Full Text Of News Articles

'Dawn Patrol' scouting for nesting turtles
May 23, 2004, Maui News

KIHEI - "Dawn Patrol" volunteers are scouting the beaches of South Maui for nesting sea turtles, according to Glynnis Nakai at Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge.
No turtles were reported nesting last year, but the famously regular Maui Girl - Turtle 5690 - has already begun her biennial landings to lay eggs in Lahaina.

Both green sea turtles like 5690 and hawksbill turtles nest on Maui, on both West Maui and South Maui beaches.

For the past nine years, volunteers have checked South Maui beaches for turtles, occasionally helping hatchlings make it safely into the water.

Along the beach at Kealia, a sand fence was installed to protect the turtles from crossing the dune and to help with nesting success. Volunteers are working to restore the fence for the turtle nesting season, which runs from June through November, although 5690 jumped the gun by digging a nest May 8.

Nakai requests that beach users help to keep the fences intact by not using them to hang towels and beach equipment, or attempting to climb over the slat fences.

Volunteers for the Dawn Patrol are still being recruited. Anyone interested can call the refuge at 875-1582 or attend an orientation meeting scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday at the refuge office.

The West Maui nesting female, Turtle 5690, was tagged by naturalist George Balazs as a dinner-plate sized youngster and released off the Big Island 23 years ago.

Nothing was heard of her - and nothing still has been heard about any of the scores of classmates released at the same time - until 2000, when she dug a nest almost in front of the Lahaina Shores condominium.

She returned several times that year and then made seven nests in 2002. Radio tracking confirmed that she spends most of her time nibbling seaweed off Napili.

The radio batteries expired last year, when she did not nest, but Balazs and other turtle watchers were keeping an eye out "from a respectful distance" for a return this year, perhaps this weekend.

She did not disappoint and is expected to crawl ashore about every two weeks throughout the summer to lay 100 or more eggs each time.

Mary Jane Grady spotted 5690 on her first midnight mission, and wildlife biologist Skippy Hau of the Department of Land and Natural Resources has circled her egg site with stakes and flagging tape so the nest won't be accidentally trampled.

Balazs hopes to catch her in the act sometime this summer to put on a new transmitter, which will be only a third the size of the one glued to her back two years ago.

Although 5690 seems to ignore the bustle of Lahaina, turtles coming ashore on South Maui have had a harder time of it.

Several of the rare hawksbills have been killed after they crawled over the low dunes onto North Kihei Road. Other nests failed, probably because the sand was too dry.

In response, the Dawn Patrol and the refuge established the patrol and erected the sand fences along the shoreline from the mudflats at Maalaea to the Kealia condominiums. The fences have the dual purpose of keeping the turtles away from cars and building up the sand dune to provide an area suitable for the female turtles to dig nests.

Nakai says wind and abuse have damaged the fences, and "many individuals have contributed long, hot hours to repairing broken sections."

Anyone who spots a turtle nest should report the find to the Division of Aquatic Resources of DLNR at 243-5294; or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 875-1582.

All species of sea turtles are protected by federal laws and should not be approached or harassed.

Maui Land & Pine invests in ferry
May 20, 2004, Honolulu Advertiser

Hawaii Superferry Inc. says its interisland ferries may resemble the twin-hulled catamaran Spirit of Ontario 1, which stopped in the Islands in March en route from a shipyard in Australia to its new home port in Rochester, N.Y.

Hawaii Superferry Inc., which hopes to ferry people and cars between islands beginning in 2006, completed its first round of equity financing yesterday with a $1 million Series A convertible preferred stock investment from Maui Land & Pineapple Co. Inc.

Tim Dick, Hawaii Superferry's president and chairman, declined to say how much equity financing the company has raised so far. But he called yesterday's announcement by Maui Land & Pineapple "a substantial investment in the company, and we're delighted to have them as an investor."

Hawaii Superferry, which recently moved into the Pier 19 Ferry Terminal, hopes to raise a total of about $200 million through a combination of equity and debt, Dick said.

The two planned superferries are estimated to cost $75 million each.

David C. Cole, chairman, president and CEO of Maui Land & Pineapple, said in a statement yesterday: "We are compelled to support Hawaii Superferry at this crucial stage in the company's development. We believe (Hawaii Superferry) has the potential to dramatically enhance interisland commerce by providing fast, economical and fuel-efficient ferry service throughout the state."

Hawaii Superferry, Cole said, supports his company's "ambitions for diversified agriculture on Maui by linking our island's productive farmers with the growing statewide demand for fresh local foods."

Hawaii Superferry officials hope to provide daily nonstop service between Honolulu and Maui, Kaua'i and the Big Island at half the cost of airfare.

Whale carcass towed to sea for second time
Honolulu Advertiser, May 18, 2004

A crew worked in shark-infested waters near Ka'a'awa yesterday to remove a whale carcass that had been towed out to sea Friday but drifted back over the weekend during a storm in which tradewinds dropped and currents didn't act as expected.

At least 10 tiger sharks ranging from 10 to 15 feet in length swam near the whale as one man in the water attempted to sling a rope around the 45-foot carcass while others beat back the sharks from an 18-foot Boston Whaler.

But the four-man crew working to remove the whale wasn't fearful, said Randy Cates, 38, owner of Cates International, which towed the whale out of Kane'ohe Bay on Friday and again yesterday from Ka'a'awa.

"The bad part of this was we saw the sharks prior to doing the work," Cates said while towing the dead animal out to sea yesterday evening. "It's better to see them after you're done and are out of the water."

Right after they got under way two sharks attacked each other in a spectacular show of aggression, he said, adding that the crew was very careful when working in the oily, putrid water about 200 yards off Ka'a'awa Beach Park.

The crew worked from noon to about 2:30 p.m. before taking the carcass to a location between Kaena Point and Kaua'i, said Peter Young, chairman of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Young warned against swimming in the area where the carcass had been.

"Now that tiger sharks have been spotted around the carcass, there is a higher-than-normal risk of sharks in the inshore area," he said. "Even after the carcass is removed, the public should avoid swimming within a mile radius of the stranding site for another 24 hours to avoid possible encounters with lingering sharks."

A storm that interfered with tradewinds and currents caused the carcass to return to shore, said Jeff Walters, with DLNR Division of Aquatic Resources. Before towing the carcass out again, DLNR consulted with University of Hawai'i oceanographers to determine the best place to take the remains, Walters said.

The project will cost more than $6,000, which DLNR will pay, he said, adding that Friday's tow — also about $6,000 — was paid for by the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Case co-sponsors bill for ships’ wastewater.
The measure prohibits discharges into U.S. territorial waters
May 12, 2004, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

U.S. Rep. Ed Case has joined House colleagues in proposing national standards governing wastewater discharges from cruise ships, his office said.

Case, D-rural Oahu and neighbor islands, is a co-sponsor of H.R. 4101, the Clean Cruise Ship Act of 2004. The legislation would prohibit the discharge of sewage, graywater (galley, dishwater, bath and laundry wastewater), and bilgewater (water containing oily engine wastes) by cruise ships into U.S. territorial waters and set standards for discharge of adequately treated wastes within the U.S. exclusive economic zone (12-200 miles from land).

The bill would implement a key recommendation of the recently released report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, which noted that the cruise industry has "grown rapidly since the 1980s. By the end of 2002, U.S. ports handled 6.5 million cruise embarkations, an increase of more than 10 percent from 2001.

However, no comprehensive wastewater management regime is in place for all large passenger vessels operating in U.S. waters. Congress should amend the Clean Water Act to establish a new national regime for managing wastewater discharges from (such) vessels."

Case called the measures "a proposal whose time has clearly come. Much of the existing industry has acted responsibly to install and operate onboard wastewater treatment facilities. But the sheer volume of industry growth, nationally and especially in our Hawaii, mandates that we now provide standard nationwide expectations of all ships and all owners."

"I also believe it will be beneficial to the companies in and entering Hawaii's cruise industry in ensuring public confidence in their environmental practices, and I'm hopeful that they will be supportive," he said.

U.S. Considering Plan to Protect Whales
The Associated Press, May 25, 2004

The Bush administration is considering speed and routing restrictions for East Coast shipping to protect North Atlantic right whales, one of the world's most endangered large whales.

Officials with the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said they plan to release details by month's end of the first step in the process of issuing the new rules.

Only about 300 right whales exist, in U.S. and Canadian waters of the western North Atlantic, the species depleted largely by centuries of commercial whaling. Now, accidental collisions with ships or entanglements with nets threaten recovery. Adult right whales, which can live about 70 years, range from 45 to 60 feet long and weigh 30 to 80 tons.

``At this point, the North Atlantic right whale population status is so critical that even the loss of a single individual may impact the species' ability to recover,'' said Aleria Jensen, a fishery biologist with NOAA's Office of Protected Resources.

Jensen's office in Silver Spring, Md., which is responsible for protecting endangered marine species, intends to set uniform speed limits after receiving 60 days of public comment and holding meetings on the East Coast. Unlike many environmental regulations, this is not a response to a lawsuit.

Right whales, apparently named for a belief that they were the ``right whale'' to hunt, were much hunted in the past for their oil. The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986.

NOAA says there have been at least 292 ship strikes on large whales from 1975 to 2002, including 38 involving North Atlantic right whales. That's partly because the whales are slow-moving, love shallow water and spend time on the water's surface, often in shipping lanes.

An environmental group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, says ship strikes are on the rise because of increasing coastal ship traffic, smaller crew size, bigger vessels, faster speeds and deafening underwater noise that obscures approaching propellers.

Options for protecting the last right whales, NOAA officials say, include rerouting vessels around the highest-risk areas, restricting ship speeds to not-yet-determined levels in those areas or changing their routes to minimize the time spent in whale areas.

Affected vessels would be 65 feet or longer or weighing more than 300 gross tons, but the limits would be imposed only in areas where the whales were present.

After outlining the options, NOAA plans to complete a six-month environmental assessment of potential impacts and then propose the new regulations by early 2005.

``The goal is to reduce the overlap of ships and whales, but we have limited management options,'' Jensen said. ``We're trying to balance this between maximum protection for the whales and minimal impact on the industry.''

Hubert Wiesenmaier, executive director of American Import Shippers Association Inc. in New Rochelle, N.Y., said the new rules would make nobody in the industry really happy, but officials will adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

``The impact on transit time is always important for cargo owners,'' he said. But, he added, ``Nobody would say, `Go full steam ahead, hit the whales, because it costs us money.'''

Bruce Russell, a retired Coast Guard officer in Chevy Chase, Md., recommended in an August 2001 report that ships reduce their usual speeds of 14-25 mph to a range of 10-15 mph in whale areas. He said the new rules are estimated to cost the billion-dollar shipping industry $10 million to $20 million a year.

Oslo wants more whaling to boost fish stocks
May 18, 2004, Reuters

Norway's parliament has called for a three-fold increase in whale hunting quotas in a move it said would protect stocks of cod and other fish eaten by the giant mammals.

Norway, along with Japan and Iceland, harpoons whales despite the International Whaling Commission (IWC) declaring a moratorium nearly two decades ago.

"We want to increase quotas," Fisheries Minister Svein Ludvigsen told parliament on Tuesday, which unanimously passed a non-binding resolution urging Oslo to raise minke whale catches "considerably" as soon as possible.

Whalers rejoiced at the prospect that annual quotas might rise to the 1960s-70s average of 1,800 minke whales from 670 in 2004. But the WWF environment group denounced the plans, saying that Norway was blaming whales for its own over-fishing.

The resolution proposed a rise in line with recommendations from Norwegian researchers who said Norway could catch 1,800 whales a year from a North Atlantic stock they estimated at 107,000 animals.

Oslo says that minke whales are plentiful, damage commercial fish stocks and do not need to be kept on endangered lists -- unlike species like the sperm whale or blue whale, the biggest creature on the planet.

Parliament's resolution said that seals and whales eat at least 5.5 million tonnes of fish and krill a year, double the tonnage caught by fishermen. Killing one minke whale could enable a five tonne hike in catches of cod or herring, it said.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said Norway was blaming whales for its own over-fishing. Last week it warned fish quotas are unsustainable and cod could become extinct in 15 years.

"The problem with Norwegian fisheries is over-harvesting by fishermen. To kill more marine mammals to camouflage that is a very bad idea," said Rasmus Hansson, WWF's secretary general in Norway.

Ludvigsen said IWC estimates of minke whale stocks implied Oslo could raise North Atlantic catches to 750 animals, but Oslo would resort to the higher Norwegian catch estimates if the IWC would not sanction Oslo's hunts.

"I share your impatience," Ludvigsen said, but added that it was too late to raise the 2004 quota.

Ludvigsen also said that Oslo wanted to start scientific research on other types of whales, marking them with satellite transmitters to assess stocks in a possible prelude to hunts.

Group prepared to sue over right whales
May 14, 2004 , THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANCHORAGE - A conservation group said Thursday it is prepared to sue a federal agency for failing to do more to protect a group of very rare North Pacific right whales in the Bering Sea.

The Center for Biological Diversity this week submitted a 60-day notice to the National Marine Fisheries Service over what it says is a breach of promise to protect the whales first sighted in 1996.

The center contends NMFS made several promises in 2002 that it didn't keep, including coming up with a recovery plan and continuing annual surveys.

"The Fisheries Service has abdicated its responsibility to protect this species," said center attorney Brent Plater. "Instead of following through on its promises, the service has actually stopped looking for this species and actively thwarted research efforts that aim to better understand the whales."

NMFS spokeswoman Sheela McLean said the agency has several projects planned this summer to learn more about the right whales seen summers in the southeastern Bering Sea.

The projects include an expanded survey to find them, a satellite tagging project to learn about migration, biopsy tissue collection for genetic analysis and deployment of underwater equipment to record whale calls.

"It's our responsibility to aid the recovery of these whales. We take it seriously," McLean said. "They are so few in number, so reclusive, so remote and so difficult to study."

Progress has been slow because of the agency's noninvasive research methods, she said.

Right whales both in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans were hunted nearly to extinction before coming under international protection in 1949. The whales, deemed the "right whales" to find by hunters, were prized for their oil and baleen.

According to NMFS, there likely are fewer than 100 North Pacific right whales in U.S. waters. There may also be a few off the coasts of Russia and Japan. They are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Brad Smith, a NMFS biologist in Anchorage, said the recovery of the species is uncertain. A few years ago, scientists learned that in the 1960s several hundred right whales were harvested illegally in Russia.

"That was pretty much the death blow to the stock," he said.

In 2000, the center asked NMFS to designate as critical habitat the area in the Bering Sea where the whales have been sighted summers since 1996, Plater said. The agency declined to do that but instead promised to do other things that weren't accomplished, he said.

"We have been sitting patiently since 2002," he said. "They simply won't do the things they promised until a court orders them to."

Smith said the agency could not grant the center's request for critical habitat because not enough is known about North Pacific right whales.

"We are at such a low level of understanding of these whales," Smith said.

Part of the problem is that until recently the North Atlantic right whale, estimated at between 300 and 350 animals, was considered the same species as the North Pacific right whale. Scientists know differently now, but there's still a lot to learn about the North Pacific right whale, he said.

The whales were first spotted by a NMFS research vessel eight years ago. All the whales were male, indicative of a "horribly endangered stock of animals," Smith said.

NMFS is working on a draft recovery plan for the species, which was supposed to have been available for public comment in 2002. Smith said he was not sure when it would be done.

‘Scientific’ whale hunts condemned
13 May 2004, The Green Consumer Guide

Imminent whale hunts by the Norwegian and Japanese governments have been roundly criticised by environmental group Greenpeace, which called the practice ‘absurd’. The two expeditions will begin next week, despite widespread international opposition.

Norway’s commercial hunt has a quota of 670 minke whales, while the Japanese scientific hunt will take 210 minke, sei and sperm whales. The reasoning behind both hunts has been questioned as Norway’s whale meat market is still supported with 2003 stock, and despite Japan’s ‘scientific’ approach, more than $52m (£29m) worth of meat was sold in the region last year.

"The real reason behind the hunt is the absurd and unscientific claim that whales are eating too many fish and as a result harming fisheries. Whales are a natural part of the ecosystem and the real cause of declining fish catches is over fishing, not hungry whales," said John Frizell of Greenpeace.

"Commercial whaling has always been a disaster for whales. The only management scheme for whaling that shows any signs of success is the moratorium on commercial whaling and we want it maintained," he added.

U.S. eased rules on tuna despite bribery claim
April 28, 2004, San Francisco Chronicle

The U.S. Commerce Department has been aware for five years of allegations that government observers on Mexican tuna-fishing boats were regularly taking $10,000 bribes to concoct false reports that they were not netting dolphins, according to an internal agency e-mail obtained by The Chronicle.

Bush administration lawyers have argued that the allegations were not relevant to the government's 2002 decision to relax restrictions on foreign- caught tuna. The decision allows tuna caught by foreign boats that set nets on dolphins -- which follow the fish -- to be sold in U.S. as dolphin-safe, provided the dolphins are released.

Critics say the e-mail demonstrates that the Bush administration ignored key evidence and that its decision undermined longstanding environmental protections.

"The whole basis for protecting dolphins in countries that set nets on them is that there are reliable observers on board," said Mark Palmer of Earth Island Institute, a San Francisco environmental group. "If the observers are being bribed, obviously, the entire program falls apart."

Last year, after Earth Island challenged the government's decision, an injunction by Judge Thelton Henderson of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco prevented implementation of the rule.

For more than a decade, the dolphin-safe label has guaranteed U.S. consumers that the tuna they are buying was caught by nets that did not trap dolphins. Before U.S. regulation to protect them, dolphins that swim above schools of tuna in the eastern tropical Pacific were dying by the hundreds of thousands a year.

The government says current dolphin kills are less than 1,500 a year. But dolphin species that were depleted by decades of losses have not recovered -- a critical fact in the current case and one that the government says it can't explain.

Commerce Secretary Donald Evans ordered the rule change under a 1997 law that allowed dolphin-safe standards to be relaxed if supported by scientific research. Government lawyers have stated in court documents that the Commerce Department had "not considered or relied upon" the e-mail in reaching its decision to relax the standards.

The 1999 e-mail was between staff members for the National Marine Fisheries Service, a branch of the Commerce Department. It noted that there were plausible reports that observers on Mexican tuna boats operating under the authority of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission routinely were taking $10,000 bribes to falsify data on dolphin nettings.

A copy of the e-mail was provided to The Chronicle by Earth Island Institute.

According to the e-mail, an American fisherman who worked aboard Mexican tuna boats was interviewed by federal fisheries biologists. The fisherman claimed that "although they always had observers on board, it was common knowledge throughout the fleet that the observers were regularly paid off to misreport what happened during the cruise."

The e-mail noted that the observers weren't being bribed to ignore dolphin deaths "...because they apparently have relatively few. ... They were instead paid substantial sums of money to report their dolphin-caught tuna as 'dolphin-safe' when they were actually being caught on dolphins."

On April 15, Judge Henderson called government arguments that the e-mail was irrelevant to the rule "specious."

"Documents ... that go to the reliability or credibility of data relied upon by the decisionmaker are plainly relevant. ... The government's failure to acknowledge this point is deeply troubling and reveals a glaring omission in the manner in which the record was compiled," Henderson wrote.

Maureen Rudolph, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney who represented the Commerce Department in the case, said she could not comment on the matter because it is being litigated. Justice Department spokesman Blain Rethmeier said government attorneys are responding to Henderson's order and are providing all documents relevant to the case.

Palmer of Earth Island had obtained the e-mail from Defenders of Wildlife, another environmental group. The e-mail had been submitted by the government as part of its documentation in its response to a separate lawsuit Defenders of Wildlife had filed on tuna rules.

David Burney, executive director of the US Tuna Foundation, a group that represents the interests of the American canned tuna industry, said the possibility of corrupt observers "is extremely serious, and it's certainly relevant to any review of the case. I would think it would have a real bearing on what it means to be dolphin-safe, and ultimately (Commerce's) position. It should make the government take a harder look at this."

Burney said American tuna processors support the more stringent definition of dolphin-safe promoted by Earth Island Institute and other environmental groups. "We absolutely will not buy dolphin-encircled tuna," he said. "It's clear to us that U.S. consumers don't want it. I think any move in that direction would cause a big outcry."

Whale Wok, Burgers Seek to Lure Dulled Appetites
Reuters, May 11, 2004

OSLO - Chinese whale stir fry? U.S.-style whale burgers? Italian whale with pasta? Whale with Mexican tortillas?

Whalers are scouring global recipe books to spice up the mammals' meat in Norway and Japan, the two main whaling nations where unenthusiastic demand may be a bigger long-term threat to the hunts than any amount of foreign criticism.

Norway's 2004 hunt of 670 minke whales started last week, but piles of frozen meat from the 2003 season is still in stores a decade after Oslo broke with an international moratorium and resumed commercial hunts in 1993, setting its own quotas.

And in Japan, which caught 440 minke whales for what it calls scientific research in a season ended in March, whale consumption is on a long-term decline despite slogans like "Save them. Eat them" meant to whet new appetites.

Whale meat has some fervent devotees but reminds many others of post-war austerity when it was a cheap source of protein. Many young people, meanwhile, have never acquired a taste for the tough and gamey sea mammal meat.

"I hated whale meat as a child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s when it was cheap and my family ate it once a week. It tasted like cod liver oil," said Bente Sund, 48, who lives in Oslo. She said she had not touched whale since the 1970s.

In Norway, supermarkets have turned to brochures suggesting novel recipes from stroganoff to hamburgers. Whale in Mexican tortilla wraps, for instance, suggests strips of fried whale with taco sauce and accompanied with red pepper and lettuce.

In Japan, one whale recipe book includes whale kebabs, whale with noodles, sushi, whale soup, whale fried rice or even canned whalemeat sandwiches.

Whaling nations say that stocks of minke whales are plentiful, unlike endangered species such as the giant blue whale, and do not need protection under a moratorium on all hunts by the International Whaling Commission since 1986.

They reject arguments by many nations that harpooning whales is cruel or that humans should respect the largest creatures on the planet - bigger than any dinosaur - after driving many close to extinction.

Environmentalists opposed to the hunts say that whale demand is falling and that the hunts will halt for lack of interest.

"In the end the market will finish off the hunts," said Frode Pleym at Greenpeace. Greenpeace says that whale watching would bring in far more money than the hunts.

No one has an overview of how much whale meat is still left from 2003 in Norway. Whalers sold their catch to supermarkets, who decline to divulge stocks.

Norwegian whalers say that warnings last year from health authorities that pregnant women should avoid whale meat because of high mercury content did not help sales. Scientists also said the blubber had toxic chemicals known as PCBs.

"I think sales are going relatively well. But there is a lot of work to do on marketing," said Rune Froevik, spokesman for the High North Alliance which lobbies for Arctic hunters.

Norway's total whale meat production is about 1,000 tonnes, or roughly 200 grams (7.0 ounces) or one meal a year for each of Norway's 4.5 million inhabitants. "It should be easy to triple consumption," Froevik said.

In Japan, consumption has been falling since World War II.

And 440 minke whales among 125 million Japanese means per capita consumption is tiny. From being an important source of cheap protein served in schools as recently as the 1960s or 1970s, it has become a costly item for gourmets.

Japan, Norway and whaling newcomer Iceland, which harpooned 36 minke whales last year after a 14-year break, have said that they have felt minimal economic impact - for instance on tourism - from foreign criticisms of the hunts.

Apart from minkes, Japan also does so-called survey whaling often to catch more controversial species like sperm whales, sei whales and Bryde's whales. Those surveys are due to start in June, an official at the Fisheries Agency said.

"Some people look at it as a tough, macho food," said Thor Edvard Kalsaas, spokesman for Norway's fish sales association which advertises whale recipes on the Internet at http://www.hvalbiff.no.

He said men liked whale meat more than women. And some look to Japan for culinary inspiration.

"In the summer I eat it raw as sashimi with wasabi sauce," Froevik said. "Grilled is also very good."

Shrimp farms 'harm poor nations'
May 19, 2004, BBC News

Growing consumer demand for shrimp is fuelling an environmental crisis in some of the world's poorest nations, according to a new report.

The Environmental Justice Foundation claims it has exposed wide-ranging environmental damage that can be directly attributed to shrimp farming. It claims shrimp farming is destroying wetlands, polluting the land and oceans and depleting wild fish stocks.

Millions of people depend on the fish stocks for their food and livelihoods.

Steve Trent, director of EJF, said the environmental damage had occurred as a result of a "get-rich quick" attitude by shrimp farmers. He added that governments and development agencies were encouraging this behaviour.

"It is time for the seafood industry and governments to take a stand and end these abuses," he commented.

"To fail to do so will spell long-term disaster for some of the world's poorest, marginalized coastal communities and for unique wildlife habitats."

The EJF report claims that as much as 38% of global mangrove destruction is linked to shrimp farm development. Global mangrove deforestation rates now exceed those of tropical rainforests. The damage is being caused by pollution and by clearing of the vegetation to make way for new farms.

Chemical pollutants used in the process include antibiotics, fertilisers, disinfectants and pesticides, which could be harming human health as well as the environment, the report's authors say.

Salt water from the farms also seems to be changing the composition of local soils, they add.

Shrimp farming can adversely affect wild fish stocks through pollution and destruction of wetlands, through unsustainable levels of bycatch during shrimp collection from the sea and through the introduction of diseases.

But Dr Janet Brown, a UK expert on shrmp farming from the University of Stirling's Institute of Aquaculture, cautioned about some of the report's main points.

"The issue is very complicated. Shrimp farming is different in every country it's carried out in," she told BBC News Online.

"There's actually no advantage for people to build shrimp farms in mangrove areas; they only do that because it's common land that they can get hold of cheaply."

Dr Brown added that there were relatively few studies on the impacts of shrimp farming.

For example, one scientific study carried out in 1996 on the shrimp farming industry in Honduras found that there was more mangrove clearance due to burning of the wood for charcoal than to shrimp farming.

The EJF report claims that export-orientated shrimp aquaculture has been promoted by aid agencies, financial organisations and governments as a path for developing countries to reach development targets and alleviate poverty. But the environmental group criticises the lack of planning and regulation on these local industries.

Shrimp farming is worth $6.9bn (£3.8bn) at the farm gate and $50-60bn (£28-33bn) at the point of retail. Shrimp are farmed in 50 countries, the vast majority of which are developing countries.

In 2000, the leading producers were Thailand, China, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Ecuador, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Mexico and Brazil. In 2001, the UK imported 83,196 tonnes of shrimp worth over £353m.

Don't count hatchery salmon as wild, House members tell Bush
The News Tribune , May 21, 2004

WASHINGTON - Seventy-five House members Thursday called for the Bush administration to drop its proposal to count hatchery raised salmon as wild stocks when considering federal protections for West Coast runs.

In a letter to the Department of Commerce, the lawmakers said the administration's proposed change runs counter to the findings of numerous independent scientists who have concluded hatchery fish are genetically different from wild salmon.

The lawmakers said hatcheries can help provide recreational, commercial and tribal fishing opportunities. But they said the change could "jeopardize wild salmon stocks under the false assumption that artificial propagation and supplementation are sufficient enough to bypass any need to protect, restore and conserve salmon habitat."

In drafting its new salmon policy, the administration is considering lumping together hatchery fish with their wild counterparts in deciding whether to protect runs under the Endangered Species Act. Hundreds of millions of hatchery-bred salmon are released into West Coast rivers and streams annually.

Administration officials, in a letter last week, sought to reassure lawmakers the new policy will not be used to drop federal protections for 25 of the 26 salmon runs listed as endangered or threatened. The status of the other run, mid-Columbia steelhead, has not been determined.

But lawmakers remained skeptical.

At a news conference, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Belfair) said the administration's proposal was irresponsible, arguing there were "dramatic genetic differences" between hatchery fish and wild ones. Dicks said the new salmon policy was hatched by administration officials with links to the timber industry who have never supported efforts to restore essential salmon habitat.

"I worry that by counting hatchery salmon, we will not be taking a true measure of the state of the aquatic environment and therefore we will not be certain whether we have done enough to sustain these wild salmon runs," he said.

Other lawmakers said that counting hatchery bred and wild salmon together was like counting "fish sticks" as wild salmon.

"It will impose a death sentence on wild fish," said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) adding that the proposal was a "backroom and sneaky deal" to overturn credible science.

Calling hatchery fish "salmon on steroids," Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island) said fish bred in captivity depend on human intervention for their survival.

"Washington state and the rest of America deserve first-class salmon, not second-class salmon," he said.

Dicks said lawmakers were trying to open a dialogue with the administration on the hatchery issue. "We are trying to work with them and give them a chance to do the right thing," he said. "But we preserve our options to take legislative action."

Of the 75 House members signing the letter, 70 were Democrats and five were Republicans.

Seychelles Court Sends Turtle Poachers to Jail
May 21, 2004, Reuters

VICTORIA - Six men found guilty of poaching marine turtles in Seychelles were sentenced to two years in jail as part of a drive to crack down on the illegal trade, police said Thursday.

The Indian Ocean archipelago hosts globally important populations of marine turtles, with four of the world's eight species found in the region.

But despite a government ban protecting the sea turtles, their meat is still sold on a lucrative black market. It is considered a delicacy and served in soup, curry or stir-fry.

Police said the six men were found with a total of 3,126 pounds of turtle flesh and were sentenced Wednesday to two years in jail -- the maximum penalty for poaching offences.

"We are happy that our hard efforts to crack down on turtle poachers have provided results," said police spokesman Jean Touissant. "We hope it will serve as a lesson to others."

Two of the men were also charged with killing 40 protected boobies, a bird endemic to the Seychelles.

It was the second time turtle poachers in Seychelles have been convicted. In March, five men were fined $7,000 each for possessing turtle meat.

Study finds oceans of old plastic
May 7, 2004, The Guardian

Humans are smearing the oceans with plastic, according to British scientists who sifted shorelines to find microscopic fragments of stockings, yoghurt pots, rope, shopping bags and bleach bottles everywhere they looked.

The spread of polymer waste has been reported before: researchers have surveyed beaches on completely uninhabited islands in the Antarctic and found plastic cups, polymer sandals and cordial bottles wherever they have looked.

But Richard Thompson and colleagues at the University of Plymouth report in Science today that they looked at apparently clean sand and mud on British beaches, in intertidal estuaries and even under nine metres (30ft) of water for evidence of invisible pollution.

"We found microscopic fragments almost from the first sample. Since then we have looked at more than 20 sites around the UK and this material has been present at all of them, from Land's End to the north of Scotland," he said. "We are finding just as much in remote parts as we are nearer the big centres."

They found that microscopic fragments of plastic had been ingested by barnacles - which filter water for food - and in lugworms that burrow in mud, and tiny crustaceans that feed on detritus. In plankton samples they found evidence of polymer fibres as small as 30 millionths of a metre.

Plastics wash up on beaches to be repeatedly broken by the pounding waves. The team searched for nylon, polyester, acrylic and six other kinds of polymer with a clear chemical "signature". But they believe they have underestimated the spread of human debris.

They could not identify plastics produced more than 20 years ago, and they could not pick up evidence of particles smaller than 20 microns. But they have clear evidence that long after plastic bags, nylon ropes and Tupperware boxes have vanished, their constituent fragments remain. Nobody knows whether this material can get into the food chain: that is the next line of research.

"If we look at the larger plastic debris accumulating on the shoreline, the most common items are things like plastic bags and boxes and packaging and, ironically, they are all items that needn't be there," Dr Thompson said. "So there is a challenge to all of us to reduce the amount of disposable plastic we use, to recycle things as much as possible."

U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences
May 3, 2004, The New York Times

The United States has started to lose its worldwide dominance in critical areas of science and innovation, according to federal and private experts who point to strong evidence like prizes awarded to Americans and the number of papers in major professional journals.

Foreign advances in basic science now often rival or even exceed America's, apparently with little public awareness of the trend or its implications for jobs, industry, national security or the vigor of the nation's intellectual and cultural life.

"The rest of the world is catching up," said John E. Jankowski, a senior analyst at the National Science Foundation, the federal agency that tracks science trends. "Science excellence is no longer the domain of just the U.S."

Even analysts worried by the trend concede that an expansion of the world's brain trust, with new approaches, could invigorate the fight against disease, develop new sources of energy and wrestle with knotty environmental problems. But profits from the breakthroughs are likely to stay overseas, and this country will face competition for things like hiring scientific talent and getting space to showcase its work in top journals.

One area of international competition involves patents. Americans still win large numbers of them, but the percentage is falling as foreigners, especially Asians, have become more active and in some fields have seized the innovation lead. The United States' share of its own industrial patents has fallen steadily over the decades and now stands at 52 percent.

A more concrete decline can be seen in published research. Physical Review, a series of top physics journals, recently tracked a reversal in which American papers, in two decades, fell from the most to a minority. Last year the total was just 29 percent, down from 61 percent in 1983.

China, said Martin Blume, the journals' editor, has surged ahead by submitting more than 1,000 papers a year. "Other scientific publishers are seeing the same kind of thing," he added.

Another downturn centers on the Nobel Prizes, an icon of scientific excellence. Traditionally, the United States, powered by heavy federal investments in basic research, the kind that pursues fundamental questions of nature, dominated the awards.

But the American share, after peaking from the 1960's through the 1990's, has fallen in the 2000's to about half, 51 percent. The rest went to Britain, Japan, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand.

"We are in a new world, and it's increasingly going to be dominated by countries other than the United States," Denis Simon, dean of management and technology at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, recently said at a scientific meeting in Washington.

Europe and Asia are ascendant, analysts say, even if their achievements go unnoticed in the United States. In March, for example, European scientists announced that one of their planetary probes had detected methane in the atmosphere of Mars — a possible sign that alien microbes live beneath the planet's surface. The finding made headlines from Paris to Melbourne. But most Americans, bombarded with images from America's own rovers successfully exploring the red planet, missed the foreign news.

More aggressively, Europe is seeking to dominate particle physics by building the world's most powerful atom smasher, set for its debut in 2007. Its circular tunnel is 17 miles around.

Science analysts say Asia's push for excellence promises to be even more challenging.

"It's unbelievable," Diana Hicks, chairwoman of the school of public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said of Asia's growth in science and technical innovation. "It's amazing to see these output numbers of papers and patents going up so fast."

Analysts say comparative American declines are an inevitable result of rising standards of living around the globe.

"It's all in the ebb and flow of globalization," said Jack Fritz, a senior officer at the National Academy of Engineering, an advisory body to the federal government. He called the declines "the next big thing we will have to adjust to."

The rapidly changing American status has not gone unnoticed by politicians, with Democrats on the attack and the White House on the defensive.

"We stand at a pivotal moment," Tom Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader, recently said at a policy forum in Washington at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's top general science group. "For all our past successes, there are disturbing signs that America's dominant position in the scientific world is being shaken."

Mr. Daschle accused the Bush administration of weakening the nation's science base by failing to provide enough money for cutting-edge research.

The president's science adviser, John H. Marburger III, who attended the forum, strongly denied that charge, saying in an interview that overall research budgets during the Bush administration have soared to record highs and that the science establishment is strong.

"The sky is not falling on science," Dr. Marburger said. "Maybe there are some clouds — no, things that need attention." Any problems, he added, are within the power of the United States to deal with in a way that maintains the vitality of the research enterprise.

Analysts say Mr. Daschle and Dr. Marburger can both supply data that supports their positions.

A major question, they add, is whether big spending automatically translates into big rewards, as it did in the past. During the cold war, the government pumped more than $1 trillion into research, with a wealth of benefits including lasers, longer life expectancies, men on the Moon and the prestige of many Nobel Prizes.

Today, federal research budgets are still at record highs; this year more than $126 billion has been allocated to research. Moreover, American industry makes extensive use of federal research in producing its innovations and adds its own vast sums of money, the combination dwarfing that of any other nation or bloc.

But the edifice is less formidable than it seems, in part because of the nation's costly and unique military role. This year, financing for military research hit $66 billion, higher in fixed dollars than in the cold war and far higher than in any other country.

For all the spending, the United States began to experience a number of scientific declines in the 1990's, boom years for the nation's overall economy.

For instance, scientific papers by Americans peaked in 1992 and then fell roughly 10 percent, the National Science Foundation reports. Why? Many analysts point to rising foreign competition, as does the European Commission, which also monitors global science trends. In a study last year, the commission said Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990's as the world's largest producer of scientific literature.

Dr. Hicks of Georgia Tech said that American scientists, when top journals reject their papers, usually have no idea that rising foreign competition may be to blame.

On another front, the numbers of new doctorates in the sciences peaked in 1998 and then fell 5 percent the next year, a loss of more than 1,300 new scientists, according to the foundation.

A minor exodus also hit one of the hidden strengths of American science: vast ranks of bright foreigners. In a significant shift of demographics, they began to leave in what experts call a reverse brain drain. After peaking in the mid-1990's, the number of doctoral students from China, India and Taiwan with plans to stay in the United States began to fall by the hundreds, according to the foundation.

These declines are important, analysts say, because new scientific knowledge is an engine of the American economy and technical innovation, its influence evident in everything from potent drugs to fast computer chips.

Patents are a main way that companies and inventors reap commercial rewards from their ideas and stay competitive in the marketplace while improving the lives of millions.

Foreigners outside the United States are playing an increasingly important role in these expressions of industrial creativity. In a recent study, CHI Research, a consulting firm in Haddon Heights, N.J., found that researchers in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea now account for more than a quarter of all United States industrial patents awarded each year, generating revenue for their own countries and limiting it in the United States.

Moreover, their growth rates are rapid. Between 1980 and 2003, South Korea went from 0 to 2 percent of the total, Taiwan from 0 to 3 percent and Japan from 12 to 21 percent.

"It's not just lots of patents," Francis Narin, CHI's president, said of the Asian rise. "It's lots of good patents that have a high impact," as measured by how often subsequent patents cite them.

Recently, Dr. Narin added, both Taiwan and Singapore surged ahead of the United States in the overall number of citations. Singapore's patents include ones in chemicals, semiconductors, electronics and industrial tools.

China represents the next wave, experts agree, its scientific rise still too fresh to show up in most statistics but already apparent. Dr. Simon of Rensselaer said that about 400 foreign companies had recently set up research centers in China, with General Electric, for instance, doing important work there on medical scanners, which means fewer skilled jobs in America.

Ross Armbrecht, president of the Industrial Research Institute, a nonprofit group in Washington that represents large American companies, said businesses were going to China not just because of low costs but to take advantage of China's growing scientific excellence.

"It's frightening," Dr. Armbrecht said. "But you've got to go where the horses are." An eventual danger, he added, is the slow loss of intellectual property as local professionals start their own businesses with what they have learned from American companies.

For the United States, future trends look challenging, many analysts say.

In a report last month, the American Association for the Advancement of Science said the Bush administration, to live up to its pledge to halve the nation's budget deficit in the next five years, would cut research financing at 21 of 24 federal agencies — all those that do or finance science except those involved in space and national and domestic security.

More troubling to some experts is the likelihood of an accelerating loss of quality scientists. Applications from foreign graduate students to research universities are down by a quarter, experts say, partly because of the federal government's tightening of visas after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told the recent forum audience that the drop in foreign students, the apparently declining interest of young Americans in science careers and the aging of the technical work force were, taken together, a perilous combination of developments.

"Who," she asked, "will do the science of this millennium?"

Several private groups, including the Council on Competitiveness, an organization in Washington that seeks policies to promote industrial vigor, have begun to agitate for wide debate and action.

"Many other countries have realized that science and technology are key to economic growth and prosperity," said Jennifer Bond, the council's vice president for international affairs. "They're catching up to us," she said, warning Americans not to "rest on our laurels."