Govt to build marine conservation school in Wakatobi

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 07/16/2011

Indonesiawill establish the School for Marine Conservation (SMC) in Wakatobi, SoutheastSulawesi, to produce experts who will help the country preserve its naturalresources, especially the ocean.

Fisheriesand Maritime Affairs Minister Fadel Muhammad laid the foundation stone for thecenter's building, marking the start of construction on Saturday.

He said thecenter would train many new officers to manage water conservation areasnationwide, which are expected to reach 20 million hectares by 2020 accordingto government plans.

“We willneed up to 5,000 competent and professional people to manage the conservationareas,” Fadel was quoted as saying Saturday by Antara news agency.

He said thetraining center would offer students three major fields of study: conservationmanagement, biodiversity and ocean engineering.

“The schoolwill accommodate 400 students, 50 lecturers, 50 members of staff and 2,000trainees,” Fadel said.

He addedthat the government chose Wakatobi as the site for the school as it sat at thecenter of world’s coral triangle and had rich natural resources. Wakatobi isalso home to a 1.39-hectare national marine park with diverse coral reefs.

Indonesia Commemorates "World Ocean Day"

Antara News, Thu, June 16 2011

Jakarta, June 16, 2011 (ANTARA) - In commemorating the "World Ocean Day" (WOD) or World Marine Day, today (15/6) Indonesia commemorates for the first time "World Ocean Day", which was set up by the United Nation in 2009. In his speech, Marine Affairs and Fisheries Minister, Fadel Muhammad, said this commemoration will be a momentum for people to contemplate, initiate, and take steps to deal with challenges in global community related to the ocean. "Local government must be aware with the importance to build the ocean as the nation's future," said Fadel.

According to Fadel, ocean has important function with food security, nutrition security, health and the existence of all aspects in life. Ocean has power to affect directly or indirectly the climate and earth which we all live. In everyday life, we receive marine service from the transportation, consumption, and recreation.

Meanwhile, the Defence and Security Minister, Poernomo Yusgiantoro, whose participate in commemoration of WOD said the archipelago security can be synergized with the use of small islands to save the ocean. Small islands in border region have double functions, such as ocean security and developing economic potential in this region. Poernomo said as many as 12 islands in this border region become a priority to implement those double roles such as Nipah Island, Miangas Island, and Berahla Island. Nowadays, people around the world deal with the piracy and armed robbery ship issues, which was happened in the last couple of years in Somalia Waters. The role of ocean as trading route is very important because 90% transportation of goods in the world is through the ocean. "Because of that, the ocean security is important to support economic activities in this region," he said.

Indonesia is the biggest archipelagic country in the world with 70% its territory is ocean and has 17,480 small islands.According to this geographic fact, Indonesia has done two strategic things such as; first, Juanda Declaration on December 13, 1957, which stated that the inland ocean is a jurisdiction area of the Republic of Indonesia. Second, the implementation of amandement to the Constitution of 1945 in 2000 so that the article of 25A stated that "The Republic of Indonesia is an archipelagic country". For this statement, the national development budgetting system should be based on the concept "Archipelagic State", rather than today's system," said Rompas Max Rompas, Secretary of National Marine Board (Dekin).

The Ocean Day is commemorated on June 8, 2011 since the United Nation set the date on its General Assembly in 2009. This idea has been proposed by Canada on June 8, 1992 in Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Since that day, all countries commemorate World Ocean Day because ocean is an important life's chain. The commemoration of WOD this year has theme "Our Oceans" : Greening Our Future", which means "Our Ocean, Preserving Our Future."

On this occasion, the Archipelago Day 2011 will be inaugurated in Dumai, Province of Riau and the Ministry of Defence and Security is the chair to host this event. The discussion panel which brings the topic of discuss, initiate, 'sue' the implementation of the Constitution of 1945 amandement, article 25A which was set by the People's Consultative Assembly in 2000. This discussion panel was attend by Anna Mu'awanah (Vice Chairman of Commision IV DPR-RI) and Professor Jimly Asshidiqie (Legal Expert of State Administration), moderated by Mukhlis Yusuf, Managing Director of Antara News Agency.

For further information, please contact Dr.Yulistyo Mudho, M.Sc, Head of Data, Statistics and Information Center, The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (Mobile 0811836967)

Indonesia calls for sustainable use of APEC's Marine Resources

Antara News, Mon, June 6 2011

Bali (ANTARA News) - Indonesia has called on APEC member countries to make use of their marine resources in a sustainable manner while also trying to preserve the environment.

The call was made by Endhay Kusnendar, head of the research and development division of Indonesia`s Marine and Fisheries Ministry at the opening session of the 22nd APEC Fisheries Working Group Meeting as well as the 24th APEC`s Marine Resource Conservation Working Group Meeting in Bali on Monday.

Endhay said APEC had now become one of the prominent economic powers in the world with its member economies accounting for 57% of the global GDP and more than 40% of the world trade volume.

With a total population of more than 2.6 billion, he said, APEC itself had become a huge potential market. The consumption of global fish products in APEC economies had reached 70%, which comes from both captured and aquaculture production.

"Though the numbers look very promising, on the other hand, however, we are facing a major threat of ecosystem degradation due to excessive use of our resources which in return will jeopardize the sustainability of our oceans, and coastal resources," he said.

He said it was crucial for countries having marine resources to realize the full economic potential of their fisheries resources. "Economic sustainability depends not only on management of resource sustainability but that economic value added for economies from the use of such resources is fully enabled," he said.

Therefore, Endhay said, Indonesia with its mega marine biodiversity as a comparative advantage, realized the responsibility to safeguard the sustainable development of its marine resources and called on other APEC members to make the most of their ocean related resources and manage it in a sustainable manner.

He also reminded about the agreement which had been made by APEC Ocean-Related Ministers last 2010 in Paracas, Peru, titled the Paracas Declaration.

"I believe strongly, after all these declarations; it is high time for us to reaffirm our commitment by moving from words to action in achieving sustainable development of our ocean, seas, and coastal resources in the Asia-Pacific region," he said.

The APEC`S 22nd Fisheries Working Group Meeting and the 24th Marine Resource Conservation Working Group Meeting in Bali takes place in Bali starting June 6-9.

The meeting is participated in by representatives from 16 countries namely Indonesia, the US, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Mexico, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Chile, Russia, the Philippine, China and Vietnam. The event is also attended by an observer from Independent Assessor and four expert speakers, including from NGOs.

Since 2010, the Lead Shepherd position for APEC FWG held by Mr Gellwynn Jusuf PhD from Indonesia, which currently also serves as Secretary General of Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF), while Mr Ulises Munaylla PhD from Peru is the Lead Shepherd from APEC MRCWG since 2009. They are both Co-Chairs of the four days meeting in Bali.

Editor: Suryanto

NASA to use salt to foresee Earth's future climate

English.news.cn 2011-06-03

LOS ANGELES, June 2 (Xinhua) -- With the help of a new salinity- measurement instrument, scientists will use salt to foresee Earth's future climate, NASA said on Thursday.

The instrument, called Aquarius, will enable scientists to make comprehensive measurements of ocean surface salinity with precision, aimed to help researchers better determine how Earth's ocean interacts with the atmosphere to influence climate, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Equipped with high-tech, salt-seeking sensors, Aquarius is planned for launch in June aboard the Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas (SAC)-D spacecraft built by Argentina's Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE).

The JPL said that it is a mission that promises to be, by quoting the old saying "worth its salt." Salt is essential to the ocean, serving as a driver of ocean processes. Salinity also influences the temperature of seawater, because sea salt concentrates in the ocean's surface mixed layer, which is actively exchanging water and heat with atmosphere.

Accurate ocean surface salinity data is a necessary component in understanding how the future climate will change, and also opens a window to Earth's past climate. When researchers want to create a climate record that spans previous decades, it is necessary to collect and integrate data from the last two to three decades to develop a consistent analysis, JPL said.

"We ultimately want to predict climate change and have greater confidence in our predictions. Climate models are the only effective means we have to do so," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef, a scientist at the Seattle-based independent laboratory Earth & Space Research.

Because of the sparse and intermittent nature of these salinity, researchers have always had troubles in fine-tuning models to obtain a real global picture of how surface salinity influences the ocean.

"Aquarius, and successor missions based on it, will give us, over time, critical data that will be used by models that study how Earth's ocean and atmosphere interact, to see trends in climate," said Lagerloef.

Editor: Mo Hong'e

Related Article:

New report confirms Arctic melt accelerating

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

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness,2012, Intelligent 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, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Return to integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) -

(Text version)

Minister, ambassador launch Coral Reef and Climate Change Guide

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 05/20/2011

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad and Australian Ambassador to Indonesia Greg Moriarty on Friday launched the Indonesian version of the University of Queensland’s publication Coral Reefs and Climate Change: A Guide for Education and Awareness.

Fadel, working in collaboration with the University of Queensland, had arranged for the book to be translated into Indonesian.

“Australia is widely recognized for its world-class research in environmental sciences. We are pleased that through this book we will be able to contribute and work together in conserving the beautiful reefs of Indonesia,” Moriarty said in a release received by The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The book aims to increase awareness of coral reef science and preservation. It includes recent scientific research with informative images and covers topics including oceanography, coral reef biology and the implications of climate change.

It provides practical tools and recommendations to chart and measure the health of coral reefs and a program to encourage public involvement in reef conservation.

The original publication was launched in Australia in November 2009 and was produced and published by the Coral Watch Foundation at the University of Queensland.

Related Article:

China sets up first 7 national ocean parks

China sets up first 7 national ocean parks

English.news.cn   2011-05-19

BEIJING, May 19 (Xinhua) -- China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) announced Thursday that the country has named its first seven national ocean parks to ensure sound ecological environment and sustainable development for coastal tourism.

The seven parks are sprawled along China's coastal areas, with two in Guangdong, two in Shandong, and one in Guangxi, Fujian and Jiangsu, respectively, SOA spokesman Li Haiqing said at a press conference.

According to the SOA, the largest park covers an area of 51,455 hectares and is located in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province.

The SOA also announced the expansion and improvement of five national special marine reserves in eastern Shandong Province.

Chen Liqun, an official with the SOA's environmental protection and management bureau, said the parks and reserves will coordinate oceanic ecological protection with the use of oceanic resources.

"The national ocean parks, which provide beautiful beach resorts for the public, can promote marine eco-environment protection and facilitate sustainable development of coastal tourism," Chen explained.

China established its first national special marine reserve in 2005. With the newly-announced projects, it now has 21 national special marine reserves and seven national ocean parks, covering a total area of nearly 360,000 hectares, SOA figures show.

In addition, the country also has 33 national marine nature reserves.

In contrast to marine nature reserves, which ban or restrict exploitation, special marine reserves and ocean parks are permitted to be developed in a scientific way under the principles of scientific planning, unified management, and a protection-first philosophy with appropriate utilization.

Editor: An

Jupiter floatel sinking off Mexico

The Jupiter accommodation platform in the Gulf of Mexico has partially sunk after listing heavily on Tuesday, operator Pemex said.

Upstreamonline.com, Aleya Begum, 13 April 2011 09:12 GMT|

Sinking: the Jupiter floatel (Image courtesy of STRINGER /

MEXICO/Scanpix/Reuters)

“After several attempts to rescue the platform failed, it partially sank at 14:30 (local time),” said Pemex in a statement.

“No one is injured, the entire staff is safe.”

Water depth in the area is 38 meters, and given the dimensions of the semi-submersible platform, which is 50 meters wide, the partially sunk floatel remains 13 metres above water levels.

An incident onboard the floatel was first reported at 7:39am yesterday morning when 638 personnel were immediately evacuated to the nearby Abkatun-Alfa platform.

It is believed that a valve problem caused the unit to take in water.

“According to procedures, we applied the emergency response plan of the system and the majority of staff onboard were immediately evacuated,” said Pemex.

“Seventy five crew members remained to meet the contingency.”

Specialised divers attempted to review water entry into the vessel and seal the pontoon, but the work had to be suspended for the safety of the divers, said Pemex.

“Bilge pumps from the installation were insufficient to counteract the ingress of water so we proceeded to complete evacuation at 13:30,” said the operator.

The floatel, which is owned by Cotemar and managed by PEP, has 2075 barrels of diesel stored in the pontoons and 82 barrels of jet fuel stored in containers on the deck.

“There is no evidence of leakage,” said Pemex.

" We will continure to monitor the area to detect the presence of any spill around the platform."

The company said it now plans to start investigations into the cause of the incident and review salvage options for the platform

Giant ocean whirlpools puzzle scientists

Pravda.ru, 12.04.2011

US scientists discovered two giant whirlpools in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Guyana and Suriname. It became a sensational discovery because this part of the ocean has been studied thoroughly, and no one expected anything like that to appear in the area. More importantly, no one can understand where the whirlpools came from and what surprises they may bring to people.

According to Brazilian scientist Guilherme Castellane, the two funnels are approximately 400 kilometers in diameter. Until now, these were not known on Earth. The funnels reportedly exert a strong influence on climate changes that have been registered during the recent years.

"Funnels rotate clockwise. They are moving in the ocean like giant frisbees, two discs thrown into the air. Rotation occurs at a rate of one meter per second, the speed is sufficiently large compared to the speed of oceanic currents, on the border hoppers is a wave-step height of 40 cm," Castellane said.

Even during the dry months, when the movement of oceanic currents and the flow of the Amazon River practically comes to a standstill, the funnels do not disappear. Therefore, the nature of the funnels does not depend on the flow of water, which one of the world's biggest rivers brings into the ocean. The natural phenomenon, which creates the whirlpools, is unknown to modern science.

As a matter of fact, the phenomenon of giant whirlpools in the World Ocean is not new to science. In most cases, the craters, or rings, as scientists call them, are formed as a result of so-called vertical currents. The latter, in their turn, appear because of differences in water density which appear because of difference in temperatures of water layers. It is an open secret that cold water is thicker and heavier, so it goes down, underneath the masses of warm water, which is lighter. This is the reason why warm currents in the World Ocean always flow closer to the surface, whereas colder currents flow closer to the bottom.

However, such movement of water may not always depend on the difference of temperatures of the water column. The difference in salinity can also be a reason. The mechanism here is the same. The density of saltier water is higher, this water is heavier and it moves closer to the bottom, pushing less saltier water up. This type of vertical fusion occurs frequently in the tropics because high temperatures lead to the evaporation of water from the surface. The salt does not evaporate with water, though. It stays in the ocean, which raises the level of salinity on the upper layer of water. This layer "drowns" and gives way to less saltier waters of the depth.

Such vertical movements of water create giant whirlpools. The whirlpools, tens and even hundreds of kilometers in diameter, may last for months and even years, scientists say. The vertical movement of waters is a slow process, though. Why do those whirlpools exist for such a long time? This is partially the effect of Earth's magnetic field. In addition, marine water contains many charged ions, Na and Cl for example. To crown it all, water molecules are dipoles that are charged both positively and negatively.

Any dipole starts spinning when moving in the magnetic field. An oceanic ring gathers millions of billions of molecules together. That is why the giant circle movement triggered by the vertical movement of water may last for months and years mechanically. Ions also give more power to the craters. Natrium and Chlorum are charged as well, and their movement in the magnetic field of the Earth also leads to the appearance of the circle movement.

It is not ruled out that the reason for the appearance of the whirlpools off the coast of South America is the same as in other parts of the World Ocean. Scientists are currently studying the influence of those giant funnels on the climate of Latin America and Africa. Such whirlpools show influence on the atmosphere and form cyclonical air mass. They can also affect the movement of air mass formed in other places. For the time being, scientists do not know how the newly discovered water craters can affect the climate of Central and South Americas.

Anton Yevseyev

Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian

Scientists study pool of Arctic Ocean fresh water

The Jakarta Post, Associated Press, Amsterdam | Tue, 04/05/2011

Scientists are monitoring a massive pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean that could spill into the Atlantic and potentially alter the ocean currents that bring Western Europe its moderate climate.

The oceanographers said Tuesday the unusual accumulation has been caused by Siberian and Canadian rivers dumping more water into the Arctic, and from melting sea ice. Both are consequences of global warming.

If it flushes into the Atlantic, the infusion of fresh water could, in the worst case, change the ocean current that brings warmth from the tropics to European shores, said Laura De Steur, of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.

German researcher Benjamin Rabe, of the Alfred Wegener Institute, said the Arctic's fresh water content had increased 20 percent since the 1990s, or by a 8,400 cubic kilometers. That is the equivalent of all the water contained in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron in the U.S. or double the volume of water in Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake.

Increased runoff from the great northern rivers "could potentially impact the large scale ocean circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. This is important for us in Western Europe because our climate is pretty much dictated by the Thermohaline ocean circulation," said De Steur.

The Thermohaline current loops like a conveyer belt from the tropics to the North Atlantic, driven by the differences in salt content and wind patterns. Warm water from the south gains in salinity and grows heavier as it cools. At its northern end the current is further chilled by cold air and sinks, warming again and rising as it travels south.

That cycle could be affected when the pool of fresh water is released into the Atlantic, said De Steur and Rabe. The icy water has been kept bottled up in the Arctic by wind patterns, which have not shifted their general clockwise direction for the unusually long time of 12 years. Normally, the winds change at intervals of five to 10 years.

The two scientists spoke to The Associated Press as part of a European Union initiative, called Clamer, to collate and publicize information from 300 EU-funded research projects conducted over the last 13 years on climate change and marine ecology. Rabe and colleagues from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany, published their research last year in the journal Deep Sea Research on the effects of higher river runoff on ocean salinity.

De Steur said most of the excess fresh water has collected in the Canada Basin, but in the last three years changes also have been noticed in the Eurasian side of the Arctic Ocean.

"It's important to monitor this to see if this can be transported to the Atlantic, where it might potentially effect the Gulf Stream and the Thermohaline circulation," she said.

Rabe cautioned that scientists have not been studying the situation long enough to predict what may happen, and the results of model simulations also were inconclusive.

'Super' salmon resist climate change better: study

Yahoo News, AFP, Jean-Louis Santini, Thursday, March 31

Toughened by a punishing annual migration in western Canada, a special breed of sockeye salmon has proved better able to survive environmental change than other members of the species, a study said Thursday.

'Super' salmon resist climate change better: study

The Fraser River in British Columbia has more than 100 distinct populations of sockeye salmon, many of them so fine-tuned to their environment that even slight changes in water temperature, river flow or elevation change could spell disaster.

"As climate change alters the conditions of the Fraser River watershed, our concern is that some populations may not be able to adapt to these changes quickly enough to survive," said Erika Eliason, the study's lead author.

But the Chilko salmon, named after a region of the river where they spawn, are proving more resilient than others, and Eliason and her colleagues at University of British Columbia believe it could be due to their harsher migration conditions.

"I like to call the Chilko population of sockeye 'Superfish,'" said Eliason, who explained they are conditioned by a migratory route that is extraordinarily difficult.

Eliason and colleagues studied eight sockeye populations for the study, which was published in the journal Science.

"This is the first large study examining how different populations of fish of the same species adapt to different environmental conditions during their annual migration," she said.

Scientists say the Fraser River, which runs some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles), has already warmed by almost two degrees Celsius since the 1950s, with the last 20 years among the warmest on record.

Millions of sockeye migrate up the Fraser to spawn each year, but the species has been in decline since the 1990s. There have been mass mortalities during migrations, when between 40 and 95 percent of some populations have died, according to UBC.

The sockeye populations follow exact migration routes that vary by distance, elevation, temperature and current strength. Some have it easy, but not the Chilko.

The Chilko must swim more than 650 kilometers (400 miles) upstream, gain a kilometer (0.6 miles) in elevation, and pass through an area known as Hell's Gate, where the river shoots through a passage just 35 meters (115 feet) wide.

They do all this at the height of summer in a heroic effort to reach a glacial lake, where they spawn.

To assess the salmon's abilities to cope with changing environmental conditions, the UBC team had fish from the eight population groups swim through a large tube designed to simulate Fraser river currents and water temperatures.

The scientists measured the heart rates and metabolism of the adult salmon as they did so.

They found that when water temperatures rose above an optimal level, the salmon's ability swim declined, probably as a result of a weakening of their cardiovascular systems.

But they also observed that the Chilko sockeye seemed physiologically less sensitive to the difference in temperature and other environmental change. The most sensitive was the Weaver sockeye.

Eliason said the Chilko were able to "swim at higher and a broader range of temperatures" compared to other sockeye in the river.

"We believe it has to do with how they've adapted to cope with their difficult migration."

Related Articles:

Wild Atlantic salmon 'under threat' from escaped farmed fish and sea lice

“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. ...."