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Thursday, January 15th, 2009Just two months ago a study was released putting a dollar value on the preservation of Belize’s reefs. Now comes a report that a cargo ship wandered (reportedly while on autopilot) onto a barrier reef 32 miles from Belize City in an area near Caye Glory. Experts say that the grounding may have permanently destroyed […]
Putting a Value on Belize’s Reefs and Mangroves
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008In a recent post I applauded efforts to estimate the true economic value of the mangroves along the coast of Mexico’s Baja California. Last month the World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) released a report that estimates the economic value of Belize’s coral reefs and mangroves that I similarly applaud — in […]
A Poor Report Card for the Mesoamerican Reef
Monday, December 22nd, 2008A “report card” on the health of the Mesoamerican Reef (MAR) was released recently, and it was not pretty. Not the type of report card a student would want to take home to his/her parents. The MAR follows the Caribbean coastline of Mexico and Central America for over 1,000 kilometers, and as such is the […]
Will Lula Protect Brazil’s Reefs?
Thursday, November 20th, 2008In September Brazil’s Environment Minister, Carlos Minc, caused quite a stir in conservation circles. He announced that he was sending a decree to the Planalto Palace for President Lula to sign that would significantly enhance Brazil’s protection of its coral reefs, something conservationists and marine biologists have been pushing for since at least the late […]
Update: Mapping Brazil’s Basins to Prepare Against Oil Spills
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008Over a year ago I had a post here about the efforts of Brazil’s Environment Ministry (MMA) to prepare comprehensive atlases of the Brazilian sedimentary basins where oil and gas exploration, drilling and related activities are permitted. [80% of Brazil’s oil and gas exploration/exploitation occurs offshore.] The atlas covering the very important Santos Basin was […]
Update: The Economic Value of Mexican Mangroves
Sunday, August 17th, 2008When last May I blogged about the importance of Mexico’s inventory of its mangroves, I declared that mangroves matter. One of the reasons I cited was that they usually serve as nurseries and homes for many fish, shrimp, crabs, mollusks and other marine life (in the Dominican Republic, for example, many of the endangered manatees […]
Grappling with Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ships
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008How best to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships? That is the tricky issue the London-based International Maritime Organization (IMO) is currently grappling with. The IMO is the United Nations specialized agency created in 1959 to facilitate cooperation among governments in all technical matters involving shipping engaged in international trade, including prevention and control […]
The Caribbean Challenge
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008Yes, I know, this announcement was made publicly at the end of May. I held off talking about here, in part to work first on older backlog from The Temas Blog queue, and in part to see if, as hinted, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica and St. Lucia would quickly announce that […]
Past as Prologue for Caribbean Reefs?
Friday, June 13th, 2008Earlier this year the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published a report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) assessing the state of the Caribbean’s coral reefs after their toughest year in recent history, 2005. The IOC is the lead international entity assessing and reporting […]
Maps, Maps and More Maps
Monday, June 2nd, 2008In a prior post on the Temas library of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) legal texts for download, I promised to highlight other changes and additions to the updated site. The biggest addition to the site has been the Temas Tools Section, a collection of references and tools that help in understanding, shaping and managing […]