Netherlands, Russia agree deal on Arctic Sunrise compensation

DutchNews, May 17, 2019 

Photo: Salvatore Barbera via Wikimedia Commons

The Netherlands and Russia have reached a settlement in the Arctic Sunrise case, in which Russian officials boarded a Greenpeace protest ship in international waters and arrested the crew in 2013. 

As part of the deal Greenpeace will get €2.7m from Russia to pay for damage to the ship, additional costs and compensation for the 30-strong crew. 

The Arctic Sunrise, which sailed under the Dutch flag, was seized in September 2013 and its crew arrested on piracy charges following a protest at a Russian drilling rig in Arctic waters. The crew were released in December that year after Russia agreed to an amnesty. The ship was kept in Russia for 11 months. 

The Netherlands and Russia have reached a settlement in the @Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise case. Both countries acknowledge the right to protest at sea. This underlines that ships in international waters cannot be boarded and persons on board cannot be arrested without cause. pic.twitter.com/7sE9z8jha4

— Stef Blok (@ministerBlok) 17 mei 2019

In 2015, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ordered Russia to pay the Netherlands compensation over the incident but Russia said at the time it would not recognise the ruling. 

Greenpeace Nederland said in a reaction to the ruling that they welcome the Dutch government’s persistence. 

‘The right to peaceful protest is part of democracy,’ said Faiza Oulahsen, who was on the ship when it was taken over. ‘Although Greenpeace is not part of the deal, we are pleased the Russian authorities are now underwriting the essence of the tribunal ruling.’

Russia to release killer whales in new habitat, despite expert advice

Yahoo – AFP, Maria ANTONOVA, May 15, 2019

The animals are being kept at a holding facility in Srednyaya Bay in the Far
Eastern town of Nakhodka (AFP Photo/Sergei PETROV)

Moscow (AFP) - Russia is to free captured killer whales over the next month, but will not return them to their original habitat despite expert advice, a scientist said Wednesday.

The animals will instead be released from their pens in Russia's Far East and may "disrupt vacationers" at resorts nearby, said Vladislav Rozhnov, who was involved in talks over their fate.

Nearly 100 belugas and orcas were captured last summer and kept in small pens by commercial firms who had planned to deliver them to aquariums, including in China where the industry is booming.

Ten killer whales, or orcas, will be released "in late May to early June", Rozhnov said during a briefing at the Russian environment ministry.

He said it would be more ideal to transport them to where they had initially been captured, as Russian and foreign scientists have advised, but this was deemed too costly.

Instead they will be freed in the bay where they have been held near the town of Nakhodka -- more than 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) south from where they were actually caught in the Sea of Okhotsk.

There is a risk that the whales will "stay near the pens where they were fed" and bother humans, he said.

"Science gives recommendations, but the decision is taken by government authorities," said Rozhnov, who heads the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Environment and -- with other agencies -- is part of a council on the fate of the whales.

Last month Greenpeace activists produced an image of an orca in Moscow in 

protest against keeping orcas and beluga whales crammed into small enclosures 

in the Far Eastern town of Nakhodka (AFP Photo/Yuri KADOBNOV)

"We hope that the released animals will go north and return to their native waters," he said.

'Aggressive' orcas

The environment ministry said in a statement that transporting the animals to the Sea of Okhotsk could injure the animals and cause stress. Constructing rehabilitation enclosures at a faraway release site would be too complicated, it added.

"Due to constraints of time, the realisation of this is difficult," the ministry said.

Russian officials last month met with US-based conservationists Jean-Michel Cousteau and Charles Vinick, who visited the facility with the killer whales and 87 beluga whales, also captured last year.

Rozhnov said there was no precise decision on the beluga whales, but that scientists now were looking into genetic evidence of family ties between the captured juveniles and known beluga groups in the wild.

In a statement Wednesday, Cousteau's team warned that releasing the killer whales near the facility where they were being held carried a "high number of significant risks". They included potential conflict with people and boats in the area due to "aggressive behaviours observed in some of the orcas".

Such a release "leads to likely long-term costs and diminished potential for survival", the team said. They said the whales should be taken to where they were captured following an "acclimatisation period" in remote enclosures.

Russia is the only country still catching wild orcas and belugas. The controversial trade of marine mammals has boomed in recent years together with the aquarium industry in China, which uses Russian animals in its new marine parks.

Although some fisheries officials have defended the capture as a legitimate industry, scientists argue it threatens the species' populations.

Stricken ship refloated after Solomons oil spill

Yahoo – AFP, 11 May 2019

The ship was carrying more than 700 tonnes of heavy fuel and leaked a huge
amount of oil into the sea

The ship at the centre of an environmental disaster near World-Heritage listed waters in the Solomon Islands was refloated Saturday after being stranded on a coral reef for more than three months.

The MV Solomon Trader ran aground on February 5 while loading bauxite at Rennell Island, about 240 kilometres (149 miles) south of the capital Honiara.

The 225-metre (740-foot) ship was carrying more than 700 tonnes of heavy fuel and leaked a huge amount of oil into the sea, sparking an international effort to contain the spill.

"They have been trying to refloat the vessel since Thursday but because of low tide they have not been able to, until today", the chairman of the Solomons National Disaster Council, Melchior Mataki, told AFP.

An oil slick more than six kilometres long has spread along the shoreline, destroying the livelihoods of islanders who rely on waters in the ecologically delicate region.

Rennell Island is the largest raised coral atoll in the world and includes a UNESCO World Heritage site which extends kilometres out to sea.

Authorities have said the site was not affected by the spill, although Mataki said a detailed environmental assessment will be undertaken now that the vessel is out of the way.

"There is a preliminary report but the full report will be made known once assessments and investigation findings are compiled properly", he said, adding the government would likely seek compensation for environmental damage.

The Australian government had sent salvage experts to assist the response and vowed to help the Solomons make sure those responsible for the spill are held to account.

The Hong Kong-registered ship was chartered by Indonesian-based Bintan Mining and was loaded with almost 11,000 tonnes of bauxite at the time of the incident.

Indonesia to sink scores of boats to deter illegal fishing

Yahoo – AFP, May 4, 2019

Indonesian authorities sink an impounded Vietnamese fishing boat at Datuk
island,on May 4, 2019. (AFP Photo/LOUIS ANDERSON)

Pontianak (Indonesia) (AFP) - Indonesia began sinking dozens of impounded foreign boats Saturday to deter illegal fishing in its waters, a week after a naval vessel clashed with a Vietnamese coastguard near the South China Sea.

Up to 51 foreign boats -- including from Vietnam, Malaysia and China -- will be scuttled at several different locations over the next two weeks, officials said.

Over a dozen were scuttled Saturday near Pontianak, in West Kalimantan province.

Fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti said the action was necessary to warn neighbouring countries that Indonesia was serious about fighting illegal fishing.

"There's no other way," she said. "This is actually the most beautiful solution for our nation, but yes, it's scary for other countries."

She said Indonesia suffered great economic loss from lax regulations that gave leeway for foreign boats to fish in Indonesian waters.

Since president Joko Widodo took office in 2014, hundreds of captured foreign fishing vessels have been sunk -- more than half from Vietnam.

The practice was suspended for several months, but has resumed since last week when a Vietnamese coastguard boat rammed an Indonesian navy ship attempting to seize an illegal trawler.

A dozen fishermen were detained and remain in Indonesian custody.

"If we don't act firm, they will be even more daring. I believe these collisions will get worse one day, this will escalate," Pudjiastuti said.

Jakarta claims the area in the southernmost reaches of the South China Sea as its exclusive economic zone and two years ago changed its name to the North Natuna Sea in a bid to show sovereignty.

More recently, it inaugurated a new military base in the chain of several hundred small islands to beef up defences. The moves prompted criticism from Beijing, whose claims in the sea overlap Indonesia's around the remote Natuna Islands.

'Russian' whale leads to espionage speculations in Norway

Yahoo – AFP, Pierre-Henry DESHAYES, May 3, 2019

The origin of the whale remains unknown more than a week after it was first spotted
(AFP Photo/Jorgen REE WIIG)

Oslo (AFP) - A spy, a far away visitor or a fugitive on the run? A mysterious Beluga whale, caught wearing a suspicious harness, has ignited the imaginations of Norwegians who have yet to receive answers.

The whale has been delighting locals in the area of Finnmark in the far north of Norway for the last week.

But more than a week after it was first spotted by fishermen in the Arctic waters off the coast of northern Norway its origin remains unknown.

When Jorgen Ree Wiig, a marine biologist working with the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries tracked down the mammal with the help of a fisherman and two colleagues on April 26, they managed to remove an obviously man-made harness attached to it.

The harness had a mount suited for an action camera and the text "Equipment St. Petersburg" printed on the plastic clasps.

Wiig told AFP on Friday he believed the whale could have come from neighbouring Russia, where he believed it might have escaped an enclosure.

"The whale is so calm around humans and goes up to boats so it seems to have been accustomed to humans," Wiig said.

Hidden agenda?

Another theory supported by Wiig was that the whale could have been trained by the Russian navy as "they have been known to do so before."

Its ease with humans, the markings on the harness together with reports of the Russian Navy training Beluga whales has led many Norwegians to speculate that it could be a "Russian spy."

Moscow has not issued any official reaction but an officer quoted by the media has mocked the idea, arguing that the military would not be stupid enough to "leave their phone number" on an animal trained for clandestine activities.

The Barents Sea is a strategic geopolitical area where Western and Russian submarine movements are monitored.

It is also the gateway to the Northern Route that shortens maritime routes between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Dmitry Glazov, a scientist working at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Russian news agency Interfax that the Russian Navy had programmes involving whales and that they were in part operating out of Murmansk.

"It is a fact that the military has these animals. Among other things, they used them during the Sochi Olympics," Glazov said Monday.

There are also private travel agents around Murmansk advertising tours that involve meeting or diving with Belugas kept in enclosures in the White Sea south of the Kola peninsula.

AFP has reached out to two of these agents but has been unable to get a response, as it was a public holiday in the country.

The harness itself has been transferred to the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), but Martin Bernsen, communications officer at PST, said it was unclear whether they would find anything.

"We must admit that examining technical equipment attached to whales is not a daily occurrence for PST," he told AFP.

"The whale is not a suspect in our investigation, for now," he added.

Possible Western connection

Another theory on the origin of the whale is that the "Equipment St. Petersburg," since it's written in English, might refer to the St. Petersburg in the US state of Florida, where there are water parks with Beluga whales, such as Seaworld in Orlando.

According to Jorgen Ree Wiig it wouldn't be inconceivable for the whale to have travelled from there.

"They can swim quite far and especially young males have been known to travel very far," Wiig said.

This hypothesis is supported by videos showing local residents throwing plastic rings in the water which the whale brings back.

Its path would then be reminiscent to that of the famous killer whale Keiko, star of the film "Free Willy" (1993), who once released into the wild outside Iceland swam to the coastal waters of Norway.

No water park has however yet reported the disappearance of a Beluga whale.

Wherever it's from, the whale has become quite the celebrity, and a poll to name it was conducted online by Norwegian broadcaster NRK and gathered 25,000 votes.

Thirty percent of the votes went to the name "Hvaldimir", a pun on the word whale in Norwegian and a nod to its alleged association to Russia.

Beluga whales, which can reach a size of 6 metres and live to between 40 and 60 years of age generally habitate the icy waters around Greenland and northern Norway and Russia.

A sociable species related to dolphins, it travels in pods and the observation of an isolated individual is rare.

Alaska's indigenous people feel the heat of climate change

Yahoo – AFP, Jocelyne ZABLIT, May 2, 2019

City council member Walter Nelson walks in a cemetery that has been relocated
twice and is now a mass grave because of severe erosion of the permafrost in the
village of Napakiak in Alaska (AFP Photo/Mark RALSTON)

Napakiak (United States) (AFP) - The cemetery has already been moved twice, the old school is underwater and the new one is facing the same fate as erosion constantly eats away at the land in Napakiak.

The tiny village located in southwestern Alaska, along the meandering Kuskokwim River, is one of dozens of coastal indigenous communities across the state that are on the front lines of climate change, their very existence and way of life threatened by the warming temperatures.

"The shoreline keeps eroding much faster than predictions and we are continuously having to move back from the river to higher ground," city council member Walter Nelson told an AFP team on a recent tour of the isolated village of 350 residents, most of them Yupik Eskimos. "Here, we are dealing with climate change on a daily basis."

Waving his hands left and right, he points to houses and other structures, most of them on stilts, that are affected by rapid coastal erosion and thawing permafrost -- a once-permanently frozen ground on which many Alaska native villages are built.

"It's a constant race against time and right now the local grocery store, the fire station and a city building are top of the list for relocation," Nelson said. "The school will be next but we won't be able to move it. We will have to tear it down and build a new one."

Severe erosion of the permafrost threatens the school in the village of Napakiak 

in Alaska (AFP Photo/Mark RALSTON)

The same drama is playing out across all of Alaska's coastal communities, many of which are not accessible by road, except in the winter, when the rivers freeze and turn into ice roads that are increasingly non-existent because of the warming temperatures.

According to a 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office, the majority of the state's more than 200 native villages are affected by erosion and flooding, with 31 facing "imminent threats."

Among those in danger of going underwater is Newtok, located near Alaska's western coast, where all of the roughly 350 residents should complete the daunting task of relocating this summer to a new village about nine miles away.

Further south, in Quinhagak, which sits along the Bering Sea and near the mouth of the Kuskokwim River, local leaders are also mulling moving the entire village of 700 people to safer grounds.

"We've already moved twice and the last time was in 1979," said Warren Jones, president of the local Yupik corporation known as Qanirtuuq, Inc. "But the erosion is happening too quickly and now we're preparing land for the new site which will be further inland."

'Existential threats'

According to scientists, Alaska has been warming twice as fast as the global average, with temperatures in February and March shattering records.

According to scientists, Alaska has been warming twice as fast as the global 

average (AFP Photo/Mark RALSTON)

"From 1901 to 2016, average temperatures in the mainland United States increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius), whereas in Alaska they increased by 4.7 degrees," said Rick Thoman, a climate expert at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy.

"This is disproportionately affecting rural communities in Alaska, many of which are facing long-term existential threats," he added. "Some communities are one storm away from not being habitable."

In Napakiak, which is surrounded by miles and miles of flat tundra dotted with small lakes, and is only accessible by small plane or by boat, Harold Ilmar's full-time job for the last decade has been to protect the village from storm surges, flooding and the river constantly eroding large chunks of land.

On average, he moves about five structures a year to higher ground and, with the meager means at his disposal, tries to push back the waves chiseling away at the banks with sandbags and plastic sheeting.

'Metal coffins'

"It's non-stop and during emergencies, I even work weekends," he says.

Harold Ilmar's full-time job for the last decade has been to protect the village of 

Napakiak from storm surges, flooding and the river constantly eroding large chunks 

of land (AFP Photo/Mark RALSTON)

"I think it would be better if we just moved the whole village to higher ground, right up there," he adds, pointing to a bluff about a mile away from the shore.

Like their counterparts in other native communities, Napakiak officials in recent years have been making the rounds, travelling to conferences across the country to sound the alarm about climate change and their sinking villages.

"We keep telling people to come out here because seeing is believing," said Nelson. "They're not going to understand what's happening over the phone."

He said the village has even started using more sturdy metal coffins instead of wooden ones for burials, as many bodies could not be recovered intact when the two previous cemeteries washed away.

"We have two mass graves now filled with the remains of people we couldn't identify," he said.

Nelson acknowledged that in the long-term, given the speed of erosion and increased flooding, Napakiak may end up underwater with its residents possibly joining the growing number of climate refugees forced to abandon their land.

"We thought that 2016 and 2018 were the warmest but 2019 is breaking all records," he sighed. "Every year it keeps getting warmer.

"Who knows what we are going to face in the next 10 years."

French aquarium sued over hammerhead shark deaths

Yahoo –AFP, April 29, 2019

Based in the northern French port town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Nausicaa bills itself
as the largest public acquarium in Europe (AFP Photo/Ludovic MARIN)

Lille (France) (AFP) - An ocean conservation group said Monday it had filed suit against a French aquarium over the premature deaths of 30 endangered hammerhead sharks.

The move came after the Nausicaa aquarium in the northern French port city of Boulogne-sur-Mer said on Thursday that its last hammerhead, acquired in Australian waters eight years ago, had died from a fungus infection.

It had stopped feeding three weeks earlier and been placed under observation.

The shark died from the same fungus that caused the deaths of 29 other hammerheads at the aquarium since it acquired and began exhibiting them in 2011.

Nausicaa, which bills itself as the largest public aquarium in Europe, said it was still investigating the causes for the early deaths of a shark that scientists say can live 20 to 30 years in the wild.

But the international non-profit group Sea Shepherd on Monday called for an investigation into the techniques used to obtain the sharks and the conditions of their captivity.

"Only greed, coupled with incompetence and flagrant irresponsibility, can explain this slaughter," it said.

The distinctive shark, which can reach four metres in length, is on the Red List of endangered species at the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Nausicaa has defended its collection of the hammerheads, saying it is vital for protecting an animal at high risk of extinction.

"100 million (sharks) are killed each year for their fins," which are a prized delicacy in much of Asia, aquarium director Philippe Vallette said last week.

"If we want to increase our knowledge, we have to be able to observe them 24 hours a day. You can't do that in the ocean," he said.

The claim was dismissed by Sea Shepherd, which called on the authorities to investigate a site that gets millions of euros in public funding.

"If Nausicaa really wants to help protect the hammerhead... the three million euros of public funds spent on this project should have been invested in the fight against poaching," it said.