In January, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published updated sea level scenarios for the United States. They included a new extreme scenario that would mean roughly 8 feet of global average sea level rise by 2100, but 10-12 feet along almost all U.S. shores outside of Alaska. Scientists consider the scenario unlikely, but increasingly plausible, especially with continued high emissions of greenhouse gases.
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Biodiversity for a Livable Climate: Achievable Steps to Reverse Global Warming with the Power of Nature
Achievable Steps to Reverse Global Warming with the Power of Nature – If burning fossil fuels stopped tomorrow, the planet would still face catastrophic climate change. Measures to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and other measures to cool the planet are critical. This conference will lay out a broad vision to achieve this through accelerating the restoration of ecosystems, building healthy soils and harnessing water cycles. Specific actions will be highlighted that also provide co-benefits and cost-savings for farmers and food consumers, as well as improving water quality in urban, suburban and rural settings.
Conference Details:
Who: Biodiversity for a Livable Climate
What: Scenario 300: Making Climate Cool! Conference
Where: Offices of Steptoe & Johnson LLP
1330 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036-1795
When: Sunday, April 30, 2017, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm (day after the People’s Climate March)
About Biodiversity for a Livable Climate:
A 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that promotes the power of the natural world to stabilize the climate and to restore biodiversity to ecosystems worldwide through education, policy and outreach. Collaborating with organizations around the globe, we advocate for the restoration of soil, and of grassland, forest, wetland, coastal and ocean ecosystems–along with the associated carbon, water and nutrient cycles – to draw down excess atmospheric greenhouse gases, cool the biosphere, and reverse global warming, for the benefit of all people and all life on earth.
NOAA 2016 Oyster Restoration Updates
NOAA Press Release -The 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, which guides the work of the Chesapeake Bay Program, calls for state and federal partners to “restore native oyster habitat and populations in 10 Bay tributaries by 2025, and ensure their protection.”
To coordinate planning efforts to achieve this outcome, in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team convened three oyster restoration workgroups—one each for the Lafayette, Piankatank, and Lynnhaven rivers. These workgroups plan and coordinate large-scale oyster restoration in each tributary. Each is working to develop an oyster restoration plan to describe how the tributaries will be restored and monitored, consistent with standards described in the
Chesapeake Bay Oyster Metrics report. On behalf of each workgroup, NOAA maintains GIS geodatabases with relevant data on each tributary, available here.
In addition to the Lafayette, Piankatank, and Lynnhaven rivers, two other tributaries (Great Wicomico and lower York rivers) have been preliminarily selected for largescale restoration in Virginia. An overview of Bay-wide progress toward the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement oyster outcome is available at here. An overview of Maryland progress toward the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement oyster outcome is available here.
Bay Journal Editor Joins CBES Panel on Environmental Journalism
What environmental matters should the Eastern Shore be watching? Find out from journalists on the front lines of Chesapeake Bay Watershed issues at CBES Annual Engage & Enjoy on April 27th.
Following a 6PM, surf & turf buffet at the Island House Restaurant, Wachapregue, at 7PM join a panel discussion on “Environmental Journalism in the Era of ‘Fake News.’”
CBES panel of veteran journalists will share decades of experience reporting on environmental issues that hit home.
They include Bay Journal Editor, Karl Blankenship – Bay Journal Reporter, Rona Kobell and NPR & Virginia Public Radio Producer/Writer Pamela D’Angelo. There will also be an audience Q & A
The deadline for dinner tickets is April 24. Tickets can be purchased on www.cbes.org or contact CBES at 757-678-7157.
Science and Philosophy Seminar of the Eastern Shore presents The Problem with Fishery Management – the Human Factor
Science and Philosophy Seminar of the Eastern Shore of Virginia has scheduled a seminar, “The Problem with Fishery Management: The Human Factor.” The free 90-minute seminar will be held at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, April 28 in the Lecture Hall of the Eastern Shore Community College, 29300 Lankford Hwy, Melfa, VA 23410.
Barbara Duer (Stevenson) will lead the Seminar and will discuss why most fishery management is not effective.
Duer has returned to her native Exmore after a career in the North-East as a commercial fisher, seller representative, and member of various boards, commissions, and committees involved in the industry, both national and international.
Blue Crabs are on the rise, a great season is predicted
The Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee 2017 study shows female crab numbers have been growing substantially. There were 194 million female crabs at the start of the 2016 crabbing season, compared with 101 million last year. In 2014, female crab numbers were down to 68 million.
Juvenile crab numbers have also been growing, with 269 million counted last year and 271 million this year.
“The blue crab population is at a healthy level,” biologist Glenn Davis told the Baltimore Sun. “Having both juvenile and adult components at or above the long-term average has only happened once since 1994.”
Overall, the total number of Chesapeake Bay crabs at the beginning of this year’s season was 553 million, well above last year’s count of 411 million.
NOAA Fisheries Species Recovery Grant program helps Turtlecam Research
Press Release-NOAA Fisheries-Wearable action cameras have changed the way we film. Now it’s easier than ever to capture and share videos on the fly. Scientists are getting in on the action, using devices small enough to fit in the palm of your hand to study animals as large as a car. Instead of attaching a camera to a skateboard or a helmet, imagine it on the back of a leatherback sea turtle, following the turtle’s every move throughout the Atlantic Ocean as it feeds on jellyfish and surfaces for air.
This is what scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are doing in partnership with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, using a grant from the NOAA Fisheries Species Recovery Grant program to conduct essential research on endangered leatherback sea turtles.
In an efficient combination of new technologies, leatherback turtles are tagged with a suction cup–mounted transponder tag, which has acoustic capabilities as well as a camera. Once the transponder tag is attached to the leatherback, an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is placed in the water that communicates directly with the turtle’s tag and follows the turtle while collecting information on the underwater environment. The “TurtleCam” is the first time an AUV has been used to study leatherback sea turtles, and has been called an “advanced game of Marco Polo” by its creator, WHOI engineer Amy Kukulya.
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Federal Court Orders National Marine Fisheries Service to reconsider classifying blueback herring as a threatened species
Blueback herring (alosa aestivalis) are silver-colored fish, roughly a foot in length, that inhabit much of North America’s Atlantic coast. The species is “anadromous,” meaning the fish
are born in inland rivers, then spend most of their adult lives at sea, while still returning to their natal rivers for six to eight weeks each spring to spawn. Blueback herring are a vital link in the East Coast’s ocean and coastal food web because they are a food source for fish like striped bass, marine mammals and sea birds. These small fish spend most of their lives at sea, but return to coastal rivers to spawn. Their populations have plummeted to less than 5 percent of historic abundance due to dams, pollution and unregulated catch at sea in the mackerel, squid and sea herring fisheries. In 2011, the Natural Resources Defense Council (“NRDC”) petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to list blueback herring as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The Service undertook a lengthy review in response, but ultimately found that listing the species “was not warranted.”
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NRCS Accepting Applications for Wetland Conservation Program
Richmond, VA, March 13, 2017 – Virginia conservation partners now have a new opportunity to work with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to protect, restore, and enhance the state’s critical wetlands through conservation easements.
NRCS will offer technical and financial assistance to foster collaboration with states, local units of governments, non-governmental organizations, and American Indian tribes interested in promoting wetland preservation. Offered through the Wetland Reserve Enhancement Partnership (WREP), this funding will enable partners to help landowners enroll wetlands into easements and adopt conservation practices that improve their function and condition.
“NRCS is the leading federal agency for wetland conservation on private lands,” said Jack Bricker, State Conservationist. “Through these locally-led partnerships, we are helping restore wetlands to improve water quality and wildlife habitat, while also providing flood prevention and recreational benefits to communities.”
[Read more…]
Adaptation: Will Sea Level Rise force a Managed Retreat from the Shore?
Watching the sunset from many coastal communities like Cape Charles, whether there are bulkheads or breakwaters in place, climate change, and more importantly sea level rise is a creeping concern. What does a community do when the seas rise? A new report in Nature Climate Change magazine looks at 27 cases of managed retreat, and they found it was most likely to happen and be successful when the government and citizens agree on the solution.
From the report, “Managed retreat is a potentially important climate change adaptation option, providing an alternative to structural protection or accommodation measures to manage natural hazard risk. However, its application faces challenges given the projected scale of climate-induced displacement and the difficulties of resettlement. Different sociopolitical dimensions emerge as particularly influential in each quadrant. The model establishes a foundation for understanding and anticipating case-specific complexities. It can be used to unpack the landscape of managed retreat and evaluate its potential future applications.”
Going back to 1993, the federal government’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program has purchased 36,000 “high risk properties”, converting the land to open space as way of buffering against floodwaters.
Like Cape Charles, coastal-adaptation measures have mainly focused on protection (breakwaters, higher seawalls). Other communities have relied on zoning, or tweaks to development rules. In most places, managed retreat is not considered an option. [Read more…]
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