Britain to take back plastic waste from Malaysia

Yahoo – AFP, November 25, 2019

Southeast Asia has been flooded with plastic from more developed nations
such as the US and Australia since last year when China -- which boasted a
massive recycling industry -- ordered a halt to imports (AFP Photo/Mohd RASFAN)

Britain has agreed to take back 42 containers of plastic waste illegally exported to Malaysia, officials said Monday, as several Asian nations push back against becoming the world's trash dump.

Southeast Asia has been flooded with plastic from more developed nations such as the US and Australia since last year when China -- which boasted a massive recycling industry -- ordered a halt to imports.

Many recycling businesses from China moved to Malaysia after the ban took effect, leaving officials struggling to return a large number of shipping containers full of waste brought in from abroad.

After a visit by UK environment officials, Britain agreed to take back containers sent to a major port in northern Penang state since last year without the necessary import papers.

Malaysian Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin praised the "highly commendable" move by London.

"This cooperation signifies a recognition that plastic pollution is a global issue which requires commitment from various countries to address the problem," she said in a statement.

British High Commissioner Charles Hay said the return of the containers showed the UK's "commitment to fighting the illegal plastic waste trade".

Officials hope to take back all the containers by the end of the year, a Malaysian High Commission spokesman said.

Several Southeast Asian countries have sent back unwanted waste in recent months. Indonesia has returned hundreds of containers to their countries of origin, while the Philippines returned a huge shipment of garbage to Canada.

Fate of bigeye tuna in the balance in quota meet

Yahoo – AFP, Laure FILLON, November 18, 2019

More than 50 fishing nations meet this week in Majorca to try and agree
quotas for the under-pressure bigeye tuna (AFP Photo/JOHN WESSELS)

Paris (AFP) - The fate of big-eye tuna, over-fished and in decline, could be decided this week when fishing nations meet to set quotas after failing last year to agree on safeguard measures for the valuable food resource.

Scientists warn that unless the catch is reduced, stocks of Thunnus obesus -- prized for sashimi in Japan and canned worldwide -- could collapse within years.

A scientific report prepared for last year's meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) showed that numbers had plummeted to less than 20 percent of historic levels.

This was only about half what is needed to support a "maximum sustainable yield" -- the largest catch that can be taken without compromising the long-term stability of a species.

ICCAT, which groups more than 50 parties including the European Union, convenes in Majorca, Spain, on Monday for another review of the situation in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, having failed last year to agree quotas or how to include all members in the system.

Previously, ICCAT has a headline quota of 65,000 tonnes, but in practice the catch was nearer to 80,000 tonnes, well into the danger zone, according to NGOs.

The EU on Monday proposed a quota of 62,500 tonnes through to 2022 which would include 17 countries currently catching more than 1,250 tonnes a year.

Ivory Coast, Gabon, Ghana and Guinea Bissau, meanwhile, back a quota of 57,500 to 60,000 tonnes, while the Latin American states of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Mexico are pressing for no change.

Quota key to recovery

For the Pew Charitable Trusts, "a quota of 60,000 tonnes would be too high," fisheries expert Grantly Galland told AFP, suggesting 50,000 tonnes instead.

A quota of 60,000 tonnes would make the stock recovery period "too long," Galland said.

Some experts have calculated that cutting the total catch to 50,000 tonnes per year would give bigeye tuna a 70 percent chance of recovery by 2028.

ICCAT will also be looking at other species at risk -- albacore tuna and sharks.

For albacore, it suggests a quota of 110,000 tonnes from 2020.

For its part, the World Wide Fund for Nature recommends that no-go zones be established for certain periods so as to reduce the number of juvenile tuna caught.

The International Pole and Line Foundation (IPNLF), which promotes artisanal line fishing for tuna, wants the meeting to take on board the special concerns of developing coastal countries.

As for sharks, which have suffered massive human predation, Senegal is pushing for all shortfin mako sharks caught to be released, dead or alive.

The shortfin mako, also known as the blue pointer or bonito shark, is among the most at risk and is already protected under international trade by the wild fauna and flora CITES convention aimed at controlling trafficking in endangered species.

Dutch seaweed-based fuel powers car to 80 kph in Danish trial

DutchNews, November 14, 2019 

Researchers in Denmark have achieved speeds of up to 80 kph using a car powered by Dutch biofuel made from seaweed. 

The seaweed fuel was produced by scientists at the TNO research centre in Petten and at Wageningen University and is part of an EU-funded project to develop new fuels using seaweed and algae. 

‘We’ve looked to see if seaweed fuel works in the same way as ordinary fuel and what its effect is on the motor,’ researcher Jaap van Hal told local newspaper Noordhollands Dagblad.  ‘This means that this fuel could be used for private cars in the future but seaweed fuel is also interesting for aviation and shipping.’ 

Seaweed is quick and easy to grow, making it highly suitable for biofuels, as well as food and bioplastics.

Gay penguins at Amersfoort zoo steal egg and and try to hatch it

DutchNews, November 14, 2019 

A file photo of African penguins. Photo: Depositphotos.com

A gay penguin couple in Amersfoort’s DierenPark zoo have stolen an egg from another penguin family and are now trying to hatch it, the zoo said on Thursday. 

The two African penguins ‘acquired’ the egg at a moment when no-one was looking, the zoo said. 

No-one knows if the egg they stole has been fertilised, but the hatching season is now in full swing. ‘The gay couple are looking after the egg very well and take turns in keeping it warm,’ zoo keeper Marc Belt said.

‘Homosexuality is fairly common in penguins, but what makes this couple remarkable is that they have gotten hold of an egg.’ 

The couple whose egg was stolen have since produced a new one, Belt said. 

This summer, officials at Berlin zoo gave a gay couple of King penguins an egg to hatch after they tried it earlier with a stone and a dead fish.

Russia releases last belugas from 'whale jail'

Yahoo – AFP, November 10, 2019

Global outcry followed when pictures were published of the whales struggling
 to swim through ice-encrusted waters in cramped enclosures (AFP
Photo/Sergei PETROV)

Moscow (AFP) - The last whales held in a notorious facility dubbed the "whale jail" in Russia's Far East were released on Sunday, the institute overseeing the operation said.

The fate of the whales, which were captured to perform in aquariums, sparked international outrage earlier this year after pictures appeared in the media of them struggling to swim through ice-encrusted waters in cramped enclosures.

Moscow eventually bowed to pressure to release the 93 beluga whales and 11 orcas, which were held for more than a year in the secretive facility in Srednyaya Bay near the far eastern town of Nakhodka.

The whales have since been released in batches, with the last of the orcas freed in August.

The All-Russian Fisheries and Oceanography Institute said the operation to free the last belugas started five days ago.

"In the region of Primorsky Krai, the operation to release the marine mammals into their natural habit has been completed," it said in a statement on Sunday.

Russian NGO Sakhalin Watch, which campaigned for the whales to be freed, said the final 21 belugas were released from two ships on Sunday.

Killer whales are transported to a tank on a truck to be released from the 

"whale jail" earlier this year (AFP Photo/STR)

The organisation said it was delighted that "the release of all the beluga whales has taken place and that the 'whale jail' has finally freed its last prisoners!"

The operation began around 9:00 am (2300 GMT Saturday) and went on until 5:00 pm, Sakhalin Watch said.

Many scientists and activists have criticised the Oceanography Institute for keeping the details of the release secret, not taking any observers on the trip and freeing only a small group of animals at a time rather than all of them together, which would boost their survival odds.

Sakhalin Watch said the coastguard forced its members to leave the bay where the whales were being released.

Russia is the only country that captures wild orcas and belugas to sell to aquariums, a controversial practice made possible by legal loopholes.

Many of the whales held at the facility in Srednyaya Bay were to be sent to aquariums in China.

A Change.org petition for the whales to be released collected more than 1.5 million signatures, including that of Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio.

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

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In Russia, a battle to free nearly 100 captured whales

Dutch home-grown coral colonies shipped off to Germany and Croatia

DutchNews, November 5, 2019 

Photo: Burgers’ Zoo

Over a hundred coral colonies spawned and raised at the Burgers’ Ocean aquarium at Burgers’ Zoo are starting out on a journey on Tuesday to aquariums in Düsseldorf in Germany and Pula in Croatia, the zoo said. 

The Arnhem zoo, which has been exceptionally successful at growing coral in its tanks, has been supplying tropical coral to other European aquariums for a number of years. Burgers’ Ocean boosts the biggest living coral reef in an aquarium in Europe which lives in a tank filled with 750,000 litres of water.

In January this year it shipped over 300 corals, sea anemones and coral reef fish to zoos in England. 

Tuesday’s transports will see 75 coral colonies and three bubble tip anemones travel to Düsselforf and 39 coral colonies and 15 Banggai Cardinal fish to Pula. 

Corals can be divided into two main groups: soft corals without an exoskeleton sand stone corals which are capable of building a stone coral. 

Burger’s Ocean has been so successful at raising both that the coral needs to be ‘pruned’ every once in a while. This makes sure the corals don’t poison their nearest neighbour or simply digest it by enveloping it with its intestine as a reaction to overcrowding.

Antarctic marine sanctuary talks deadlocked for eighth straight year

Yahoo – AFP, November 2, 2019

Antarctic marine sanctuary talks deadlocked for eighth straight year

Sydney (AFP) - A multinational effort to create giant marine sanctuaries around Antarctica to counter climate change and protect fragile ocean ecosystems has failed for an eighth straight year, officials said Saturday.

Opposition from China and Russia torpedoed the proposal at the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), a consortium of 25 nations plus the European Union, sources familiar with the closed-door discussions told AFP.

Beijing and Moscow have been key in blocking the scheme since it was first floated by Australia, France and the EU in 2010 before being scaled down in 2017 in an attempt to win greater support.

The meeting in the Australian city of Hobart, which ended late Friday, considered proposals to create conservation parks in three key areas off Antarctica covering a total of some three million square kilometres (1.2 million square miles).

The areas are home to penguins, seals, toothfish, whales and huge numbers of krill -- a staple food for many species.

The series of proposed marine protected areas (MPAs) would protect that marine life and crucially allow migration between areas for breeding and foraging.

A CCAMLR statement on Saturday said only that proposals for the three marine parks had been "the subject of much discussion" but had failed to gain the required consensus of all members and would be considered again at next year's meeting.

Sources in touch with delegates at the weeklong talks said China and Russia continued to oppose the parks' creation due to concerns over compliance issues and fishing rights.

'Disheartening'

Backers of the proposal had hoped that new data highlighting the negative impact of climate change on the region's fragile ecosystem would have finally convinced doubters to back the marine parks.

"With a growing loss of biodiversity and threats from climate change, it's disheartening that CCAMLR has failed to protect East Antarctic waters for the eighth consecutive year," said Andrea Kavanagh, director of Antarctic and Southern Ocean work at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

She noted reports of multiple breeding failures for Adelie penguin colonies, habitat loss in the region and the warmest Southern Ocean temperatures ever recorded as critical signs of the need for urgent action.

"Scientists have been clear that MPA's are needed to make a warming and acidifying ocean more resilient," she said.

Darren Kindleysides, CEO of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, also warned that time was running out.

"In 2002 the Antarctic nations committed to creating a network of marine parks," he said. "Seventeen years later, only five per cent of the Southern Ocean is protected, and the task is becoming urgent."

The CCAMLR summit, held in each year in Hobart, was able in 2016 to establish a massive US and New Zealand-backed MPA around the Ross Sea covering an area roughly the size of Britain, Germany and France combined.

The latest proposals would establish additional sanctuaries in East Antarctica, the Weddell Sea and off the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

Related Article:

20TH KRYON SUMMER LIGHT CONFERENCE, US (7), June 2-4, 2017 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Text version "The State of the Earth")

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

(Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Weather

Let's talk about the weather. We retreat to exactly what we told you before in this very chair. The water cycle is a cooling cycle, not a heating cycle. You're going to have more severe winters and storms. It's going to get colder. But it gets warmer before it gets colder. That is the cycle, and it has always been the cycle. You can see it in the rings of the trees and the cores of the ice. Don't let your scientists pull the political wool over your eyes for their own purposes. Start seeing these things for what they are. It's a recurring cycle based on four Earth alignment attributes, including the wobble (the precession). You're in this cycle. Prepare.

The beginnings of it will be with you from now at least until the end of the 2012 36-year window, and you can watch it work. The first thing that happens is that the ice melts at the poles, but not completely. It's the way it has happened before. As the redistribution of weight from the poles to the oceans of the earth takes place, the weight is redistributed to the crust, and that creates earthquakes. And the earthquakes that will be the most powerful are the ones that are closest to the poles. We told you that some time ago. So it's not a mystery that suddenly you have some of the most powerful earthquakes that you've ever had. Not only that, but a cooling ocean creates larger storms.

What do the conspiracists do with all this? "See? We're doomed. Here it comes," they say. "Here it comes! The end is here!" Twenty-two years ago, we gave you the information that is happening today. We told you about the weather. We told you to get ready for it, but we still haven't told you why the water cycle is needed. We've hinted at it since it is very controversial, and we'll lose many readers right here and now. Here's the prediction: The scientists are going to laugh and biologists are going to scratch their heads and roll their eyes.

The Refreshing of the Cycle of Life

When you change the temperature of the waters of the planet, it changes the life cycle of the ocean and it eventually renews itself. The life cycle of the planet has a limit to its viability over time. There has to be a refreshing of the very cycle of life, and this is what the water cycle does. Are there any places you've seen too many fish lately? Yes. Millions of salmon in the north. Odd that it was in Alaska, isn't it? Alaska is very close to the poles where the water temperature is being felt first. Oh, again the experts will tell you that this is not the reason. It's about hatcheries and rivers. But nobody predicted this, did they? Science is fast to give you reasons, but slow to give you logic in advance. They always seem to be surprised.

We are saying things we haven't said before. Again, watch for this, an actual change in the life cycle of the planet's oceans because of the water temperature shift. Biologists are going to have to start redesigning the paradigm of how everything works, including reefs, ocean bottoms, and how plankton survive and reproduce. Listen, this is not the first time that the life cycle has been refreshed! But again, this may take generations of humanity to complete. In the process, you may again lose species. This is normal. Gaia is slow, and Humans are impatient. Your textbooks may someday tell of how naive humanity was back in 2011 when they tried to blame weather changes on everything but a natural cycle. Now you know why there is a water cycle.

So what does that tell you about Gaia? Gaia is beginning the cycle of refreshing life on over-fished oceans. It tells you that in the cracks, there is love and caring about the Humans who live on the earth. There's a reason you're here. There's a plan here, and a benevolent Universe and quantum energy with intelligent design. All is there for you, precious, sacred Human Being. …”

New Dutch trawler aims to cut fish suffering with electric shocks

DutchNews, November 1, 2019 

Photo:Depositphotos.com 

A new type of trawler fitted with equipment that stuns fish using electric currents when caught joins the Dutch fleet on Friday. 

The UK 205 Spes Nova is the brainchild of the Ekofish Groep and will ‘contribute to efficient fishing with a low ecological footprint,’ company director Jacob Kramer says in the invitation to Friday’s launch ceremony. 

The trawler is 32 metres long and costs €7.5m. Fish are cooled in a water tank, stunned with an electric shock and then stripped for processing automatically. 

Femie Smit of animal rights group Dierenbescherming says she hopes more fishermen will switch to the new vessel on a voluntary basis. 

Mooi dat er weer nieuwe schepen bijkomen op Urk #Moed #Vertrouwen #Visserij #UK205 #LT295 pic.twitter.com/8YYAh9Hmkh

— Albert Hartman (@AlbertVCU) 10 september 2019

Currently fish are left to suffer for minutes, even hours, before they die, but some are processed while still alive, she said. ‘We don’t cut open live chickens to take out the fillets, but we do it to fish,’ she said. ‘This apparatus stops that, so make use of it.’ 

The boat’s owner Louwe de Boer told local broadcaster Omroep Flevoland he believed that this sort of equipment ‘is the future’ and will become law within a few years. 

The trawler was built by Damen Maaskant Shipyards.

Aquaculture offers lifeline to floundering Moroccan fishermen

Yahoo – AFP, Hicham Rafih with Sophie Pons in Rabat, October 31, 2019

Aquaculture offers hope to struggling fishermen in the Moroccan city of M'diq
(AFP Photo/FADEL SENNA)

Saïdia (Morocco) (AFP) - With fish stocks declining in the Mediterranean, struggling Moroccan fishermen are hoping to turn to aquaculture as a way to secure their future.

"We don't get anything from the sea anymore, we're paying for the mistakes of our fathers," said Mohamed Bouajra, a fisherman in Ras Kebdana, a port town near Morocco's eastern border with Algeria.

But aquaculture offers a "glimmer of hope for escaping poverty", he said.

In Ras Kebdana, the Al Amal cooperative for independent fishermen is banking on the development of an offshore mussel farm to maintain future livelihoods.

Another cooperative at Mar Chica lagoon, some 40 kilometres (24 miles) west, runs a red algae farm to supply pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.

Aimed at preserving fish stocks and supplementing falling revenues for small-scale fishermen, these two pilot projects are part of an ambitious national plan launched in 2009 called Blue Morocco.

While the number of fishing boats in Ras Kebdana has tripled since the 1990s, "there are no more fish", said Bouajra.

Now in his 60s, Bouajra recalls the good days when fishing from his wooden boat would bring in 400 dirhams a day ($41).

Today, he said he is lucky to make 40 dirhams: "You can't live on that."

Fishermen say they are paying for the "mistakes of our fathers", with no 

fish stock left in the sea (AFP Photo/FADEL SENNA)

Figures from Morocco's department of maritime fishing confirm the decline. Catches in the eastern Oriental region dropped from 14.7 tonnes to 7.4 between 2013 and 2017.

Along the rest of Morocco's Mediterranean coast, catches declined 30 percent, alarming authorities.

Depleted fisheries are a financial concern, as exported seafood brought 22 billion dirhams in 2017 ($2.2 billion), about half of food exports and 10 percent of total exports.

Seaweed, algae

"With climate change, the environment is deteriorating and fish are becoming scarce -- not only in Morocco but across the world. We need to find alternatives to survive," said Mimoune Bouasu.

The 47-year-old fisherman heads the independent fishermen's cooperative in Mar Chicha, which manages 11 hectares (27 acres) of red algae aquafarms.

The cooperative sells the seaweed for six dirhams a kilo to a Moroccan company that invested in the venture.

"What we lack from fishing, we get from the algae," said Bouasu, adding that he hopes the project will increase in size.

The cooperative currently employs eight people and recruits seasonal labour during planting and harvesting.

Further west along the Mediterranean near the Strait of Gibraltar, Abdelaziz Benhamou is in charge of production at an aquafarm in M'diq.

A diver gathers mussels in a farm off the coast of the port city of Nador in 

Morocco (AFP Photo/FADEL SENNA)

The Aqua M'diq company employs 24 staff and raises sea bass in offshore cages.

It is considered a model fish farm by the National Aquaculture Development Agency (ANDA), which hopes to replicate the project elsewhere on the Mediterranean or Atlantic coasts.

"Resources diminished because fishermen didn't respect closed seasons for most species. Today, that's starting to change, but everyone agrees that nothing is like before," the 50-year-old former fisherman said.

In a recent report, Morocco's financial oversight body, the court of auditors, warned of "over-exploited stocks", blaming non-compliance with regulations governing quotas, restrictions on fishing gear and closed seasons.

Changing mindsets

The court also highlighted delays in developing the aquaculture sector, noting that "certain strategic objectives have not been met".

The 2009 Blue Morocco plan envisaged producing 200,000 tonnes of seafood from aquaculture by 2020. But in 2018, production was only 700 tonnes, according to ANDA.

After several years of technical studies, some 150 projects are now "in the process of launching" with private investment, according to Mustafa Amzough.

A manager at ANDA, Amzough says these projects -- including 15 in the Mediterranean -- have a total objective of 150,000 tonnes.

Fishermen work on a fish farm off the Moroccan city of M'diq on the 

Mediterranean (AFP Photo/FADEL SENNA)

In Ras Kebdana, undersea nets for growing mussels have only been installed across five of the site's 15 hectares. And the shellfish are still not ready for harvest, five years after the project was launched.

The 35 members of the cooperative maintain the mussels, hoping to begin sales next year.

In the meantime, boats continue going out for octopus, the main seafood available in the area.

But despite this, fisherman Bouajra says the mussel farm has already changed people's mindset. "Before, there was no respect for the environment."

Now there is weekly water sampling and analysis to monitor the health of the water.

"Today, the water is clean," he said.

With fish stocks declining in the Mediterranean, struggling Moroccan fishermen are hoping aquaculture will help secure their futurehttps://t.co/Q8KTtKgFwD pic.twitter.com/v3s7zzlAVW

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 31 oktober 2019