The US-Mexico Wall, it’s Borderlands, Wildlife, and People

Take a look at a 38 picture slide show demonstrating the environmental impact of the US/Mexico Border wall.


In 2005, the Department of Homeland Security was granted the authority to waive environmental laws to speed the building of a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico.

Under this waiver, more then 500 miles of wall and fence have been constructed through mostly rural and wilderness areas.

In January 2009, the International League of Conservation Photographers sent a team of world-renowned photographers, with writers, filmmakers and scientists to the borderlands of the United States and Mexico to document the wildlife, ecology, and effect of immigration and the border wall on this landscape. [38 Pictures]

Governments must protect quarter of world’s land to avert environmental crisis

10/15/2010

October 15, 2010

New analysis argues for protection of 25% of planet’s land and 15% of oceans by 2020

Washington, DC – World leaders gathering in Japan next week at the UN’s biodiversity summit must agree to put at least 25 percent of the Earth’s land and 15 percent of the oceans under protection by 2020 if they are to be successful in their efforts to solve the current global environmental crisis, a new analysis by Conservation International showed today.

Putting a larger area of the planet under protection is crucial to secure important biodiversity and the delivery of vital services from nature to people. Natural habitats – and the species and genetic resources they harbor – support the global economy and billions of people who directly depend on them for immediate needs, like food, income and shelter. Currently, about 13 percent of the world’s terrestrial areas and less than 1 percent of the open oceans are protected.

The analysis shows that at least 17 percent of the Earth’s land is necessary to protect priority areas for known biodiversity and an additional 6-11 percent is needed to ensure adequate storage of carbon in natural ecosystems. The analysis clarifies that protected areas are not just strict nature reserves, but can also refer to areas managed for multiple uses, such as recreation, sustainable economic activities or for their unique beauty and cultural value.

When world leaders meet at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which starts next Monday in Nagoya, they will discuss a set of 20 targets to slow biodiversity loss over the coming decade – one of them being about the need to put areas under protection. The numbers being discussed are around 15-20 percent for land and a yet to be determined percentage for oceans.

“The current targets are clearly inadequate in protecting biodiversity and ensuring key services to people. Science shows us that we need more places to be protected and where the key places are,” said Conservation International’s Frank Larsen, lead author of the analysis. “There is also evidence that the costs of expanding protected areas are compensated by the many benefits, including new jobs and people’s ability to withstand the effects of climate change.”

Lina Barrera, Conservation International’s Director of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Policy, added: “The problem is that most of the costs are local, while most of the benefits are global, so politicians do not see much incentive to make things happen. This is the time to be brave and get real about the need to put us on the path for a more sustainable future.”

According to the analysis, protecting 25 percent of the lands and 15 percent of the oceans is still a preliminary and conservative estimate. It takes into account the needs to address only carbon storage, but when other important ecosystem services -- like water supply, crop pollination and fisheries -- are added, the numbers will be higher. Also, in regions highly impacted by environmental degradation, protected areas are likely to be the only intact natural environments that will remain.

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Full document can be downloaded here: www.conservation.org/CBD

Photos available for download here (please note that these images are just to illustrate the story and do not refer to any specific places or species that might be mentioned in the analysis): http://bit.ly/daZXNO

For more information:

Patricia Yakabe Malentaqui, International Media Manager
Mobile: +1 (571) 225-8345 / Office: +1 (703) 341-2471
pmalentaqui@conservation.org

Kim McCabe, U.S. Media Manager
Mobile: +1 (202)203-9927 / Office: +1 (703) 341-2546
kmccabe@conservation.org

Frank Larsen, Conservation Scientist
flarsen@conservation.org

Lina Barrera, Director of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Policy
lbarrera@conservation.org

Conrad Savy, Biodiversity Analyst
csavy@conservation.org

Notes for editors:
Conservation International (CI): Building upon a strong foundation of science, partnership and field demonstration, CI empowers societies to responsibly and sustainably care for nature, our global biodiversity, for the well-being of humanity. With headquarters in Washington, DC, CI works in more than 40 countries on four continents. For more information please visit www.conservation.org

California condor population hits 100

California condor population hits 100

October 6, 2010 | 6:12 pm

The number of wild, free-flying condors in California has reached 100, the most in half a century.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced the landmark Wednesday, crediting a captive breeding program started in Southern California in 1982, when there were only 22 wild condors in the state.

Young condors born in captivity are released into the wild every fall at Pinnacles National Monument in Central California and Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge on the southwest side of the San Joaquin Valley. The flock will get another bump over the next few months with the release of 11 juveniles.

The big birds are also reproducing on their own in the wild, adding 16 young to the California population since 2004.

The carrion-eating birds, known for their huge wingspan (9.5 feet) and memorable visage, soared from Mexico to Canada at the time of settlement. Their numbers plummeted with loss of habitat and the decline of the large mammal populations they fed on. More recently, lead poisoning from ammunition and the ingestion of bits of trash have taken a toll.

Arizona, Utah and Baja Mexico also have wild populations. But even when captive birds are counted, there are fewer than 400 California condors in the world.

--Bettina Boxall

The costs of oil addiction

Take a look - this is the devastation that dependence on oil is inflicting. This culture has literally become a vampire - a cannibal culture - sucking the blood of its own mother. This time it is no minor wound - a major artery has been hit.

Its been over a month and tens of billions of gallons spilled and no end in site. This is the worst environmental disaster in the history of the country and may eventually become the worst in the history of the world.

This is one of the last warnings this culture is going to have...

- Jeff

Here is a video of satellite images of the spill that NASA made:



For up to date info please take a look at the NASA website on the spill

These photos were all taken early June, 2010

Click on the photos to see original size and look into the eyes of these birds.

BP forced to admit leak is bigger

Success collecting oil with a milelong suction tube shows that the spill may be far worse than thought.

By Julie Cart and Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times

May 21, 2010

BP's success at drawing oil from a leaking pipe has proved that official estimates of the size of the Gulf of Mexico spill have been too low.

The company effectively admitted as much Thursday when it said that a tube inserted into the broken pipe connected to its blown-out well is collecting as much as 5,000 barrels of oil and 15 million cubic feet of gas a day, even as a live video feed shows large volumes continuing to billow into gulf waters.

"There's still oil leaking there. We're not saying otherwise," BP spokesman Mark Proegler said Thursday.

After the company released a video of the gushing leak last week, independent scientists estimated the amount of oil spewing into the gulf could be 14 times as great as the 5,000-barrel-a-day figure officials have used for weeks to describe the month-old spill.

"From the beginning, we've been working with the [ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and the Coast Guard, and they are the source, using visual observations, of the size of the leak," Proegler said. "We have asserted that there's no way of accurately measuring from the end of the flow pipe. Others are taking issue with that, and that's fine."

NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco said Thursday that 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, "was always understood to be a very rough estimate. That number was useful and the best estimate at the time." She added that the federal government established an interagency task force this week "to get to the bottom of the flow rate in a scientific fashion."

Since the company placed a 4-inch suction tube into the broken riser pipe Sunday, it has gradually drawn off greater amounts of oil and gas and sent it 5,000 feet to the oil-processing ship Enterprise. Engineers had to ramp up the process carefully, Proegler said, to avoid pulling in water that would mix with natural gas and promote the formation of pipe-clogging hydrates.

"We're not done," Proegler said. "We're going to continue to increase the rate on the insertion tube as high as we can."

The company plans to attempt a "top kill" this weekend or early next week that could plug the blown-out wellhead by injecting heavy fluids into it.

The oil giant has come under sharp criticism for not being more forthcoming about the results of testing and monitoring of the spill. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson on Thursday sent BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward a letter demanding that the company make available all data and information it has collected on the disaster, including reports of internal investigations.

Capitol Hill lawmakers investigating the disaster also posted a live BP video feed of the leak, dubbed Spillcam by one congressional aide, at http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam.

In an apparent bow to pressure from Congress and marine scientists, the EPA gave BP until Monday to begin using a less toxic oil dispersant to break up the growing slick.

Nearly 700,000 gallons of dispersant have been applied so far, the most ever used in a U.S.-based oil spill. Most of it has been released on the water's surface to break oil into droplets that will more quickly decompose with the help of oil-eating bacteria. But in a move that has worried some marine biologists, the EPA and the Coast Guard have allowed the unprecedented release of dispersants near the damaged wellhead, nearly a mile deep.

Carys L. Mitchelmore, a toxicologist who studies the effects of pollutants on aquatic life at the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, called the prolonged use of dispersants in the gulf "one big experiment."

Using dispersants has the effect of exposing marine life to more oil, imperiling deep sea organisms, she said.

Federal officials have acknowledged that not much is known about the long-term environmental effects of dispersant, but they countered that the oil was far more toxic and posed a greater threat to marine life, wildlife, marshes and wetlands.

The EPA also posted on its website the results of BP testing that concluded that the two types of the dispersant Corexit in use so far were effective and posed no significant risk to aquatic life. The EPA did not explain the apparent contradiction of its order and the test results.

Some cleanup workers in the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill developed health problems that were blamed on a chemical found in Corexit 9527, one of the dispersants the EPA ordered BP to stop applying. The chemical, 2-butoxyethanol, was removed from the other version used in the BP spill, Corexit 9500.

BP said it was complying with the order and had been testing alternative products for some time.

Bruce Gebhardt is president of U.S. Polychemical Corp., which manufactures Dispersit, a water-based product that proved more effective and less toxic in EPA testing than Corexit. He said his company was contacted by BP two weeks ago and provided samples.

By Thursday, an overwhelmed Gebhardt said his office based in New York state had been flooded with calls, including from BP. "They wanted to know how much we could make and how fast we could get it there," he said, adding that BP had not decided which dispersant it was switching to.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

julie.cart@latimes.com

Times staff writers Margot Roosevelt in Los Angeles and Richard Simon in Washington contributed to this report.