Shell suspends Arctic drilling for 2013

BBC News, 27 February 2013

Environmentalists have protested against Shell's activities in the Arctic

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Royal Dutch Shell has said that it will suspend its offshore drilling programme in the Arctic for the rest of 2013 in order to give time to ensure safety.

The decision to pause drilling for oil in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska was widely expected, following a catalogue of problems last year.

The US Department of Justice is looking into safety failures at one rig.

The move "will give us time to ensure the readiness of all our equipment and people", said Marvin Odum of Shell Oil.

"We've made progress in Alaska, but this is a long-term programme that we are pursuing in a safe and measured way," he added.

'Good decision'

Shell first obtained licences from the US Department of the Interior in 2005 to explore the Arctic ocean off the northern and north-western coasts of Alaska.

It has since spent $4.5bn (£3bn), culminating in two exploratory wells completed during the short summer drilling season last year.

But Shell ran into multiple problems during the drilling programme:

• the company failed to have a spill-response barge on site before the drills reached oil-bearing zones, as it had promised, and a containment dome was damaged during testing
• drilling in the Chukchi Sea had to be called off less than 24 hours after it began on 9 September due to a major ice floe
• a fire broke out on the Noble Discoverer rig that Shell had hired for the Chukchi Sea drilling, and the US Coast Guard discovered 16 safety violations on board, which have now been passed to the justice department
• the Kulluk, a circular drilling barge, broke away from its towing vessel and ran aground on its way to a shipyard in Washington State in late December
• The decision to abort drilling this year may in part be due to the fact that both drilling rigs are likely to be stuck in East Asia, undergoing repairs.

Shell has also faced widespread opposition to its activities from environmental activists.

"This is the first good decision we've seen from Shell," said Mike le Vine of Oceana, a group which focuses on ocean conservation.

"Given the disastrous 2012 season, our government agencies must take advantage of this opportunity to reassess the way decisions are made about our ocean resources and to reconsider the commitment to explore for oil in the Arctic Ocean."

US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said his department will carry out a high-level assessment of what when wrong with Shell's operations last year.

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EU ministers agree on a ban of large-scale discard of fish species

Deutsche Welle, 27 February 2013

EU Ministers have agreed on a plan to combat overfishing by limiting the amount of fish that is discarded into the sea. But critics argue the deal is not good enough.

Under EU regulation, European fishermen must comply with quotas that limit them to a certain species of fish and an overall amount.

Superfluous fish are then thrown overboard, most of them die. The practice has long been condemned as wasteful and harmful to the environment.

After 21 hours of negotiations EU ministers on Wednesday morning agreed on a timetable to phase out this practice of "discard."

UK Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney, who is the president of the European Council of Fisheries Ministers and chaired the agriculture ministers' meeting, described the outcome as "a very good result."

"It was on a knife's edge right until the end on whether there would be any agreement at all," German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said after the meeting.

EU trawlers fish mainly for cod, haddock and herring, but the problem of overfishing for most fish species has long been recognized as severe.

The EU Commission estimates that 23 percent of all fish caught by EU vessels are discarded. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) warned that the northeast Atlantic has the highest discard level in the world, estimated at 1.3 million tonnes, the majority of which is attributed to EU fisheries.

EU ministers agreed that by-catch of unwanted species and juvenile fish could not be eliminated completely and a certain amount must still be allowed.

The proposed ban would be implemented gradually over the course of five years. Starting in January 2014 seven percent of unwanted fish may be thrown back into the sea as the ban is implemented gradually in European waters through 2019.

Sweden was the only country to refuse endorsing the compromise on Wednesday morning in protest to the slow introduction of the ban.

EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said she wanted to provide EU money to fishermen to help them with the investments into better fishing gear such as nets that would prevent the fishing of small, young fish.

She described this as a concrete step towads the rebuilding of fish stocks and support for the coastal communities which are dependant on fishing.

The plans for the ban are now to be debated in the European Parliament, which must approve the new policy. Several lawmakers pushed for reform and could now demand greater changes.

rg/kms (dpa, AFP)

Russian ship adrift in Atlantic an 'environmental hazard'

Google – AFP, Sandra Ferrer (AFP), 20 February 2013 

An undated handout picture of former Russian cruise ship MV Lyubov

Orlova (DPA/AFP/File, Dietmar Hasenpusch)

BREST, France — The Lyubov Orlova, a Russian-built cruise ship adrift in the Atlantic after a failed bid to tow it to a scrapyard, poses an "imminent" environmental threat, a French green group warned Wednesday.

The 100-metre-long rusting vessel, named after a Russian movie star from the 1930s, is floating free in international waters off Canada after two towing accidents. It has no crew or warning lights.

"In case of a collision or sinking or any accident, the Lyubov Orlova will immediately release fuel, pyralene and other toxic liquids, asbestos ... mercury and other non-degradable floating waste," environmental group Robin des Bois said in a statement.

It poses "an imminent environmental threat," the group said.

The 1976-built ship left Canadian shores on January 23 to be towed to a scrapyard in the Dominican Republic. But the cable snapped a day later leaving it stranded in international waters.

It was then secured by the Atlantic Hawk, a supply vessel in the offshore oil industry, which managed to take the ship under tow again but it drifted off again.

"The Lyubov Orlova has not been located," Robin des Bois, which translates as Robin Hood, warned. Experts say it could be drifting towards Ireland.

Canada's transport authority has said the ship -- abandoned for two years -- was no longer its concern having left the country's waters but underscored that the owner was responsible for its movements.

"The vessel has drifted into international waters, and given current patterns and predominant winds, it is very unlikely that the vessel will re-enter waters under Canadian jurisdiction," Transport Canada said in a statement.

It said the authority had decided not to pursue the vessel as the operation could pose a safety risk to Canadian sailors in choppy waters.

According to Canadian media reports the owner is Reza Shoeybi. He told Canada's public broadcaster CBC that he is hoping the derelict vessel will be safely snagged by another ship as it gets close to Europe.

"I'm trying my best. I'm talking to a few people in Ireland -- salvage companies -- perhaps to partner up with them and retrieve her," Shoeybi told CBC News.

The ship has repeatedly made headlines for the wrong reasons. Canadian firm Cruise North Expeditions wanted to charter the ship for summer cruises in the Arctic but due to a financial dispute with the Russian ship owners, the Lyubov Orlova was seized when it arrived in St. John's, Newfoundland, in September, 2010.

Locals then donated food to the stranded crew of 44 until they could be repatriated to Russia three months later.

The ship was tied up at the harbour in St. John's for more than two years before being sold in February 2012 to be broken up.

Indonesia Announces Shark, Manta Ray Sanctuary

Jakarta Globe, February 20, 2013

In this handout picture taken on June 14, 2012 and released by Conservation
 International on February 20, 2013, a diver tags a whale shark in Raja
Ampat. (AFP Photo)

      

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Indonesia has announced a new shark and manta ray sanctuary, the first to protect the species in the rich marine ecosystem of the Coral Triangle, known as the “Amazon of the ocean.”

Environmentalists on Wednesday welcomed the creation of the 46,000-square-kilometer protection zone, in an area at risk from both overfishing and climate change.

The local government in Raja Ampat on the western tip of New Guinea island announced the move this week, issuing local regulations to ban the finning and fishing of sharks in the area, a tourist destination popular with divers.

Rizal Algamar, Indonesia director of the Nature Conservancy, described the regulations in a joint statement with Conservation International as a “breakthrough in policy.”

“Scientific evidence states that the value of live sharks and manta rays far outweighs the one-time profit of dead sharks and manta rays, benefiting a growing world-class and increasingly popular marine tourism and dive destination,” he said.

Scientists have warned the Coral Triangle, which spreads across a vast area of Southeast Asia’s waters, is under threat, with heat-trapping carbon gases blamed for creating acidic seas hostile to much marine life.

Overfishing has also been a problem, but the sanctuary will support existing no-take zones that have helped shark numbers slowly recover.

“Sharks in particular play an important role, as apex predators at the top of the food chain, maintaining fisheries and ecosystem health,” the statement said.

The sanctuary is also expected to prevent a drop in manta ray numbers, with the species’ gills increasingly used in Asian medicines.

Shark populations are in a rapid and steep decline worldwide, facing intense pressure from fishing and in high demand for shark fin soup.

Up to 73 million sharks are killed annually, mostly for their fins, the statement said. As a result, many shark species have suffered declines greater than 75 percent and in some species up to 90 percent or more.

Indonesia ranks as the world’s largest exporter of sharks and rays.

Agence France-Presse

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This photo, taken on January 2, 2013, shows shark fins drying in the sun

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trade. (AFP)

.

Sea Shepherd activists clash with Japanese whaler in Southern Ocean

Marine conservation society reports double ramming and calls on Australia to send naval vessel to scene

guardian.co.uk, Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Wednesday 20 February 2013

Japanese whaling vessel 'rams Sea Shepherd activists' in Antarctic

Anti-whaling activists say a Japanese whaling ship has rammed two of their vessels, marking the first clash of this winter's "whale wars" in the freezing Antarctic seas.

The marine conservation group Sea Shepherd called on Australia to send a naval vessel to the area after claims that the whaling fleet's factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, had collided with two of its vessels including its flagship, the Steve Irwin.

"The Nisshin Maru has rammed the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker but both vessels continue to hold their positions," Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd's founder, said in a statement.

Watson, who is on an Interpol wanted list for allegedly endangering a fishing vessel crew in 2002, accused the Japanese coastguard personnel accompanying the whalers of throwing stun grenades at activists.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986 but a clause in the moratorium allows Japan to catch just fewer than 1,000 whales in the Antarctic every winter for "scientific research". The meat from the hunts is sold legally, on the open market, although Japan's appetite for it has declined dramatically since the 1960s.

In recent years, Sea Shepherd has prevented the fleet from reaching its quota, of about 950 minke whales and about 50 fin whales. However, Professor Masayuki Komatsu, a former agriculture ministry official, told the Guardian recently the whalers had left port later than usual at the end of last year, and were expected to catch only about 300 whales.

Sea Shepherd said the 8,000-tonne Nisshin Maru, which processes slaughtered whales, had also collided with the Bob Barker, causing the latter temporarily to take on water in its engine room. No one was reported injured in the collision.

The clashes, near the Australian Davis research base, on the Antarctic coast, came after activists had spent two days trying to prevent the Nisshin Maru from reaching the whaling fleet's tanker, Sun Laurel, to refuel.

Sea Shepherd said three of its boats, including the two that were damaged, had been positioned near the Japanese factory ship and tanker when the incident occurred.

The Cetacean Research Institute, a quasi-governmental body that oversees the hunts, said it was investigating the incident.

Japan's consul general in Melbourne, Hidenobu Sobashima, called on Sea Shepherd to end its confrontations with the fleet. "All obstructive activities of Sea Shepherd that endanger life of the crew and property, and safe navigation at sea, should be stopped," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted him as saying.

The latest incident is one of many clashes between Sea Shepherd and the whaling fleet over the past nine years. The most serious came in 2010, when the group's hi-tech trimaran, the Ady Gil, sank after colliding with a whaling ship.

Last December, a US court granted a temporary injunction to the Japanese whalers forbidding Sea Shepherd from sailing within 500 yards of the whaling vessels.

On Monday, Watson wrote in the Guardian that Japan's whalers had "never before been more recklessly aggressive".

Sea Shepherd's director, Bob Brown, said the group's two vessels had been repeatedly rammed, and called on the Australian government to send a naval ship to the area.

"It is illegal to be ramming ships in any seas, anywhere on the planet," the former Australian Greens party leader told reporters in Melbourne. "It is illegal for a tanker to be carrying heavy fuel oil into Antarctic waters under international law."

The Australian government, a vocal critic of whaling, has taken its campaign to end the annual hunts in the Southern Ocean to the international court of justice, in the Hague; a ruling could come later this year.

Australia's environment minister, Tony Burke, said in a statement: "The government condemns so-called scientific whaling in all waters, and we urge everyone in the ocean to observe safety at sea."

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China takes over Pakistan port from Singapore

Google - AFP, Nasir Jaffry (AFP), 18 February 2013 

Boats are moored at Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea on February 12, 2013

(AFP/File, Behram Baloch)

ISLAMABAD — China took control Monday of a strategic Pakistani port on the Arabian Sea, as part of a drive to secure energy and maritime routes that also gives it a potential naval base, sparking Indian concern.

The Pakistani cabinet approved the transfer of Gwadar, currently a commercial failure cut off from the national road network, from Singapore's PSA International to the state-owned China company on January 30.

It had not been clear when the actual handover would take place, but Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari presided over the signing of a memorandum of understanding on Monday that was broadcast live by local television.

"The contract of operation of Gwadar port is formally given to China. Today, the agreement is transferred from the Port of Singapore Authority to China Overseas Ports Holding Company Limited," Zardari announced.

"The award of this contract opens new opportunities for our people... It gives new impetus to Pakistan-China relations."

The Pakistanis pitched the deal as offering an energy and trade corridor that would connect China to the Arabian Sea and Strait of Hormuz, a gateway for a third of the world's traded oil, overland through an expanded Karakoram Highway.

Experts say it would cut thousands of kilometres off the distance which oil and gas imports from Africa and the Middle East have to travel to reach China.

"Gwadar port will enhance trade and commerce not only between Pakistan and China but also in the region," said Zardari.

China paid about 75 percent of the initial $250 million used to build the port but in 2007 PSA International won a 40-year operating lease.

This photograph taken on February 12, 2013 shows the construction site at

Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea (AFP, Behram Baloch)

Then-ruler Pervez Musharraf was reportedly unwilling to upset Washington by giving control of the port to the Chinese.

On February 6 Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony said New Delhi was concerned by Pakistan's decision to transfer management of the deep-sea port to China, which has interests in a string of other ports encircling India.

Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Moazzam Ahmad Khan dismissed those concerns last week, telling reporters: "This is not something that any other country should have any reason to be concerned about."

Gwadar is part of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, the most deprived part of Pakistan despite being rich in oil and gas deposits. The province is gripped by a separatist insurgency and record levels of sectarian violence.

On Saturday, a bomb killed 89 people in a Hazara Shiite Muslim neighbourhood of the provincial capital Quetta, barely a month after twin suicide bombers killed 92 people at a Hazara snooker hall elsewhere in the city.

Zardari said the building of infrastructure around the port will also promote economic activity in Gwadar and Baluchistan.

But some analysts warn that it may be some time before Pakistan can benefit from China's takeover of Gwadar, stressing that the connecting roads and an expanded Karakoram Highway still need to be finished.

They also suggest that security concerns have made China more cautious about big investment projects in Pakistan.

In 2004, three Chinese engineers helping to build Gwadar were killed in a car bombing. The same year, two Chinese engineers working on a hydroelectric dam project in South Waziristan were kidnapped and one of them died.

Gwadar is the most westerly in a string of Chinese-funded ports in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and potentially Bangladesh that encircle its big rival, India.

The ports were dubbed China's "string of pearls" -- or potential naval bases similar to those of the United States -- but some analysts pour cold water on suggestions that Beijing is scouting for naval bases in the Indian Ocean.

Andrew Small, an expert on China-Pakistan relations, believes that most of Beijing's concerns can be resolved through cooperation, but that Gwadar is the most likely port to be developed by China for naval use.

"Pakistan is probably the only government where the level of trust between the two militaries is high enough to make that a completely reliable prospect," he told AFP recently.

Sea animal has grow-again penis

Yahoo – AFP, 13 February 2013

AFP/File - Two sea-slugs (Godiva banyulensis) from the Glaucidae familia

swim in the Mediterranean sea, 29 July 2004, off the town of Kas, Turkey.

Scientists reported Wednesday on the bizarre sex life of a sea slug that discards its penis after copulation. Then grows a new one.

"No other animal is known to repeatedly copulate using such 'disposable penes'," Japanese biologists wrote in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, describing the behaviour as "extremely peculiar".

Dubbed Chromodoris reticulata in Latin, the red-and-white slug -- technically a shell-less mollusc -- inhabits warms waters in Southeast Asia.

The critter needs 24 hours between couplings to unroll an internally coiled and compressed juvenile penis to replace the used, external bit, the scientists found.

It can repeat this feat at least three times.

The human thumb-sized slug is an hermaphrodite, meaning it has both male and female sexual organs.

The animals perform dual sexual roles during copulation. They give sperm to a mating partner while simultaneously receiving sperm, which they store for later insemination.

The team observed copulation between sea slugs that they had captured during scuba dives and held in a tank.

After each coupling, which lasted between dozens of seconds and a few minutes, every slug discarded its penis -- a thread-like organ that it projects from its side into a partner's vagina.

The team also examined the microscopic structure and function of the male organs -- observing an internal spiral structure they believe grows into a replacement penis.

"We propose that the tissue at the spiral part of the penis is compressed and undifferentiated, gradually differentiating into the 'next penis'," the team wrote.

"It may need approximately a day for the spiral structure to be ready for copulation."

In another revelation about the sea slug's sex life, the scientists found its penis was covered with spines -- and suggested these may be used to remove the sperm of previous partners being held in store by their mate.

The spines are backward-pointing, making it difficult to withdraw the penis after copulation. This may explain the organ's disposable nature.

"Chromodoris reticulata may compensate for the short-term cost of decreased reproductive opportunities caused by the loss of a penis with the reproductive advantage gained by sperm displacement," wrote the study authors.

Various animals are known to discard parts of their body, such as the gecko which sheds its tail.

Few, though, are willing to part with their penis, the team noted with clinical understatement.

Euro MPs back large-scale fishing reform to save stocks

BBC News, 6 February 2013

More data is needed about species to make Europe's fishing more sustainable

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The European Parliament has voted for sweeping reforms of the controversial EU Common Fisheries Policy.

The package includes measures to protect endangered stocks and end discards - the practice of throwing unwanted dead fish into the sea.

Wasteful discards are reckoned to account for a quarter of total catches under the current quota system.

There are hopes that the changes can become law by next year, after more talks with the 27 EU governments.

The MEPs voted for the package by 502 votes to 137.

The Greens in parliament called the vote "historic". Spokeswoman Isabella Lovin said it would "finally put the EU's fisheries policy on a sustainable footing".

A fishing alliance, Europeche, says the reforms are too sudden and too radical.

With an estimated 75% of Europe’s stocks overfished, there has been enormous public and media pressure over this latest attempt to shake up the CFP.

The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin says the vote is something of a victory for citizen power, following organised lobbying of MEPs by ordinary people, as well as by high-profile celebrity chefs and environmentalists.

The reform package was presented to the full parliament in Strasbourg by the German Social Democrat MEP Ulrike Rodust.

She said the reforms “will bring an end to the December ritual of fisheries ministers negotiating until 4am, neglecting scientific advice and setting too high fishing quotas.

“As of 2015, the principle of maximum sustainable yield shall apply, which means that each year we do not harvest more fish than a stock can reproduce. Our objective is that depleted fish stocks recover by 2020. Not only nature will benefit, but also fishermen: bigger stocks produce higher yields.”

She said fishermen had to be helped through a transitional period as fishing capacity shrank to allow stocks to recover.

Parliamentary clout

MEPs are sharing power with the Council - the EU governments - on fisheries policy for the first time. There is still some dispute about the amount of influence MEPs can exert over fishing quotas.

Under the new proposals, the EU will shift from the current bargaining over quotas - a system often attacked by environmental groups - to fishing based on "maximum sustainable yield" (MSY).

The phasing in of MSY depends on collecting more scientific data about the rate at which different marine species reproduce.

The environmental group Greenpeace welcomed the MEPs' vote on Wednesday, saying the reforms would help to promote small-scale and low-impact fishing methods.

Greenpeace says small-scale fishing vessels measuring 12m (40ft) or less make up about 80% of the European fishing sector and usually cause less environmental harm.

The group's spokesperson on EU fisheries policy, Saskia Richartz, called it "a momentous shift away from overfishing".

"National governments that stand in the way of reform, like Spain and France, will find it increasingly hard to act as proxies for a handful of powerful companies, with no concern for the long-term wellbeing of the oceans or the majority of fishermen," she said.

Atlantic bluefin tuna is the most overfished species in European waters.

But the environmental group WWF says EU fisheries have also faced a 32% decline in stocks of cod, plaice and sole since 1993.

The fish catch in the North Sea has slumped from 3.5m tonnes in 1995 to 1.5m tonnes in 2007, WWF reports.

The UK Conservatives' fisheries spokesman, Struan Stevenson MEP, said "these reforms will be wresting control away from the micro-managers in Brussels who have made such an absolute mess of fisheries policy for the past 30 years".

"We will also see an urgent timetable set for an absolute ban on the scandal of dumping and discards."

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Furry crabs may be healing Great Barrier Reef

The Daily Star, February 05, 2013

This undated handout photo obtained on February 5, 2013, shows a diver
 beside a three-metre Acropora hyacinthus (plate coral) infected with white
syndrome in Queensland. AFP PHOTO / F. JOSEPH POLLOCK

                             

SYDNEY: Furry crabs once thought to be damaging the Great Barrier Reef may in fact be helping save the coral by stopping the spread of disease, a researcher said Tuesday.

Scientists at James Cook University studied the impact of furry coral crabs on fragments suffering from white syndrome, a deadly disease that appears throughout the Indo-Pacific and causes coral tissue to slough off.

"I think the crabs are helping by consuming that tissue as it falls off and also by eating any of the other associated microorganisms that could thrive on that dead and dying tissue," researcher Joseph Pollock told AFP.

Pollock said the crabs did not kill the disease, the cause of which is still unknown, but his study showed they significantly slowed its progress.

"It slows it by about three-fold," he said, adding that the disease was often associated with warmer water temperatures.

"It could be that these crabs are giving it (the coral) a bit of a chance to stay alive until potentially those water temperatures could come down or the coral could put up a defence to stop the disease progression itself."

Pollock, from the Queensland university's School of Marine and Tropical Biology, said he had been working on what causes the destructive disease.

"It can kill two-metre, three-metre coral colonies that are decades old in a matter of just months," he said, adding that it was a major threat and sometimes overlooked.

Australia is under growing pressure to step up protection of the Great Barrier Reef, a world heritage site, which has been damaged by the predatory crown-of-thorns starfish.

Conservationists also fear the reef is at risk from a gas and mining boom, resulting in increased coastal run-off and more marine traffic, and coastal development.

Pollock said there were links between white syndrome and factors such as warmer water temperatures and coastal run-off.

He added: "Once a crown-of-thorns starfish comes through, even the parts that are still left alive are still very susceptible to the disease... they are all sort of intertwined together."

Pollock said his study at Lizard Island, about 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Cairns, involved collecting healthy and diseased coral colonies, adding crabs, and observing the fragments for three weeks.

He said the researchers found the crabs were strongly attracted to colonies hit by white syndrome.

"This means that when a coral is infected with the disease, crabs from nearby coral colonies could migrate to the diseased colony, slowing the disease," he said.

"This could be a very interesting feedback mechanism whereby these crabs help to slow coral disease on reefs."

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“2011 and Beyond” - What you are seeing, and why - Jan 16, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

"....Let us just talk about the ocean for a moment. We won't even get to what's happening in the air and what mammals might experience. Let's just speak of the ocean. Have you heard about the salmon? What has your science warned you against? You're overfishing! The sea is dying. The coral is dying. The reefs are going away. You're not seeing the food chain that used to be there. You've overfished everything. Fishing quotas have been set up to help this. Oh, all those little people in the red room - they don't know about the purple. Red people only know about the red paradigm.

Did you hear about the salmon recently? There's too many of them! In the very place where quotas are in place so you won't overfish, they're jumping in the boats! Against all odds and any projections from environmentalists or biologists, they're overrunning the oceans in Alaska - way too many fish.

What does that tell you? Is it possible that Gaia takes care of itself? That's what it tells you! Perhaps this alignment is going to keep humanity fed. Did anybody think of this? What if Gaia is in alliance with you? What if the increase in consciousness that raised your DNA vibration has alerted Gaia to change the weather cycle and get ready to feed humanity? Are you looking at the ocean where the oil spill occurred? It's recovering in a way that was not predicted. What's happening?

The life cycle itself is being altered by the temperature change of the ocean and much of what you have believed is the paradigm of life in the sea is slowly changing. A new system of life is appearing, as it has before, and is upon you in your lifetime. It will compliment what you know and expose you to a new concept: Gaia regularly refreshes the life cycle on Earth. ...."