1. The Daily Green asks, Is everything you know about being green wrong? Here’s the scoop: it’s not about what car you drive or whether you eat meat, but the stuff you buy.
2. Marine sponges are getting a better image, no thanks to that Sponge Bob Square Pants guy. A new study shows that sponges gulp huge quantities of ocean carbon and transform it into food for corals, making them integral to the survival of reefs in these warming times.
3. Is an apple that won’t rot for 4 months somehow better for the planet than traditional apples? The Australian scientists behind the new RS103-130 think so. Only in Oz.
4. On the other side of the equator, the Dutch have cooked up their own crazy scheme: a driving tax designed to cut traffic and transportation emissions. The tax would be imposed on a per-mile basis, although steeper fees apply to driving during rush hour and driving a big car.
5. Rising seas, warmer temperatures, increased rainfall… now here’s a new effect of climate change: more wind. Scientists have observed increased wind over Lake Superior as a result of changing water and air temperatures caused by less winter ice.

1. We’re getting closer to regulating U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — yesterday the EPA took one more step through the obstacle course of government process, inspiring much optimism.
2. Is it too late to save the vaquita porpoise from extinction? Scientists are hoping not. Only 150 remain, threatened by fishing practices, but there’s new hope: the Mexican government has passed a resolution to ban trawling in the vaquita’s only habitat, in the Gulf of California. 
3. Melting glaciers often seem purely symbolic of the climate change problem, but they have real consequences: a new report says the melting of India’s Kashmir glaciers will threaten the water supply of millions of people in the Himalayas, where 90 percent of glaciers are receding.
4. The situation for the koala is nowhere near as dire as the vaquita dolphin, but cute and cuddly can get you a lot of publicity. New estimates indicate Australia’s koala population is getting smaller due to habitat loss, prompting an all-out media campaign by the Australia Koala Foundation.
5. Botanists are in a debate over whether assisted migration of plants — helping them relocate in the face of climate change — is a wise endeavor. Opponents worry that the science isn’t accurate enough to predict if a plant species will become invasive once moved. 

1. Big snakes are becoming a big problem, says the United States Geological Survey.  The group just issued a report concluding that, should the Burmese python and other species of giant constricting snakes continue to make themselves cozy in the U.S., they could completely destabilize ecosystems and wipe out vulnerable native species.  (Hat tip:  dotEarth.)
2. The University of Maryland at College Park and Rio Salado College in Tempe, Arizona will share the title of “America’s Greenest Campus,” reports Green Inc.   In addition to bragging rights, each school gets $5,000 toward new green initiatives.
3. The state of California has legalized “gray water” systems, allowing residents to water their lawns with the runoff from showers, sinks, dishwashers and laundry machines, reports The Vine.  Technically, it’s a huge victory for water conservation, but it turns out a lot of people were already doing it anyway.
4. Does buying green products make you a bad person? According to GreenBiz, a recent report found that people feel better about justifying white lies and other minor infractions after purchasing “green” items– kind of like canceling out a bad behavior with a good one.
5. Keep your chins up, mates!  A new study found that Aussies are losing their enthusiasm for the fight against climate change, and it scarily reflects the current situation in the U.S., says Environmental Capital.

Indigenous Aboriginal ranger Romeo Lane points out an ancient painting of a six-legged goanna lizard to the curious crowd of media and visitors — myself included — that surrounds him.

The painting is just one of thousands that scatter the escarpments of Arnhem Land in the very northern tip of Australia’s vast tropical savanna. This rich cultural heritage belonging to Australia’s first inhabitants is in an important part of why so many of us have travelled thousands of kilometres for what is a momentous day in Australia’s history.

Last week, the Australian Federal Government and traditional Indigenous landowners achieved a major milestone for conservation in Australia: the signing of agreements establishing two immense and globally significant conservation reserves on indigenous lands in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Known as the Djelk and Warddeken Indigenous Protected Areas, the reserves are located in Western and Central Arnhem Land about 300 miles from Darwin, and span 7,889 square miles — more than twice the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States.

The reserves stretch from the high country of the Western Arnhem Land Plateau to the islands off the Northern Territory coast and include sandstone gorges, pristine rivers, tropical savanna and coastal wetlands. The area is of global significance for its natural and cultural values.  

Under the new agreements, traditional landowners will continue to manage the reserves and will be assisted by the indigenous ranger organisations, Djelk Rangers and the Warddeken Manwurrk Rangers. The declaration follows several years of consultation with members of more than 137 indigenous clans in the region and the development of detailed management plans. 

A core part of these plans is the reintroduction of traditional burning practices that have been found to cut greenhouse gas emissions by preventing large uncontrolled bushfires. Other management approaches include control of feral animals, particularly buffalo, which cause serious damage to the region’s wetlands.

The Nature Conservancy has been working with both ranger groups in the lead up to the declaration of these protected areas and is honored to support the landowners and the Djelk and Warddeken rangers in their management of the new reserves.

The Conservancy will continue to work with the groups in securing long-term funding from private investment to ensure these extraordinary areas can be managed effectively into the future.

(Image 1: Indigenous dancers celebrate at the official declaration of new conservation lands. Image 2: Warddeken Manwurrk Ranger carries out fire control. Source: Peter Eves.)

Editor’s Note: Alison Green, senior marine scientist for The Nature Conservancy, recently traveled to Papua New Guinea to see cutting-edge marine work by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the Coral Triangle, the most biodiverse marine region on Earth. Also read her first post from Papua New Guinea on sea-surface monitoring and climate change in the Coral Triangle.

There are many ways to monitor coral reefs. The traditional way is to count corals and reef fishes that are easy to see. But this method only accounts for a small proportion of the 1 million to 9 million species estimated to occur on coral reefs.

So NOAA recently developed instruments for monitoring cryptic coral reef organisms as part of the international Census of Marine Life. These instruments (called Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures or ARMS) provide habitat for an extraordinarily diverse range of cryptic reef organisms such as sponges, sea squirts, sea stars, worms, shrimps and crabs, sea snails and octopus.

When deployed on coral reefs for up to two years, ARMS provide information on the biodiversity of cryptic reef organisms that you can’t normally see, and preliminary results from Hawaii and Australia suggest that they will lead to the discovery of an outrageous number of new coral reef species.

The ARMS  are also expected to provide valuable information on changes in biodiversity associated with climate change and ocean acidification. To date, almost 400 ARMS have been deployed at 40 locations in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans.

This week, we installed nine ARMS on coral reefs in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. These are the first of these instruments to be deployed in the Coral Triangle, the center of marine biodiversity. If these devices are discovering unknown biodiversity in other regions, imagine what they will find in the Coral Triangle!

(Image: (1) Dive master from Walindi Plantation Resort helps NOAA install ARMS in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. Credit: Mark Eakin, NOAA. (2) ARMS deployed on the reef in Kimbe Bay. Image: Mark Eakin, NOAA.)

The island nation of Australia has a long history of newcomers landing on its shores — beginning with the first indigenous people, who arrived over 40,000 years ago.

With them they bought what was probably the first introduced animal to Australia – the dingo. While it is highly probable this canine had a significant impact on Australia’s unique wildlife, today the dingo is thought to help suppress some of the more damaging new arrivals that are threatening a new wave of mammal extinction in this country.

Australia is a country renowned for its unusual creatures – more than 83 percent of its mammals, nearly 90 percent of its reptiles and about 45 percent of its birds are found nowhere else on earth.

However, in the last 200 years, it is also a country seemingly overwhelmed by introduced species — from cats (such as the one in the image above, photographed by a camera trap) to donkeys, camels, pigs, rabbits, water buffalo and horses and the less obvious bees, ants, mussels and even cockroaches. Each of these species’ populations now numbers in the tens of thousands and often in the millions, including the larger animals such as the camels, pigs and cats.

These larger animals in particular are having a disastrous effect on Australia’s ecological balance. Feral animals are one of the key threats — along with land clearing, over-grazing and altered fire regimes — that are undermining native species survival here. These stresses are partly why Australia lays claim to the unenviable title of having the world’s worst rate of mammal extinction.

Many formerly abundant animals such as the Northern Quoll, Golden Bandicoot (image below) and Black-footed Tree Rat are declining, and doing so very rapidly. The declines are being reported from ranchers, indigenous communities, scientists and national park rangers alike.

The situation is feared to be growing even worse, with northern Australia facing a new and potentially catastrophic wave of mammal extinctions. The Nature Conservancy’s Australia Program has been working to address this issue through a range of mechanisms, including feral animal control on conservation reserves it has established with its partners. It is also working to raise the profile of the issue through public education and by working collaboratively with scientists from partner organizations to identify the fine-scale cause of the decline.

Regardless of the cause, however, what is undeniably needed is a concerted effort to avert an international tragedy. Government, conservation organizations and the science community need to urgently come together and implement a coordinated plan of action that on one level engages the broader community to raise their awareness of the impending extinction crisis yet also addresses key threats on-the-ground (such as cats and cane toads) through effective — and widespread — feral animal control.

(Images: (1) Feral cat photographed by a camera trap, Picca Plains, northern Australia; (2) Golden bandicoot, Northern Territory, Australia. Credit: Alaric Fisher.

Camels and mosquitoes — what do they have in common? They’re invasive species troublemakers, according to today’s Cool Green Morning green gatherings…and they must be dealt with. (Read that last bit in a horror-show-narrator voice. Yeah, like that — that’s spooky…)

1. Camels are in numbers Australia’s largest invasive species (probably in size, too), so the Australian government now plans to shoot 650,000 of the camels to stop their destruction of the environment and water pipes (?!), reports the Associated Press. (Hat tip: 60-Second Science.)
2. More invasives trouble: Planes are carrying mosquitoes to the Galapagos Islands…and those mosquitoes could be a vector for a devastating disease that could wipe out island wildlife, reports Journal Watch Online.
3. One good thing about the recession — it’s reduced CO2 emissions a little bit, reports Dot Earth. (The phenomenon is being called the “CO2 shadow.”)
4. Does New Zealand’s pledge to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10-20 percent by 2020 signal problems for the Copenhagen climate negotiations? The BBC’s Richard Black thinks such “modest” individual-country pledges are supplanting the international negotiating process.
5. Do you bike a lot, and also need yet another way to recharge your smartphone? PedalPower+ now makes a devise that fully recharges your Blackberry or iPod after two hours of riding, says CleanTechnica. (Confession: After two hours of riding, the last thing I can do is talk.)

(Image: Camels in Australia. Credit: Luca Zappa through a Creative Commons license.)

1. Ah, wouldn’t you like to be on a beach in northern France right now? Maybe not. Tons of green algae have washed up on the beaches there, and it’s not just ugly — it’s lethal. A horse died and one man was left very ill after breathing in the fumes of this “green menace” caused by agricultural run-off, reports The Guardian.
2. Is art important in the fight against climate change? Grist takes us on a tour through the outpouring of climate change art in recent years, saying such expressions can increase our awareness and even inspire us to act. What do you think?
3. “The world’s biggest sustainable development” sounds like an oxymoron to me, but hey, that’s what they’re calling themselves over at the new Las Vegas CityCenter. The $8.5 billion, 18-million-square-foot complex is seeking LEED certification.
4. Will a plea from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon help move world leaders to action on climate change? On Monday the Secretary-General said climate change is the biggest global challenge we face and governments need to reach agreement in Copenhagen this December.
5. And more on sea turtles… Treehugger reports that a group of dedicated volunteers have helped 4,000 endangered loggerhead turtle hatchlings make it from nest to sea in Australia.   

1. New York City has gone a little greener with it’s new fleet of hybrid police cars. Will they be cracking down on environmental fugitives now?
2. Last week at Dot Earth, Andrew Revkin posed this question: will a green revolution in agriculture simply boost the planet’s human population, thereby not really reducing our impact on Earth at all? He received more than 100 comments — check them out.
3. Australia is delaying its proposed cap-and-trade system by a year due to economic woes — and Environmental Capital says there are lessons here for the United States.
4. A study published in Science shows that four out of five wildlife imports entering the United States are improperly labeled. This poor labeling, coupled with a general lack of oversight,  has helped create an exotic pet trade that’s out of control.
5. Will Obama’s climate change proposals go under just like Bill Clinton’s health care reform did? The Vine says not likely, for one big reason: now that the EPA has the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the agency can pick up wherever Congress fails.

The Washington Post today has an interesting story (registration required) about how the Earth’s oceans are getting crowded with competition for use — and how more and more ocean experts are pushing ocean zoning as the answer.

But even though such zoning (which experts call by the unlovely name “marine spatial planning”) has high-level support within the Obama administration, it’s anything but easy.

Overlaying the maps of the many uses of the sea in any given area — uses ranging from fishing to fossil fuel extraction to recreation to sand mining and wind farms — “quickly becomes a train wreck,” according to Duke University ecologist Larry Crowder.

Still, Europe and Australia have been doing integrated ocean planning and zoning for a while. And scientists at The Nature Conservancy say the risks of not making a sea change in the way we do ocean management outweigh the inherent conflicts of trying to balance dozens of competing resource demands. As Conservancy scientists Lynne Hale, Mike Beck and Scott Smith wrote in March on nature.org:

In some U.S. states, one agency manages the habitats on the bottom of the sea, a separate agency manages the water above it, and a third manages the gas and minerals beneath the bottom. Even conservation organizations that advocate protection don’t always take into account fully the way people — often the poorest and most marginalized — depend on ocean resources for their livelihood.

Hale, Beck and Scott argue that we can take lessons learned in using zoning for terrestrial conservation — like transparency and interactive web-based maps — and apply them to seascape management practices. The Conservancy is already advising countries on how to make these knowledge transfers — for instance, helping the Venezuelan national energy corporation to preserve critical reef areas in the waters of that country while allowing for energy extraction.

But ocean zoning needs to be adopted widely if it’s going to work, say Hale, Beck and Smith. Individual efforts that don’t affect business as usual at the seascape level, they add, will just mean further decline of our marine resources.

(Image: Fisherman from the Kokhanok village catches salmon on the south shore of Iliamna Lake on the Alaska Peninsula. Credit: Ami Vitale.)