State of the Med: the UNEP 2009 report

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) and its Regional Activity Centres have released the first State of the Environment and Development report covering the Mediterranean region, which tackles key environmental issues, including climate change. The “State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean 2009″ was released during the 16th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention, which took place from 3-5 November 2009, in Marrakech, Morocco.

The report is a pilot exercise, based on available sources of information and covers the 21 countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It finds that climate change is already occurring in the region and forecasts that it will lead to, inter alia, a decline in rainfall, increased periods of droughts and rises in sea-level. The report also identifies the most vulnerable Mediterranean zones and states that climate change will also affect agriculture and fishing, the attractiveness of tourism, coastal zones and infrastructure, and public health.

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The Report

Turtles in trouble

The Marine Conservation Society together with the Travel Foundation and design company Juniperblue have recently produced an entertaining and educational cartoon called Turtles in Trouble.

The 8 minutes long animation is for everybody planning holidays in the Mediterranean, but it includes valuable advice relevant to all destinations where marine turtles may lay eggs.

The video effectively shows how simple changes in our behaviour while on holidays can make a big difference. As the video points out: “Turtles are in danger of extinction, and extinction is forever. But doing your bit, you can give this spectacular animals the chance to survive for generations to come”.

Silvia Bonizzoni

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To watch the video: Turtles in Trouble

Fishing out the pirates of the Mediterranean

Greenpeace campaign "Defending Our Mediterranean" had barely begun when activists confronted Italian fishing “pirates” in the Ionian Sea and confiscated almost two kilometres of illegal driftnet containing dead undersized bluefin tuna and a small sea turtle that was later released alive.

The Greenpeace crew came across the Italian fishing vessel Diomede II, fishing with 8-10 km of driftnet in international waters approximately 50 kilometres off the coast of Sicily, Italy.

Diomede II - which is licensed only to fish with longline or anchored nets within 15 kilometres from the coast - was met at her home port by officials, alerted by the NGO, that confiscated its illegal driftnets.
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For more information read the whole story on the Greenpeace web site

Contaminants and marine megavertebrates - a workshop

'Contaminants and pathology in marine megavertebrates as environmental assessment tools' is the title of a workshop organized by University of Bologna on May, 8th, in Cesenatico, Italy. The meeting is organized in conjunction with Gruppo di Ricerca sui Grandi Vertebrati Pelagici.

Aim of the workshop is to focus on potential effects of pollutants on the health of marine megavertebrates. It will focus on different aspects of natural and anothropogenic pollutants and on suspected or proved connections with specific pathologies. Proceedings will be published on Endangered Species Research.

The workshop is open to students as well. Registration deadline is April, 30th.

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For more information:
http://www.eulasmo.org/content.asp?did=30233

How sharks find their next meal

Ever wondered how marine animals find their next meal?

Apparently, the same way we do our shopping: we don't wander aimlessly but go down the road and, if we don't find what we want, make a couple of longer trips downtown. This special type of random motion is known as a Levy walk.

Ecologist David Sims of the Marine Biological Association laboratory in Plymouth, U.K., and collegues have found evidence of Levy walks analyzing more than a million dives of 31 large marine predators - including sharks, fish, sea turtles and penguins - as they apparently hunted for food.

The team also conducted computer simulations showing that if prey is scattered in the ocean, but concentrated in clumps, repeated short dives with an occasional much longer plunge would be the best strategy to find it.

This research was published today on Nature.
Sims D.W. et al. 2008. Scaling laws of marine predator search behaviour. Nature 451:1098-1103. doi:10.1038/nature06518

Eleonora de Sabata

What is Mediterranean Conservation?

Mediterranean Conservation explores the possibility of merging the communication efforts of individuals committed to marine conservation in the ancient Tethys Ocean.