'Ocean-grabbing' as serious a threat as ‘land-grabbing’

From Scoop World:  'Ocean-grabbing' as serious a threat as ‘land-grabbing’

Geneva / New York, 30 October 2012 – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, warned today of the threat of ‘ocean-grabbing’ to food security, and urged world governments and international bodies to halt the depletion of fish stocks, and take urgent steps to protect, sustain, and share the benefits of fisheries and marine environments.
“‘Ocean-grabbing’ – in the shape of shady access agreements that harm small-scale fishers, unreported catch, incursions into protected waters, and the diversion of resources away from local populations - can be as serious a threat as ‘land-grabbing,’” Mr. De Schutter said as he unveiled a new report on fisheries and the right to food. (An executive summary is available here.)

“Without rapid action to claw back waters from unsustainable practices, fisheries will no longer be able to play a critical role in securing the right to food of millions,” the expert said, noting that “with agricultural systems under increasing pressure, many people are now looking to rivers, lakes and oceans to provide an increasing share of our dietary protein.”
Estimates on the scale of illegal catch range from 10-28 million tons (mt), while some 7.3mt – 10 per cent of global catch – is discarded every year. “It is clear that as fish are becoming less abundant, fishing vessels are tempted to evade rules and conservation strategies,” the Special Rapporteur said.
Many of the world’s waters are fished by distance fleets, Mr. De Schutter noted, calling for the License and Access Agreements (LAAs) governing their activities to be urgently revised. He called for LAAs to include stronger oversight mechanisms to tackle illegal and unreported catch; take full account of the role of fisheries and small-scale fishers in meeting local food needs; strengthen labour rights on fishing vessels; and be concluded only on the basis of human rights impact assessments, to be prepared with the assistance of flag states.
The UN expert called on governments to rethink the models of fisheries that they support, highlighting that small-scale fishers actually catch more fish per gallon of fuel than industrial fleets, and discard fewer fish. “Industrial fishing in far-flung waters may seem like the economic option, but only because fleets are able to pocket major subsidies while externalizing the costs of over-fishing and resource degradation. Future generations will pay the price when the oceans run dry,” he said.
The key challenge, Mr. De Schutter indicated, is to ensure coexistence between industrial fishing and the rights of small-scale fishers and coastal communities - for whom even occasional fishing can constitute an essential safety net in times of crisis. He therefore made the following five recommendations:
1. Create exclusive artisanal fishing zones for small-scale fishers and clamp down on incursions by industrial fleets;
2. Support small-scale fishers' cooperatives and help them rise up the value chain;
3. Put co-management schemes in place to manage fishing resources locally;
4. Refrain from undertaking large-scale development projects, e.g. sand extraction, that adversely affect the livelihoods of small-scale fishers; and
5. Make fisheries and small-scale fishers an integral part of national right to food strategies.
The independent expert drew attention to positive examples, such as the decision to grant community-based user rights to small-scale fishers on the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia (Tonle Sap, Cambodia), and the decision to ban industrial tuna fishing in favour of local ‘pole and line’ fishers in the Maldives.
“It is possible, and necessary, to turn these resources away from over-exploitation, and towards the benefit of local communities,” the Special Rapporteur stressed.
Olivier De Schutter was due to present the report 'Fisheries and the right to food' to the UN General Assembly on 30 October 2012, but the interactive dialogue has been postponed due to Hurricane Sandy. He was appointed the Special Rapporteur on the right to food in May 2008 by the UN Human Rights Council. He is independent from any government or organization. Learn more about the mandate and work of the Special Rapporteur: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/FoodIndex.aspx or www.srfood.org

 

Poachers fined for stealing crayfish from historic ponds

From the Telegraph:  Poachers fined for stealing crayfish from historic ponds

A gang of poachers has been fined for trying to smuggle a large catch of crayfish from London's Hampstead Heath in the first case of its kind.

A red swamp crayfish Photo: PA

 

In a landmark hearing, Heath bosses prosecuted three crooks caught with two carrier bags full of Red Swamp Crayfish following a midnight raid on the ponds.

The lobster-like creatures, which are not native Heath dwellers, have bred at an alarming rate and are now feared to top 5,000.

But removing or harming the aggressive crayfish, which have been blamed for biting swimmers in the ponds, is a breach of Heath bylaws.

More and more people are believed to be stealing them from the Heath's waters.

But the City of London Corporation, which manages the open space, insisted that this was an isolated incident.
One of the raiders, Julian Glowacki, 27, was fined £220 for snatching the crayfish.
Glowacki, of Kilburn Park, north London, told the Ham&High last night he had not planned to sell his catch on.
The crayfish poacher said: "My cousin wanted to put them in an aquarium. It's the first and last time I do that."
Heath Constabulary officers spotted the three men with their lines out on Hampstead number two pond – a designated fishing site – on June 18, Highbury Corner magistrates, court heard.
The trio admitted they did not have licences to fish and were told to move on. But just after midnight the villains were spotted again at nearby Hampstead number one pond armed with a large fishing net.
Lawyer Philip Saunders, acting for City of London Corporation, said they were found with a large carrier bag of pond life with other crayfish crawling around by their feet.
All three were cautioned.
Officers searched their car and seized a second bag, teaming with more of the crustaceans.
Mr Saunders, who admitted this was a fairly unusual case, said: "When the officers returned them (crayfish) to the water they noticed that some had perished."
The bylaw states: "No person shall in any open space wilfully disturb any animal grazing or shall harry, ill-treat, or injure or destroy any animal, bird or fish, or take or attempt to take any animal, bird, fish or egg or set any trap."
Riko Glowacki, 19, of Upper Edmonton, and Wladislaw Grabowski, 23, of Ealing, north London, were each fined £285 after they admitted breaking the rules.
A City of London spokesman said only two students had been granted licences to catch crayfish for research purposes but it did not issue them for people to fish commercially.
“The City of London Corporation’s ecology and conservation specialists tightly control the red-swamp crayfish populations in Hampstead Heath’s ponds," he said.
"Whilst we do licence crayfish extraction for research, we don’t issue licences for commercial purposes.
"It must be remembered that this species is a non-native, very invasive species that causes great ecological damage outside their native range.
"Indeed red swamp crayfish have been introduced – both deliberately and accidentally - into many other places in the UK where they have caused problems for pond and waterway ecology.
"They are now widespread in Europe and have caused numerous problems for native wildlife and water quality. We must ensure that members of the public do not introduce them elsewhere.”
The red swamp crayfish, also known as the Louisiana crawfish, is native to the US and Mexico and was first recorded in Hampstead ponds in 1991. Several other populations have been identified elsewhere in Britain.
Measuring up to 3.5in, they are omnivorous and known for their aggressive behaviour. ŠThey mate in spring and females can lay up to 600 eggs at a time.
They threaten the survival of the native white claw crayfish and are said to be destroying fish stocks in the ponds.
One theory is that they were dumped in the Hampstead ponds, but individuals can also be dropped by herons or other large birds.
They can travel long distances over land to reach water, nearly two miles in a night having been recorded.

 

 

 

 

 

Cold War Spy Tunnel Under Berlin Found After 56 Years

From :  Cold War Spy Tunnel Under Berlin Found After 56 Years

A section of an ingenious tunnel built by U.S. and British spies to intercept Russian phone conversations in Cold War Berlin has been found after 56 years in a forest 150 kilometers from the German capital.
The 450-meter-long tunnel, built in 1955, led from Rudow in West Berlin to Alt-Glienicke in Soviet-occupied East Berlin. By tapping into the enemy’s underground cables, Allied intelligence agents recorded 440,000 phone calls, gaining a clearer picture of Red Army maneuvers in eastern Germany at a time when nuclear war seemed an imminent threat.

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A segment of a spy tunnel built by British and American intelligence agents in Berlin during the Cold War. The tunnel was exposed by the Soviet authorities in 1956, then excavated and its whereabouts was unknown until a part was recently discovered in a forest 150 kilometers away from the original site. Source: Allied Museum, Berlin via Bloomberg

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An exterior view of a spy tunnel built by British and American intelligence agents in Berlin during the Cold War. The tunnel was exposed by the Soviet authorities in 1956, then excavated and its whereabouts was unknown until a part was recently discovered in a forest 150 kilometers away from the original site. Source: Allied Museum, Berlin via Bloomberg.

The western part of the tunnel was excavated in 1997 and part of it is preserved at the Allied Museum in the former American sector of Berlin. The Soviet authorities dug up the eastern part in 1956 and until now, its fate was unknown.
“It seemed to have vanished without a trace,” said Bernd von Kostka, a historian at the Allied Museum. “I looked through the East German Stasi files, and there was nothing to be found about its whereabouts. We assumed it had been melted down because it was made of valuable metal.”
The find is one missing piece of a puzzle that will take decades to solve completely, as access to intelligence files about the construction and discovery of the tunnel -- a tale worthy of a John le Carre novel -- is still restricted.

Chopping Wood

The man who discovered the buried segment is Werner Sobolewski, 62, formerly employed in a civilian capacity by the East German army. He was chopping wood in his local forest in Pasewalk, near the Polish border north of Berlin, when he stumbled across the wide metal pipe. He remembered it being used for military exercises at the local barracks, where he had worked before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
He recalled too that it was then rumored to have been a part of the Allied spy tunnel, infamous throughout eastern Germany after the Soviets exposed it in a major propaganda campaign in 1956. He contacted the Allied Museum and Kostka traveled to Pasewalk to identify it last week.
“We would like to have it in the museum so that we have a part of the eastern tunnel,” Kostka said in an interview at the Allied Museum. “The sections we have are from the western side. It shouldn’t stay buried underground.”
The western tunnel segment is a prize exhibit at the Allied Museum, which is also home to the original Checkpoint Charlie guard-hut and a Royal Air Force Hastings plane used in the Berlin airlift of 1948 and 1949.

‘Stopwatch’ or ‘Gold’

Displays describe the complexity of building the tunnel and tapping the wires. The British had already constructed similar underground listening-posts in Vienna and brought the idea, manpower and know-how to the project, Kostka said. Codenamed “Stopwatch” by the British and “Gold” by the Americans, it was funded by the U.S. at a cost of $6.7 million (then a vast sum) and operated jointly by the CIA and the British SIS.
Yet the KGB learned about the tunnel when it was still in the planning stages -- thanks to intelligence from George Blake, the notorious British double agent who was later imprisoned, then escaped to the Soviet Union. Strangely, the KGB concealed its existence from the Soviet military because they wanted to protect their valuable mole.
The tunnel operated for 11 months and 11 days, intercepting some of the Red Army’s most secret communications, including those between Moscow and the military headquarters in East Berlin. Historians do not know why the Soviet authorities chose to expose it when they did, on April 22, 1956. The reason is still buried in the Kremlin’s files.
“It was clear that the tunnel had a finite lifespan and would be discovered one day,” Kostka said. “But the Allies expected the Soviet authorities to sweep it under the carpet.”
Instead, they held their first international press conference in 11 years of occupation and bussed in as many as 50,000 East German citizens so that they could see first-hand the treachery of the West.
Yet it was also a propaganda coup for the U.S. intelligence services as the tunnel’s ingenuity impressed American observers.
“It’s a great Cold War story,” said Kostka. “Each side could say they won.”

 

Controversial dam gets approval in Laos

A plot device type of article.... one day you're standing there watching water run through your land...the next day you wake up and your lake or river bed is dry because somebody built a dam a long way away and took all your water. Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few?

From MongaBay: Controversial dam gets approval in Laos

Laos has given approval to the hugely-controversial $3.5 billion Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong River, reports the BBC. The massive dam, which would provide 95 percent of its energy production to Thailand, has been criticized for anticipated impacts on the river's fish populations, on which many locals depend.

In late 2011, the four Mekong River nations—Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia—announced that the dam would not go ahead until more research was conducted to allay concerns. Friction over the dam has created a rift between the Laos government and Thailand on the one side and Vietnam and Cambodia on the other, who fear the dam will hurt fish populations and river nutrients. The promised research has not come to light.

"The Xayaburi Dam is the first of a cascade of devastating mainstream dams that will severely undermine the region’s development efforts. The food security and jobs of millions of people in the region are now on the line," Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia Program Director for the NGO International Rivers said in a press statement.

The U.S. State Department also raised concern about the approval, which will force the eviction of 2,100 local people.

"The extent and severity of impacts from the Xayaburi dam on an ecosystem that provides food security and livelihoods for millions are still unknown," the State Department said in a statement, adding that they "hope" Laos will work with its neighbor before proceeding.

A recent study in Global Environmental Change found that if the 11 currently planned hydroelectric projects are built on the Mekong River, fish populations could fall by 16 percent. According to the paper, the "results suggest that basic food security is potentially at a high risk of disruption."

But the Laos government, which hopes to see significant economic gain from the hydroelectric project, says that modifications to the dams design will allow fish and sediment to move freely through the dam.

But environmentalists also contend that the dam could result in the extinction of dozens of freshwater fish species, including the Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas). Specimens of the Mekong giant catfish have been caught weighing up to 600 pounds (270 kilograms), but this monster fish has been overfished to the point of being listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. Modifications to the dam may not large enough to benefit the Mekong giant catfish.

BBC reports that a ceremony will be held today as construction begins to move ahead full-steam. The date, November 7th, was selected to commemorate the anniversary of Russia's Bolshevik Revolution.

 

Russian divers find missing gold ship

From ZeeNews: Russian divers find missing gold ship

Moscow: Russian divers have located the sunken cargo ship Amurskaya which was carrying a 700-tonne cargo of gold ore, rescuers from the Yuzhsakhalinsk centre said Wednesday.

The ship had sunk near the Shantarsky islands in the Sea of Okhotsk Oct 28 with nine crew members on board. The vessel was en route from the port of Kiran to the port of Okhotsk with a cargo of gold ore weighing 700 tonnes.

Russia's Transport ministry confirmed the finding in a statement saying: "With improving weather conditions, after finding a submerged object on sonar, the rescue ship Rubin moored over the object. The object was confirmed as the Amurskaya."

"The divers work is completed. None of the sailors' bodies have been discovered, but a search inside the ship has not taken place," a source said.

A decision on whether it is safe to search inside the ship will be taken later by rescue authorities in Moscow.  

Underwater archaeology, shipwreck sites and ghost ships to be topics of upcoming talk at UNCA

This event actually took place last week, but there's a dearth of underwater news around..

From Mountain X: Underwater archaeology, shipwreck sites and ghost ships to be topics of upcoming talk at UNCA

“Ghost Ships of the Klondike Gold Rush,” an illustrated lecture by Robyn Woodward describing her work preserving and documenting shipwrecks along the Yukon River in Canada, will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 1 in Ramsey Library, Whitman Room.

Some 290 stern-wheelers and steam-tugs once plied the Yukon River, and provided the primary method of transportation during the great Klondike and later Alaska Gold Rushes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of these vessels were abandoned in remote locations and only two intact vessels survive.

Woodward, adjunct professor of archaeology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, will provide an illustrated lecture on the history, landscape and vessels of this dynamic period of North American history. She is project archaeologist for the Institute of Nautical Archaeology’s Yukon River Survey, and director of the excavation of Sevilla la Nueva in Jamaica.

The event is co-sponsored by the WNC chapter of Archaeological Institute of America and the UNC Asheville Departments of Art and Classics. It is free and open to the public.

For more information, call Laurel Taylor, UNC Asheville lecturer in classics and art, at 828/251-6290.

 

 

Mystery of Angkor Wat's huge stones solved

CBS News:  Mystery of Angkor Wat's huge stones solved

Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap province some 314 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh

The massive sandstone bricks used to construct the 12th-century temple of Angkor Wat were brought to the site via a network of hundreds of canals, according to new research.
The findings shed light on how the site's 5 million to 10 million bricks, some weighing up to 3,300 pounds, made it to the temple from quarries at the base of a nearby mountain.
"We found many quarries of sandstone blocks used for the Angkor temples and also the transportation route of the sandstone blocks," wrote study co-author Estuo Uchida of Japan's Waseda University, in an email.
In the 12th century, King Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire began work on a 500-acre temple in the capital city of Angkor, in what is now Cambodia. The complex was built to honor the Hindu god Vishnu, but 14th-century leaders converted the site into a Buddhist temple.
Archaeologist knew that the rock came from quarries at the base of a mountain nearby, but wondered how the sandstone bricks used to build Angkor Wat reached the site. Previously people thought the stones were ferried to Tonle Sap Lake via canal, and then rowed against the current through another river to the temples, Uchida told LiveScience.
To see whether this was the case, Uchida's team surveyed the area and found 50 quarries along an embankment at the base of Mt. Kulen. They also scoured satellite images of the area and found a network of hundreds of canalsand roads linking the quarries to the temple site. The distance between the quarries and the site along the route Uchida's team found was only 22 miles, compared with the 54 miles the river route would have taken.
The grid of canals suggests the ancient builders took a shortcut when constructing the temple, which may explain how the imposing complex was built in just a few decades.