Up To 26 Times More Fish Found on Reefs Near Mangrove Forests, New Study Shows
A study published in the journal Nature has found the strongest link to date between the productivity of coral reef fisheries and the health of nearby mangrove forests. The study compared the numbers and amount of fish on reefs near mangrove forests to reefs far from any mangroves. One species, blue striped grunt, was found to be 26 times - or 2667 percent - more abundant on reefs near healthy mangroves, measured in total biomass.
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Pacific Corridor Soon More Than Just Words
Two years after being announced, an initiative is being finalized to protect five Latin American archipelagos in the Pacific. Representatives from Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama are to meet in the Costa Rican capital next month to put into operation the Pacific Biological Corridor, an initiative that has been talked about since 2002, but whose action guidelines have yet to be established. The joint program, first presented during the World Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg, seeks to facilitate administrative policies for the Galápagos (Ecuador), Coco (Costa Rica), Malpelo and Gorgona (Colombia) and Coiba (Panama) islands of the Pacific.
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Nile Basin Discourse Ready to Engage in the Nile Basin Development Projects
The Nile Basin Discourse was officially launched at its first General Assembly in Nairobi, 5-7th December 2003 which convened thirty elected representatives of civil society from the ten nations that share the Nile. “Civil society has to have a say in the development of the Nile Basin. The Discourse hopes to provide a voice to all those who until now had no voice”, says Mr. Jean Bigagaza, Facilitator of the Nile Basin discourse Desk in Entebbe, Uganda.
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Illegal Fishing Threatens Lobsters along Kenyan Coast
Illegal commercial fishing along the Kenyan coast threatens to wipe out lobsters and wreck centuries-old coral reefs in fewer than five years in the area, conservationists and fishermen have warned. They say that large-scale traders have moved to the tourist hideaway of Lamu and other islands, equipping local divers with scuba tanks and ecologically unfriendly deep-sea nets which are prohibited, to fish lobsters for export, mainly to Italy and Japan.
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Giant Sperm Whales have Learnt to Pluck Cod from Fishing Lines
Sperm whales have the largest brain of any animal, and some in the Gulf of Alaska are proving it at mealtimes by letting humans do all the work. Researchers are now investigating what commercial fishers have long noticed: that the whales have learned to pluck sablefish off hooks attached to their long fishing lines. "They somehow just pick them off like grapes," said fisher Dick Curran, who has fished the gulf's deep waters for decades. "I don't know how they do it."
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