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...there may still be hope for the species. On Wednesday the Obama Administration announced that it would support a proposed ban on international trade of the Atlantic bluefin tuna at the upcoming meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Doha, Qatar. The decision, for which conservationists had long been lobbying, could pave the way toward the most wide-ranging protections ever put in place for a major commercial marine species. "This announcement could be a real turning point in the fight to protect the tuna," says Susan Lieberman, director of international policy...
Protection for tuna was initially proposed by Monaco late last year, and if the motion passes at the CITES meeting, the fish would be listed under the treaty's Appendix I. That would amount to a total trade ban, though countries would still be able to fish the tuna for their own markets. But given that about 80% of the worldwide bluefin tuna catch is eventually eaten in Japan - with the main fishing nations being Italy, France and Spain - a global trade ban should significantly reduce pressure on the fish population, which is now at less than...
Even if the ban goes into effect, Japan or any other country has the option of taking a "reservation" that would allow it to effectively continue trading the tuna - but they would still need a fishing country from which to buy. "The U.S. won't do that," says Lieberman. "The E.U. won't do that. And we believe they'll exert sufficient pressure on the North African nations to ensure that they won't either...
...permafrost is on dry land either. The East Siberian Arctic Shelf, a vast expanse of shallow seafloor off Russia's northeast coast, was once wetland as well. It was submerged as melting glaciers drove sea level up at the end of the last ice age, but it still contains methane-rich permafrost, which Shakhova believes may now be becoming unstable. The numbers are not alarmingly large, she agrees, but what is worrisome is that no leakage was expected here. (See TIME's special report on the environment...
Scientists still don't know exactly how rogue waves occur, nor do they know how to predict them. Open ocean waves, possibly including rogue waves, form when wind produces distortion over the surface of the sea - the stronger the wind, the higher the wave, which is why hurricanes can create such destructive walls of water. Tsunamis, on the other hand, like the one produced by the 8.8-magnitude earthquake in coastal Chile on Feb. 27, don't create rogue waves; tsunamis barely make a ripple on the open ocean and gather in size only when they reach shallow land near...