“We know these tree rings capture most temperature changes quite well,” says Michael Mann, professor of meteorology and geosciences at Penn State. “But the problem appears to be in their response to the intense short-term cooling that occurs following a very large volcanic eruption.

“Explosive volcanic eruptions place particulates called aerosols into the stratosphere, reflecting back some fraction of incoming sunlight and cooling the planet for several years following the eruption.”

Tree rings are used as proxies for climate because trees create unique rings each year that often reflect the weather conditions that influenced the growing season that year. For reconstructing climate conditions, tree-ring researchers seek trees growing at the extremes of their growth range.

Inferring temperature changes required going to locations either at the tree line caused by elevation or at the boreal tree line, the northern-most place where the trees will grow.

“The problem is that these trees are so close to the threshold for growth, that if the temperature drops just a couple of degrees, there is little or no growth and a loss of sensitivity to any further cooling. In extreme cases, there may be no growth ring at all,” Mann says.

“If no ring was formed in a given year, that creates a further complication, introducing an error in the chronology established by counting rings back in time.”

The researchers compared temperature reconstructions from actual tree-ring data with temperature estimates from climate models driven with past volcanic eruptions.

Comparing the model-simulated temperatures to the Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from tree-ring thickness, Mann, working with Jose D. Fuentes, professor of meteorology at Penn State, and Scott Rutherford, associate professor of environmental science at Roger Williams University, found the overall level of agreement to be quite good.

However, they report in the current issue of Nature Geoscience that “there is one glaring inconsistency; the response to the three largest tropical eruptions-AD 1258/1259, 1452/1453, and the 1809+1815 double pulse of eruptions-is sharply reduced in the reconstruction.”

Following the 1258 eruption, the climate model simulations predict a drop of 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, but the tree ring-based reconstruction shows only about a 1 degree Fahrenheit dip and the dip occurs several years too late. The other large eruptions showed the same type of discrepancy.

Using a theoretical model of tree-growth driven by the simulated temperature changes, the team determined that the cooling response recorded by the trees after a volcanic eruption was limited by biological growth effects. Any temperature drop exceeding roughly 1 degree Fahrenheit would lead to minimal tree growth and an inability of trees to record any further cooling. When growth is minimal enough, it is likely that a ring will not be detectable for that year.

The potential absence of rings in the first one to three years following eruption further degrades the temperature reconstruction. Because tree-ring information is averaged across many locations to obtain a representative estimate of northern hemisphere temperature, tree-ring records with and without missing rings for a given year are merged, leading to a smearing and reduced and delayed apparent cooling.

The researchers also noted that aerosol particles forced into the air by volcanoes block some direct sunlight causing cooling and they produce more indirect, scattered light at the surface. Trees like indirect sunlight and grow better under those conditions. However, this effect is small compared to that of lower temperatures and shorter growing seasons.

By accounting for these various effects in the tree growth model, the researchers were able to reproduce the reduced and smeared cooling seen in the actual tree-ring temperature reconstruction, including the near absence-and delay-of cooling following the massive 1258 eruption.

“Scientists look at the past response of the climate to natural factors like volcanoes to better understand how sensitive Earth’s climate might be to the human impact of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations,” Mann says. “Our findings suggest that past studies using tree-ring data to infer this sensitivity have likely underestimated it.”

We have been instrumental in passing state laws to reduce toxic pollution in Maine’s workplaces, communities and our environment. So, it should come as no surprise that we strongly support replacing harmful products with safer alternatives when available.

In the case of light bulbs, converting to CFLs reduces mercury and other pollutants such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. CFLs reduce mercury because they require less electricity to produce the same amount of light as an incandescent bulb.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a power plant emits four times more mercury pollution to produce the electricity needed to power a incandescent bulb than a CFL for the same amount of time.

CFLs do contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing — no mercury is released when the bulbs are intact or in use.

That is why it is important to recycle these bulbs. Thanks to a manufacturer-funded “product stewardship” program, Maine people can and should recycle old CFLs for free at more than 200 hardware stores and other retail outlets across the state. This keeps spent bulbs from breaking in the trash and releasing mercury. For more information, visit www.nrcm.org/cfl_facts.asp.

The smartphone system developed by Gavin Brown and his team Peter Sutton and Lloyd Henning at the University of Manchester is the ‘REUNITE’ mobile and web platform.

“Our results have demonstrated that mobile intelligent systems can be deployed in low-power, high-risk environments, to the benefit of all involved,” said Brown.

In the aftermath of a major disaster, aid workers typically interview people who have been separated from their families, storing these records on paper documents, which can be lost, damaged or be illegible, according to a Manchester statement.

REUNITE records the initial interview using the smartphone, and uploads these onto a central server. These can then be accessed by trusted aid workers via computers in another location, who gather as much information as they can by liaising with other users in a similar manner to a social network, before passing details onto aid workers on the ground.

The interviews would be quickly transcribed into a web-searchable format which could be downloaded by relief workers on the ground, which can then relay the massage to survivors.

As part of the same research, Brown has also created software called ‘Where’s Safe’, which quickly identifies safe areas for people to go to in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack.

Brown’s third software solution is HeightCatcher – an innovative tool which can quickly calculate infants who are suffering from malnutrition and work out what quantity of fluids they need.

“Because of climate change, the ducks don’t have the food that they need when they need it,” Stuart Slattery, a research scientist with Ducks Unlimited Canada, told CBC News on Friday.

Slattery and a team of scientists from the University of British Columbia, the University of Saskatchewan and Environment Canada have long been trying to solve a mystery in Canada’s boreal forests: why have two duck species, the scaup and scoter, dropped so dramatically in numbers — by 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively — in just three decades?

The scaup population, for instance, plunged from six million to 3½ million.

Spring Starting Earlier

The team suspected the ducks’ boreal wetland habitats were changing, so they examined snow cover data. That was when they made a startling discovery.

A map of snow cover data, illustrated in green, where earlier spring melts have resulted in declining boreal duck populations. A map of snow cover data, illustrated in green, where earlier spring melts have resulted in declining boreal duck populations. (Stuart Slattery)

“We found that over a 35-year period, that spring comes on average about 11 days earlier,” Slattery said.

Slattery said that is a massive change. Low snow cover is directly linked with the drop in the ducks’ survival.

Slattery said the world’s warming trend interferes with a delicate timing in nature.

Migratory birds fly south in the fall and return just in time in the spring to feed on an abundance of insects. The duck mothers especially need this food while nesting in June.

But now that the spring is arriving nearly two weeks sooner, the ducks fly in too late for the feast.

“As this mismatch gets worse, the ducklings are impacted the most,” said Slattery. “The food just simply isn’t there in the amounts that it was historically.”

Other duck species adapting

Curiously, other duck species, such as the mallard, are adapting since they can migrate to nesting areas earlier in the year.

But Slattery suspects the scaup and scoter have not developed that ability.

“They just get here late, and so they don’t have a chance to re-nest like some of the other earlier nesting species do,” he said.

Slattery said society’s continued use of fossil fuels is causing all these problems.

“We are experiencing climate change in a very real way. [Duck] populations are getting smaller and smaller,” he said.

A recent Stanford and University of Toronto study found that 98 per cent of 1,300 scientists who publish papers on climate change agree that the world is warming, and humans are the cause.

Prairies smashing weather records

Slattery said science has documented numerous examples of climate change interfering with wildlife, including mosquitoes, tree swallows, polar bears and ringed seals.

The study comes at a time when the Prairie provinces are smashing warmth records for January. Some Manitoba communities hit highs between 6.7 C and 11 C on Thursday.

Slattery said our warming world is only adding to other environmental stresses for duck habitat, including farming and industry.

The scaup and scoter ducks nest throughout the western boreal region, from Yukon and Northwest Territories to northern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The research team’s report was first published on the website of the journal Global Change Biology in October.

The sustainable level of emissions for a stable climate is about one tonne per person per year.

Jiti Khanna argued that our long transportation distances, cold climate, and well-developed, energy-intensive infrastructure necessitate our profligate use of greenhouse gas spewing fossil fuels.

But isn’t China also a large and temperate country? Why shouldn’t an East Asian or Indonesian enjoy the comfort of an air conditioner or electric fan? Are African forests to be relentlessly chopped down for cooking charcoal? Equity has to be honoured.

The climate issue will be decided by the irresistible forces of nature unless humanity reaches an equitable protocol to quickly reduce GHG emissions to this sustainable level.

As BTA Works presented in a report in July 2011, “business-as-usual” greenhouse gas emissions will have a disastrous impact on the low-lying areas of the Lower Mainland.

Why is Jiti Khanna advocating maintaining the status quo that will bring costly and deadly environmental destabilization?

The numbers indicate that trans-formation to sustainability will mean significant change for Canadians.

Long-distance travel by electric-powered passenger train, com-muting by plug-in electric car or trolley, super-insulated homes, more root vegetables, and in-Canada vacations will become the new normal. The future will be different … and better.

Preventing disaster is the prudent and ethical course of action. The inappropriate action by the Harper government to impede an effective inter-national agreement on greenhouse gas emission reduction is unethical.

Genetic – variation between individuals of the same species. This includes genetic variation between individuals in a single population , as well as variations between different populations of the same species. Genetic differences can now be measured using increasingly sophisticated techniques. These differences are the raw material of evolution.

Species – species diversity is the variety of species in a given region or area. This can either be determined by counting the number of different species present, or by determining taxonomic diversity. Taxonomic diversity is more precise and considers the relationship of species to each other. It can be measured by counting the number of different taxa (the main categories of classification) present. For example, a pond containing three species of snails and two fish, is more diverse than a pond containing five species of snails, even though they both contain the same number of species. High species biodiversity is not always necessarily a good thing. For example, a habitat may have high species biodiversity because many common and widespread species are invading it at the expense of species restricted to that habitat.

Ecosystem – Communities of plants and animals, together with the physical characteristics of their environment (e.g. geology, soil and climate) interlink together as an ecological system, or ‘ecosystem’. Ecosystem diversity is more difficult to measure because there are rarely clear boundaries between different ecosystems and they grade into one another. However, if consistent criteria are chosen to define the limits of an ecosystem, then their number and distribution can also be measured.

Losses of Biodiversity

Extinction is a fact of life. Species have been evolving and dying out ever since the origin of life. One only has to look at the fossil record to appreciate this. (It has been estimated that surviving species constitute about 1% of the species that have ever lived.)

However, species are now becoming extinct at an alarming rate, almost entirely as a direct result of human activities. Previous mass extinctions evident in the geological record are thought to have been brought about mainly by massive climatic or environmental shifts. Mass extinctions as a direct consequence of the activities of a single species are unprecedented in geological history.

The loss of species in tropical ecosystems such as the rain forests, is extremely well-publicised and of great concern. However, equally worrying is the loss of habitat and species closer to home in Britain. This is arguably on a comparable scale, given the much smaller area involved.

Predictions and estimates of future species losses abound. One such estimate calculates that a quarter of all species on earth are likely to be extinct, or on the way to extinction within 30 years. Another predicts that within 100 years, three quarters of all species will either be extinct, or in populations so small that they can be described as “the living dead”.

It must be emphasised that these are only predictions. Most predictions are based on computer models and as such, need to be taken with a very generous pinch of salt. For a start, we really have no idea how many species there are on which to base our initial premise. There are also so many variables involved that it is almost impossible to predict what will happen with any degree of accuracy. Some species actually benefit from human activities, while many others are adversely affected. Nevertheless, it is indisputable that if the human population continues to soar, then the ever increasing competition with wildlife for space and resources will ensure that habitats and their constituent species will lose out.

It is difficult to appreciate the scale of human population increases over the last two centuries. Despite the horrendous combined mortality rates of two World Wars, Hitler, Stalin, major flu pandemics and Aids, there has been no dampening effect on rising population levels. In 1950, the world population was 2.4 billion. Just over 50 years later, the world population has almost tripled, reaching 6.5 billion.

In the UK alone, the population increases by the equivalent of a new city every year. Corresponding demands for a higher standard of living for all, further exacerbates the problem. It has been estimated that if everyone in the world lived at the UK standard of living (and why should people elsewhere be denied this right) then we would either need another three worlds to supply the necessary resources or alternatively, would need to reduce the world population to 2 billion.

The only possible conclusion is that unless human populations are substantially reduced, it is inevitable that biodiversity will suffer further major losses.

Some species are more vulnerable to extinction than others. These include:

• Species at the top of food chains, such as large carnivores: Large carnivores usually require fairly extensive territories in order to provide them with sufficient prey. As human populations increasingly encroach on wild areas and as habitats shrink in extent, the number of carnivores which can be accommodated in the area also decreases. These animals may also pose a threat to people, as populations expand into wilder areas inhabited by large carnivores. Protective measures, including elimination of offending animals in the area, further reduces numbers.

• Endemic local species (species found only in one geographical area) with a very limited distribution. These are very vulnerable to local habitat disturbance or human development.

• Species with chronically small populations: If populations become too small, then simply finding a mate, or interbreeding, can become serious problems.

• Migratory species: Species which need suitable habitats to feed and rest in widely spaced locations (which are often traditional and ‘wired’ into behaviour patterns) are very vulnerable to loss of these ‘way stations’.

• Species with exceptionally complex life cycles: If completion of a particular lifecycle requires several different elements to be in place at very specific times, then the species is vulnerable if there is disruption of any single element in the cycle.

• Specialist species with very narrow requirements such as a single specific food source, e.g. a particular plant species.

Loss of an individual species can have various different effects on the remaining species in an ecosystem. These effects depend upon the how important the species is in the ecosystem. Some species can be removed without apparent effect, while removal of others may have enormous effects on the remaining species. Species such as these are termed “keystone” species.

Why Conserve Biodiversity?

Ecological Reasons

Individual species and ecosystems have evolved over millions of years into a complex interdependence. This can be viewed as being akin to a vast jigsaw puzzle of inter-locking pieces. If you remove enough of the key pieces on which the framework is based then the whole picture may be in danger of collapsing. We have no idea how many key ‘pieces’ we can afford to lose before this might happen, nor even in many cases, which are the key pieces. The ecological arguments for conserving biodiversity are therefore based on the premise that we need to preserve biodiversity in order to maintain our own life support systems.

Two linked issues which are currently of great ecological concern include world-wide deforestation and global climate change.

Forests not only harbour untold numbers of different species, but also play a critical role in regulating climate. The destruction of forest, particularly by burning, results in great increases in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. This happens for two reasons. Firstly, there is a great reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide taken in by plants for photosynthesis and secondly, burning releases huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (The 1997 fires in Indonesia’s rain forests are said to have added as much carbon to the atmosphere as all the coal, oil and gasoline burned that year in western Europe.) This is significant because carbon dioxide is one of the main greenhouse gases implicated in the current global warming trend.

Average global temperatures have been showing a steadily increasing trend. Snow and ice cover have decreased, deep ocean temperatures have increased and global sea levels have risen by 100 – 200 mm over the last century. If current trends continue, scientists predict that the earth could be on average 1 Degree Celcius warmer by 2025 and 3 Degree Celcius warmer by 2100. These changes, while small, could have drastic effects. As an example, average temperatures in the last Ice Age were only 5 Degree Celcius colder than current temperatures.

Rising sea levels which could drown many of our major cities, extreme weather conditions resulting in drought, flooding and hurricanes, together with changes in the distribution of disease-bearing organisms are all predicted effects of climate change.

Forests also affect rainfall patterns through transpiration losses and protect the watershed of vast areas. Deforestation therefore results in local changes in the amount and distribution of rainfall. It often also results in erosion and loss of soil and often to flooding. Devastating flooding in many regions of China over the past few years has been largely attributed to deforestation.

These are only some of the ecological effects of deforestation. The effects described translate directly into economic effects on human populations.

Economic Reasons

Environmental disasters such as floods, forest fires and hurricanes indirectly or directly caused by human activities, all have dire economic consequences for the regions afflicted. Clean-up bills can run into the billions, not to mention the toll of human misery involved. Susceptible regions are often also in the less-developed and poorer nations to begin with. Erosion and desertification, often as a result of deforestation, reduce the ability of people to grow crops and to feed themselves. This leads to economic dependence on other nations.

Non-sustainable extraction of resources (e.g. hardwood timber) will eventually lead to the collapse of the industry involved, with all the attendant economic losses. It should be noted that even if ‘sustainable’ methods are used, for example when harvested forest areas are replanted, these areas are in no way an ecological substitute for the established habitats which they have replaced.

Large-scale habitat and biodiversity losses mean that species with potentially great economic importance may become extinct before they are even discovered. The vast, largely untapped resource of medicines and useful chemicals contained in wild species may disappear forever. The wealth of species contained in tropical rain forests may harbour untold numbers of chemically or medically useful species. Many marine species defend themselves chemically and this also represents a rich potential source of new economically important medicines. Additionally, the wild relatives of our cultivated crop plants provide an invaluable reservoir of genetic material to aid in the production of new varieties of crops. If all these are lost, then our crop plants also become more vulnerable to extinction.

There is an ecological caveat here of course. Whenever a wild species is proved to be economically or socially useful, this automatically translates into further loss of natural habitat. This arises either through large-scale cultivation of the species concerned or its industrial production/ harvesting. Both require space, inevitably provided at the expense of natural habitats.

Perhaps the rain forests and the seas should be allowed to keep their secrets.

Ethical Reasons

Do we have the right to decide which species should survive and which should die out?

Do we have the right to cause a mass extinction?

Most people would instinctively answer ‘No!’. However, we have to realise that most biodiversity losses are now arising as a result of natural competition between humans and all other species for limited space and resources.

If we want the luxury of ethics, we need to reduce our populations.

Aesthetic Reasons

Most people would agree that areas of vegetation, with all their attendant life forms, are inherently more attractive than burnt, scarred landscapes, or acres of concrete and buildings. Who wouldn’t prefer to see butterflies dancing above coloured flowers, rather than an industrial complex belching smoke?

Human well-being is inextricably linked to the natural world. In the western world, huge numbers of people confined to large urban areas derive great pleasure from visiting the countryside. The ability to do so is regarded not so much as a need, but as a right. National governments must therefore juggle the conflicting requirements for more housing, industry and higher standards of living with demands for countryside for recreational purposes.

That’s the conclusion of a new study, scheduled for the Nov. 1 issue of ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

In the study, Christian Bogdal and colleagues focused on organic pollutants in sediment from a model body of water — glacier-fed Lake Oberaar in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland — testing for the persistent organic pollutants, including dioxins, PCBs, organochlorine pesticides and synthetic musk fragrances. They found that while contamination decreased to low levels in the 1980s and 1990s due to tougher regulations and improvements in products, since the late 1990s flow of all of these pollutants into the lake has increased sharply. Currently, the flow of organochlorines into the lake is similar to or even higher than in the 1960s and 1970s, the report states.

The study attributed the most recent spike in the flow of pollutants into Lake Oberaar to the accelerated release of organic chemicals from melting Alpine glaciers, where contaminants were deposited earlier and preserved over decades.

“Considering ongoing global warming and accelerated massive glacial melting predicted for the future, our study indicates the potential for environmental impacts due to pollutants delivered into pristine mountainous areas,” Bogdal said.

In the first major study to examine the effects of climate change on ocean fisheries, a team of researchers from UBC and Princeton University finds that climate change will produce major shifts in productivity of the world’s fisheries, affecting ocean food supply throughout the world. The study is published October 7 in the journal Global Change Biology.

“Our projections show that climate change may lead to a 30 to 70 per cent increase in catch potential in high-latitude regions and a drop of up to 40 per cent in the tropics,” says lead author William Cheung, a researcher at the University of East Anglia in the UK who conducted the study while at UBC.

“Many tropical island residents rely heavily on the oceans for their daily meals. These new findings suggest there’s a good chance this important food source will be greatly diminished due to climate change.” Previous studies have looked at how climate change affects global food supply but were limited to land-based food sources. These studies have also predicted that tropical areas will see a decline in land productivity.

The team, led by UBC Fisheries professor Daniel Pauly, also found that regions with the highest increase in catch potential by 2055 include Norway, Greenland, Alaska and the east coast of Russia. Meanwhile, regions with the biggest loss in catch potential include Indonesia, the United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii), Chile and China.

While greater catch potential in colder regions might appear beneficial, the authors caution that more research is needed to account for the multitude of dynamic factors that affect every ecosystem. “We need to keep the big picture in mind when looking at the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of climate change,” says Pauly. “Major shifts in fish populations will create a host of changes in ocean ecosystems likely resulting in species loss and problems for the people who now catch them.”

“While warmer waters might attract new species to colder regions, the rise in temperature might make the environment inhospitable to current species in the region that cannot move to even higher latitudes. Often these species are important to the diets and culture of native subsistence fishermen.” The team’s projections also show that Canada’s overall catch potential will remain approximately the same. The west coast may see a decrease of almost 20 per cent from 2005 to 2055 while the east coast may get a 10 per cent boost.

The study analyzed 1,066 species ranging from krill to sharks that constitute roughly 70 per cent of the world’s catch. The authors used models that include a large number of environmental and biological factors that affect fisheries. They ran these models through two climate change scenarios, one more conservative than the other, and measured the impact of the scenarios on fish distribution from the years 2005 to 2055. The authors did not include the highest emission level scenario considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which would have produced even more dramatic results.

“Sweden should follow the examples set by its northern neighbors in developing systems to halt deforestation,” said WWF CEO General Lasse Gustavsson.. “One Swedish krona to stem deforestation results in the same emissions reductions as five kronor for the controversial carbon capture and storage technique,”

Gold in Green Forests, a report issued today by WWF-Sweden, says that next to energy efficiency halting forest loss and degradation is the most cost-effective method for mitigating climate change.

The annual loss of natural forests in developing countries is equivalent to one third of Sweden’s surface area. Forest fires, the conversion of forests to agricultural land and the cultivation of energy crops are responsible for the high rate of forest loss.

A program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is currently being discussed in the negotiations for a global climate deal. REDD aims to make it worthwhile for developing countries to maintain their forests, as opposed to cutting them down.

In order for REDD to succeed it needs a suitable framework and international finance, including aid to developing countries will be required. Potential investors recently surveyed by WWF said they would be ready to support a forest carbon market if certainty and support were forthcoming from the international community and key national “prioritise solutions that are best for both the environment and our wallets”

In Indonesia, where large areas of forests are cut down and prepared for palm oil plantations, 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation. Halting deforestation would not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but would also secure the livelihoods of people living in these forests.

”We should always prioritize solutions that are best for both the environment and our wallets, especially during the ongoing financial crisis. Sweden’s cautious attitude in this area is therefore very surprising,” said Gustavsson, who calls for the government to take action during the ongoing climate change conference in Bangkok and secure a system to finance the protection of the world’s forests.

”Norway, Finland, Denmark and Germany have already guaranteed financing for REDD between 2010 and 2012. It’s time for the Swedish government to take action – both domestic and as EU President,” he said.

If parties are able to come to an agreement on a new climate deal in Copenhagen, it will not enter into force until 2013. Meanwhile deforestation will continue to accelerate in large parts of the tropics.

“Time is passing and the possibility of reaping the positive climate effects that a stop in the loss of forests entails is decreasing rapidly. Complex social, economic and ecological are involved which is why a global cooperation for REDD must be carefully prepared,” says Stefan Henningsson, Climate Director, WWF Sweden.

WWF negotiators in Bangkok are urging a an insitutional structure for REDD which guarantees transparency, effectiveness and longterm financing from developed countries in support of measures in developing countries. In financing, WWF is seeking the equivalent of $US 42 billion per year after 2013, a key element of an estimated financing requirement of $US 160 billion annually for climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing countries.

The scheme would aim for a goal of zero net deforestation by 2020, with WWF also emphasising that forestry and climate projects must also contribute to the conservation of biological diversity and respect the rights of local and native populations.

Consequently, researchers from the University of Miami teamed up with developers from Discovery Land Company , to establish the first Bahamian project that employed on-site environmental scientists to guide the construction of a sustainable development called the Baker’s Bay Golf and Ocean Club, (BBC) located in the Northeastern Bahamas. This project uses BBC as a case study and documents best practices and construction impacts, especially on the marine environment. The findings were published earlier this year in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

The goal of the project was to establish an Environmental Management Program with realistic environmental goals, explained Kathleen Sullivan-Sealey, associate professor in the Department of Biology at the UM College of Arts and Sciences and principal investigator of the project.

“Working with land-planners, developers and engineers was new and required re-thinking about the important ecological and geological information that this group needed to know for construction on an island,” Sullivan-Sealey said. “Information and ideas that ecologists take for granted are not part of the thinking for most developers.”

The Bahamas is comprised of 700 low-lying islands and 2,000 small keys, with carbonate limestone banks and limited sources of fresh water. For that reason, reducing the impact of development on water supply was a priority. Other mitigation measures in the project included creating sustainable sewage and waste management, removal and replacement of invasive, non-native vegetation with native vegetation, and the creation of coastal buffer zones and private ecological preserves to lessen the impact of development on the terrestrial and marine environments.

The work involved following the project from the EIA (Environment Impact Assessment) in the planning stages, through the implementation of the Environmental Management Plan during the four years of construction. The study documents the efforts, costs and resources necessary for the project. Some of the important findings are:

• About 15% of the total project budget was necessary for environmental and coastal protection programs- with long-term benefits.

• Tourism development in the Bahamas must look for sustainable alternatives to meet required water demands due to the limited fresh water resources in the islands.

• Coastal buffer zones and private reserves (especially small wetlands) within the development project are important in protecting the island from the impact of floods and storms and can help meet environmental goals and reduce costly mitigation projects.

• Coastal development setbacks are necessary to reduce beach erosion as well as protect vital wildlife habitats.

• Restoring functional landscapes is critical in new developments to maintain minimum population thresholds of local species.

• Land-base sources of pollution must be reduced to maintain the value of near shore marine resources.

“BBC is the first project in the Bahamas to employ Bahamians with college degrees in environmental science and management and it represents a major step forward for the country to create jobs in environmental management,” explained Sullivan-Sealey.

“This opens up new and exciting career options for Bahamians and creates job opportunities in the hotel/ hospitality industry that are dependent on marine and environmental resource management,” she said.

Dr. Sullivan-Sealey heads the project on Coastal Ecology of the Bahamas, supported by the EarthWatch Institute. The 10-year project involves visiting the major islands in the archipelago to assess the state of the coastal environment.