1. States are requiring insurance companies to plan for climate change. (Grist)
2. Nissan is shipping it’s electric cars on a low-emission, solar-diesel ship. (Clean Technica)
3. A special powder will soon be able to turn your grass clippings into solar cells. (Future of Technology)
4. The worst spate of stranded dolphins in a decade on Cape Cod baffle scientists. (Guardian)
5. After 20 years, Russian drill nears 14-million-year-old Antarctic lake. (Wired)

In Chinese culture, the number five is generally held to be a lucky number. That’s due in large part to the Wu Xing, or Five Elements: water, wood, metal, earth and fire.

It’s fitting, then, that when we took stock of what the Conservancy accomplished here in China throughout the course of 2011, we were especially proud of five landmark conservation accomplishments. And, as it turns out, we batted for the elemental cycle.

Water
In an unprecedented effort that saw the largest power station in the world alter its practices for ecological purposes, the Conservancy worked with the Three Gorges Dam to restore declining downstream carp populations. By helping to guide the release of excess water, the Conservancy and partners sought to mimic natural river cycles that trigger breeding in local carp species, which have experienced devastating decreases in the last few decades. Early returns suggest that the water release resulted in higher levels of carp spawning, offering a bit of good news along a stretch of the Yangtze in bad need of it.

Wood
Well, there’s about to be much more of it: the Conservancy is leading Sichuan’s largest forest carbon project which will restore more than 40 square kilometers of forest in the province’s southwestern Liangshan region. In 2011 alone, we helped plant 1.2 million trees, and over the next four years we’ll plant a total of 10 million. These reforestation efforts will create jobs for local people, deliver measurable climate change results through accredited carbon credit programs and protect endangered wildlife, including species like the giant panda.

Metal
Speaking of pandas, small metal boxes containing motion-sensor cameras captured incredible images of wild animals in Sichuan Province. And these photos aren’t just revealing the region’s unrivaled richness in wildlife but are also providing invaluable resources for increasing our understanding of the natural world. Located on a parcel of land that will soon become one of China’s first forays into private land conservation, the Conservancy candid cameras photographed over 30 species of birds and mammals, including golden monkeys, takins, leopard cats, golden pheasants and pandas. One of the pandas was even caught eating meat, providing landmark visual evidence of the panda’s omnivorous appetite.

Earth
In even more panda news, the Conservancy and partners developed a new methodology that will allow bamboo reforestation to be classified as a clean development mechanism (CDM) activity. This news comes hot on the heels of China’s first domestic voluntary carbon market called the Panda Standard, and will for the first time allow conservationists to quantify carbon sequestration in bamboo sinks, which are currently ineligible in other carbon accounting methodologies. Bamboo is one of China’s most widely grown and harvested plants, meaning that the Panda Standard could play a huge role in restoring forested landscapes and accelerating China’s carbon economy.

Fire
And we go out with a bang. When the Conservancy celebrated its 60th anniversary in Washington, DC earlier this year, Board of Directors member Jack Ma made an explosive announcement. Ma, one of China’s leading entrepreneurs, announced the China Global Conservation Fund, a new project that will significantly expand the Conservancy’s global reach. The fund is being established by a group of philanthropic Chinese to channel millions of dollars toward high-impact conservation projects around the world. The first project to receive support from the fund will be an initiative to save Kenya’s critically endangered hirola antelope.

And now, as we leave the Year of the Rabbit, these five projects leave us well positioned to expand on our success and enjoy an even more prosperous Year of the Dragon. Good luck and good fortune in 2012.

(Images: Panda eating meat captured by motion sensor cameras stationed on the Motianling County Land Trust Reserve in northern Sichuan. Image credit: TNC. Harvesting bamboo for basket production in Yunnan Province, China. © Ami Vitale.)

1. A lone wolf has crossed into California, the first known to be there since 1924. (LA Times)
2. Find out how your Christmas tree could be used to help save fish. (TreeHugger)
3. Do tornadoes and hailstorms take weekends off because of pollution? (National Geographic)
4. What were the top 10 states ravaged by extreme weather in 2011? (Grist)
5. See the mystery foam that engulfed a seaside town this week. (Guardian)

If grasslands were a business, you wouldn’t find many people willing to invest.

Most of the world’s original grasslands have already been lost to urban development, timber or agriculture. Roughly 75% of those that remain have been degraded, and their future doesn’t look bright. Even though they provide livelihoods for 800 million people on the planet, grasslands are a seemingly dying breed.

“It’s not surprising,” says Craig Leisher, senior advisor on poverty and conservation for The Nature Conservancy. “Grasslands flourish in places that are coveted by humans for other purposes—agriculture, plantations and settlements—that nearly always trump conservation efforts.”

But a new study funded by The Nature Conservancy offers hope. A 10-year project in South Africa provides quantitative evidence that it is possible to save grasslands and improve the livelihoods of the people who depend on them.

“We all believe that conservation can benefit people, but actual empirical evidence is scant,” says Sanjayan, lead scientist for the Conservancy. “That’s why this study on the value of conservation of grasslands for people is so important and timely.”

The project is set in the 7,000-hectare (17,297 acres) Umgano Grasslands of South Africa, an impoverished community of 22,000 people with no connection to the national electricity grid and no formal drinking water supply. Livestock are the primary source of income here, as well as a sign of wealth and power.

Working with the local leadership, conservationists divided the area into three zones. The first (which was turned into a nature reserve) consisted of the highest conservation-value grasslands in the area. The latter two zones (one for timber and the other for managed livestock grazing) contained lower quality grasslands and were used for supporting the local economy.

The result 10 years after launch? Measurable socioeconomic gains, including:

• 100 new jobs created by the timber plantation;
• An annual timber revenue of $240,000, which is invested in the biodiversity zone and the community;
• Creation of a community health clinic;
• A 21% increase in salary for those employed by the timber plantation; and
• Healthier grasses in the managed livestock zone as compared to similar grazing lands outside the area.

Could other grassland areas around the world—and the millions of people who depend on them—benefit from a similar approach? Yes, says Leisher.

“With a small bit of funding and access to technical expertise via a university or NGO,” he argues, “hundreds of grasslands communities could do the same.”

Sounds like an investment worth making after all.

(Image 1: Children walking home from school in the Umgano Grasslands. Image 2: Mayford, chairman of the local Umgano Trust. Image 3: the highland grasslands of Umgano. Source: Tim Boucher/TNC.)

Note: the following post is the latest in a series chronicling the ongoing expedition to the Raja Ampat Islands. Read more here.

Today we’re at Daram Island, located in the southeast corner of the Misool MPA — about as remote as you can get in Indonesia. We’re anchored off a small island smothered in tropical rainforest all the way down to a perfectly white sandy beach.

During the day we listen to the calls of tropical birds, which give way to the cries of bats in the evening. And yet, I can hear the strains of Bollywood music coming from a crew member’s mobile phone — strangely surreal!

Working in remote places is both wonderful and challenging, and it requires a lot of preparation. We have to bring lots of spares of everything we need. Often, people are curious as to what we need in order to work in places like Raja Ampat. To stay underwater for an hour and record all our observations, we require fairly simple — albeit specialized — gear. And some of the items we take along on expeditions like this may surprise you…

Three times a day, we load our equipment onto speedboats and head out to the sites we’ve chosen to survey. To find those sites, we use GPS units — small handheld devices not much bigger than a mobile phone. Once we’ve reached a site, we get into our wetsuits and SCUBA gear. We have enough air to stay underwater for about 60 minutes, so we have to work quickly to collect all our data! We collect data over a defined area that we measure out using five 50m tapes laid out on the reef.

While underwater laptops haven’t yet been invented (I’m sure that’s not far away!), we do use wrist-mounted dive computers that calculate safe dive times based on how deep and how long we’ve been diving.

We use underwater paper — plastic-coated paper we can write on with a normal pencil — to record our observations of fish or corals. The paper, pencils and anything else we need are firmly strapped or tied to our slates, because dropping something underwater means you may never find it again!

And, of course, we always dive with our cameras — safe and dry in underwater housings — so we can document this fabulous underwater world.

There are also a few somewhat odd things we can’t live without:

• Innertubes: Taken from car tires. Turns out, these are the best “rubber bands” for keeping our papers attached to the slates.
• Dive hoods: While we’re only a couple degrees south of the equator and the water temperature is 30°C (86°F), we still get cold because we spend around three hours a day underwater.
• Toothpaste: Not just for brushing our teeth! Toothpaste is great for cleaning the insides of our face masks, and stops them from fogging up.

Explore further coverage of this expedition on nature.org and learn more about the Conservancy’s involvement in the game-changing Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security.

(First image: Community monitoring assistant Naftali gets ready to dive into a site. First image credit: TNC. Second image: Community monitoring assistant Ali takes note of a sea cucumber on his slate. Second image credit: TNC.)

Note: the following post is the latest in a series chronicling the ongoing expedition to the Raja Ampat Islands. Read more here.

The world’s oceans are getting warmer. But what does that mean for coral reefs?

After all, coral reefs grow in tropical oceans so they’re used to warm water, right? Well, this is true, partly, but when temperatures get hotter than normal and stay that way, corals begin to “bleach.” Climatic events like La Niñas cause ocean temperatures to rise above normal. In 2010, a La Niña event caused coral bleaching in reefs around the world, including many in Indonesia.

Temperature is also important to reefs on a day-to-day basis. Seasonal temperature cycles are a cue for reproduction in dozens of reef species — including corals — and they affect growth rates in everything from bacteria to fish. Cool water patches can be caused by local “upwelling” — a phenomenon in which cool, nutrient-rich water rises to the surface, creating a source of food and attracting an amazing amount of marine life.

So, to better understand local patterns of ocean temperatures in Misool, Purwanto and Muhajir have been putting out underwater temperature loggers in seven Misool reefs since 2009. The loggers are around the size of a small flashlight and record temperature readings every 30 minutes for an entire year.

On this expedition, we’ve been retrieving and downloading the loggers and comparing their data to temperature records from previous years. Interestingly, 2010 not only saw higher-than-usual summer temperatures; winter temperatures were also warmer than normal. It seems that 2011 has been a more normal year for ocean temperatures, which is good news for coral reefs. This year, we’ve seen a return to the usual annual pattern where temperatures drop to around 26°C (79°F) in July and August, coinciding with the south monsoon season.

We’re now approaching the warmest months of the year for Misool and temperatures are already warm — around 29.5°C (85°F). So far, we’ve seen a few coral colonies that are pale or slightly bleached, indicating that they are a little stressed by warm temperatures. As long as temperatures don’t get too high, we expect these corals to recover. However, this just goes to show how sensitive these reefs are to even small increases in temperature — even in “normal” conditions, they are already living pretty close to the highest temperatures they can tolerate.

The data we’re collecting on this expedition will help us understand differences between reefs and between coral species so we can see which types are most sensitive to increased temperatures. We can then use this information to identify reefs and species that may be more “resilient.” By protecting these resilient reefs from local threats like overfishing or anchor damage, we can hopefully help reefs survive climate change.

Explore further coverage of this expedition on nature.org and learn more about the Conservancy’s involvement in the game-changing Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security.

(First image: The deck of the Putiraja, the expedition’s dive vessel. First image credit: TNC. Second image: Muhajir collecting data from a temperature logger. Second image credit: TNC.)

Note: the following post from Sangeeta Mangubhai (@smangubhai) is the latest in a series chronicling the ongoing expedition to the Raja Ampat Islands. Read more here.

For the last four days, the team has been diving in a 425-square-kilometer no-take zone that was established by Misool Eco Resort and local communities through a marine conservation (or lease) agreement 6 years ago. In this no-take zone, removing fish, sharks, shells, turtles or turtle eggs is prohibited.

Local Conservancy staff members Purwanto and Muhajir have been collecting data from reefs inside and outside the no-take zone for two years now. The reefs were healthy when the no-take zone was first established, and data Muhajir has collected shows that the reef communities have remained healthy and stable, with no decline in coral cover.

Purwanto is a mega fish geek, and you cannot wipe the smile off his face today. He surveyed a potential grouper spawning aggregation in the morning where he recorded 40 male coral trout that appeared to have recently spawned. At lunch, when he took the team to an isolated submerged pinnacle that had not previously been surveyed, his smile was even bigger. We dived with swarms of fish, including oceanic triggerfish, fusiliers, surgeonfish, snappers, trevallies and barracuda. On the top of the pinnacle we saw triton triggerfish guarding nests with pink eggs and cleaner stations where Napoleon wrasses were getting their gills cleaned!

Our surveys are clearly showing an increased biomass of fish in sites where there are strong currents. This is particularly evident within the snapper and grouper populations. Prior to the establishment of the no-take zone, the larger individuals were fished out; now, the population’s age range is more balanced, including juveniles through to mature adults.

The no-take zone is also the only area so far in the marine protected area where we have seen sharks. It’s thrilling to see the reef shark populations rebound, especially here in Indonesia, which has the largest shark fishery in the world. According to Andy Miners from Misool Eco Resort, “It’s also quite common these days to see numerous baby sharks cruising around shallow lagoons, sometimes in groups of 15 to 20 individuals.”

We also had the opportunity today to meet with Jainudin Bahale and Rajak Tamher, who are part of the local team that patrols the no-take area. These guys are literally on watch 24 hours a day and do not hesitate to jump in their boat if they see there are boats in the no-take zone.

The local rangers also patrol for other types of destructive activities, like reef bombing, long lining and cyanide fishing. Meeting the rangers was a unique opportunity to share some of our preliminary findings from the no-take zone and to thank the ranger team for their commitment to patrolling the area.

As I reflect on today, I cannot help but feel a little more positive and lighter inside. Yes, the sad reality is that there are very few no-take zones working in Indonesia, or even globally, for that matter. But today was one of those inspiring moments for me, Joanne and the team.

We were reminded that we can turn the tide of change — that marine protected areas, if designed correctly, can help reefs recover and become productive again and that there are innovative ways to do conservation beyond what governments and NGOs have historically done. Here in Misool we have an example of how partnerships between private sector and community can result in win-win situations for local fisheries and conserving biodiversity.

Explore further coverage of this expedition on nature.org and learn more about the Conservancy’s involvement in the game-changing Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security.

(First image: Snappers swimming in the no-take zone. First image credit: TNC. Second image: Sangeeta, Wahab and Ali meet the Misool Ecoresort ranger team. Second image credit: TNC.)

Note: the following post from Sangeeta Mangubhai (@smangubhai) is the latest in a series chronicling the ongoing expedition to the Raja Ampat Islands. Read more here.

Growing up in Fiji instilled me with a profound love of the ocean and, in particular, coral reefs. Corals fascinate me: they are anatomically very simple animals, but they show remarkable complexity in growth form, reproduction and life history.

Did you know that coral taxonomy is based on their fine skeletal structure? And that it takes three large books weighing 8kg (!!!) to provide detailed descriptions and photographs of most known species?

Corals are notoriously difficult to identify underwater because a species can sometimes have very different outward appearances depending on the habitat where a given specimen is located. For example, a certain species of coral may grow lots of branches when it lives on shallow reef flats, but this very same species may become flat and plate-like in deeper reefs. To make things more confusing, some corals can hybridize like plants.

One of the challenges of working in the global center of marine biodiversity is that there are more than 550 coral species living in Raja Ampat alone! For our surveys, we only have to identify the corals to genus level, but even that has its challenges when some groups look very similar to each other. Have a look at a coral up close if you have the chance — you will be surprised at how intricate corals are in terms of their skeletal architecture and how much they can vary in appearance.

Rizya Ardiwijaya, a Conservancy diver who assists monitoring staff at all our sites in Indonesia, is currently helping me with the coral resilience assessments. He and I spend most of our dives with our noses 30cm above the reef, identifying and counting corals.

Sometimes we have lively debates underwater (via our waterproof slates, of course) about the genus of coral we are observing. In the evenings, we spend up to two hours looking through the coral books to make sure we have our identifications correct and in synchrony with each other. So far, we have found 54 genera of coral in Misool and we are expecting this number to go up as the expedition continues!

Explore further coverage of this expedition on nature.org and learn more about the Conservancy’s involvement in the game-changing Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security.
 
(First image: Acropora coral. First image credit: TNC. Second image: From left to right, cynarina, physogyra, euphyllia ancora and lobophyllia coral. Second image credit: TNC.)

Note: the following post from Sangeeta Mangubhai (@smangubhai) is the latest in a series chronicling the ongoing expedition to the Raja Ampat Islands. Read more here.

Three months ago, we began a community monitoring project that aims to empower local Papuan communities to monitor their marine resources and link the data they collect to decisions they make about their local fisheries. Five representatives from Raja Ampat’s Kofiau and Southeast Misool MPAs work with Conservancy staff as Community Monitoring Assistants (CMAs), and we are lucky to have four of them — Ali, Wahab, Andi and Naftali — on our expedition!

A couple of days ago, I learned that two of them were previously compressor fishers who have each spent more time underwater than Jo and I combined! Compressor fishers use a hose to maintain a continuous air supply from the surface, allowing them to remain underwater for long periods of time harvesting marine animals.

Compressor fishing was banned last year in Indonesia because of the impacts the practice has on local fisheries and the method’s associated high health risks. Now, both our CMAs have stopped using compressors and want to learn more about coral reefs and how to help improve the local fisheries their families and communities rely on.

L-R: Naftali, Andi, Ali and Wahab

Two of the CMAs — Wahab from the village of Fafanlap and Ali from Harapan Jaya — have been collecting invertebrate data, focusing on key fisheries species (such as sea cucumbers, sea snails, giant clams and lobsters) as well as predators like the crown-of-thorns starfish, which eats live corals.

Wahab and Ali already have such sharp eyes for finding invertebrates hidden in reefs, and we are getting good estimates of the densities and abundance of these species in the marine protected area. They are recording the names in their local language and helping Muhajir and me to match these with the scientific names.

So far, the numbers do not look good — actually, they are depressing. Both Wahab and Ali have recorded less than six animals per dive, which is a strong indicator that many of these species have been over-harvested. With such low numbers, I cannot help but wonder how these animals will successfully reproduce.

Sitting down with Ali at lunch today, he told me he remembers snorkeling as a child and seeing five to 10 giant clams every time he visited his local reefs. He told me Misool used to have a lot of giant clams (Tridacna gigas — or, as it’s known locally, kima), which can grow to be over a meter in length. Now, he lamented, shaking his head, he has seen only one giant kima in 10 consecutive dives. But Ali has hope: he is keen to share the data he is collecting with his local community and work with them to find ways to help these important fisheries recover.

Explore further coverage of this expedition on nature.org and support Ali’s efforts to rejuvenate Raja Ampat’s fisheries here.

(First image: the expedition team dives at Manta Mountain in Misool; credit: TNC. Second image: the expedition’s CMAs are, from left to right, Naftali, Andi, Ali and Wahab; credit: TNC.)

Note: the following post is the latest in a series chronicling the ongoing expedition to the Raja Ampat Islands. Read more here.

Misool. Perfect one day, even better the next. The weather is so calm we could be forgiven for thinking we’re diving in a lake! We’re on schedule, fitting in three dives per day, and our evenings on the boat are busy with everyone entering pages of fish and coral data into the computer.

We’re collecting data on the status of the reefs for two reasons. The first is to check on sites identified for extra protection. These sites will be declared as no-take zones in the future, and we want to make sure they’re in good condition.

The second is to compare the health of reefs in different types of zones within the MPA. In particular, we want to compare no-take zones with zones where certain human uses are allowed. Even in Misool — a highly biodiverse area where protective measures have been taken — populations of valuable species like grouper are declining. We hope no-take zones will create “fish banks” — places where fish can grow and reproduce. There is already one no-take zone which has been established for a few years in Misool, and more are planned.

Increases in the number and size of fish are good indicators that a no-take zone is working well. Increases in fish size result in exponentially higher levels of egg production. For example, if a fish that’s 20-cm-long produces 10,000 eggs, then a 40-cm-long fish can produce 100,000,000 eggs! Many of those eggs will drift outside the no-take zone to replenish areas where fishing is allowed. That’s good incentive for leaving the fish in the water to develop a little longer…

We’re also looking for a return of some of the large iconic species, like grouper, bumphead parrotfish and napoleon wrasse (see above), which quickly disappear even with moderate levels of fishing. These large species all play different but critical roles in keeping a natural balance on the reefs. Groupers are top predators that keep populations of smaller fish in check, bumphead parrotfish are experts in keeping the reefs clean of algae, and napoleon wrasse eat the notorious crown-of-thorns starfish — a voracious coral eater.

But it’s not just the big fish that are important. Two days ago, we were thrilled to see a “fish ball” (see above) — a school of hundreds of thousands of anchovies whirling above us, trying to escape the many hungry predators lurking at the ball’s edges. These are some of the smallest fish on the reef but are, in many ways, also the most important. They are the main food not only for fish but for other animals in the ecosystem, including sea birds and dolphins. A school of anchovies this size means there’s a good foundation for a healthy productive ecosystem in Misool.

(First image: A reef in Misool. First image credit: TNC. Second image: A napoleon wrasse. Second image credit: TNC. Third image: An anchovy fish ball. Third image credit: TNC.)