The Environment Chronicle

On the occasion of the International Day of Forests 2017, the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), the Bundesland Nordrhein-Westfalen, and the City of Bonn have officially welcomed European Forest Institute (EFI) in Bonn. The EFI premises will be situated on the UN-campus, with 19 other international organizations. The German hosts are especially happy that EFI Bonn is the seat of EFI's Resilience Programme, as sustainability is high on the country’s policy agenda. As an independent scientific organization with an international focus, the European Forest Institute is uniquely positioned to offer relevant knowledge for decision makers in Germany and elsewhere. EFI’s Resilience Programme in Bonn will concentrate on generating and communicating knowledge on how global change affects the socio-ecological resilience of Europe’s forest systems. Together with EFI’s member organisations and partners, it will conduct interdisciplinary research that connects forest science to other land-use disciplines and urban studies. New knowledge will create a basis for effective, integrated policies and forest and land-use management strategies facing global change. The EFI Bonn office receives core funding through the German Government (BMEL). Setting up the Bonn office is also supported through the government of Nordrhein-Westfalen.

ECHA's Committee for Risk Assessment (RAC) agrees to maintain the current harmonised classification of glyphosate as a substance causing serious eye damage and being toxic to aquatic life with long-lasting effects. RAC concluded that the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria to classify glyphosate as a carcinogen, as a mutagen or as toxic for reproduction.

Dr Norman Duke, leader of James Cook University’s Mangrove Research hub, headed an investigation into the massive mangrove dieback. The findings were published in the Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research on 14 March 2017. The scientists used aerial observations and satellite mapping data of the area dating back to 1972, combined with weather and climate records. Dr Duke said they found three factors came together to produce the unprecedented dieback of 7400 hectares of mangroves, which stretched for 1000 kilometres along the Gulf coast. “From 2011 the coastline had experienced below-average rainfalls, and the 2015/16 drought was particularly severe. Secondly the temperatures in the area were at record levels and thirdly some mangroves were left high and dry as the sea level dropped about 20cm during a particularly strong El Nino.”

Poachers have broken into a French zoo, killing a white rhinoceros and sawing off its horn. Keepers found the dead animal in the African enclosure of the zoo at Thoiry, west of Paris, on 7 March 2017. It had been shot in the head and its large horn removed with a chainsaw. The poachers fled before they could remove the animal’s second horn, either because they were disturbed or because their equipment failed, police said. A rhinoceros horn has an estimated value of between €30,000 and €40,000. Authorities described the incident as the first of its kind in Europe.

On March 7, 2017, Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.42 million square kilometers (5.57 million square miles), the lowest in the 38-year satellite record. This year’s maximum extent is 1.22 million square kilometers (471,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average maximum of 15.64 million square kilometers (6.04 million square miles) and 97,000 square kilometers (37,000 square miles) below the previous lowest maximum that occurred on February 25, 2015. This year’s maximum is 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles) below the 2016 maximum, which is now third lowest.

Just two years after its 'twin satellite' was launched on 7 March 2017 at 02:49, the European Earth observation satellite Sentinel-2B set off on its mission on board a Vega rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. The approximately 1.1-ton satellite will monitor Earth from an altitude of 786 kilometres in a sun-synchronous orbit. Its most important task is to document changes to land surface and vegetation between 84 degrees North and 56 degrees South latitude. The Sentinel satellites are part of the European Commission's Copernicus programme. Its purpose is to collect and evaluate remote sensing data of Earth. The data has been provided free of charge to authorities, companies, science and every interested citizen since the start of the programme in 2014. In all, four optical Sentinel-2 satellites will be part of the Copernicus satellite family, which will comprise a total of 20 satellites. Sentinel-2A has been in orbit since 23 June 2015, Sentinel-2C and Sentinel-2D should follow from 2022 onwards. Together with Sentinel-2A, Sentinel-2B doubles the recording frequency – every point on Earth will now be recorded every five days – and halves the failure probability, which are both central requirements for users of Copernicus data.

On 4 March 2017, the 4,290-tonne cruise ship Caledonian Sky, owned by British company Noble Caledonia, crashed coral reef near Kri Island, off Raja Ampat, Indonesia. It was one of the most beautiful coral reef areas in the world. Caledonian Sky was completing a bird-watching tourism trip on Waigeo Island when it veered slightly off course. It ran aground during low tide, smashing through the coral reefs. About 1,600 meter squares of coral reef were damaged after the incident.

Researchers at the San Diego Natural History Museum, along with experts from Mexico and Brazil, have described a new species of large cave-dwelling spider, the Sierra Cacachilas wandering spider (Califorctenus cacachilensis). Related to the notoriously venomous Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria fera), the Sierra Cacachilas wandering spider was first discovered on a collaborative research expedition in 2013 into a small mountain range outside of La Paz in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Four years later, after careful documentation and peer-review, the species and genus was deemed new to science and the discovery was published in Zootaxa on March 2, 2017.

A nine-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against the Indian government for failing to take action on climate change, warning that young people will pay the price for the country’s inaction. In the petition filed with the National Green Tribunal, a special court for environment-related cases, Ridhima Pandey said the government had failed to implement its environment laws.

On 1 March 2017, the World Meteorological Organization announced new records for the highest temperatures recorded in the Antarctic Region as part of continuing efforts to expand a database of extreme weather and climate conditions throughout the world. The highest temperature for the “Antarctica Region” (defined by the WMO and United Nations as all land and ice south of 60°S) of 19.8 degrees Celsius was observed on 30 January 1982 at Signy Research Station, Borge Bay on Signy Island. The lowest temperature yet recorded by ground measurements for the Antarctic Region, and for the whole world, was −89.2°C at Vostok station on 21 July 1983.

On 27 February 2017, activists from Greenpeace protested at a Statoil oil rig in a fjord in northern Norway. The activists peacefully protested against Statoil and the Norwegian government for opening up a new oil frontier in the Arctic. The rig Songa Enabler is planned to drill further north in the Norwegian Arctic than ever before. For the first time in 20 years the Norwegian government is opening up a new oil frontier in the Arctic, allowing state-owned Statoil and 12 other oil companies to start a exploration the Barents Sea.

On 20 February 2017, Singapore revealed plans to put in place a carbon tax on the emission of greenhouse gases from 2019. The government is considering a carbon tax between $10 and $20 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions. The tax will apply to power stations and other large emitters producing over 25,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year. The government estimates that some 30 to 40 companies fall in this category.

On 17 February 2017, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt; DLR) Space Administration and Airbus Defence and Space GmbH signed a contract for the design and construction phases of the German-French climate satellite MERLIN (Methane Remote Sensing LIDAR Mission). From 2021, this small satellite mission will measure the methane concentration in Earth's atmosphere to an unprecedented level of accuracy and thus contribute to research into the causes of climate change. The contract was signed at the Airbus site in Ottobrunn and includes the German contribution to the mission – namely, the development and construction of the methane LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging), the measuring instrument on board the MERLIN satellite. The core part of the instrument is a laser, which can send out light pulses on two different wavelengths and thus measure the methane concentration at all latitudes with great precision regardless of sunlight. The LIDAR instrument is being developed and constructed in Germany on behalf of the DLR Space Administration, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy .

On 15 February 2017, the European Commission sent a final warning to Germany for failing to address repeated breaches of air pollution limits for nitrogen dioxide (NO2). The European Commission urges Germany to take action to ensure good air quality and safeguard public health in 28 air quality zones, including Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Cologne.

On 8 February 2017, campaigners and activists met in Brussels and other European cities to launch a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to ban glyphosate, reform the EU pesticide approval process, and set mandatory targets to reduce pesticide use in the EU. The goal is to collect at least one million signatures from Europeans and submit the petition before the Commission’s next move to renew, withdraw or extend the EU licence of glyphosate.

The Arctic has a serious litter problem: in just ten years, the concentration of marine litter at a deep-sea station in the Arctic Ocean has risen 20-fold. This was recently reported in a study by researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Since 2002, AWI researchers have been documenting the amount of litter at two stations of the AWI’s “Hausgarten”, a deep-sea observatory network, which comprises 21 stations in the Fram Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard. The results of the long-term study have been published in the scientific journal Deep-Sea Research I. The scientists observed the ocean floor at a depth of 2,500 metres using the OFOS (Ocean Floor Observation System), a towed camera system. Since the start of their measurements, they have spotted 89 pieces of litter in a total of 7,058 photographs. To enable comparison with other studies, the researchers have extrapolated the litter density to a larger area. The result: an average of 3,485 pieces of litter per square kilometre in the monitoring period (2002 to 2014). Among the litter they photographed, the researchers observed plastic and glass most frequently. As a rule, glass does not drift; it sinks straight down to the ocean floor. This indicates local sources and concurs with increasing ship traffic in the region due to the receding ice. Still, it is extremely difficult to draw any firm conclusions on the origin of the plastic litter, since it often covers a considerable distance before reaching the seafloor.

On 8 February 2017, the Belize Fisheries Department announced the discovery of a new shark species in Belize. The new shark species has not been officially named as yet but it closely resembles the Bonnethead shark (Sphyrna tiburo ) and was discovered in samples taken from a landing site in Belize through an ongoing shark data collection, monitoring and research program and collaboration between the Fisheries Department and Dr. Demian Chapman, a shark’s specialist of Florida International University (FIU).

The German government has laid the foundations for more comprehensive nature conservation in the North and Baltic Seas, and for the accelerated establishment of a network of terrestrial biotopes. On 8 February 2017, the Cabinet adopted a corresponding amendment to the Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG), as proposed by Federal Environment Ministry. This amendment establishes a basis for authorisation in the Federal Nature Conservation Act for conserving threatened species in marine areas in the German Exclusive Economic Zone by means of legal ordinances. A second focal area is the establishment of a nationwide network of terrestrial biotopes covering ten percent of each Federal State (Land). The draft act requires the Länder to set up this biotope network by 2027. A third focal area is the inclusion of caves and semi-natural tunnels in former mines in the list of protected biotopes, for example to preserve the habitats of bats, spiders, butterflies and other insects. Regarding species protection law, the draft act prescribes the adaptation of provisions on authorising road construction projects and planning construction areas and installations in the energy sector to rulings by the supreme courts.

Global Nature Fund nominates Lake Tanganyika in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Zambia as the “Threatened Lake of the Year 2017". Sedimentation, pollution and overexploitation jeopardize the second largest lake in Africa. Containing almost 17 % of the world's available fresh water Lake Tanganyika is of global importance and source of life for millions of people. On the World Day of Wetlands, the GNF draws attention to the importance of lakes and wetlands all over the world. Together with the local Living Lakes partner organization Biraturaba, the GNF calls for sustainable measures to preserve Lake Tanganyika.

BP and Total are planning to drill for oil near a recently discovered coral reef off the coast of Brazil, Greenpeace Energydesk revealed on 30 January 2017. Together the oil majors own five deepwater exploration licences in the Foz do Amazonas (Mouth of the Amazon River) basin and are expected to be granted permits to begin exploratory drilling early 2017 – once their environmental impact assessments are approved by the Brazilian government. The nearest of these blocks is just 8 km from the reef, which was was described by National Geographic as “one of the most surprising finds in modern sea research” when it was announced in 2016. The scientists who discovered it are worried that an oil spill could dramatically affect the coral reef.

Greenpeace Brazil has captured the first underwater images of the Amazon Reef, a 9500 km2 system of corals, sponges and rhodoliths located where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean – an area that the Brazilian government has opened for oil exploration. A team of experts, including several oceanographers who announced the discovery of the reef last year, have joined the Greenpeace ship Esperanza on an expedition to document this new biome, which runs from French Guyana to the Brazilian state of Maranhão, an area larger than the cities of São Paulo or London.

On 26 January 2017 a majority vote was passed in the Irish Parliament on fossil fuel divestment legislation. Lawmakers split 90 to 53 in favour of ditching coal, oil and gas holdings from the €8 billion Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. The bill, brought by independent representative Thomas Pringle, is expected to pass into law in the next few months after consideration by the finance committee.

On 24 January 2017, US President Donald Trump signed two executive memorandums to revive the Dakota Access pipeline and the Keystone XL pipeline.

On 21 January 2017 , the town of Essen in Germany officially became the European Green Capital for 2017. In a ceremony, Karmenu Vella, Commissioner for the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, handed over the title for 2017 from Ljubljana to Essen. Commissioner Vella said: “I congratulate Essen on becoming European Green Capital 2017 and making the city a healthier place to live in. The impressive transformation from coal and steel industry to the greenest city in North Rhine-Westphalia is proof of Essen's successful structural change. Great progress in environmental sustainability required vision, good governance, strong leadership and citizens' involvement.”

Just 20 years ago, the rusty patched bumble bee was a common sight, so ordinary that it went almost unnoticed as it moved from flower to flower, collecting nectar and pollen. But the species, now balancing precariously on the brink of extinction, has become the first-ever bumble bee in the United States -- and the first bee of any kind in the contiguous 48 states -- to be declared endangered. The endangered designation is made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act for species that are in danger of becoming extinct throughout all or a portion of their range. Service Midwest Regional Director Tom Melius said, “Our top priority is to act quickly to prevent extinction of the rusty patched bumble bee. Listing the bee as endangered will help us mobilize partners and focus resources on finding ways right now to stop the decline.” Once common and abundant across 28 states from Connecticut to South Dakota, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces, the rusty patched bumble bee has experienced a swift and dramatic decline since the late 1990s. Abundance of the rusty patched bumble bee has plummeted by 87 percent, leaving small, scattered populations in 13 states and one province. Causes of the decline in rusty patched bumble bee populations are believed to be loss of habitat; disease and parasites; use of pesticides that directly or indirectly kill the bees; climate change, which can affect the availability of the flowers they depend on; and extremely small population size. Most likely, a combination of these factors has caused the decline in rusty patched bumble bees.

Researchers from the Ocean Acoustics Working Group at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) spent nearly three years recording the unique underwater soundscape of the Antarctic. Their findings were published on 11 January 2017, in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The authors of the study identified sounds produced by various species in the Southern Ocean, including leopard seals, Antarctic blue whales, fin whales and Antarctic minke whales, which blend into a set of background “choruses” that contribute to the ambient sound. The intensity of these contributions varied with time and location, yielding new insights into the animals’ behaviour and distribution. Further, the researchers gathered data on the animals’ annual cycle. In addition, the marine biologists and physicists were able to determine the extent to which sea ice influences the soundscape of the Southern Ocean. During the winter months, it covers the ocean like a muffling blanket. The acoustic recordings show that not only the extent of the sea ice is important, but also its concentration and thickness. The researchers used two recorders, which they moored at depths of 217 and 260 metres in the Atlantic part of the Southern Ocean from March 2008 to December 2010. Their work represents the first long-term study on underwater ambient sound conducted in the higher latitudes of the Southern Ocean.

For the first time, a total of 490 habitats across 35 countries in Europe have been assessed to determine their risk of collapse. The European Red List of Habitats, initiated by the European Commission, benefited from the knowledge and expertise of over 300 experts who reviewed the current status of all European natural and semi-natural terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats. The assessment reveals that over a third of all land habitats are currently under threat, including more than three-quarters of bogs, over half of grasslands, and almost half of Europe's lakes, rivers and coasts. Forests, heaths and rocky habitats are overall less threatened, but remain of great concern. In Europe's neighbouring seas, mussels and seagrass beds and estuaries are threatened. Nearly a third of marine habitats in the Mediterranean Sea are at risk of collapse, as well as almost a quarter in the North-East Atlantic. Some habitats, particularly in the Black Sea, remain poorly studied and their status could not be determined. The methodology used by the European Red List of Habitats is based on the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems Categories and Criteria, a unified global standard for assessing ecosystem risk.

Fungus of the Year 2017 is the Jew's ear (Auricularia auricula-judae).

Fish of the Year 2017 is the European flounder (Platichthys flesus).

Medicinal Plant of the Year 2017 is the oat (Avena sativa).

Cave Animal of the Year 2017 is the Diphyus quadripunctorius.

Perennial Herb of the Year 2017 are the Begenia.

Domestic animal of the year 2017 is the dog.

In 2017 the Association for the Preservation of Old and Endangered Domestic Breeds (GEH) is presenting three breeds of ducks, the German Pekin, the Orpington and the Muscovy, as the ‘Endangered Domestic Breeds of the Year’.

Dragonfly of the year 2017 is the common clubtail (Gomphus vulgatissimus).

Daisy (Bellis perennis) has been chosen for the Medicinal Herb of the Year 2017 by the NHV Theophrastus.

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly has approved the adoption of 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. The resolution, adopted on 4 December, recognizes “the importance of international tourism, and particularly of the designation of an international year of sustainable tourism for development, in fostering better understanding among peoples everywhere, in leading to a greater awareness of the rich heritage of various civilizations and in bringing about a better appreciation of the inherent values of different cultures, thereby contributing to the strengthening of peace in the world”.

European Spider of the Year 2017 is the Walnut Orb-weaver Spider (Nuctenea umbratica) the Nuctenea umbratica.

The German city of Essen has won the European Green Capital Award for 2017. The award was presented by Karmenu Vella, EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, at a ceremony on 17 June 2015 in Bristol, UK, which currently holds the title. Essen was singled out for its exemplary practices in protecting and enhancing nature and biodiversity and efforts to reduce water consumption. Essen participates in a variety of networks and initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to improve the city’s resilience in the face of climate change.

Cactus of the year 2017 is the saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea). It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican State of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains and Imperial County areas of California. The saguaro blossom is the state wildflower of Arizona.