Whale Shark Whisperers?

Intrigued about the title?

There just is no substitute for good old fashion brain power and common sense.
Case in point, this excellent post by Mark which also contains the reference to the title.
And I cite - emphasis is mine.

The real answer to the overall problem lies in community derived sustainability through fisheries management where the community is the stakeholder, and where eco-tourism forms a part (small or large, depending on the circumstances) of that plan.

Exactly!
To cut to the chase, far too many people have been catching far too many fish for far too long; and for far too long, we have abused the oceans as garbage dumps and destroyed the coastal habitats. And now we've reached the point where is has become so bad that everybody is realizing that this cannot continue.
Old fishermen remember the good old days and wonder where all the big fish have gone; old divers like me remember the times where you would lose your buddy amid the fishes whereas now, even the most remote locations are but a shadow of what they used to be; and the fishing industry and government officials despair over ever decreasing catches and the hardship this generates.

Fiji?
We actually spend an inordinate amount of time talking to the various stakeholders from the authorities, NGOs and various industry representatives all the way to the simple artisanal fishermen - and all equally bemoan the rapid and accelerating decline.

The good news is that at least here in Fiji, I am detecting signs of progress.
When it comes to the big commercial fishing interests, there is certainly dialogue and it would be nice if this would finally result in everybody working hand in hand. Ultimately, fishing sustainably is the only viable strategy if the industry wants to survive in the long term, meaning that the classical cat-and-mouse games whereby the fleets over-fish until the authorities curtail them need be replaced by genuine cooperation in the best long term interest of all the stakeholders. Obviously easier said than done but I'm certainly seeing steps in the right direction, this owing to good leadership on all sides but also, to the stomping out of corruption, something this particular government has really excelled in.
Going forward, I would like to see a stronger application of the precautionary principle, meaning that the industry itself would be invited to seek independent certification and that it would thus be them, not the cash- and resource-strapped authorities that would have to invest the necessary resources in order to make the case of why a particular fishery is sustainable.
Again, easier said than done - but certainly feasible assuming that everybody wants to preserve the sector for the future.

It is obviously much more difficult when it comes to the subsistence sector.
If 100 years ago, one village may have numbered 50 people, now that same village may number 400 - but of course, the qoliqoli is still of the same size and may even have been degraded by pollution and ever more frequent bleaching events etc., something that is particularly prevalent in Viti Levu.
Yes once again it is about too many people and about the need to manage limited, and in this particular case, dwindling resources.

Everywhere in developing countries, this is a monumental challenge and so far, the track record everywhere has been equally dismal.
These are not your archetypical greedy bad guys (again, bravo Rick!), these are scores upon scores of perfectly ordinary and often desperately poor people that are trying to eke out a meager living by mining the oceans for protein, with devastating consequences for biodiversity and ultimately, for themselves. Effecting change here is incredibly difficult, the more as often, poor education and archaic and rigid social structures and beliefs are greatly compounding the problem.
Solutions?

Sharks?
As I said, it's exactly the same as with the other marine life, with the one difference that several of them are particularly important for preserving the ecological integrity of their habitats, and that their demise will amplify the negative consequences. Once again, the good news is that Mark's pro shark Zeitgeist (nice formulation!) is certainly a fact, and that there is much we the shark conservationists can do, at every level - including shark tourism where i however fully agree with Mark.

But please, sans the hyperbole and the nonsense.
This also includes abandoning the continued Asia bashing and condemning the racist undertones, and I must commend Patric on this courageous post. Yes shark fishing is still principally driven by the Asian demand for shark fins - but the killing and selling is perpetrated by others very much including us, and when I check out the recipe, I also see no requirement whatsoever that the Sharks must be finned! And let us not forget the thriving shark meat markets in places like the UK, Germany and Australia!
The anti-Asian racism must stop - and leaders, show leadership!

Anyway, as always, just a couple of thoughts.
Have a great weekend!

Marine Conservation - the principal Issues!

Just in case we lose sight of the context here.
Barring cataclysmic cosmic or geological events, these are the biggest threats to marine biodiversity - once again, very simplified.

First and foremost: there are too many people!
We are seven billion now and probably we will get as high as 9 billion, both of which is just not sustainable.
Moreover, billions of people are attempting to attain what they consider to be better life conditions, meaning that their ecological footprints are increasing as they progressively consume more resources and produce more waste. Even if we managed to stabilize or even turn around population growth, this will continue to exert tremendous pressure on biodiversity.
Those are monumental challenges indeed - solutions???
These are the root causes of all that follows.

The biggest anthropogenic threats to marine biodiversity are.

• Global Warming
• Ocean Acidification
• Pollution
• Habitat Degradation
• Overfishing including Bycatch & Discards

When it comes to Overfishing.
As far as can be ascertained, anthropogenic extinction rates so far have been substantially lower in the oceans than in terrestrial ecosystems. In fact and despite of our best efforts, there is probably not a single documented case of us having fished a marine Fish to extinction - and should there be one, it would be the exception and not the rule.
This is cause for hope.

But that's of course not the whole story.
Several Fishes have become locally extinct and the populations of many marine Fishes that have been targeted commercially are severely depleted and but a shadow of what they used to be.
There is a line of thought stipulating that those populations have accumulated extinction debt and that they could be driven into extinction by an environmental catastrophe.
That environmental catastrophe could be Global Warming.

Sharks?
They are obviously subjected to the same pressures.
In particular, several larger species are being severely overfished and although to my knowledge this has not been specifically documented, it also stands to reason that Shark populations will be affected by the overfishing of their direct prey or of even lower trophic levels like forage Fishes.
Some of those larger Sharks are also apex predators and keystone species and there is research documenting that their removal can ripple down through the trophic levels via cascading effects, hence exacerbating the ecological consequences of their demise.

This as far as I can see are the principal issues.
The problems are enormous and eminently intractable as documented by the frustratingly slow progress of conservation and above all, by the many conservation setbacks and defeats. Yes there have been many successes - but alas, everything points to the fact that in the big scheme of things, those successes are simply too small and the pace, simply too slow. Especially if we don't get a handle on Global Warming, the future for marine biodiversity looks very bleak indeed.

Solutions?
If we so wish, there is a role for each of us to play - the most basic one being that it behooves all of us who live in relative opulence to reduce our ecological footprint, including limiting our carbon emissions! And those of us who want to do more and get involved in advocacy will find unlimited opportunities to make a difference as e.g. discussed here in the case of Shark conservation.

Orgs I personally like: Shark Foundation and Save our Seas Foundation for sponsoring research; Shark Trust, Shark Savers and Shark Defenders for advocacy; Pew Environment for all of the above.

But please, let us be rational and credible.
Let's please stop the esoteric balderdash and the pseudoscience.

The sooner we do that, the sooner we will be able to effect real, positive change.
Yes?

A Glimmer of Hope?

Another fantastic collage by Vitaly - using a pic of Predator by Lill!

Found this message in my in-box this morning.

My marine conservation sensei is of course absolutely correct.
Although some highly depleted but thankfully, largely local as opposed to global Fish populations may have accumulated extinction debt and may be pushed over the brink by the double whammy of Global Warming and Ocean Acidification, we are still to unequivocally document the extinction of a single marine Fish - meaning that there is hope that most of the Fishes could indeed survive in some MPAs (Assumption 3, Solution A).
But my sensei is heavily invested genetically and has no choice but to be optimistic about the future prospects of his grandchildren. And, the next 100 years is a mighty long time - just think of all that has happened, and of the havoc we have wreaked since 1911!

Anyway, here is the message, unabridged.
Wise words indeed - but that's why he is my sensei!

Your blog of 2011/05 was a bit of a wail of despair and your facts per se are hard to refute, but one might paint many different pictures from the same pigments of fact.

Yes, consumerism is the dirty secret of modern social, economic and political stability.
Like our relatives the chimpanzee, we humans are driven to compete for the biologically important things in life, like breeding rights with Alphas of the opposite gender, by amassing resources. Glittering status things, Ferraris, and Rolex watches do work. Societies with strong economies that foster consumerism out-compete other societies, and governments that allow people the freedom to compete for and amass resources can even get away with political repression, as in China. However consumerism that draws lightly upon the accumulated resources of Earth or does not overtax the compensatory mechanisms that maintain the equilibrium of the biosphere may be compatible with maintaining a healthy natural world.
Clean energy technology may be the sort of straw that an optimist might grasp here.

The big problem, as you pointed out, is population.
Yes there are presently too many people worldwide and the inexorable spread of consumerism will only increase the strain on natural systems. However, the demographic transition, which affects all modern first world societies, is an unexpected miracle with long term effects impossible to ignore. More and more countries are moving from zero population growth to negative growth, as in Japan and southern European countries. Even many third world countries are experiencing a dramatic reduction in the number of children per family, and education and empowerment of females in patriarchal societies promises continuing demographic changes. The inertia of population growth will certainly cause grave strain on natural systems throughout this century, but the Long Run may not be bleak if we can get through this bottleneck. Nature has its own ways of controlling overpopulation as well, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse could saddle up yet again for another winnowing. Perhaps they have even started their ride in Africa now.

It is probably an unrealistic goal to protect all habitats or to maintain large populations of species like sharks everywhere.
The future of, say, Triaenodon populations in places like Cocos Island may be bleak. It may be more effective to allocate resources to protect species and key habitats, with the hope that species that can “ark” through the next 100 years and then repopulate the spaces a more enlightened humanity sets aside for them. Education does change attitudes in the long run. I am encouraged that large areas of marine environment have recently been protected. Enforcement is always a problem, but some vast areas like the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are effectively protected by the might of the US government, others like the southern Line Islands by remoteness. Species is such areas, including Triaenodon, should get through the bottleneck OK.

The SRMR is the sort of project that can play a vital role in protecting species and habitats.
Even though you seem to despair for the future, interpretation is everything and according to the guardedly optimistic picture I have painted from facts and trends, the work you and others are doing may yet provide our descendents the resources necessary to help restore balance in the natural world.

Shark Conservation - Posters or Condoms?

I’ve been planning to blog about this for a while now.
Thing is, I have been delaying it because despite of now countless conversations with conservationists, I have no answers and the more I think about it, the more I get depressed – but this is eminently important and we all need to give it some heavy thought.
So without further ado – and yes this is gonna be long!

Lemme start with a few examples first.

Australia.
In New South Wales, a politician is rolling back years of efforts to halt the decline in the number of critically endangered Grey Nurse Sharks. She is the new Fisheries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson, a recreational fisherman who is apparently doing it to keep her pre-election promise to the Fishers and Shooters Party. This is happening in the face of clear evidence that any fishing will harm the sharks even when they are not being targeted but also, in the face of the fact that like other Grey Nurse aggregation sites, South West Rocks is not only a critical habitat but also, a Shark diving hot spot supporting a thriving eco-tourism industry of dive ops and ancillary businesses, and thus contributing substantially to the local economy.
The fishermen couldn’t care less of course – MPAs always harbor more Fishes and despite of the beneficial (incidentally, to them!) spillover effects, they will always try and get their hand directly on the resource, and screw the future and the long term sustainability of their own activity!

The most frustrating aspect?
Here, we got all the elements for successful Shark conservation: irrefutable science, sustainable income from a thriving ecotourism industry and a wealthy country that could afford to put the necessary measures into place. How can we then go to poor countries where people do not fish for fun, but in order to survive, and tell them to protect Sharks if we fail so miserably at home!

Chagos.
Great achievement by the Pew and others in having the islands declared the largest MPA in the Indian Ocean and quite possibly, in the world!
But, Mauritius wants Great Britain to give back the islands and is apparently suing, and the Chagossians want to be allowed to go back, incidentally straight into having to face issues of sea level rise (?).
I believe this to be largely posturing in order to get (even more) compensation – but what will happen to the MPA if they succeed?

Palau.
Once again, great achievement by the always too modest Pew - and yes, by Dermot, too!
And what about the other ghost writers, supporters, petitioners, congratulators etc? Yes, well, hmmm…. – but I’m digressing as always.
Thing is, apart from the ongoing issue of enforcement, what is going to happen down the line? The accolades will cease, President Toribiong’s term will expire, new people will be voted into parliament. Let’s never forget that Shark protection in Palau came to be at the very last minute, when a proposal to allow Shark fishing was defeated and turned into something positive in 2009 – read these blog posts starting with the last one!
What safeguards are there in Palau to prevent that the decision to establish the sanctuary will not be overturned in the future – and incidentally, that this will not happen to any of the recent Shark sanctuaries the Pew has helped to establish?

Fiji?
The SRMR and our other initiatives are a great conservation success and the direct benefits in terms of cash flow, employment etc to the resource owners but also, the indirect benefits to the country and the community at large will always be much higher than the proceeds from fishing. I thus remain hopeful that this specific venture has all the elements for being long-term sustainable as it will always be in the very interest of everybody involved to keep it alive.
But, there are always obscure village politics at play, and possibly, issues of corruption, and there is thus always the possibility that somebody could be taking irrational decisions one day in the future. And, there is always a risk of a Shark bite and of the ensuing backlash all the way to closing us down and thus destroying the source of the cash flow which is a vital component in this specific venture.

And here are some observations.

The countries where people have a lot of children are the poor countries.
Within the communities, the families with a lot of children are the poor families.
Starting with the US Bible Belt, the ignorants are the top breeders: having a lot of children is not only correlated to, and creates poverty, it is highly correlated to lack of education, lack of empowerment of women and yes, often religious bigotry.
And yet, it appears that no one of those in charge is willing, or capable of addressing the issue - especially in those countries that are most affected! Right now, we are approx 7 billion - and the population keeps increasing, once again especially in those countries that can afford it the least.
Have a good, hard look at this link!

And then, there is this.
Remember the images from China 20 years ago? Everybody was wearing an ugly uniform and everybody was riding a bicycle. Now, there are millions of cars and everybody who can afford it owns and peruses a mountain of stuff – and those who cannot are desperately aspiring to attain that status. And not only in China – everywhere on the planet, every single human being is trying to attain a better life which for the majority of people is expressed in being able to increase their ecological footprint, this in terms of owning more stuff and consuming more resources - but also, with the inevitable consequence that they will be creating more pollution in the process.
In general terms, this is currently being defined as Economic Growth - and even should we be able to once stabilize or even reverse population growth, the trend to increase the individual ecological footprints will very likely remain largely unchanged.
Or are we, the rich, going to try and convince the poor that they should please remain poor for our sake, and that of the environment? Or, will we the rich ever be willing to down-scale our comfort for the sake of the common good?

Total heresy – correct?
Indeed, if I look at what is happening, the big thing nowadays seems to be Poverty Alleviation as defined by the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Yes Goal number 7 mentions the need for ecological sustainability – but how will that ever be achieved if all the other goals aim at improving people’s health and life expectancy, and at having them accumulate more stuff and peruse more resources – all of which inevitably translates into increasing their individual ecological footprints?
The fact is that if everybody had the ecological footprint of a North American, it would consume the resources of not one, but several Planet Earths already!
I’m all for having people attain a better life – but unless somebody starts talking publicly and unequivocally about the problem of population growth and the absolute need not only not to increase, but to drastically shrink those numbers, we are truly and inescapably doomed - and much of this planet along with us!

No I’m not talking about extreme measures à la China.
I’m talking about conducting a robust public conversation aimed at achieving a consensus about the absolute necessity to have fewer babies – and about the absolute necessity to consume fewer resources, and this by everybody everywhere!
Ultimately, this is not a choice – it is the only way forward!

These are the twin 800-Pound conservation Gorillas.
I’ve mentioned them here and added that they are not my fight – but for a while now, I’ve started to wonder.

The fact is that from everything I see, the Conservation movement just doesn’t want to know.
Is it the consequence of the all-pervasive and alas, seemingly inevitable Political Correctness of the big NGOs? Whatever the reasons, the fact is that instead of addressing the causes, we continue to limit our efforts to trying to fight the consequences.

But is this smart and above all, is it long term sustainable?
Right now, we’re the proverbial Dutch boy trying to plug the leak in the dike with his finger – but new leaks keep springing up, there’s only so many heroic little boys, and the resources (Assumption 6) for fixing the dam are limited. With that in mind, should we not instead focus on alleviating the water pressure behind the dike?
Yes I know, total Anathema!

Believe it or not, the above was merely an introduction! :)
What I really want to talk about is this post by the always brilliant CJA Bradshaw, and this article it references. They deal with human ( = population- ) growth and with economic growth ( = largely, under the present terms, the growth of ecological footprints) and I ask you to also read the links and the comments, some of which are brilliant.

Each time environmentalists rally to defend an endangered habitat, and finally win the battle to designate it as a park “forever,” as Nature Conservancy puts it, the economic growth machine turns to surrounding lands and exploits them ever more intensively, causing more species loss than ever before, putting even more lands under threat. For each acre of land that comes under protection, two acres are developed, and 40% of all species lie outside of parks. Nature Conservancy Canada may indeed have “saved” – at least for now – two million acres [my addendum: that's 809371 hectares], but many more millions have been ruined. And the ruin continues, until, once more, on a dozen other fronts, development comes knocking at the door of a forest, or a marsh or a valley that many hold sacred. Once again, environmentalists, fresh from an earlier conflict, drop everything to rally its defence, and once again, if they are lucky, yet another section of land is declared off-limits to logging, mining and exploration.
They are like a fire brigade that never rests, running about, exhausted, trying to extinguish one brush fire after another, year after year, decade after decade, winning battles but losing the war.

Despite occasional setbacks, the growth machine continues more furiously, and finally, even lands which had been set aside “forever” come under pressure.
As development gets closer, the protected land becomes more valuable, and more costly to protect. Then government, under the duress of energy and resource shortages and the dire need for royalties and revenue, caves in to allow industry a foothold, then a chunk, then another. Yosemite Park, Hamber Provincial Park, Steve Irwin Park [my addendum - even the mention of this man is an insult to biodiversity conservation]… the list goes on.

There is no durable sanctuary from economic growth.
Any park that is made by legislation can be unmade by legislation. Governments change and so do circumstances. But growth continues and natural capital [my addendum: see my post on this term and others] shrinks. And things are not even desperate yet.

Now, compare it to the examples on top.

Solutions?
Alas, as I said, I don’t have the answers – apart from the fact that we cannot continue to pretend that it is not happening.
Me, I need not worry: I won’t personally experience the worst consequences, I’m the last of my gene pool with no intention of procreating, my ecological footprint has shrunk by orders of magnitude and even BAD is a pillar of sustainability, this largely thanks to Mangroves for Fiji where we’re about to declare ourselves completely carbon neutral – and we’re already mulling the next big project!

With that in mind, will I get involved and detracted from Shark conservation? Hell, no - it is already plenty difficult, time consuming and often frustrating as it is!
Makes me sometimes wonder why I bother! :)

But you other guys who are genetically invested and are trying to hand down something to the future generations - even if it may be little more than just a modicum of HOPE?

Think about it.
Then, go out and DO something!

One more Big One!

Yes: there's yet another 800 lb conservation Gorilla out there!

This is the immediate consequence of population growth and even more than that, of the fact that everybody wants to increase his ecological footprint. Specifically, all those people in the emerging economies want a "better life", including more and better food - and although this video is about Agriculture, the same obviously applies to Fisheries!