As UN negotiators from around the world gather in Barcelona this week to continue hammering out a global climate deal, the question of emissions reduction targets has grabbed center stage in the press.

But even if all countries stopped emitting greenhouse gas pollution today, the impacts of climate change will be felt for years to come.

We must reduce emissions to minimize any future impacts. But negotiators must also develop policies and financial mechanisms that will help communities – and the natural resources they rely upon for survival – adapt to and overcome the climate impacts we are already seeing today.

The Nature Conservancy hosted an event here in Barcelona (webcast) last night highlighting adaptation actions we and others are launching around the world. The actions presented are the types that UN negotiators should include in a global agreement to ensure it provides the support needed to protect people and nature from the ravages of climate change.

Mike Beck, senior scientist with the Conservancy’s Global Marine Team, spoke of how sea levels are rising faster than anyone had previously projected, and how coastal communities are struggling to survive.

Mike unveiled an innovate new web tool called Coastal Resilience that shows in detail how sea level rise is hitting Long Island, NY. Users can look up how different sea-level rise scenarios will impact specific areas according to development type (commercial or residential areas); demographics (such as age or economic status); habitat types; and other specific social, economic and environmental classifications.

Residents can even look up their home addresses in Long Island and see how sea-level rise will impact their property.

The tool also allows government agencies to see where hospitals, fire stations and other emergency response organizations are located in connection to the areas that will be worst hit by sea-level rise.

“Most emergency responses to storms and flooding are made at the local level. But most localities don’t have access to this kind of information,” Mike said during the presentation.

Engaging communities in dealing with climate change impacts is crucial in places like Long Island, and even more so in developing countries where vulnerable communities are likely to face some of the greatest impacts. Several countries are now building upon the Coastal Resilience work to develop similar tools for their regions. The Conservancy is working with partners in the Caribbean to develop a similar tool.

“[In the Caribbean] most hotels and the tourist industry are based around these coastlines,” Mike said. “They’re socially and economically critical.”

Also joining the event was Rence Sore, the Solomon Islands‘ permanent secretary of environment, conservation and meteorology, who spoke of how his country is combating rising sea levels. Sore described how many of the islands in his nation are just one meter above sea level and are already dealing with coastal erosion and salt water contamination of crop lands.

“We depend on natural resources,” Sore said. “Climate change is impacting our food and water security.”

He said his government is incorporating the impacts of climate change in their development plans and are focusing on protecting their natural resources, from mangroves and coral reefs and more, to ensure they can continue to provide food and water to local communities.

The Conservancy is working in the Choiseul province of the Solomon Islands, in partnership with the Lauru Land Conference of Tribal Communities, to help plan local coastal land and resource management in response to climate impacts

These examples show how, in developed and developing countries alike, providing information and engaging communities are essential components to dealing with the impacts of climate change.

In Barcelona, our team is advocating that a global climate agreement draw on and strengthen the capacity of indigenous peoples and local communities to monitor, understand, and respond to climate change through effective adaptation measures. Protecting and restoring natural resources are some of the most effective measures for strengthening the resilience of both people and nature.

To learn more and spread the word about a global climate agreement, visit Planet Change.

(Image: Researchers in the Solomon Islands. Credit: David Wachenfeld © 2004 Triggerfish Images.)

My husband returns to the same reefs every year in the Bahamas, where he has been teaching a coral reef ecology class for the last 14 years. On his 2008 trip, he noticed that the reef fish were missing. The culprits were quickly identified — and during his 2009 course, he and his students were eating them.

Lionfish.

Lionfish do not belong in the Caribbean. They are native to the South Pacific and Indian Ocean and made their way into the Caribbean through the release (the exact event is unknown) of aquarium fish. Some say they were in a tank that was destroyed in Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Others say it was a release of just 3 or 6 specimens. Whatever the case, lionfish are now spotted as far north as Rhode Island, and are popping up all over the Caribbean, from Colombia to the Virgin Islands to the Bahamas.

The Bahamas‘ marine ecosystem has already been hard hit. The people that know these reefs well are witnessing a rapid decline in reef fish thanks to these voracious predators, which have an appetite for juvenile reef fish. Their method of attack is particularly unique. Instead of an ambush attack or high-speed chase, lionfish make their presence known and confuse their prey by displaying their beautiful fins like a peacock, slowly dancing towards their prey and then rapidly sucking the prey into their mouths like a vacuum. This technique is so effective because no other predator in the Caribbean uses it — so prey are not adapted to avoid it.

Lionfish have no natural predators in Caribbean waters and are thriving on the tasty but already dwindling choice of baby reef fish. Some think that native grouper might have preyed on lionfish — but because grouper are overfished in the Caribbean (and in most parts of the world), the options beyond human predators are few.

As the distribution of lionfish in the Caribbean expands and the severity of this invasion is becoming more apparent, managers are trying to figure out what to do before the adult populations of reef fish are seriously affected. In the Bahamas, they have issued a “kill on sight” directive. The Caribbean Fisheries Management Council has even developed a Most Wanted Poster to encourage removal of these fish.

The best way to get rid of them? Put them on the menu! In Asia, lionfish are a popular menu item. That’s not yet the case in the Caribbean, so folks are working to change the culture of fear that surrounds lionfish (they have toxic spines that really hurt when they touch you) into a culture of desire for a delightful bite of this light and tasty fish. There are even websites that are collecting lionfish recipes — everything from sushi to Bahamian style fritters to smoked lionfish dip (yum!).

The hope is that people will be motivated to hunt and remove these fish, taking advantage of the existing tradition of artisanal fishing in the Caribbean and turning fishers toward this undesirable species and perhaps away from dwindling populations of grouper and snapper.

An additional approach to this problem — and one that would benefit the reef in multiple ways as well — would be to beef up protection of large predators such as grouper and sharks so that they can work to keep this ecosystem in balance and potentially keep the lionfish population in check.

My husband’s students decided to do a small research project to examine the gut contents (i.e., what is in the bellies) of lionfish they found on the Bahamian reefs, and discovered that their bellies were quite full of baby reef fish. The reward for their efforts was a yummy dinner of fried lionfish…and my husband assures me that in terms of flavor and texture, they compete with any flakey white fish you can think of or catch in the Caribbean. So…

This is probably the only time you’ll hear me advocating for people to eat fish. If you want to eat fish, I’d usually refer you to Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch — a guide that helps diners make decisions about the most sustainable and healthy options for seafood. However, when it comes to lionfish in the Caribbean, I say chow down to your heart’s content!

With so many great photos from our online community this week, it was hard to pick just one… but this curacao scorpionfish by Flickr user DiamondPete has a certain “now you see me, now you don’t” quality that’s just too alluring to pass up.

Check out all The Nature Conservancy’s featured daily nature images, submitted to the Conservancy’s Flickr group by people like you — at my.nature.org.

Having lived in the hurricane zone for most of the last decade, I have developed a bit of an addiction to The Weather Channel this time of year. Until recently, the general feeling around hurricane coverage and anticipation of hurricane season in the United States has been a fear of “the big one.”  Now, and especially this summer, I am surprised to find I am hoping for a hurricane. Not a big one, of course. But as far as the health of coral reefs is concerned, a few minor ones would do the trick.

It may surprise you to know that, given the warming trends in the ocean and the fact that El Niño seems to be setting up for this winter, a hurricane is just what coral reefs need to avoid a mass bleaching event.

Don’t get me wrong: Big hurricanes can cause serious damage to coral reefs. But generally, storms are something they have adapted to and as long as they are in good health, will be able to recover from.

But why are hurricanes good for coral reefs?

The combination of still hot water and radiation stress from cloud-free summer days is a deadly duo for corals. But with hurricanes, you get lots and lots of wind, and the ocean gets all stirred up. The clouds come in and darken the sky and cool things off with lots of rainfall. This is just what a reef needs to keep from bleaching when they have been cooking in the sun, getting stressed from the heat.

Here’s why: When corals are stressed, they expel the tiny algae cells that live in their tissues, turning the corals white. This bleaching (the appearance of “whitened” coral where there was once-colorful coral) is a symptom of stress in corals and other reef animals with symbiotic algae. These tiny algae are known as zooxanthellae and are present in most healthy reef-building corals. Zooxanthellae provide nutrients and oxygen to the coral through photosynthetic activities, allowing their host to direct more energy toward growth and constructing its calcium carbonate skeleton.

The host coral polyp in return provides zooxanthellae with a protected environment and a constant supply of carbon dioxide needed for photosynthesis.  When sea temperatures become too warm (above 28 C), the photosythetic system of the zooxanthellae can not effectively process incoming light. This results in production of “superoxides,” such as hydrogen peroxide, toxic by-products of this process. These toxins contribute to coral stress reactions, which lead to bleaching.  In extreme cases of bleaching, corals die.

I tend to think about the hurricane season in terms of the alphabet – if we are in August and have gotten past the letter “G,” it usually means a pretty active year. Remember the hurricane season of 2005, when we used up all the letters and started using greek letters?

Now, here at the height of this year’s hurricane season, we’ve barely reached “E,” with only one hurricane in the bunch. With Hurricane Bill avoiding the Caribbean pretty much, we can only hope to see a few small storms this month that would cool things off in the Lesser Antilles and Northern Caribbean. That’s good news, because NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program has predicted these areas will be hit the hardest by mass bleaching, based on the current sea surface temperature models derived from satellite data.

Right now, Florida reefs are under watch for bleaching due to persistent warm water that doesn’t seem to be going away. This isn’t good news — but unfortunately, it gets worse. Because it is the beginning of an El Niño year that is typically characterized by warming seas, we can expect to see even more extreme conditions for Caribbean reefs next year.

Scientists have identified a trend that usually goes something like this: The first part of the El Niño cycle brings some bleaching to the Caribbean, and then in the later part of the El Niño cycle the sustained sea warming trend makes Caribbean reefs even more likely to experience mass bleaching. So, we may get a teaser now that will hopefully prepare coral reef managers for what is to come next summer.

One of the tools The Nature Conservancy and partners such as NOAA are encouraging reef managers to develop and use is a bleaching response plan.  These plans help managers to be prepared for the impending event by:

• Making decisions about bleaching monitoring protocols;
• Coordinating monitoring teams among many different agencies;
• Communicating about the event; and
• Discussing how to implement management interventions.

As we work to raise the alert level and help managers develop and implement their bleaching response plans, we will continue to hope that we see a change in the weather. We could really use some stirring up right about now.

(Image: Coral bleaching in the Lower Florida Keys. Credit: Craig Quirolo/Reef Relief.)

1. Adapting to climate change will cost the world at least $100 billion per year by 2030, according to a new estimate by former IPCC co-chair Martin Parry and colleagues, reports Climate Feedback. (That’s twice the estimate the United Nations calculated in 2007.)
2. Check out this camera-trap image of a snow leopard in Afghanistan, courtesy of DotEarth.
3. Good news for sea turtles — the Bahamas has extended full protection to all turtle species in its waters, where five of the world’s seven sea turtle species live, says EcoWorldly.
4. Is that LEED building really green? The New York Times reports that while LEED certifies design and construction, the designation doesn’t extend to the energy-efficient performance of that building. The Vine explains why that’s important.
5. How can burning a gallon of gas in your car result in nearly 20 pounds of CO2 emissions? Treehugger’s Ask Pablo does the math and finds…it adds up.

From the serious (climate change in Africa, declining reef fish in the Caribbean) to the not-so-serious (carbon-friendly ice cream? robotic fish to help detect pollution?), our round-up of Cool Green Morning news is sure to help start your day off on a green foot.

1. It’s the new robo-cop of the underwater world: scientists have developed a “robofish” that mimics the style of real fish and can swim into tiny crevices too small for traditional underwater monitoring devices. Their mission? To help detect underwater pollution and inspect submerged pipe lines and other underwater structures. (Video above.)
2. The director of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research says the percentage of global carbon emissions from deforestation has been overestimated — Gilberto Camara puts the figure at 10 percent, rather than the 20 percent widely quoted by most climate experts.
3. Will low-carbon ice cream solve the climate change problem? Probably not, but it is an odd sign of the way people in developing countries need to change their lifestyles, says Environmental Capital. Unilever is developing an ”ambient” ice cream that will be stored and shipped at room temperature to reduce energy, then frozen in consumers homes.
4. Meanwhile, African leaders are planning to ask rich nations for $67 billion per year to fight climate change. Africa contributes little to the global carbon emissions problem, yet could be hit the hardest by the changing climate, with droughts, floods, heatwaves and sea level rise.
5. A new study of Caribbean reef fish has found that human population growth is correlated with loss of big fish species. Where the people are, the big fish aren’t. (Hat-tip: Blogfish.)

I should start by introducing myself — Stephanie Wear, Conservancy marine scientist and coral reef optimist.

I just returned from Bonaire, where I co-led a coral reef resilience training for Caribbean reef managers. If you have never heard of Bonaire — an island territory that’s part of the Netherlands Antilles, just off the coast of Venezuela — you are probably not a diver. It is a diving mecca — a must-see for anyone who wants to experience a healthy Caribbean coral reef.

In fact, all tourist activities here somehow relate to or include the underwater action. This is why we chose Bonaire as the location for our training; well, that and the fact that Bonaire is celebrating the 30th anniversary of their marine park.

I have known the park manager for Bonaire National Marine Park for about four years. Ramon de Leon is one of those park managers that knows how to get things done, finding creative ways to clear the many hurdles that managers working to protect marine resources face on a daily basis.

I have traveled with Ramon to South Africa and Spain to have him share his story and insight with coral reef managers from around the world. Ramon tells great stories — like the time he put a diver on a plane home for refusing to take off his gloves, a big no-no in the park — and is inspiring to managers who feel paralyzed by bureaucracy and lack of political will.

So, last summer Ramon and I were talking about doing something for Caribbean coral reef managers. He suggested that to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Bonaire’s marine park, he would like to host a training to help managers address the impacts of climate change.

Climate change is really making things messy for coral reef managers, who have traditionally faced a long list of threats including overfishing, pollution, and coastal development. These problems alone seriously threaten the health and distribution of coral reefs globally.

However, when you throw climate change into the mix, specifically rising sea temperatures and acidification of the oceans, the accumulation of all these threats spells big trouble for reefs.  The Nature Conservancy works to attack this problem by both getting involved in making a difference at the policy level as well as working with managers to reduce the threats they have some control over locally.  At this training, we were working with managers to make them aware of the problems that are on the horizon as well as helping them develop strategies to reduce the impacts that climate change is already bringing such as coral bleaching and slowed growth due to the changes in ocean chemistry.

Ramon attended the first reef resilience training I conducted back in 2005, and thought it was time to reach out again. I agreed and began working with NOAA to put something together. A year later, I am sitting here doing the wrap up for the workshop, and reflecting on what comes of trainings such as these. Here is what I’ve come up with…

Of course, managers learn new things, like:

• Latest management ideas;
• Trends in global threats;
• How other managers are coping, and what they can do to adapt.

These are all critical bits of information that managers don’t just happen upon during they daily lives. Managers are immersed (or submersed, as the case may be) in so many problems with people and parks that the last thing on their mind is to check out what is on the horizon, or ask their peers about ways to solve problems they are having. What we do is try to make life easier for managers by doing all the investigating and sharing the results in a form that they can use to make decisions. All this is good.

But I think what is most valuable, and pretty much a guaranteed outcome of trainings such as these, is the incredible bonding and networking that occurs between people that are thrown together in a room, on a boat, or in the water for extended periods of time.

We work to make sure that they spend most of their time together, whether it be in the classroom or at dinner — people have no choice but to get to know one another. And these folks love it! They are so often isolated by distance and time, that this is their chance to see what the heck is going on down island.

I join the conversations and hear everything from insane stories of fishermen gone missing, panicked search parties out all night, only to have them show up in a neighboring country selling their fish from the island bus …to discussions of park fees and sustainable financing. These conversations and the friendships that result are what makes these trainings most valuable.

I have recently heard from managers that attended a similar training in 2005 that got to know each other at the workshop, and later conducted an exchange of fishermen between their island countries to help get support for marine protected areas.

These connections matter. Having long suspected that much would come of these connections, I have only recently been hearing direct results and am now scheming to sort out how I can increase this contact during future activities….perhaps spending time in an underwater habitat?

(Image: Stephanie Wear surrounded by reef managers at their training in Bonaire. Source: Stephanie Wear/TNC.)

First, we hear Steven Chu has a Facebook page. Now he’s appearing on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. What next? Read on for all the latest Cool Green News on this fine Cool Green Morning.

1. Will farmers do better financially under the proposed Waxman-Markey climate bill? Environmental Capital says carbon offsets are a gold mine for farmers.
2. Baseball stadiums in the United States and Japan are going green, from purchasing wind energy to getting LEED certification.
3. Steven Chu’s appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart proves he’s not a zombie, says Red Green and Blue. (Watch the video above and judge for yourself.)
4. NOAA released a new report this week warning that Caribbean reefs face a high risk of coral bleaching this summer, due in part to warmer ocean temperatures.
5. Mongabay is hopeful that we can actually save rainforests through a new climate change mitigation program that would send funding to protect rainforests in developing countries.

Round Two in the 2009 climate negotiations is underway in Bonn, Germany. The Nature Conservancy has a small team here pushing forward on our objectives for a new global climate agreement that will be finalized this December in Copenhagen.

Last week I outlined why we are here and what success means for The Nature Conservancy at these two weeks of meetings. Today I wanted to share some perspectives on how these meetings work, and what the Conservancy — and conservation — can gain.

People ask all the time: “What can you really get done in a meeting of almost 200 countries?” Understandably, for many people, these international meetings are an enigma. Especially for supporters of the Conservancy — who value the tangible and lasting results that are our focus — these meetings seem hard to connect to real conservation outcomes on the ground.

What’s important to remember in the international negotiations is that it’s the countries who call the shots. The stereotypical picture of UN meetings – rows of tables with flags and microphones — is how this process gets done. A simple analogy would be to the U.S. federal government, where representatives from states in the House and Senate make the laws. A major difference on the international front is there is no executive branch or president.

So how does The Nature Conservancy work within this policy context? It’s simple — we work closely with the countries, just like we do in our conservation work.

When we approach any of these major international negotiating conferences — climate or biodiversity or whatever — we are trying to facilitate three things:

1. Political agreement. We work with our country partners and others to provide information and perspectives that help secure political outcomes through the formal negotiations, outcomes that support common conservation objectives.
2. Conservation commitments. These conferences often provide a global stage for profiling successful conservation approaches and accomplishments that countries have achieved. The media and political attention they generate helps secure commitments to more action from the governments we work with, like with the Micronesia and Caribbean Challenges, which were launched at similar international events.
3. Public funding. The political stakes at these big conferences also create opportunities to work with countries to call for new public funding vehicles targeted towards conservation’s greatest challenges.

To support all of this, the Conservancy works to demonstrate how real world examples — from our own the ground experience in countries around the world — inform and shape pragmatic policy solutions.

We’ve had some great wins using this formula in the past. The UN climate negotiations in Bali in 2007 were a major success on all three counts:

1. Political agreement: Established the two-year negotiating process that set the stage for a global deal in Copenhagen, and included reducing emissions from deforestation (REDD) as a core component.
2. Conservation commitments: Supported one of the first official meetings for the Coral Triangle Initiative, which culminated last month in the hugely successful Coral Triangle Summit.
3. Public funding: Together with the World Bank and nine donor governments, launched the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, generating $165 million dollars for helping countries reduce their deforestation emissions.

Political agreement, conservation commitments and public funding — the trifecta for international conferences.

This year in Copenhagen may the greatest opportunity of its kind. Right now in Bonn, our team is working hard towards a similar set of concrete, tangible objectives in what we hope is another big three-part win in Copenhagen.

(Image: Plenary session at the Bonn climate talks in March. Credit: UN Climate Talks through a Creative Commons license.)

The birds are chirping, the sun is shining… the only thing missing is your daily dose of top green news stories. Well, look no further.

1. You’ve seen ”The Story of Stuff” video, haven’t you? It’s become a big hit in classrooms across the country, so keep up with the kids and check it out (short clip above, full-length version at their web site). (Hat-tip: Dot Earth.)
2. A suburb where 70 percent of families don’t own cars? No, this isn’t a fantasy, and yes the people living there say they are much much happier without cars.
3. Amiel Blajchman over at Red, Green and Blue says poverty in Haiti is a direct result of deforestation and habitat loss, coupled with the usual suspects of poor planning and governance failures.
4. Ever wonder why seahorses swim upright, unlike other fish in the sea? Two scientists did, and found out why: it’s all about the seagrasses.
5. In response to new studies detailing just how much energy it takes to power the data centers that support the web, Bright Green Blog asks, is the Internet bad for the environment?