Good Health suggests that good camera equipment helps people take well exposed photographs of animals.  Careful planning and good field skills help. Being able to cover enough distance to find the animals you’re looking for, and being patient while waiting for the right moment, both help.  An optimistic attitude that supports you while you wait for the right photograph is also useful.

For both people who do and don’t make wildlife photographs, if you enjoy looking at pictures of animals there’s millions of them online.  Two websites that I found this week are the following.

Nick Brandt is known for his black & white photographs that look like they could be paintings.  The music video director realized his love for East Africa when he was directing in Tanzania.  His photos are taken close to the animals, and he will track his subjects for days to get the perfect photograph. 

A sometimes amusing collection of color wildlife photographs is available through RGBPicture.  They’re worth a look.

Have a happy and safe long weekend!

Over 55,000 people registered to participate in the Cleanup in 2009, and together the volunteers removed 160,914 kg of litter.  That included 116,138 food wrappers/containers, and 74,276 plastic bags.  That’s a whole lot of plastic that is being kept from joining the continent of garbage that is polluting our ocean.

Volunteers have found some pretty strange items during the Cleanup.  Why people have left a White Spot uniform, an 18 K gold ring, and a Message in a bottle with a note saying “Please don’t litter” on the shoreline is left to our imagination.

The Cleanup started in 1994 when a small group of Vancouver Aquarium employees collected data on the shoreline litter they removed from a local beach in Stanley Park.  By 1997, it was known as the Great BC Beach Cleanup and 400 volunteers cleaned up litter from 20 sites across the Lower Mainland once a year.  This year, WWF Canada joins the program as a full partner.

On August 26 this year, unique sculptures of aquatic animals, made of garbage, appeared at Vancouver’s English Bay and Toronto’s Ashbridge’s Bay.  3 seals played on Vancouver’s beach while a school of 60 fish jumped through Toronto’s Bay.  On show for just that day, it was hoped they would help people realize that shoreline litter can have far-reaching and negative effects on ecosystems.  As well, it was about the importance of the Cleanup.

Businesses, community groups and individuals can register now for the 2010 cleanup by visiting www.shorelinecleanup.ca.  Register soon – sign up closes September 10, 2010.

The EEA has released a new assessment on coastal ecosystems, as part of their “10 messages for 2010” program.  The assessment reports that two thirds of coastal habitat types and over half of coastal species have an unfavorable conservation status.

About 50 coastal habitat types such as wetlands provide key feeding areas for migratory and other birds as well as 150 animal species that prefer coastal ecosystems.  Humans benefit from the services naturally provided by the ecosystems, for everything from food to medicines to freshwater storage to erosion control to recreational pursuits.

Human made structures such as seawalls and breakwaters cause fragmentation of populations and loss of natural habitats.  Add pollution from pesticides, aquaculture, climate change and invasive species, and the native ecosystems and animals are under threat.  Over 65% of coastal wetlands and seagrasses, and over 90% of wild native oyster reefs, have been lost.

Shorebirds and animals such as the Mediterranean monk seal are declining due to loss of habitat.  Loggerhead sea turtles are just one species that is now endangered.

Many policies and laws aim to improve management of coastal areas but they must be better streamlined in order to safeguard Europe’s coastal biodiversity, the report suggests.  Coordinated action at the global, regional and local levels will be key to sustainable management of coastal ecosystems.

Hopefully, increased conservation activities and policy-specific responses will happen and have a positive impact which helps to save the remaining coastal ecosystems and species.

The two countries are hoping to approve a protocol that includes shared actions to fight poaching of tigers and their body parts, including educational programs to stop poaching and the related captive breeding and releasing of captive tigers into the wild.

Indian officials consider the discussion important since they blame Chinese traditional medicine as the reason behind tiger poaching.  While China has officially banned trading in tiger parts, its peoples’ interest in traditional medicines fuels demand for dead tigers.  India has emphasized the need for China to refuse to yield to pressures from tiger farm owners to lift the ban against the trade.  Unfortunately, the tiger farms may have increased the demand for tiger parts.

China has just 50 tigers left in the wild, and about 5,000 on tiger farms, reports the Hindustan Times.  Officials have agreed to register all tigers to keep track of them. 

As well, India is hoping that China will join the Global Tiger Forum, a network of 13 countries that have tigers.  The forum has discussed ways to protect tigers but without China, the largest market for tiger body parts, the discussion remains simply talk.

Meanwhile, China and Russia have agreed to create the first cross border tiger conservation reserve for the rare Siberian tiger, reports International Business Times. 

Wildlife in the area is suffering from poaching, habitat destruction, and a human-caused lack of prey.  Creation of the forest reserve will save other animal species as well as the tigers.

Let’s hope that these two glimmers of hope are signs that China will become more environmentally and conservation friendly.

Regrettably, many industrial aquaculture facilities are similar to livestock factory farms in that they house large numbers of animals in small, unsanitary facilities that pose immense environmental and human health risks.  Open water aquaculture facilities house thousands of fish within small netpens or cages that allow extremely harmful pollutants, fish feces, uneaten feed, pesticides and pharmaceuticals to pass directly into the surrounding water.

Even worse – in many cases, aquaculture facilities use wild fish populations to create feed for farmed carnivorous species.  The Fishing Hole estimates that 2.7 to 3.5 pounds of wild fish are used to produce one pound of farmed salmon.  What is more, as a result of net damage many facilities release substantial numbers of non-native fish into the environment, which poses a great threat to ecosystems by causing competition for resources.  There is also a risk that the escaped farmed fish may breed with their wild counterparts, thereby introducing farmed genetic traits into the gene pool.  Certain forms of aquaculture such as land-based farming operations that refrain from using antibiotics/chemicals and small-scale aquaponic operations that use plants to filter out waste can be conducted safely however.

In a world of industrialized livestock and aquaculture it is difficult to imagine a time without factory farms, but the USDA’s When Beans Were Bullets exhibit in Beltsville, Maryland reminds visitors of a simpler time.  The display features food and agriculture posters from World Wars I and II.  How were the home front populations encouraged to eat in order to put the nation’s interest first?  Eat locally, healthfully, and conscientiously, they were told, according to Food Safety News.  The exhibit may inspire modern day citizens to cultivate and eat food the old-fashioned way- fresh and responsibly.

The National Collections gardens started when a conference noted that the variety of cultivated plants available to gardeners was shrinking.  Conservation of plants was needed, before they disappeared.  People across the UK responded, and now many National Collections are open for public viewing.

New people interested in starting their own collection are welcome.  They can visit public National Collections to get an idea of what they might like to plant in their gardens, or contact the office to find out what plants need conservation.  Prospective members and interested parties can visit the Plant Heritage website for more information about National Collections.

Nicole Savage of Plant Heritage explains some requirements for gardens to become national collections, to The Scotsman.  A garden must contain 75 per cent of the plants available for the “scope” of the collection. There must be three of each plant, labeled and all kept for one year.  Finally gardeners must keep records of their plants.  If gardeners need more help, Plant Heritage offers its members opportunities to attend lectures or to visit gardens and see rare and unusual plants.  They aim to help people in conserving plants that in many cases are rare or threatened with extinction.  Plant Heritage aims to teach people the importance of these plants since many of them can be used as medicines or as organic pesticides for other plants.  In short, they are valuable for both humans and other plants.

cc: Manitoba Hydro Place

Europeans have been constructing smart buildings and using energy audits in design for years.  Similar smart buildings are now starting to be built in North America.  Winnipeg’s Manitoba Hydro Place is a leading example of an intelligent building, with onsite weather stations and a digital management system that adjusts outside temperature-controlled vents every 3 hours.

For smart buildings to achieve successful energy conservation, the people in the buildings have to think about what’s happening around them and how they impact their environment.  To be truly sustainable, they need to have a realistic sense of how they are using energy.  However, a recent study found that many people believe they can save energy with small, ineffective behavior changes, and underestimate the major effects of switching to efficient, currently available technologies.

Too many people are just trying to save energy by doing what is cheap and easy, suggests the survey.  Energy conservation advocates have tended to encourage actions like turning off lights to save energy, rather than focusing on the biggest energy savers including higher-mileage vehicles and installing room rather than central air conditioning.

Part of the problem is lack of awareness of the big energy savers.  Luckily, giving people better information about energy conservation will make up for the current psychology and will lead to people making better decisions about using energy.  Have a look at the “Savings from green measures” graph in the Economist that is from the study.

Just by becoming more efficient in their households and vehicles, people can substantially decline their energy consumption within the decade.

The Census has found that flagship animals such as whales, seals and seabirds only make up about 2% of the known marine species in the 25 regions surveyed.  Crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters and shrimp account for nearly 20%.  The most common creatures, some of them one celled creatures, form the majority of animals and they are very important both in the ecosystem and in the food chain.  Even with the Census, it is estimated that we only know about 20% of the entire creatures in the ocean.

Sadly, the Census has also found that some of the top 5 most diverse ocean areas in our world are also among the most threatened.  These include the Mediterranean, China’s, and the Gulf of Mexico.  Most of the ocean is still both unexplored and unprotected.

There are 3 videos that I have watched and would recommend to someone interested in new life forms and our ocean’s inhabitants.

The first video is an introduction to the Census and is sensibly called Census Overview.  It’s among a selection of videos on the Census of Marine Life’s website. 

The second is called Record Breaking Sea Creatures Released,  and is filled with National Geographic’s splendid photography.   It’s number 4 of the featured videos on their website.

The third video is called Counting Creatures and is an interview with Dr. Jesse Ausebel of the Census.  It’s on the Census’ website.

I will be thinking about these life forms next time I look at our ocean!

For these reasons, MillionTreesNYC has the goal of planting 1 million new trees in their growing city in the next decade.  But where will New Yorkers plant the trees in what is already a big, bustling city?  To help answer this, MillionTreesNYC has a visually delightful online map showing ideal places to plant trees.

New York already has over 700 Community Gardens, to which trees would add a bit of shade in which to admire the herbs, veggies and flowers.  The Parks Department will reforest 2,000 acres of public parks, as well as along highways and on public lands.

As well, the map shows schools, churches, homes, construction sites, and lots of places where trees can be planted.  As MillionTreesNYC suggests, a million of anything is a lot!

Rather than seeing this as a map for just New York City, let’s view it as a seed of ideas about where we can plant trees in our own communities, wherever they may be.

Penguins, albatrosses and puffins are among the birds that are to the ocean what canaries are to mines.  They reveal a lot about the health of marine ecosystems, and when their populations decline it tells of problems that can affect other life in the marine environment.

In a real “happens there, felt here” way, seabirds can be affected by events in different parts of the world because they migrate so far.  They spend much of their lives on the high seas and can summer in one hemisphere and winter in the other.  Most seabirds have multiple countries and bodies of water within their ranges.

Unfortunately, seabird populations have declined seriously over the last twenty years.  Between being caught and drowned on fishing hooks, eating plastic garbage that they mistake for food, and being killed by invasive species, seabirds are telling us that our environment has problems that need solving.

The upcoming conference will also feature a film festival and seabird art exhibition.  For more information, see the Conference’s website.