“Our natural capital is declining and our Ecological Footprint is increasing.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The message is stark: “Humanity’s demands exceed our planet’s capacity to sustain us. That is, we ask for more than what we have.” The implications are dire: food and water for all will happen only if we manage our resources much better. There is a solution, says the WWF, which Tuesday 15 May issued its annual report on the state of planet Earth: to “decouple human development from unsustainable consumption (moving away from material and energy-intensive commodities).”
The “Living Planet” report takes a look at the changes in just a little over half a century. In a first, the Gland-based organization launched its report from space with help from the European Space Agency and astronaut Andre Kuipers.
The new report points to two key problems, population growth and rising consumption trends in high-income groups around the world and in BRIICS countries. The Ecological Footprint Index, one part of the report, measure the biologically productive area people use in each country for their basic needs. The world’s resources are use inequally: “If all of humanity lived like an average resident of Indonesia, only two-thirds of the planet’s biocapacity would be used; if everyone lived like an average Argentinean, humanity would demand more than half an additional planet; and if everyone lived like an average resident of the USA, a total of four Earths would be required to regenerate
humanity’s annual demand on nature.”
“Human population dynamics are a major driving force behind environmental degradation. One aspect of this is the overall size of the global population, which has more than doubled since 1950 – to 7 billion in 2011 and is forecast to reach just over 9.3 billion people by 2050.”
Lights out Saturday night for Geneva's most important buildings
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The city of Geneva is one of 30 in Switzerland that will join the worldwide Earth Hour project and turn out lights on public buildings Saturday 31 March from 20:30 to 21:30.
This is the fourth year of Earth Hour, begun by WWF, designed to raise awareness of climate change and the impact on our environment. One billion people are expected to be affected by this year’s lights out action in 135 countries. Some 5,000 cities are taking part around the world.
Geneva is home to the World Meteorological Organization, the global climate measurement centre. The city’s most important buildings, where the lights will go out, include: Palais Eynard, Cathédrale Saint-Pierre, Monument Brunswick, Grand Théâtre, musée Rath and the Conservatoire de musique (place Neuve), ‘île Rousseau (bastion entourant l’île), Eglise russe, Temple de Saint-Gervais, pont Sous-Terre, Palais Wilson, Musée Voltaire, Temple de la Fusterie, Poste du Mont-Blanc.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Denmark comes top and Israel second, with Switzerland coming in with an unremarkable if adequate 15th place in a new ranking of world cleantech industries.
The report published 27 February, “Coming Clean: The Cleantech Global Innovations Index 2012″ by consultants Cleantech Group was mandated by WWF. It looks at 38 countries, seeking those that has been most innovative and that promise to do very well in this rapidly growing market in the next 10 years.
Switzerland is applauded for innovation in general, but the report notes that its performance in the area of cleantech is below average. Two key ingredients for young cleantech businesses to succeed are lacking in Switzerland: an inadequate amount of risk capital and a home market that relies heavily on clean energies, thus providing opportunities for young entrepreneurs.
India and China both rank higher than Switzerland.
Denmark, head of the class, was rewarded with the top ranking for its legal encouragement of cleantech as well as the number of research mandates; risk capital is also “generously available”, notes WWF in a statement about the new report.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – A group of environmental organizations that includes WWF called Thursday for Switzerland to close its Beznau nuclear power plant. Switzerland is phasing out nuclear energy but not fast enough, say the groups, who point out that Beznau is now the oldest nuclear power plant in the world, with Oldsbury in England being shut down. They list a number of problems and point out that the company that runs it is planning to increase the earmarked CHF500 million to make it safe, money they bellieve could be better spent shutting it down and moving to safer energy sources.
Emissions created by traffic in Switzerland have risen, not fallen
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland is turning to energy certificates from outside the country to make its CO2 quota for 2008-2012, and environmental group WWF is not happy about it.
The Swiss Federal Council announced Tuesday 17 January that it is signing a new contract with the Climate Cent Foundation to increase its engagement by one ton. The foundation as a result will be reducing CO2 by a total of 5 tons, allowing Switzerland to meet Kyoto objectives by financing CO2 reduction projects outside the country. The WWF reacted angrily, with energy and climate director Patrick Hofstetter calling the federal energy reduction plan “a disaster from start to finish” and qualifying the government’s new move as “maddening, dishonest and incomprehensible”.
Bern notes that without the new agreement Switzerland would not meet its objectives, mainly as a result of increased traffic: statistics for 2010 show CO2 from traffic at 12.9 percent above figures for 1990, when Switzerland is committed to decreasing this by 8 percent.
For the WWF, the move means that Switzerland is not only not meeting emission reduction goals because Bern is not applying the law, but it is also not respecting the spirit of Kyoto by buying more certificates than are authorized. In addition, argues the WWF, important sums are being spent abroad, using money that could be applied to reducing CO2 at home and to reducing Swiss dependence on oil, while creating jobs.
Photo: ©2009 WWF/Klein Hubet
BERN, SWITZERLAND – WWF Switzerland is counting two environmental battles won this week. Its fight to see Valais respect the Bern International Treaty that covers the protection of wolves, an endangered species, resulted in a decision by the Sion district tribunal 13 December to condemn former cantonal councilor Jean-René Fournier to 60 days community service, with the sentence suspended.
Fournier is no longer in the cantonal government but represents Valais in the upper house of the Swiss parliament.
Valais should start adding shepherds, dogs to sheep herds, says WWF
The decision relates to the 2006 death of a wolf that had killed 30 sheep in Valais. Fournier approved the permit to shoot the animal and after its death he stuffed it and had it on display in his office, despite the international ban to which Switzerland is party.
WWF suggests ways to reduce electricity consumption but keep holiday lights
Christmas decorations: WWF suggests ways to cut energy loss while still lighting up (photo: Coop, LED lights)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss households, in the five to six weeks around the Christmas holidays, use electricity for decorative lights that is the equivalent of a small town during an entire year.
Enough, says environmental group WWF: there are ways to decorate with lights that will significantly reduce energy use.
Some CHF8 million is spent burning 40 million kWh decorating homes with lights over the holidays, the same amount used by 10,000 households with four people during the course of a year.
The starting point is to use LED lights, which may mean throwing out your old lights and replacing them with more energy-efficient ones, with incandescent or halogen ones using four to seven times more electricty than LED.
Artist's rendering, Aminona luxury resort, now on hold
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The CHF500 million Aminona Luxury Resort project has been put on ice for now by the Swiss Federal Tribunal after a last-minute appeal from environmental groups was accepted. The canton Valais high court in August refused to accept the groups’ objections to the project.
The high court also ruled Monday against the company behind the project, which was asking for a CHF5 million deposit from the environmental groups to offset costs linked to the delay.
The project would create a large resort in Aminona, next to Crans-Montana, with a five-star hotel, 32 chalets, five towers and luxury services. The complete project would have 2,500 beds.
The tribunal accepted the arguments by three groups, WWF, Patrimoine Suisse and the Fondation suisse pour la protection et l’aménagement du paysage (Swiss Foundation for Landscape Conservation). The court notes in its decision that the site of the new resort is in a stretch of dry prairie which is provisionally on the federal list of dry prairies and pastures of national importance.
The court ruled that starting construction could cause “irreparable damage” to the dry prairies, and they must benefit from “provisional preventive protection”.
ATS (TSR, Fre) reports that the court is unlikely to rule before January on the basic right of the project to go ahead.
The project has faced hurdles from the start. It calls for three construction phases, and one of the arguments of the environmental groups is that this division of the project into smaller parts has allowed the backers to avoid presenting a coherent overall plan to competent authorities.
The first phase, to build 10 towers on the eastern side of the project, prompted a temporary ban on construction to allow time to review the impact of such dense construction. The ban was lifted by the cantonal council in the summer of 2010, then confirmed by the cantonal court in August 2011. Phases 2 and 3, to build 45 chalets and a number of towers, lag behind in the approval process.
The environmental groups also argue that the scale of the project is out of tune with the times and that with 70,000 “cold beds” or unused hotel, apartments and chalets, it makes little sense to build such a large number of new places.
History of the Village Royal Aminona Luxury Resort project, GenevaLunch:
Aminona resort takes on green tint, September 2010
Aminona Russian Alpine resort faces WWF opposition, December 2009
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – WWF, the environmental group, and German Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel have reached an agreement on the new home he wants to build in Kemmental, canton Thurgau. The two have been at odds since the WWF announced in November 2010 that it would oppose planning permission for his home.
Local authorities had lifted a construction ban next to his house in the village of Ellighausen to make way for a swimming pool and tennis court, but the WWF and another group, SLP, had opposed it as well as his plans to build a 200-metre concrete wall to protect his privacy.
The racer and WWF 23 September announced that an agreement has been reached whereby Vettel is dropping his re-zoning request for the area next to his house and the wall will go ahead but only until 2020, at which point the hedge planted now will be high enough to replace the wall. In addition, Vettel has agreed to finance an environmental project to make up for damage done to a natural pond during excavation work.
Hiking near the Jungfraujoch (baby gets a backpack ride), August 2011
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – WWF, the environmental organization, and Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain, Migros, are joining forces to help children learn more about and appreciate the Swiss Alps. Mountainmania is a seven-week online quiz programme that kicks off 13 September, designed to teach children more about the Alps.
The two organizations are ready to hand out 50,000 diplomas to “mountain champions” who correctly complete the quiz.
“We need to take care of our Alps,” says WWF chief executive Hans-Peter Fricker. “We’ll only be able to do this if we instill a love for the mountains in children, starting as early as possible.”
Migros will be featuring its bio brands during this period, aiming to increase their sales by 10 percent during the seven weeks. The mountainmania albums that are sold will contribute CHF1 per album to WWF Alpine projects that include restoring areas of the Rhone and Rhine rivers to natural habitats for trout and beavers, and helping encourage the natural return of large carnivores to their Alpine habitats.
New species of monkey found in Brazil is a forest dweller, eating fruits and insects (photo ©2011 Julio Dalponte / WWF)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A new species of monkey has been found in Brazil, in a protected area of forest in Mata Grosso. The monkey is a member of the Callicebus family, a forest monkey. It lives primarily in the undergrowth of the forest, surviving mainly on fruits and insects.
WWF biologists, who discovered the monkey while on an expedition, initially had doubts that it was a new species, but detailed investigations have confirmed that it is.”This species is a different colour from species already known,” says Alice Eymard-Duvernay, head of the Latin American project for WWF Switzerland.
“It appears that two rivers and their tributaries act as a natural barrier, separating the forest monkeys in this region from others.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Russia has decided not to use its quota to hunt 29 polar bears but the decision is probably due to a lack of means to survey the situation, a WWF official in Russia says, according to the Moscow Times. Russia and the United States agreed in 2010 to a culling quota of 58 polar bears that could be hunted by natives for traditional and cultural purposes.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said 8 April on his website that the culling will no go ahead.
Russia had previously banned polar bear hunting but it agreed to the quota system as a means of stopping poaching. The WWF’s Russia office told the Moscow Times that it believes about 30 animals, out of a Bering Straits population of some 2,000 bear, are killed illegally every year. The US estimates that 100 are killed illegally in Alaska.
The Russian programme to end poaching has strong support from Putin, reportedly a wildlife fan.
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Seattle PI, WWF polar bear page
WWF Umky Patrol, polar bears, in Russia
Expect darkness in a neighbourhood close to you
Lake Geneva by moonlight, Lausanne in distance
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Earth Hour, a trendy environmental idea in its early stages, is going big-time this year, with far more participation from cities around the world and an extended programme from WWF, which serves as the catalyst.
Geneva is one of 12 European cities participating: at 20:30, Geneva’s lights will go out Saturday 26 March to draw attention to the problems created by climate change.
Paris, known as the City of Light, will black out its lights in a dramatic gesture.
WWF wants to make sure you think about the state of the world, but also that you have fun, so if you’re coming up blank about how to spend that hour, here are 10 ideas from the environmental group.
Earth Hour began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change.
Geneva measuring city’s energy consumption to reduce consumption
In a related move, Geneva in the past week began a campaign to measure thermographically the city’s energy consumption, to pinpoint hotspots, places where buildings are losing heat through their rooftops.
Fifty percent of energy consumed in the canton goes to buildings, authorities say.
An airplane and a helicopter equipped with infrared cameras, began flying low over buildings between midnight and 03:00 for the airplane and 06:30 and 08:30 for the helicopter. The two have been taking the “temperature” of the buildings and the canton will use their photos as a diagnostic tool.
The information will then be made available to Geneva’s communes later in the year, and residents will be able to consult the data and ask for advice from the communes.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - New Swiss commemorative stamps valid for use as postage starting Thursday 3 March draw attention to the panda logo for the WWF, but also to three other events: the UN Year of Chemistry, which is focusing on vitamin C, the centenary of writer Max Frisch, and the sketches of Swedish cartoonist
The CHF1.00 vitamin C stamp recognizes “the important role that chemistry plays in building Switzerland’s reputation as a research and financial centre” Swiss Post notes in its stamp issuing description.
The stamp’s motif is the vitamin C molecule. It was in 1933 at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich that Tadeus Reichstein first succeeded in synthesizing the vitamin.
The patented solution was commercially marketed by the Basel-based pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La-Roche. The stamp, which was created by graphic designers Daniel Dreier and Barbara Pfander, has a three-dimensional effect. Owing to the multi-stage embossed printing procedure used to produce the stamp, the vitamin C molecule appears to float in the air, seemingly within reach, in front of a blue background.”
La Poste commemorative one Swiss franc stamp, issue date 3 March 2011
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The WWF this week begins to celebrate its 50th birthday, kicking off with a new social network version of the four-year-old Earth Hour project to scale up hugely what is already called “the biggest environmental awareness campaign” in the world.
WWF Switzerland is also celebrating 50 years: the international organization was officially founded by Swiss and British environmentalists before that label was fashionable, 29 April 1961.
Its first world head office was in Morges, canton Vaud but WWF now operates from Gland, closer to Geneva. Its original name was the World Wildlife Fund, which is officially changed to the Worldwide Fund for Nature in 1986. The US and Canada opted to continue using the old name. The Swiss WWF has an annual budget of CHF53 million. The international WWF budget is CHF525m. The worldwide organization employs 5,400 people and has 5 million “supporters”.
©2011 WWF, may not be reproduced without permission
The panda has been used for the WWF logo since the start. It “originated from a panda named Chi-chi that was transferred from the Beijing Zoo to the London Zoo in the same year of the establishment of WWF,” wikipedia says.
“As the only giant panda residing in the Western area at that time, along with its physical features and status as an endangered species, the panda is seen to serve the need of a strong recognizable symbol of the organization. Moreover, the organization also needed an animal that would have an impact in black and white printing.”
The logo was designed by Sir Peter Scott from the preliminary sketches made by a Scottish naturalist, Gerald Watterson.
To mark the WWF’s creation in early 1961 the Swiss post office is issuing a special commemorative stamp Thursday 3 March.
La Poste notes in its release statement: “The giant panda has been the hallmark of WWF, founded in Switzerland in 1961, since its inception. Consequently, it is fitting that a panda should adorn the special stamp designed by Pierre Aerni for the world’s largest environmental protection organization. The rare animal’s main source of food is also an element of the motif. The mandatory Helvetia lettering at the left-hand edge is composed of bamboo shoots.
WWF is using the birthday to focus attention on a new drive to combat climate change but it is also stepping back for a moment to remind people of some of its successes:
- saving forests has been a major concern and today 8.5 percent of world commerce uses wood from forests that are FSC certified as sustainable
- fish consumption has been rising worldwide and over-fishing today is 50 percent of industrial catches, but the MSC responsible fisheries certification programme begun in 1997 now covers 7 percent of the fishing industry
- WWF works closely with governments and local groups to combat trafficking in animals, which is very lucrative.
wolf photo, ©2011 Tambako, flickr.com/photos/tambako/
Closer to home, WWF Switzerland has been involved in a wide range of projects to protect the environment and also species: two notable projects have been its efforts to protect the native habitats of hares and its fight to save the wolf.
A successful programme in canton Graubuenden to protect herds from wolves and discourage hunting the wild animals is touted as an example for other areas, such as canton Valais, where tensions between farmers and wildlife protection groups continue to run high.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Gland-based WWF‘s Indonesian arm announced Monday that an “almost extinct species” has been caught on camera. The Javan rhinos “are breeding in Ujung Kulon,” says Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at WWF in the US.
The video was released 28 February by WWF-Indonesia and Indonesia’s National Park Authority.
The footage was taken by a motion-activated video camera at the Ujung Kulon National Park.
It is “a huge boost to efforts to save this almost extinct species that is threatened by poaching, disease, and the possibility of a tsunami or volcanic eruption,” WWF-Indonesia notes in a written statement.
The Javan rhino may be one of the rarest mammals on the planet according to the WWF, with as few as 40 left. Once numerous throughout Southeast Asia, its population is now likely isolated to Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia.
Video of two families of Javan rhinos
To donate to their cause you can visit: www.javanrhinohope.org
Head of a tiger (Panthera tigris), India (photo: ©2010 Vivek R Sinh, WWF-Canon)
Nyon / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Three of the six students who were working in Assam for the WWF, counting tigers, when they were kidnapped Sunday, have been released unharmed.
The three women were released but the three men abducted with them remain captive. WWF-India says it is working closely with local governments and organizations to secure their release.
Full story, 7 February, GenevaLunch
Head of a tiger (Panthera tigris), India (photo: ©2010 Vivek R Sinh, WWF-Canon)
Update 8 February Nyon / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Three women, student volunteers who were working as part of a WWF project in the eastern Assam province in India, have been released by their kidnappers, WWF-India announced Tuesday 8 February. Three men, also students, were abducted at the same time, and they remain captive.
The six were “abducted from an area near Ultapani in Chirang Reserve Forest on the afternoon of Sunday, February 6, 2011,” the WWF statement says. “These young volunteers were part of the WWF team carrying out tiger habitat occupancy surveys in the area. These young and committed individuals were working towards helping to conserve the important biodiversity of the area for the larger benefit of the local community, the state and the region. Conservation is an apolitical activity that contributes to the well being of people, society and nature.”
WWF-India earlier confirmed to the head office in Gland, near Geneva, that it has been informed that the abducted group is safe:
“The NGO community in Assam has appealed for the safe and immediate release of these volunteers. They have stated that “These volunteers are innocent students from our own native state and educational institutions . . .The NGOs hope that good sense will prevail and the volunteers will be immediately released unharmed in order to enable the civil society organisations and their workers to contribute towards nature conservation . . . especially for the communities living in and around the forested areas.”
The region has seen several kidnappings and killings by three main rebel groups of people who are working to protect nature. The WWF group was reportedly separated by the captors from another nature protection organization: the two had been working together.
A government official has said a “major operation” is currently underway to free those kidnapped. The nationalities of the three men and three women is not known.
The world’s tiger population has fallen from 100,000 to just 3,200 in the past century, with WWF fighting to get governments to back its efforts to save the animals.
Video, India’s IBN TV
Swiss hare in field with bare patch (photo ©2010 Swiss Ornithological Institute / Marcus Jenny)
Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Tigers have a hope of surviving, at the end of 2010, but bluefin tuna could well disappear from the face of the Earth and its cousins in the fish world are not in good shape, with one in five species threatened.
These are some of the conclusions of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature), which runs the Red List of Threatened Species. WWF Switzerland, in a year-end look at IUCN’s winners and losers in the species departments, notes that worldwide, the number threatened with extinction has been rising steadily, from 16,928 in 2008 to 18,351 two years later, some 33 percent of all species.
Bluefin tuna (photo: WWF)
Tigers have a fighting chance, after governments agreed in 2010 to a series of protective measures, according to the IUCN. But governments let down the bluefish tuna, whose stocks are badly overfished, the Gland-based group states.
And then there is the hare-razing tale of one of Switzerland’s disappearing creatures.
The hare and the wolf are two of the losers in Switzerland, with the hare population falling to 2.7 per square metre, in some areas 1.6/m2, with experts saying that 2-6/m2 pushes a population into the critical stages to remain viable. Hare numbers are shrinking rapidly due to urban growth, reduced protected road passages and less ground cover that leaves young hares in above-ground nests where they are easily run over by tractors.
Switzerland has an estimated population of only 15 wolves, but even this small number is threatened by parliamentary approval that would give hunters and farmers the right to shoot. If parliament passes changes to the law, which are under discussion, the country would need to pull out of the Bern Convention, a strict international agreement to save the wolf.
Record revenues, success with partner projects like Amazon deforestation
Coral Triangle, SE Asia (photo, ©2010 Juergen Freund / WWF - Canon)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – WWF Switzerland says 2010 has been a particularly good year for the country’s largest environmental group, with a record CHF53 million in revenues, a 25 percent increase, and positive results for a number of projects where it is a partner.
The group received special one-time donations of CHF6.5m, but says that private donations were up 10 percent even without the large gifts.
The Swiss group, as part of WWF International, is a partner in deforestation projects. In this annual review of its work it reports that deforestation in the Amazon was down by 45 percent in 2010, to its lowest level since 2000.
Also at the international level, it participated in a Coral Triangle project in southeast Asia to reduce accidental captures by fishermen of turtles. Specially designed circle hooks, replacing traditional J hooks, have reduced the bycatch of marine turtles by 80 percent. Closer to home, WWF Switzerland has extended its Seafood Group to work closely with foodstores and restaurants to encourage them to avoid buying endangered species such as pink tuna and to sell fish from stocks that can be sustained, to avoid over-fishing: two-thirds of Swiss suppliers are now changing their fish selections.
Video, WWF Coral Triangle Initiative
Geneva, Switzerland and Paris, France (GenevaLunch) – Major European businesses are calling for a significant change in the way bluefin tuna is caught and marketed in a push to rescue the species from collapse. The call comes in a manifesto 24 November with Switzerland-based WWF which will be presented to Fabio Hazin, president of International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT), currently meeting in Paris.
European companies, including leading Swiss retailers Coop and Migros, but also French chains Auchan, Atac and Casino, have pledged not to buy or sell tuna, and call on ICCAT to agree to the following:
- Cut the annual catch from 13,500 tons to below 6,000 tons. In 2007 the ICCAT allowable catch was 29,000 tons. Over 61,000 tons were estimated to have been taken, 32,000 tons of which went to Japan.
- Establish sanctuaries in spawning zones – fishermen raid tuna spawning areas to take fish that are below weight, denying the species the possibility to procreate.
- Suspend the industrial practice of purse seine fishery in the Mediterranean Sea – this combs the sea of bluefin tuna, and herds the fish into “farms” for fattening before they are sexually mature. Many European governments, such as France, Spain and Italy, subsidize this practice in the belief that it is sustainable “aquaculture”.
ICCAT is an intergovernmental agreement with a mandate to protect the bluefin tuna, which ranges from the Eastern Atlantic into the Mediterranean Sea. ICCAT meets in Paris until 27 November.
Background: GenevaLunch, WWF
Underwater banner to save bluefin tuna © Greenpeace 2010/ Marco Care
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The black market in bluefin tuna spans three continents and is estimated to be worth $4 billion annually in a recently released report by a group of investigative journalists. And the European fishing industry blatantly violates its own management rules by continuing to overfish the bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, according to the international environmental group, WWF, based in Gland, canton Vaud.
Breaking its own rules
Observers of bluefin tuna fishing vessels in the Mediterranean Sea reported violations of the fishing regulations in 2010 that resulted in under-reporting of tuna catches, illegal transfers of live fish, and falsifying official documents, the joint report by Greenpeace and WWF says. The observers in some cases were denied access to ships or were limited to accepting the skipper’s tally of fish caught.
The groups base their claims of “lack of compliance with management rules” of bluefin tuna hauls in Mediterranean waters on data provided to the governments who are parties to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), an “inter-governmental fishery organization responsible for the conservation of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas.”
ICCAT meets in Paris, France for an extraordinary meeting, 17-27 November. France and Spain together hold one-third of the allowed catch quota. The European Commission has said it would welcome real reductions in tuna catch quotas at the meeting.
A $4 billion dollar illegal trade
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a Washington DC-based organization, sent 12 reporters on the trail of the black market bluefin tuna trade, which resulted in a report, “Looting the Seas“. They conducted more than 200 interviews with fishermen, ranchers, divers, scientists and officials over a seven-month period.
Key findings from the report
A massive black market lies behind the plummeting stocks of Eastern Atlantic bluefin stock, the report alleges. At its peak, between 1998 and 2007, more than one in three bluefin were caught illegally, creating an off-the-books trade conservatively valued at $4 billion.
Fishermen blatantly violated official quotas and engaged in an array of illegal practices, including misreporting catch size, hiring banned spotter planes, catching undersized fish, trading fishing quotas, and plundering tuna from North African waters where EU inspectors are refused entry.
The report’s other highlights include:
- National fisheries officials have colluded with the bluefin tuna industry to doctor catch numbers and avoid international criticism. France, for example, allegedly filed fraudulent catch data with the European Commission for years until France came clean in 2007.
- Sea ranches, where bluefin are fattened to increase their value, became the epicentre for “laundering” tuna in the Mediterranean and North Africa. Many ranches grossly under-reported the fish they had in their pens and faked releases when forced by authorities to let go of illegally-caught bluefin.
- The paper-based reporting system implemented by regulators in 2008 to bring transparency to the trade—dubbed the Bluefin Tuna Catch Documentation scheme—is full of holes, rendering the data almost useless. For example, during 2008 and 2009 more than 75 percent of all purse seiner vessels catches, which comprise nearly half the overall catch, are missing crucial information that regulators need to follow the fish from vessel to market.
- A widespread, off-the-books trade in bluefin tuna has existed in Japan since at least the mid-1980s. ICIJ obtained a confidential 2006 investigative report commissioned by Australia and Japan that exposed widespread overfishing and laundering into Japan of southern bluefin tuna, a sister species of the Atlantic bluefin tuna.
- While there are signs that EU officials have started to crack down, illegalities remain a serious problem. In North Africa and Turkey, even less accountable fleets are ramping up operations.
- A wall of secrecy protects the bluefin industry. Officials in countries from Spain to Croatia failed to produce records on fishing and farming infringements. Even the European Commission denied access to fishery infraction records, citing protection of commercial interests and “military matters”.
Background: GenevaLunch
Head of a tiger (Panthera tigris), India (photo: ©2010 Vivek R Sinh, WWF-Canon)
(video, nearly extinct Siberian tiger) Gland, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The WWF, based in Gland, near Geneva, says the world’s endangered tigers remain under pressure, with India, China and Nepal showing the worst poaching problems. In the past century the number of tigers worldwide has fallen from an estimated 100,000 to just 3,200.
The WWF is a member of Traffic (wildlife trade monitoring network), whose “Reduced to Skin and Bones” report released 9 November shows that “from January 2000 to April 2010, parts of between 1,069 and 1,220 tigers were seized in 11 of the 13 tiger range countries—or an average of 104 to 119 animals per year.”
The report is published ahead of a meeting at the end of November of heads of government of tiger range countries to sign the Global Tiger Recovery Programme, a plan that aims to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022.
The programme aims to push harder to reduce poaching and illegal trade, but also to reduce the demand for tiger parts.
Tigers are coveted for their use in traditional medicines, decoration, and as good luck charms.
Environmental research becomes more visible thanks to new database
Business and environmental education, non-voting “votes” for foreigners, teacher training in int’l education part of the action
Business and the environment: no longer unnatural bedfellows in Switzerland
Geneva and Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Researchers worldwide will now be able to connect more easily with Swiss researchers in environmental studies thanks to a new database hosted by the Federal Office for the Environment. The database, officially online as of Monday 8 November, regroups more than 1,000 projects at 10 universities, the two EPFs (polytechnic institutes in Lausanne and Zurich), 7 specialized graduate schools and 30 private and public institutions involved in the field. The publicly available information can be searched by institution, canton or research area (or by key words) in English, French, German and Italian.
Geneva’s Graduate Institute opens new international environmental centre
One of the newcomers to the group is the Graduate Institute’s Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) in Geneva, launched 3 November with a packed house at the opening day lecture.
Aerial view of damage to reservoir wall, with detail. Photo © Interspect, courtesy WWF. Click to enlarge
Gland, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Hungarian office of the Gland-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has released photos taken in June 2010 of a Hungarian reservoir that show damage to the wall and leaks from the reservoir. Cracks from the reservoir released deadly sludge 5 October.
“This new evidence of the degraded state of the walls and significant leakage more than three months before the incident should be cause for an urgent investigation, not just of this disaster but of the state of Hungary’s other toxic sludge ponds,” said Gabor Figeczky, the Acting Director of WWF Hungary, in a statement.
Hungarian authorities evacuated people from their homes 9 October as the risk increased that the wall of the Kolontar sludge reservoir might break in another place, flooding the area with another 500,000 cubic metres of the toxic sludge.
The residents of the nearby village of Kolontar were bused out at daybreak as a precaution and the residents of Devecser were put on standby. A crack seven cm wide has been detected in the reservoir’s containing wall.
Figeczky told GenevaLunch that WWF-Hungary was given the photos by Interspect, a company that takes high resolution aerial photographs using special technology. It took the photos of the reservoir and its leaks in June, and when the reservoir wall was breached 4 October, went back to analyze the photos it took.
WWF Hungary participated in a heated meeting of the people from the area, the town mayor and representatives of the alumina plant company which administers the reservoir. Local people said that they had complained of increased leakage from the reservoir for months, but it was not clear whether government officials intervened with the company.
When the reservoir broke 4 October it poured more than 1m cubic metres of red sludge over six villages, killing seven people and injuring more than 150. One person is still missing, believed buried under the sludge.
The toxic waste has entered one river, the Marcal, and killed it. Authorities are pouring chemicals and gypsum into the Marcal and Raba rivers, which flow into the Danube, in an effort to reduce the high levels of alkilinity and heavy metals reaching the Danube.
At the same time, the dry and sunny weather is turning the red sludge into an airborne dust, increasing the dangers to humans and animals in the region of breathing in toxic micro-particles.
If he's sold in Switzerland, we'll soon be able to find out where he's from
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Swiss law to require wood importers and suppliers to identify the source of their products goes into effect Friday 1 October. One of the key problems in supporting sustainable forests, groups such as WWF have said, is ensuring that consumers are educated about the source of wood, but also that they are able to access correct information about wood products, such as furniture, when they buy it.
The Swiss Consumer Protection office has created a database of woods (put in the name of a wood, in French) and where they come from.
Retailers can already work with this, although an interim period until the end of 2011 gives suppliers time before they will be required to declare the source of all wood.
Jean-Marc Voegele, head of the Consumer Protection office, told GenevaLunch that a wood specialist has been hired who will oversee correct identification and labelling of wood products.
A number of companies based or active in Switzerland were among those who received awards from the Forest Stewardship Council 24 September in Bonn, Germany, for actively promoting the council’s brand. They included Casa, Migros, COOP, Hornbach Baumarkt and Marks & Spencer in retailing and Tetra Pak in packaging.
The FSC, a partnership led by the WWF, describes itself as a “independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. FSC provides internationally recognized standard-setting, trademark assurance and accreditation services to companies, organizations, and communities interested in responsible forestry.”
Green go the Russians, oh!
Electric vehicles only, with parking in Sierre
Aminona's existing 3 towers (white) likely to see several more as part of new luxury resort project
Sierre, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The controversial CHF350 million resort complex that Russia’s Mirax company is planning to build in Aminona, near Crans-Montana in canton Valais, is suddenly looking greener than its original plans showed.
Swiss environmental groups in December 2009 filed appeals against the project to build a 2,500 resort with several towers and a five-star hotel plus 32 chalets.
WWF and the Swiss Fund for the Protection of Nature said at the time that they “fear[ed] a fiasco for nature and the surrounding countryside, as well as for the region itself.”
Concerns focused particularly on the supply of drinking water and protecting the dry prairies in the region, which are considered to be of national importance.
Mirax announced plans in 2007 to build on the 60,000m2 stretch to the east of Crans-Montana.
Mirax’s emphasis has now shifted from luxury resort to luxurious and green: the company says it will invest CHF250 million in green technologies for the resort, reports Le Nouvelliste, Valais newspaper.
The total expected cost of the resort has risen to at least CHF600m, with Mirax saying it will be not just the most ecological resort in Valais, but in all of Switzerland.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Swiss consumption of fish has risen 25 percent in just three years, to 9.1 kg per inhabitant per year, reports the WWF Switzerland.
The environmental group says it is concerned about the impact on the populations of ocean fish, since 95 percent of the fish is imported and more than 30 percent is farmed. Fish farming relies on fish flour and oil to feed the fish, so it contributes to more rapid emptying of the oceans, according to the WWF.
The most popular fish remains tuna, but the amount of shrimp consumed in the past three years has doubled.
The group has just re-issued its Guide to Buying Fish and Seafood and recommends, to discourage overfishing, that consumers:
- buy only fish with the MSC label (Marine Stewardship Council),
- buy only bio label farmed fish and
- as often as possible buy local, native freshwater fish.
The guide, in French (pdf), is also available by contacting service-info@wwf.ch or by phone: +41 21 966 7373. It is also available as an iPhone app.
WWF session on building and renovation: how to respect the environment, maintain quality of life
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - WWF Switzerland is hosting a day-long seminar 10 September to show home-owners or those aspiring to buy, how to build and renovate with respect for the environment, while maintaining good quality of life. The programme, at the WWF training centre in Lausanne, will consider much more than just energy use, say the organizers. Concrete solutions will be reviewed after looking at options for materials, insulation, heating systems, water use, indoor fittings and landscaping.
Details and registration on the WWF web site
Greenpeace protesters dressed as orangutans swing into action for Nestle annual meeting (photo: ©2010 Herbi Ditl on flick: http://www.flickr.com/photos/herbivore/)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Nestlé annual general meeting held at the Palais Beaulieu in Lausanne promised to be a relatively dull business session, compared to the UBS one the previous day. But that was before Greenpeace protesters dressed as orangutangs crowded the area outside the meeting and two of them were spotted by an AFP reporter abseiling into it and dangling above the discussions.
Greenpeace and the company have been at odds over the Vevey group’s use of palm oil, which the environmental group says is playing a significant role in destroying forests and the habitat for orangutans.
