerrado accounts for 21% of Brazil’s land and whopping 5% of the Earth’s entire biodiversity, yet it is rapidly being converted into industrial soya and eucalyptus plantations.

From the Telegraph:

The Cerrado is rich in biodiversity and yet, alarming[ly], it has almost halved in size since, because of wild fires and the demand for agricultural products. If we’re going to stop the loss of biodiversity, we need to protect our forests – which house the majority of the world’s wildlife. We won’t succeed in tackling climate change unless we deal with deforestation.

–Caroline Spelman, UK Environment Secretary

The Green Revolution, whether as an American anti-communist measure or as a method of ‘economic growth at all costs’ in Brazil, is by no means ‘Green’. While its economic benefits are clear – albeit short-sighted – pollution, human rights issues, biodiversity loss, the loss of carbon sinks and risks of sustainability, in terms of population and local communities’ ability to feed themselves, make it seem like a very bad bargain in the long run.

Watch photographer Peter Caton’s excellent audio slideshow ‘Disappearing Cerrado: Brazil’s untold environmental disaster’ in the Guardian for more.

map by NormanEinstein (Wikimedia Commons)

On Sunday a Russian oil platform capsized between Sakhalin Island and the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Sea of Okhotsk off far eastern Russia.

The oil rig, which was manned by 67 people subcontracted by Russian oil giant Gazprom, was being towed during a storm when heavy winds toppled it into the sea.

So far Russian authorities have confirmed 16 deaths and a rescue raft with 15 people has been spotted, but it is not known how many on the raft – if any – are alive.

According to regional emergency services, the accident poses no environmental threat, since the drilling platform’s fuel stocks are sealed.

Read more on that story on CNN and BBC and check out yesterday’s video report on the accident by Russia Today below.

Meanwhile a cargo ship is lying beached on France’s Atlantic coast since Friday, leaking fuel into a giant nature preserve. The ship beached due to a storm, which raged across France, leaving some 320,000 homes without power.

More on that story in the Guardian.

Source: sxc.hu

In the pools hiding thousands of old, now defunct radioactive fuel rods, white fibres resembling a spider web have been discovered. They “grow” only on the rods, as reported by “Augusta Chronicle”.

The nuclear waste landfill, Savannah River, South Carolina, is under constant observation by the Security Council and the Nuclear Defence Facilities. Sent to investigate the substance, experts are surprised, because the first study has given no results.

A sample taken from the pool was too small to determine even if it is a living organism. If it is not, scientists still can not identify the source of the substance.

If it is a living organism, it belongs to a small group of highly radiation resistant.  Another, slightly larger sample,
is to be collected and subjected to detailed examination.

Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

Several dozen men ran naked around the University of Manila. They wanted to draw attention to the need for greater environmental protection. Bare runs have become a tradition at this Filipino University.

Every year a group of students meet to fight in defense of the environment. The tradition started over 40 years ago. Then, the students were running around in protest against President Ferdinand Marcos. This year, runners fought for purification of the local rivers.

Although the message was not clear for all, this year’s event has been watched by hundreds.

“Whatever their advocacy was, I think it will definitely be heard and exposed,” said a student Mariel Abao.

“Even though they have a weird way of expressing it, at least the issue is given light.”

Watch the bare butts here!

photo by Green Prophet1 (Flickr CC)

According to Yale University’s 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) Canada ranked as the 46^th greenest country in the world, a shameful and sudden drop from #12 in 2008. Why? Mostly due to Canadian ‘tar sands’ or ‘oil sands’ in the province of Alberta, where huge petroleum reserves lie in the form of bitumen, a heavy black form of crude that is energy intensive, highly polluting and more greenhouse gas intensive than conventional oil extraction.

And now Canada has pulled out of the Kyoto Treaty, citing that it would be too expensive. Canadian environment minister Peter Kent claims that it would cost the taxpayers too much money to meet Canada’s emissions targets under Kyoto. Bit of populist rhetoric that is only music to the ears of oil companies, methinks.

So long, ex green country. Any other solutions out there? How about all that sun in North Africa? Should we turn the deserts into giant green energy farms?

In 1986 a German physicist named Gerhard Knies calculated that the world’s deserts receive more solar energy in 6 hours than humans use in a year.

The culmination of his efforts is “Desertec”, a largely German-led initiative that aims to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity by 2050 through a vast network of solar and wind farms stretching right across the Mena region and connecting to continental Europe via special high voltage, direct current transmission cables, which lose only around 3% of the electricity they carry per 1,000km. The tentative total cost of building the project has been estimated at €400bn (£342bn).

The German public’s anti-nuclear sentiments – spurred on by Japan’s Fukushima disaster – have lent fire to the solar energy rush in North Africa.

Read more on that story in the Guardian.

Sustainable energy projects are also on their way across the entire continent of Africa. From wind energy in Kenya, Morocco and South Africa to hydro power in the Democratic Republic of Congo to geothermal in Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique, plus the aforementioned Sahara solar projects.

Read more about Africa’s sustainable energy prospects in the Wall Street Journal.

photo by Diana Beato (VideoPhotoholic on Flickr CC)

Natural gas firms that engage in hydraulic fracturing are hiding risks from landowners, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group.

Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called ‘fracking’, is the practice of extracting natural gas from shale rock by drilling, planting explosives, and pumping in large amounts of water and chemicals to open up gas deposits.

Fracking has been linked to the contamination of water supplies with toxic and cancer causing chemicals and even to earthquakes, making the practice controversial throughout the globe.

These landowners who were left in the dark about drilling risks are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Industry documents, regulators and lawyers all indicate that there may be thousands of landowners who unknowingly put their water, homes and health at risk by signing natural gas leases. It’s time to level the playing field so that landowners know the facts about drilling before they sign a lease.

­–Environmental Working Group senior counsel Dusty Horwitt

The advantages of fracking are clear: a domestic source of natural gas, which produces less greenhouse gases than coal or oil. But the risks and disadvantages of hydraulic fracturing must be determined and disclosed, especially to those who are most at risk – the very people that live on the land where fracking takes place.

In the US State of Wyoming, the EPA conducted a three-year study, which confirmed that fracking risks contaminating water supplies.

From Public Radio International:

They tested water wells in a total of 42 homes and found varying degrees of pretty serious contamination that could or could not match the drilling industry, but certainly didn’t rule it out. They did rule out other factors like agricultural pollution.

–Abrahm Lustgarten, reporter for Pro Publica

Read more in the Los Angeles Times

photo credit: Ainhoa Goma/Oxfam

In 2009 you heard the trite references to Shakespeare about something being ‘rotten in the state of Denmark’ during the COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Well it wasn’t just the pickled herring.

Nothing stinks worse than corruption, greed and short sightedness in the face of very real human and environmental threats, but toxic waste comes pretty close.

Industrial solvents, benzene, dioxins, bleach and sulphides are just a fragrant after scent wafting through the air and just close enough that they might tickle the nose hairs of those ‘negotiating a binding climate deal’ in Durban, South Africa at this years COP17 Climate Change Conference.

From the Guardian:

With two crude oil refineries, South Africa‘s two biggest paper mills, its biggest container port, a dozen chemical companies, several major landfill sites and a huge number of factories together producing 80% of South Africa‘s oil products and much of its industrial emissions, south Durban locals have learned to identify the coughs, nausea, drowsiness, vomiting and headaches they suffer by their sources.

But never mind the stench of industrialism, there are lucrative deals to be made, targets to be missed and real issues to be ignored.

And those who are most at risk from no action on climate change, and would benefit from real action, are taking to the streets of Durban. 12,000 people, including unions and social movements, recently marched for climate justice in the South African city.

Gideon, a National Union of Mineworkers member who works at a drilling and construction company in Durban, explained that many jobs could be created through the process of fighting climate change by building proper public transport infrastructure and investing in renewable energy. He said 20 percent of South Africans have no access to electricity, and they should be provided with renewable energy.

–Socialist Worker

South Africa is being besieged by private fossil fuel, mineral and chemical companies with unfair, disastrous human and environmental results.

Read more about it here and here.

photo by Alexandrowicz, John L., 1973 (EPA)

In December 1970 Republican President Richard Nixon created the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Weeks later came the Clean Air Act and in 1972 the Clean Water Act (the latter vetoed by Nixon, but passed by Congress in a strong majority vote).

Regardless, even ‘Tricky Dick’ considered environmental issues, like breathable air and drinkable water, to be above partisanship. In the current US political situation, this is plainly not the case. Republicans would like to dismantle the EPA or do away with it all together. They even go so far as to blame the current economic downturn on environmental regulation of industry instead of Wall Street and irresponsible mortgage practices. They do this without any evidence, of course.

Despite rhetoric about overregulation, even in the face of the 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, why would anyone be so willfully ignorant, dishonest and effectively pro-pollution?

Because that’s where Republican money comes from: big, polluting industry. And I don’t mean to let Democrats off the hook or make them out to be Greens or anything, but we can see the glaring differences and being pro or anti EPA – Richard Nixon’s EPA – is a plain disgrace.

Check out this segment from Monday’s Rachel Maddow Show for more.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What was commonly known as ‘gilder’s palsy’ occurs due to inhalation or unintentional ingestion when the toxic metal comes in contact with a worker’s hands and later mixes with their food or water.

See the following historical example of mercury poisoning in Russia, from the Montreal Gazette:

About 100 kilos of gold were mixed with mercury for application to the copper sheets that were used to create the golden dome that adorns the cathedral of St. Isaac in St. Petersburg. The dome, unfortunately, is also a symbol of mercury poisoning. Some 60 workers died as a result of mercury inhalation!

Crude methods of gold extraction can also expose miners to very high levels of lead toxicity. Children gold miners in Nigeria suffer the twin effects of mercury and lead poisoning.

High levels of exposure can affect the development of their brain, kidneys, and digestive system, and cause developmental delays, according to medical experts. Artisanal miners are exposed to mercury when they mix mercury and ore with their bare hands, and worse, burn the amalgam to separate out the gold, inhaling the vapor.

– Human Rights Watch

Now strictly regulated in developed countries, mercury is still widely used in poor nations, especially where unregulated gold mining is taking place.

The small-scale gold rush is affecting African nations worst of all, as this article in The Ecologist explains.

And mercury poisoning isn’t simply a human health issue. It is hazardous to entire ecosystems, such as the Peruvian rainforest, a site of dangerous and illegal gold mining.

The government of the Philippines is trying to get gold miners to switch from mercury to borax in an effort to reduce mercury poisoning in the Southeast Asian country.

For more information on the effects of gold mining and mercury in poor countries, as well as efforts to curb it, see this press release in allafrica.com.

photo by tatulund (Flickr CC)

The ‘Greenest government ever’ strikes again.

According to official figures pollution contributed to some 200,000 premature deaths in the UK in 2008, a number with disproportionate victims in poor, urban communities. Furthermore, health care costs total £20bn per year for pollution-related ailments.

And now the UK’s Conservative-led government wants to relax air quality standards and shift responsibility from national to local authorities. Standard Tory stuff, right?

From the Independent:

Poor air quality is caused by three main pollutants – nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and ozone. The UK is failing to meet EU limits for both nitrogen dioxide and PM.

A few middle class people buying hybrid or electric vehicles are not going to make much difference either.

The UK government’s environmental watchdog, the Environmental Audit Committee, claims that the David Cameron’s coalition government is avoiding following the pollution standards set by the European Union. The evidence shows that this (and lets not forget New Labour’s hand in this business) is killing people.

From BBC News:

It is estimated that around 4,000 people died as a result of the Great Smog of London in 1952. That led to the introduction of the Clean Air Act in 1956. In 2008, 4,000 people died in London from air pollution and 30,000 died across the whole of the UK. The government needs to act now, as government did in the 1950s, to save the health of the nation.

–Environmental Audit Committee report

We’ve come a long way, baby…

image credit: Burns Library, Boston College (Flickr CC)

Sometimes you just don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I must confess I did the latter when reading about the arch eco-criminal, über litter bug a.k.a. audacious tire thug who illegally dumped over a million tires in remote spots of English countryside during the course of a single year.

It’s a lousy, shameless crime, but it’s also funny. I mean, was he going for a world record in tire dumping, or as the English say ‘tyre rubbishing’? And he’s been given 15 months for this – I imagine, but honestly have no idea – unprecedented tyre crime.

But tire or tyre dumping is serious business and seriously criminal to the environment.

The head of waste and illegals at the UK’s Environment Agency is quoted in the Guardian:

Huge tyre dumps are not only an eyesore, but also present a serious risk to the environment and human health. Stockpiles are a significant fire risk, as they can burn for several years, releasing dangerous gases such as hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen cyanide and sulphur dioxide. The Environment Agency has specialist crime teams to target serious, organised waste criminals, and make sure that illegal operations such as these are shut down. We also seek to confiscate the profits of waste crime, making it clear that waste crime does not pay.

They can burn for several years? Sounds awful, since the clouds of noxious black smoke I get each time I burn one of my tires is horrendous. Imagine one million burning.

Oh shut up, I don’t own a car or even a tire swing for that matter. I’m too ‘tired’.

photo by marijla (Flickr CC)

Growing anti-nuclear sentiment in Europe has reached another milestone. Following Germany’s move to close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022, Belgium has decided to shut its own starting in 2015 and completing by 2025, according to a Reuters report.

Much like the companies that run Germany’s nuclear stations, Belgium’s energy operator, Electrabel, warned of blackouts, environmental pollution and a decrease in energy independence as a result of the imminent shut down of the country’s 7 atomic power plants.

From AFP:

Already a net importer of electricity, Belgium could become increasingly dependent on its neighbours, increase its carbon footprint by replacing nuclear with thermal energy, and be forced to considerably hike the price of electricity for consumers.

Nuclear power is a tricky issue that divides many Greens. Well-known environmental writers such as Mark Lynas and George Monbiot have come out in favor of nuclear in the face of fossil fuel-driven climate change. They believe the risks posed by atomic energy are dwarfed by the risks of not using it. Simply put: shutting down nuclear plants at this point in time will cause an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, pushing the world closer to the brink of catastrophic climate change.

Lynas explains:

The current deployment of nuclear power worldwide of 430 reactors reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 2 billion tons per year. And that really is the beginning and the end of the argument if you’re in the slightest bit concerned about global warming. And all of the oft-stated green objections to nuclear power are either urban myths or an order of magnitude less important than global climate change.

Nevertheless, in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster, Belgium sees things differently. It joins Germany, Switzerland and Italy in a move away from nuclear power. Contrastingly, the Czech Republic and Poland are positive about their own nuclear ambitions. Europe is clearly not united on this issue.

We are generally familiar with the risks of nuclear power: Chernobyl and recently Fukushima are both frightening, though very different, examples.

On the other hand we need to acknowledge that coal kills – far more than nuclear power, albeit in more subtle ways that we are perhaps more used to and less aware of, such as respiratory diseases.

And then there are mining disasters, like the explosion in a Chinese coalmine last week, which killed 29 people.

Of course what we really need are more renewables like solar, wind and wave power. But if sudden decisions to close down nuclear plants (which admittedly pose risks) result in more coal usage (which unequivocally kills thousands of people every year) maybe being uncompromisingly anti nuclear isn’t the Greenest position at this point in time.

And then there are the wars we fight over oil…

photo by Preston Rhea (Flickr CC)

Last week representatives from over 170 countries met at a UN environmental conference in Colombia to work towards a ban on the exportation of hazardous waste from rich countries to the developing world.

The measure is to ratify an amendment to the Basel Convention, a treaty forged in 1989 with the aim of ensuring that individual states take care of their own waste instead of dumping it in poor countries.

The US, which is the top exporter of e-waste, still hasn’t signed on. The US has no rules for exporting its e-waste, most of which ends up in China as well as in Latin American and African countries.

From the Associated Press:

The issue took center stage in 2006 when hundreds of tons of waste were dumped around the Ivory Coast’s main city of Abidjan, killing at least 10 people and sickening tens of thousands. The waste came from a tanker chartered by the Dutch commodities trading company Trafigura Beheer BV, which had contracted with a local company to dispose of the waste.

Private companies, mostly US firms, mark toxic waste as exports and ship them to developing countries, avoiding taxes and fees, thereby taking advantage of lax regulations.

Japan has a similar relationship with the Philippines regarding toxic waste:

Up to 1.2 million second-hand televisions, refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners were estimated to have entered the Philippines between 2001 and 2005, and, according to a study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Philippine Board of Investment, 60-70 per cent of it came from Japan.

–Independent

In 2008 Greenpeace found toxic waste from companies from Germany, Korea, Switzerland and the Netherlands at a large port in Ghana, where it was handled by child laborers.

Though the latest conference is a step in the right direction, the problem will persist unless all countries agree to a global ban, especially the US.

Read more in the Independent.

Image capture from video

Abraham Ramonwana, head guide at Tuli Safari Lodge says: “if a mine develops in South Africa, it’s also going to affect Botswana and Zimbabwe”.

The authorisation given to an Australian company called Coal of Africa Limited (CoAL) to construct an open-cast coal mine, called the Vele Colliery, just outside of the boundaries of the Mapungubwe National Park will affect this fragile natural harmony. To Abraham, “mining and industry is a short term plan, tourism is a long-term plan.”

Abraham, like many others, believes that the Mapungubwe region should be preserved and protected from the impacts of infrastructural development, and allowed to remain pristine for generations to come.

Mapungubwe Belongs to all of Us from Green Renaissance on Vimeo.

photo by jeremycg (Flickr CC)

Containment and clean up of what has been termed New Zealand’s ‘worst ever environmental disaster’ are on their way in the Bay of Plenty after a Liberian cargo ship ran aground on a coral reef and began leaking fuel oil late last week.

So far 350 tons of oil have leaked into the bay, damaging wildlife and washing up on area beaches.

A salvage crew has been working aboard the ship, the Rena, making slow progress. Meanwhile, a group of some 2,000 volunteers has been cleaning toxic oil from affected beaches.

Read the latest in the New Zealand Herald.

For video of the salvage operation see this report in the Guardian.

For a stunning variety of photographs of the spill, ship, beach clean up and affected wildlife, see this Guardian slide show.

Hopefully this disaster in New Zealand will bring more attention to the plight of coral reefs around the world, which are vital to local – as well as global – ecologies and economies. A recent article in the New York Times by a biologist from Georgia Tech University explains:

When my sons were born, an average Caribbean reef was covered by 50 to 60 percent live coral; today it is 5 to 10 percent. This is the equivalent of losing pine forests from Georgia or aspens from the Rocky Mountains in less than 30 years. During this same period, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia lost about 50 percent of its coral cover. Worldwide, coral reefs are being converted to seaweed-covered meadows that do not support the biodiverse assemblage of species that allow a reef to function.