The Environment Chronicle

The EU needs to halt biodiversity loss by 2020 and to restore biodiversity wherever feasible, says Parliament in a resolution approved on 21 September 2010. MEPs deeply regret that the aim of halting biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met and they believe that biodiversity conservation should be mainstreamed in all EU policy areas. The resolution was approved by a show of hands.

Tens of thousands demonstrated in Berlin on 18 September 2010 against plans by the government to extend the lifetimes of Germany's nuclear power stations. Organizers said the protest drew 100,000 people. Police put the figure much lower, at around 40,000 according to initial estimates. Opposition party leaders joined the peaceful march around Berlin's government district.

Marine species of September 2010 in the International Year of Biodiversity is the Antarctic is the Oarweed (Laminaria digitata), a North Atlantic brown alga. Laminarians are brown algae that are several metres long and are designated as kelp because of their form of growth and leathery structure. They form large forest-like underwater stocks along rocky coasts flooded with light (kelp forests). As they offer protection, food and a habitat for many other marine organisms, they are especially important for coastal ecosystems.

Cairn Energy's Stena Don oil rig is scaled by Greenpeace activists to demand an end to offshore drilling.

On 30 August 2010, the Federal Government published the study it commissioned to model scenarios for its upcoming energy concept. The government instructed three research institutes to provide a scientific basis for its energy concept. Prognos (Basel), EWI (Cologne) and GWS (Osnabrück) submitted their joint study last Friday, 27 August 2010. The Federal Government is planning to decide about the Energy Concept on 28 September 2010. The nine scenarios consist of one reference scenario and 8 different prolongation scenarios. The reference scenario assumes a continuation of current trends and no changes to the present energy law regime, in particular no prolongation of the operating times of the German nuclear power plants. The 8 target scenarios consist of two sets of 4 scenarios each, with extensions of 4, 12, 20 and 28 years for the operation of nuclear power plants. The two sets differ regarding upgrading costs for the existing nuclear power plants.

On 27 August 2010 the Mongolian cabinet held meeting in the Gobi desert. The meeting of 12 government ministers was held in scorching heat in Gashuunii Khooloi, a sandy valley in South Gobi province, about 670 kilometers south of Ulan-Bator. Minister of Natural Environment and Tourism Gansukh Luumed said Mongolian herders' traditional way of life is under threat. "Global climate change accelerates the desertification process in Mongolia. Currently, 70 percent of Mongolian land is affected by desertification."

EU scientists have succeeded in obtaining viable mass eggs from Atlantic bluefin tuna in captivity, using natural means and without any hormonal induction. If breeding can be developed on a commercial scale, pressure on endangered wild stocks could be significantly relieved. This is the result of the third year of work of SELFDOTT, a research project funded by the European Union to the tune of € 2.98 million and co-ordinated by the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO). A total of 10 million eggs were produced in a single day. Getting naturally spawned eggs from captive individuals represents an important step forward in research on Atlantic bluefin tuna aquaculture, bringing commercial breeding of this species closer. That could contribute to a sustainable management of bluefin tuna. SELFDOTT is a consortium representing 13 government bodies, research institutes and industry organisations from France (IFREMER, CNRS, University of Montpellier 2), Germany (University of Düsseldorf), Greece (HCMR), Israel (NCM-IOLR), Italy (University of Bari), Malta (MCFS, Malta FishFarming), Norway (Skretting) and Spain (University of Cádiz, Ricardo Fuentes Group and the co-ordinating IEO).

On 24 August 2010, the Minstry of Environment and Forests rejected the environment clearance of Vedanta bauxite mining project in Niyamgiri of Orissa, India.

On 23 August 2010 Greenpeace was confronted by a Danish warship in the freezing seas off Greenland as the environmental group's protest ship ‘Esperanza' approached one of the world's most controversial oil drilling projects operated by the British company Cairn Energy. The Greenpeace ship left London 12 days ago vowing to challenge the oil industry at the site of a dangerous deepwater drilling project in the wake of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, but didn't reveal its intended location until 23 August when the ship arrived in the seas west of Disko Island in the Arctic. The Danish government has sent warship, to protect two drilling sites being operated by Britain's Cairn Energy. There is a 500m security zone surrounding each of the rigs.

On 12 August 2010 Greenpeace launched a three-month ship expedition to support independent research into the impacts of the Gulf oil disaster on marine life, as well as researching the unique environments and marine life that are at risk. The Arctic Sunrise departed from St. Petersburg, Florida.

LAVA has created two giant origami tigers made of recyclable materials, aluminium and barrisol for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The giant origami tigers are on public display at Hauptbahnhof, Berlin’s central station, until 30 August 2010. The project was commissioned by Customs House Sydney, for WWF. The artistic creations will be used to raise awareness for conservation, as there are only 3,200 tigers left, according to WWF. Each tiger measures eight feet high and 22 feet long, and weigh 200kgs. Each tiger is illuminated with sustainable LED lights, drawing inspiration from the ancient tradition of Chinese paper lantern making. The digital origami tigers have been adopted by WWF for their international Year of the Tiger Campaign.

On 9 August 2010 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched in New YYork a new High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability that brings together some of the world’s leading policymakers and thinkers to formulate a new blueprint for sustainable growth and low-carbon prosperity for all on a planet under increasing strain, not least from climate change. To be co-chaired by Finland’s President Tarja Halonen and South African President Jacob Zuma, the 21-member High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability brings together representatives from government, the private sector and civil society in countries rich and poor. The new body is expected to deliver its final report by the end of next year, ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development scheduled for 2012, as well as annual conferences of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) has commissioned the Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (Association for Plant and Reactor Safety, GRS) to carry out a preliminary safety analysis for Gorleben and summarise all available information on the salt dome and the results of exploration activities to date. The main goal of the project is to develop a clearly documented forecast, on the basis of existing information, of whether the Gorleben site can comply with the new safety requirements for the final disposal of heat-generating, radioactive waste. The focus of the preliminary safety analysis will be on the question of long-term safety, i.e. it must be demonstrated in a transparent way whether the site is suited for safe final disposal at all, and if so, under which conditions. Moreover, an optimised final disposal concept will be developed, taking into account operational safety, and the future need for additional examination and exploration will be assessed. The preliminary safety analysis is expected to be concluded by the end of 2012.

The Government of Myanmar formally announced on 3 August 2010 that the entire Hukaung Valley would be declared a Protected Tiger Area. Isolated in Myanmar, the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve stretches approximately 8,452 square miles in the northernmost part of the country. The Valley is known as a tiger reserve with the potential of holding several hundred tigers, but illegal hunting both of tigers and their prey has caused a steep decline in their numbers with some estimates showing as few as 50 of the big cats in the region. In 2004, the Myanmar government designated 2,500 square miles of the Hukaung Valley as an inviolate wildlife sanctuary, based off of the first ever biological expedition of the area in 1999 led by Dr. Alan Rabinowitz.

On 4 August, 2010 the Federal government adopted a national renewable energy action plan. The action plan outlines that the binding domestic target of an 18 percent share of renewable energies in gross domestic energy consumption will be reached by 2020 and may even be surpassed and amount to 19.6 percent. Currently this share is about 10 percent. The national renewable energy action plan is the core element of reporting obligations laid down in the EU's Renewable Energy Directive (Directive 2009/28/EC). Based on a specific template EU member states must submit a national renewable energy action plan, including measures and expansion strategies geared towards achieving the binding national target. The national action plan was drawn up with the scientific support of the German Aerospace Center in Stuttgart (DLR), Ecofys consultants, the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) and the German Biomass Research Centre (DBFZ).

Marine species of August 2010 in the International Year of Biodiversity is the Antarctic is the Fragilariopsis kerguelensis.

On 30 July 2010 the World Heritage Committee inscribed the Everglades National Park (United States) on the List of World Heritage in Danger , because of serious and continuing degradation of its aquatic ecosystem.

The World Heritage Committee holding its 34th session chaired by João Luiz da Silva Ferreira, the Minister of Culture of Brazil, has inscribed the Rainforests of Atsinanana (Madagascar) on the List of World Heritage in Danger because of illegal logging and hunting of endangered lemurs on the site.

On 29 July 2010 the World Heritage Committee decided to remove the Galapagos Islands from the List of World Heritage in Danger. The Galapagos Islands, which have been called a unique "living museum and showcase of evolution" were inscribed on the Danger List in 2007 because of threats posed by invasive species, unbridled tourism and over-fishing. The Committee found that significant progress had been made by Ecuador in addressing these problems. It welcomed the Government's continuing efforts to strengthen conservation measures, especially in dealing with introduced species.

Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the General Assembly declared on 28 July 2010, voicing deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water. The Assembly resolution received 122 votes in favour and zero votes against, while 41 countries abstained from voting.

On 23 July 2010, an Amsterdam court fined multinational company Trafigura one million euros for violating EU laws on the export of hazardous waste, which the UN says killed at least 15 people, and forced thousands to be hospitalized in 2006. 69 people were hospitalized and over 100,000 others, complaining of nausea and vomiting after inhaling fumes, sought medical treatment after the incident.In July 2006, 500 tons of caustic soda and petroleum residues on board the Probo Koala ship were originally meant to be off-loaded in Amsterdam, but a disagreement about price led to the waste being redirected to Ivory Coast. There, it was dumped on several open rubbish tips in Abidjan.

The European Commission has approved funding for 210 new projects under the third call for the LIFE+ programme (2007-2013), the European fund for the environment. The projects are from across the EU and cover actions in the fields of nature conservation, environmental policy, and information and communication. Overall, they represent a total investment of €515 million, of which the EU will provide €249.8 million.

The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association will be thirty years old on 15 July. Through its innovative scientific and excellent research infrastructure the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) has developed into one of the world’s leading internationally recognised centres for climate research on both polar regions and the oceans. The Alfred Wegener Institute is distinguished by top research on sea ice, the polar oceans and their ecosystems, the North Sea, Wadden Sea, the ice shelves of Greenland and the Antarctic, the polar atmosphere, permafrost regions, the climate history and past of our Earth. Other characteristic features include its strong international network and broad scientific expertise. To solve the questions of today, biosciences, geosciences and climate sciences work closely together. Field research under extreme conditions is just as much part of the everyday tasks as work in modern laboratories, with high-performance computers and methods of remote sensing. Because polar and marine research is always also a logistics challenge, AWI has an excellent infrastructure that it makes available to the national and international scientific community. This includes research vessels like the ‘Polarstern’ and the ‘Heincke’, research stations manned seasonally or throughout the year, such as Neumayer Station III in the Antarctic and the German-French research base ‘AWIPEV’ on Spitsbergen, scientific observatories, innovative measuring systems and the polar aircraft ‘Polar 5’.

On 11 July 2010 at 15.00 PM, hundreds of thousands of Europeans simultaneously jumped into Europe’s major rivers and lakes, all at the same time on the same day, showing their support for protecting and improving the health of Europe’s water. The Big Jump project includes numerous actions on the main European water basins, like the organisation of a serie of transboundary swimming days on different European water basins. Educational events on the theme of water quality or river restoration are always held during these actions. The project will culminate in 2005 , 2010 and 2015 with the “European River Swimming Day” on all the big European river basins or stretchs where the quality standard has been reached.

The competition “German Capital of Biodiversity” is organised by Deutsche Umwelthilfe (German Environmental Aid - DUH) and started on 8 July 2010 in Stuttgart. All municipalities will have four months to fill in a questionnaire by means of which the winners of each category will be selected. The best municipality will also be awarded the “German Capital of Biodiversity” (Bundeshauptstadt der Biodiversität). The questionnaire contains four main topics: ‘Green in the city’, ‘Biodiversity protection’, ‘Water bodies, agriculture and forestry’ as well as ‘Organisation, communication and cooperation’. Within these topics, municipalities can demonstrate their strategies and actions for biodiversity by answering a number of questions and presenting related projects. In addition to the above categories, we also ask municipalities to describe their actions in local environmental justice, i.e. projects that tackle both biodiversity and social challenges simultaneously. In the implementation the competition, DUH will ask for the support of municipality federations, environmental organisations, national agencies and selected local authorities.

Marine species of July 2010 in the International Year of Biodiversity is the Antarctic krill Euphausia superba in the Southern Ocean.

The Commission Regulation (EU) No 271/2010 regarding the new EU organic logo was published in April, 2010, thus making it a legal requirement for all pre-packaged organic products to carry the European Union from 1st July, 2010 onwards.

With the signing of contracts in Berlin at the end of the two-day conference entitled "Financing climate protection in developing countries and threshold countries – instruments and incentives for environmentally-friendly investments in the private sector", the German Federal Ministry of the Environment (BMU) and KfW Entwicklungsbank have taken the first steps to set up an innovative global climate protection fund. The fund provides financial support to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as private households in developing countries and threshold countries for investment in energy efficiency measures and renewable energies. Together, BMU and KfW Entwicklungsbank have promised more than USD 100 million of initial funding. In addition, further funds are also to be raised from public and private investors.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has granted Greenland the right to hunt humpback whales. Greenland's indigenous people now have the right to add humpbacks to a list of whales they are allowed to hunt, according to a decision made at the end of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting in Agadir, Morocco on 25 June 2010. They will now be allowed to kill and consume nine of the giant mammals each year through 2012.

On 23 June 2010 the IPCC released the final list of selected Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors and Review Editors of its fifth Assessment Report (AR5)in Geneva. 36 climate experts from German universities, research institutes and private companies are among the more than 800 contributors from all regions of the world. This means that almost a third of the candidates nominated by Germany have been selected. In total, IPCC has received more than 3000 nominations from governments and observer organisations. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) will be published between 2013 and 2014.

The 62nd Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) took place from 21 to 25 June 2010 in Agadir, Morocco. The delegates to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) were unable to reach consensus on a proposal that would see the legitimization of commercial whaling. The moratorium (ban) still stands and Japan, Iceland and Norway continue to whale outside of the sanction of the IWC.

On Saturday, June 19, 2010, oil spread northeast from the leaking Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil appears as a maze of silvery-gray ribbons in this photo-like image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

On 18 June 2010 started metroradruhr as the biggest bike sharing system in Germany. Up to 3000 bikes are available to rent in ten cities of the Ruhr: Bochum, Bottrop, Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Hamm, Herne, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Oberhausen.

To combat pollution, climate change, acidification, over-exploitation and biodiversity loss in the Baltic Sea, the EU is to co-fund "BONUS", a seven-year joint R&D programme initiated by Baltic coastal states Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden. A plan to match their money with €50 million in EU funds was approved by Parliament on 16 June 2010.

History was made on 11 June 2010 in the South Korean port city of Busan, when delegates from close to 90 countries gave the green light to an Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The independent platform will in many ways mirror the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has assisted in catalyzing world-wide understanding and governmental action on global warming.

Maria Damanaki, European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries decided to close the bluefin tuna fishery to purse seiners in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic, due to the exhaustion of the quotas allocated to them. France, Greece and Spain have been informed of this decision which will become effective on 10 June 2010. The closure of the purse seine fishery is necessary to protect the fragile stock of bluefin tuna and to ensure its recovery as envisaged by the recovery plan of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT). The Commission has declared a zero tolerance approach towards overfishing and will take all necessary measures to ensure full compliance across the board.

The Commission decided on 10 June 2010 to encourage industry, governments and NGOs to set up certification schemes for all types of biofuels, including those imported into the EU. It laid down what the schemes must do to be recognised by the Commission. This will help implement the EU's requirements that biofuels must deliver substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and should not come from forests, wetlands and nature protection areas. The rules for certification schemes are part of a set of guidelines explaining how the Renewable Energy Directive, coming into effect in December 2010, should be implemented.

The European Aerospace firma EADS presented the world's first airplane thats runs only on algae fuel at the ILA Berlin Air Show (ILA). On June 8, a Diamond Aircraft DA42 New Generation plane powered by 100 percent algae biofuel took part in the flying demonstration, marking the first time that the technology has been used to power a flight.

Marine species of June 2010 in the International Year of Biodiversity is the Crassostrea gigas, a Pacific oyster in the Wadden Sea.

On 27 May 2010 heads of state and government, ministers and other representatives of some 50 countries concluded an agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation. Around 4 billion dollars has been pledged for the period 2010–2012 for measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. The global forest partnership marks the start of closer global cooperation on reducing deforestation and forest degradation in tropical developing countries. The partnership will support and contribute to the UNFCCC process.