by Fen Montaigne

Two of the world’s leading experts on the world’s top marine predator are now in Antarctica, tagging and photographing a creature whose remarkably cooperative hunting behavior and transmission of knowledge across generations may be rivaled only by humans.

On the afternoon of January 10, at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, whale researchers Robert L. Pitman and John W. Durban stood on the bridge of a cruise ship, peering through binoculars for signs of killer whales. The Weddell Sea, where English explorer Ernest Shackleton and his men were locked in the sea ice nearly a century ago, was calm and studded with icebergs. It was raining, an increasingly common occurrence in summer in this rapidly warming part of Antarctica.

Around 3 p.m., Pitman spotted several of the distinctive triangular dorsal fins of killer whales two miles ahead. Soon, roughly 40 killer whales appeared on all sides of the cruise ship, the National Geographic Explorer, delighting the nearly 150 passengers on board.

Pitman and Durban stepped into a rubber Zodiac driven by a ship’s naturalist and cruised slowly toward the whales. Two large female killer whales approached, rolled on their sides, and “took a long look at us with wide open eyes as they passed a few feet under the Zodiac,” Pitman later recalled. One of the females surfaced next to the boat, and Durban, cradling a black crossbow, fired a satellite tag onto the middle of the whale’s dorsal fin. When the second female rolled on the surface, Durban fired a dart that would provide a tissue sample for scientific analysis. “Our skin donor,” Pitman said later.

Thus began more than a month of killer whale research in the Antarctic, conducted by two of the world’s leading experts on these top predators, whose killing power, Pitman says, “probably hasn’t been rivaled since dinosaurs quit the earth 65 million years ago.” I was a lecturer aboard the Explorer, and was able to watch the pair work for more than a week in the Antarctic.

As many as 50,000 killer whales roam the world’s oceans today, and roughly half of them are believed to live in Antarctic waters. Yet though killer whales may be the most recognizable creatures in the marine world, a great deal about them remains a mystery, especially in the Antarctic, and Pitman and Durban are now gathering basic information about their behavior and feeding habits . This baseline data is particularly important since climate change and other human impacts, such as overfishing and the accumulation of toxic chemicals, are rapidly altering the whales’ habitats and their prey.

Scientists worldwide are still sorting out how many species and sub-species of killer whales — also known as orcas — exist in places like Alaska, the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and Canada, and the North Atlantic. In Antarctica, Pitman and Durban — who work for the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service in La Jolla, Calif. — have played a role in identifying three main types of killer whales in Antarctic waters and a fourth in the sub-Antarctic. The populations — likely separate species — differ in their distinctive black, white, and gray patterning; in the shapes of their dorsal fins and heads; in their geographic range; and in their food and foraging habits. Each individual has unique markings on the saddle behind the dorsal fin, and Pitman and Durban — who have amassed a collection of 40,000 photos of killer whales from Antarctic waters — have gotten to the point where they can recognize individuals and extended families.

But what has driven the men to pursue killer whale research is not the minutiae of markings or migration routes, but rather the extraordinary culture and habits of these cetaceans, whose cooperative hunting behavior and intergenerational transmission of knowledge is rivaled only by humans, Durban and Pitman contend.

Killer whales — Orcinus orca — are long-lived, with females surviving for up to 90 years or more. The whales travel in extended family groups, with offspring generally remaining with their mothers their entire lives. Stable groups of whales join together in pods composed of different matrilines (a dominant female and her offspring), and these related whales all communicate in a distinct dialect using an array of clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls. Killer whales — which gestate for 17 months — are believed to recognize their mother’s calls in utero and are born with the ability to immediately communicate.

As many as four generations of killer whales will travel together, passing on astonishingly sophisticated group hunting behavior from one generation to the next.

“You’ve got individuals that are spending 50, 60, 80 years together, and you can do a lot of things when you’re spending a lot of time with your family and related individuals,” Pitman told me in an interview. “You can hunt cooperatively. You can make sacrifices that other animals wouldn’t make. If you kill 50,000 seals in your lifetime, you get pretty good at it. And if you learn a few things you pass them on to your offspring. It makes them quite remarkable and very human-like in the things they do.”

“We have grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and great-great-grandmothers traveling in groups together with younger whales, imparting cultural knowledge,” added Durban.

Three years ago, farther south along the western Antarctic Peninsula, Pitman and Durban spent three weeks observing such behavior among a group of pack ice killer whales, also known as large type-B Antarctic killer whales. The men studied a hunting technique known as “wave-washing,” in which a pod of whales moves through ice floes, its members lifting their heads out of the water — a behavior known as “spy-hopping” — looking for their preferred meal: fat, fish-eating Weddell seals. Once they spotted a seal on an ice floe, the whales called in reinforcements and, two to seven abreast, swam toward the floe and washed the seal off the ice by creating a large wave with powerful strokes of their tails. Pitman and Durban then observed what they call the “butchering” of seals, with the whales first drowning the seals and then meticulously stripping off their skin to get at the choice flesh.

“It was shocking to see,” said Pitman. “You’re not used to animals doing things that are so canny.”

Pitman and Durban are now aboard the 331-foot Explorer, where they will remain until mid-February, as guests of Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic Expeditions. As visiting scientists, they use the ship as a research platform, and even rely on passengers to help take close-up photos of the killer whales’ distinctive markings, an example of the “citizen science” that has helped identify hundreds of individual killer whales in hot spots such as Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Pitman, 62, who has a sweeping mustache, has worked in the Antarctic for more than two decades and has studied killer whales for the past 15 years. Durban, 35, a burly Englishman with a black beard, first worked with killer whales as a 16-year-old assistant to a pioneering whale researcher in Washington state.

The 40 whales the men encountered in the Weddell Sea likely comprised three matrilines and belonged to an “ecotype” — or possibly new species — of Antarctic killer whale they refer to as a “small type-B”, related to the larger type-B “wave-wash” hunters. But little is known about the small type-B’s; Pitman and Durban have occasionally seen them feeding on gentoo and chinstrap penguins, but never on seals, and one of the goals of this year’s research is to get a better sense of what the small type-B’s are eating. The small type-B’s are roughly half the mass of a larger Antarctic killer whale, the type-A, which is found in more open water and hunts minke whales. Type-A males can grow to nearly 30 feet in length and weigh up to 10 tons.

In the three weeks since the female killer whale was tagged, she and her pod have traveled many hundreds of miles in the Weddell Sea, sometimes skirting the pack ice. Durban and Pitman have tagged 15 Antarctic killer whales with the 1.4-ounce satellite transmitters over the last three years, and the results have greatly expanded knowledge of their habits, preferred habitats, and migrations. Six of the tagged type-B killer whales made rapid migrations, following a nearly identical northerly trajectory, past the Falkland Islands and beyond to the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil. One of the whales made a 6,000-mile round-trip journey from the Antarctic Peninsula to Brazilian waters and back again in just 42 days. Durban and Pitman believe the whales make these previously unknown migrations for one main purpose: shedding and renewing their skin, something they would be unable to do in frigid Antarctic waters because they would lose too much heat.

Four days after the scientists tagged the whale in the Weddell Sea, the Explorer was off the western Antarctic Peninsula, in the Gerlache Strait, a breathtaking passage flanked on both sides by glaciated mountains. There, the scientists encountered some old friends — an extended family group of roughly 70 small, type-B killer whales that spend much of their time in the strait.

Durban and Pitman photographed nearly all of the whales, and Durban — who possesses a photographic memory for killer whale markings — recognized many of the individuals from earlier encounters. Durban was unable to get positioned for a tagging shot with the crossbow, but 10 days later, on the following cruise, he managed to shoot a $2,500 satellite tag, as well as a $4,500 dive-depth tag, onto two killer whales in the Gerlache Strait. The depth tag would reveal some information on feeding habits they had long been looking for.

This is the kind of work that scientists worldwide are doing as they intensify research into a marine mammal long thought of as one species but that likely, in fact, comprises several distinct species. Genetic testing, for example, shows that so-called transient, mammal-eating killer whales in the Pacific Northwest diverged from the resident, fish-eating whales a half-million years ago and should perhaps be recognized as a distinct species, despite being found now in the same waters. This is not a purely academic matter, as distinct species, evolved to live in certain regions and eat certain prey, may be more vulnerable to environmental change.

That change is happening rapidly. Many groups of these apex predators have accumulated extremely high levels of PCBs and other toxic chemicals, with potentially harmful effects on development and reproduction. Global warming is also altering their world and that of their prey. As Arctic summer sea ice melts, for example, what will become of the predator-prey relationship between gray whales and killer whales as they gray whale migration extends deeper into the Arctic Ocean?

Meanwhile, in Antarctica, Pitman and Durban continue to unlock mysteries of killer whales. Last week, the depth tag they affixed to a killer whale in the Gerlache Strait showed that the whales were repeatedly making deep, nighttime dives of up to 1,900 feet off the western Antarctic Peninsula, an indication — for the first time — that these whales were most likely eating fish and squid on or near the sea floor.

A new study finds a significant decline in the depiction of the natural world and animals in U.S. children's books in recent decades, a trend researchers say may reflect society's increasing isolation from nature. In an analysis of 296 Caldecott Medal-winning books from 1938 to 2008, a team of researchers led by University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist J. Allen Williams Jr. found that images of natural environments and interactions with wild animals have declined steadily. Meanwhile, depictions of built environments, such as houses and buildings, have become increasingly prevalent since the late 1960s, according to the study published in the journal Sociological Inquiry. "These findings suggest that today's generation of children are not being socialized, at least through this source, toward an understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the place of humans within it," the authors wrote.

Photo by Brandi Jordan/flickr/Creative Commons

A litany of environmental threats, from forest fragmentation and logging to climate change and disease, are wiping out the world's biggest trees, according to a published report. In forest ecosystems worldwide, research shows that giant trees have become particularly vulnerable to a changing environment, ecologist and tropical forest expert William Laurance writes in New Scientist magazine. Increased fragmentation has left big trees exposed to stronger winds, while dry conditions and warming temperatures have forced the giants of the forest to consume more energy simply to survive, allowing less energy for growth, Laurance writes. Climate change is also promoting the spread of exotic pathogens, such as Dutch Elm disease, which are devastating native forests. "The decline of big trees foretells a different world where ancient behemoths are replaced by short-lived pioneers and generalists that can grow anywhere, where forests store less carbon and sustain fewer dependent animals, where giant cathedral-like crowns become a thing of the past," Laurance writes. In addition to providing a critical habitat for wildlife, big trees contribute to local rainfall by transpiring large of amounts of water through their leaves and store abundant amounts of carbon.

Photo by rickremington/flickr/Creative Commons

A new study says that compensating the world's poorest communities for helping conserve the planet's most vital habitats would help solve two major challenges: biodiversity loss and poverty. In fact, if global leaders were to put an economic value on the preservation of the world's biodiversity hotspots - including such benefits as providing food and water and absorbing carbon emissions - it could be worth more than $500 billion annually for 330 million of the world's poorest people. Since the people who live near these resources typically don't have the means to protect them, the urgency for such economic mechanisms becomes increasingly critical, according to the study, published in the journal BioScience. "Developed and developing economies cannot continue to ask the world's poor to shoulder the burden of protecting these globally important ecosystem services for the world's benefit," said Will Turner, vice president of Conservation International and lead author of the study. An example of such a scheme is the UN-based REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative, which provides incentives to developing nations to prevent large-scale deforestation.

Photo by wdominic/flickr/Creative Commons

by Evan Fischer

If you're wondering what a boreal forest is, you're probably not alone. It is comprised of forested lands in the northern hemisphere that contain mainly coniferous trees and reside just south of the frozen tundra region near the pole. These forests are also referred to as taiga. In layman terms, it is one of the largest areas of forested land on the planet; sparsely populated, full of wildlife, and largely appreciated for its natural beauty.

It is also the largest repository of fresh water in the world (according to a recent report issued by the Pew Environmental Group) and it houses a hefty store of Earth-bound carbon deposits (nearly a fourth of what is currently estimated to be on the Earth's surface). And until recently, it needed no protection.

Threats to Canada's Boreal Forest

Unfortunately, the foibles of man have begun to take their toll on even this immense woodland region, which is estimated at well over a billion acres in size and is said to account for approximately a third of the world's boreal forest.

The most pressing concern for most environmentalists is just what you might expect: the logging industry. Although deforestation in this area is not as commonplace as in other forested lands on the globe, it is still a problem as logging is a major industry in Canada. While only about 0.5-1 percent of the land is estimated to suffer from permanent deforestation, still the numbers add up over time. And when you throw in the threats of mining, hunting, fishing, and inroads for recreation, you can see the boreal forest being whittled away a little at a time.

But these aren't even the biggest threats facing this essential wilderness area.

The ongoing effects of global warming only stand to speed up the process of destruction occurring in the boreal forest. With carbon emissions on the rise and climate change beginning to be felt in a very real way through extreme weather conditions all over the world, no one can deny the threat that is posed by global warming. And when it comes to the boreal forest, there may be even more danger. For starters, a warming trend in this region will likely lead to an increase in insect infestation and fires, both of which threaten animals in the region (some of which are already endangered) as well as trees.

If there is significant loss in this area, two things will happen. The first is that all of the carbon stored in there will be released (and it is estimated to be equivalent to nearly 30 years' worth of emissions at our current rate). That will drastically speed the global warming process. Then there is the water supply to consider. Already scientists are concerned about how long the Earth's fresh water supply can continue to sustain us. If the largest reservoir on the planet were threatened, our time on this planet could be seriously truncated.

What We Can Do

Between land, water, and air pollution and the penchant of man to use up natural resources, the eventual plight of the boreal forest seems a foregone conclusion. And yet, there is still time to turn things around.

All we have to do is take responsibility for our part and make a change in our own lives. By saying goodbye to the petroleum-powered vehicles that dominate the roadways and using your consumer dollars to vote for sustainable manufacturing, you can do a lot more than you think to slow the progress of global warming and preserve the boreal forest (and the planet) for future generations.

A new study of land use in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso shows that deforestation rates decreased significantly from 2006 to 2010 even as agricultural production in the region reached an all-time high. The study found that growers in Mato Grosso, where more than a third of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon occurred in the 1980s, have increasingly used previously cleared pasture land. Using satellite data and government statistics on deforestation and production, researchers from Columbia University calculated that 26 percent of the increase in soy production within Mato Grosso from 2001 to 2005 was the result of cropland expansion into forested areas, accounting for 10 percent of total deforestation; during the second half of the decade, however, soy expansion accounted for just 2 percent of total deforestation. According to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this shift coincided with a drop in commodity markets, as well as a series of high-profile policy initiatives to reduce deforestation and improved methods in monitoring illegal clearing, including satellite-based tracking systems. "This study provides evidence that reduced deforestation and increased agricultural production can occur simultaneously in tropical forest frontiers," the authors wrote.

Photo by Aramando Maynez/flickr/Creative Commons

by Christina Russo

Biologist Roger Payne played a key role in helping end the wholesale slaughter of whales. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Payne discusses the mysteries of these legendary marine mammals and the threats they continue to face.

Roger Payne first came to prominence more than 40 years ago, when he and a colleague made the discovery that whales sing eerily beautiful songs as a way of communicating. Their 1970 recording of whale sounds, Songs of the Humpback Whale, helped to galvanize the global anti-whaling movement, which led most countries to scrap their whaling fleets.

Payne, the founder of the conservation group, Ocean Alliance, has continued his groundbreaking work on whales, including recent landmark studies showing how whales worldwide have high levels of pollutants - including DDT - in their bodies. He also is continuing a 40-year study of more than 2,000 right whales in Argentina, identifying individual whales by the markings on their heads.

In an interview with Yale Environment 360 contributor Christina Russo, Payne talked about current threats to the world's whale populations, including the ongoing killing of whales by Japan and other nations - a practice he describes as inhumane. Payne also discussed the mystery of the songs sung by whales, whose haunting strains have the power, he says, to move people to tears.

Yale Environment 360: You've been studying whales for nearly half a century?

Roger Payne: Yes. I've been studying whales about 45 years.

e360: Do you ever come across educated, aware people who don't realize that whaling is still taking place?

Payne: I would say most of them don't realize it. And if they do realize that whaling is taking place, they are very pleased that there is a moratorium and that whaling is under control. And of course the truth of the matter is that whaling is completely under the control of the whalers - not the rest of the world. The rest of the world gets no chance to vote on it, even discuss it, set up any quotas or anything else. The whalers have won absolutely everything.

e360: When you first started studying whales in the 1960s, the chief threat to them was commercial whaling. About 33,000 great whales at that time were killed annually. The 1986 moratorium made a huge impact. But Norway, Iceland and Japan - among others - still whale. How many whales are killed now annually?

Payne: The numbers have been climbing steadily since the moratorium went into effect. At that time the total number killed was 185 whales. Two years ago it was 1,004.

e360: Japan is the chief whaling nation...

Payne: Yes, it controls it all. The other nations will tell you they are interested primarily in getting whale meat, but it's perfectly clear that what they are looking for is foreign exchange, so they can buy all of the wonderful things that are made in Japan. Norway has some people who eat whales, and so does Iceland, but not enough to eat through the stocks that they get. What they are really trying to do is export to Japan.

The regulations of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) have two loopholes that you could fly a 747 through. One of them is: If you don't like some restriction which has been passed - not just by a majority of the other nations in the commission, but by every other nation in the commission - all you have to do is to say, within 90 days, "I don't like it, I'm not going to obey it." And it is totally legal not to obey it. Japan didn't do that when the IWC passed the "zero quota" moratorium. Instead, Japan waited a couple of years and said it was going to continue it's "scientific research."

And that is the second loophole in the commission. Basically, this means if a scientist says he needs whales to do studies on, then the country of which that scientist is a citizen can give the scientist permits to kill whales. It doesn't have to wait for the International Whaling Commission to make up its mind and say whether or not that can happen.

e360: What kind of liberties does this scientific umbrella afford Japan?

Payne: They are killing the same whales. Taking almost exactly the same data they took when they were doing commercial whaling. They are selling these whales' bodies to the same markets. And they are taking them from the same areas... And now it's "science!" It is a total scam! It doesn't fool anybody. They have produced only maybe one or two papers in the years since the whale moratorium took effect.

e360: Doesn't the scientific clause allow the Japanese to whale - for example - certain species they might not be able to otherwise? Or calves?

Payne: Yes, and it is a very important distinction. If you say you are doing scientific whaling , you get to do anything you like. You can kill any whale. Of any species. Of any area. At any age. By any means. And you are doing it in the name of "science."

e360: What are the methods to kill whales?

Payne: The main trouble is that in the wild it is impossible to kill a whale in a humane fashion. The normal technique is to fire a harpoon that weighs about 200 pounds into the back of a whale, and five seconds after it hits the whale, the tip on it explodes - and that is supposed to kill the whale instantly. However, in one of the worst cases, it took four hours and nine harpoons to kill the whale. During this time, the whale is pulling against the barbs on the harpoon in its flesh to a degree where it can actually pull a catcher boat, which is a very powerful speedboat.

The [method] that is now mostly used is a technique in the Antarctic that uses sonar. Not, however, to look at the whale underneath the water. They use it as a means of scaring the whales, because sonar is very loud. They did experiments and chose a frequency which kept whales so panicked, that they were at the surface for breaths more frequently than at other frequencies. So, they drive the whale along at the surface and then they fire into it.

Normally, they used to hit somewhere about the back of the head of a whale, so that the explosion of the harpoon might in fact do something. But, with small whale species - and the small one that is the basis of the industry now is the minke whale - the whale gets a lot of its meat damaged by an exploding harpoon. So, what they now do is they shoot farther back along the body, back near the tail. And there is a winch on board the catcher boat, which is able to winch the rear of the whale up into the air, leaving the whale's head in the water. And the whale slowly - very slowly - drowns. And during the time that the whalers lift it up, they also put some electrodes into it and try to electrocute it. Heaven knows what the whale is suffering as a result of that sort of behavior.

e360: From 2000 to 2005, Ocean Alliance conducted a massive study in which your goal was to get a baseline survey of pollutants in whales. Can you explain those findings?

Payne: We came back with 955 samples from sperm whales. There were [a few] reasons we used sperm whales. One is, like humans, they live at the top of the food chain, so what is happening to them is happening to us - even if we don't know it. And the other major reason is that they have a lot of fat, so they absorb some of the substances that we are most interested in - things called persistent organic pollutants. Along the way, we also started analyzing for metals, and some of the biggest shocks came from metals.

We found, for example, that the concentrations of aluminum and chromium are surprisingly very, very high. Our data showed that chromium levels present in sperm whales were previously only seen in workers who have had long, occupational exposure - 20 years of being in some factory in which chromium is being used. One of the ideas that came from this and has gained some traction is the possibility that these animals are getting chromium from the air, from breathing it in.

Another shock was that the highest concentrations of DDT were in whales right off of the Galapagos Islands, where there is no use, as far as we know, of DDT by big agriculture.

e360: What did that mean?

Payne: The most obvious thought would be that these were whales that had come in from elsewhere, where they had been exposed. But there are big surprises in things like DDT. For example there is more DDT in the air over Canada now than when Canada used DDT - and it hasn't used it since the late '60s. This stuff moves around, and it gets into the ocean. What it's really showing is that whatever the food was that the whales in these areas were feeding on... it came from food chains that were badly contaminated with it.

Also, these substances concentrate as they move up food chains because any given animal in the ocean feeds at the sixth level of the food chain. All that means is that at the bottom of its food chain is all the plants, and those plants are single-celled diatoms. And they get eaten by little zooplankton, little single-celled animals. And they get eaten by other zooplankton, which might get eaten by krill, which might get eaten by a small fish. And the small fish may get eaten by a bigger fish. And then eventually the whale might be eating on that somewhat larger fish.

If you have that sort of situation, you get about 10 times the magnification of substances that the animal cannot metabolize. So they have to store them. There's nothing they can do with them. If you have a six-step food chain you have a 10 to the 6th amplification - that is a million. So, if you were about to eat a pound of swordfish, and the swordfish had fed at the sixth level of the food chain, how many pounds of algae or diatoms did it take to make that one pound of swordfish? The answer is 10 to the 6th - a million pounds. A million pounds is 500 tons. 500 tons is 50 ten-ton truckloads. Load those trucks all up with diatoms, all dripping down onto the pavement, and then park them nose to tail - that will take about 18 blocks. Now tie your liver to one end of this row of trucks and detoxify the whole thing with your liver. And that's what you do when you eat a pound of any fish that lives at the 6th level of any ocean food chain.

You do that enough and over enough years and you end up with a very serious load of these contaminants in your own body, and it causes all kinds of terrible health effects.

e360: Do you believe pollutants could actually bring about the extinction of the whale species or is that too dramatic?

Payne: Not only is it not dramatic, I think it is inevitable for many whale species. The reason is that many of these contaminant loads last longer in the whale than we believe the lifetime of the whale to be... [And] because whales are mammals, there is not only a build-up during the lifetime of the individuals, but there is also an increase as you go from generation to generation. When a mother nurses her offspring, she is actually dumping her lifetime's accumulations of fat-soluble substances into her newborn babe. So the babe does not start life as a pristine creature. It starts life basically with a concentration [of contaminants] that is about the same of what its mother has. And then it goes through its own life and adds to it with the meals that it eats. Then it dumps that double load into its first infant. And it should slowly move along from generation to generation... until you don't have reproduction working well at all.

But I'm concerned not just with whales, but also with the concentrations of these substances in people. For example, about a billion people in this world eat - as the principal source of animal protein - food from the sea. That means about a billion are in a position of getting these substances into their bodies and not being able to get rid of them. And I worry about the rest of the other species of marine mammals as well who have high diets of fish - seals, sea lions, and porpoises.

e360: I want to ask you about your study in Argentina, which [Ocean Alliance] describes as "the longest continuous study of any great whale based on known individuals."

Payne: We have been studying right whales in Argentina starting in 1970. You can tell individual right whales apart by the patterns of the white markings on their head, there are no two alike. We now follow the fates of well over 2,000 right whales. We know who is the mother of whom; who is the half-brother, or sister, and who consorts with whom, and who avoids whom. We also can tell the ages of whales, and what differences occur as they get older, because we watch them as calves and then follow them through life.

e360: Do you have affection for any particular species of whale? Or an individual?

Payne: Oh, yes there is an individual I am very fond of. We call her Y-spot. She has a pattern on her back of a Y and a spot... She is a right whale in Argentina, and I missed her for about five years at one point. And then one day when I was watching whales from a cliff I saw a whale in the distance, and I couldn't figure out who the Dickens it was. After maybe two and half hours of watching, I suddenly saw that this was... Oh my gosh, it was Y-spot. I can't tell you how it felt. It would be like finding a long lost brother or something.

e360: Is there a singular moment for real triumph for you as a conservationist?

Payne: What has pleased me most is the reaction that people still have when they hear the sounds of whales. Nobody is prepared for it. Whales seem to be communicating in what I think of as emotional communication. If I was trying to make you joyous or sad or concerned or frightened or something like that, there might be ways of doing that - but I wouldn't think of doing it in any way except by words. But in the case of whales, I think they are achieving those same sorts of things probably just as directly.

The songs of whales have a profound impact on many people. A lot of people weep when they hear them. And they can't even tell you why they have wept, except they say it just seems so sad. And many times it does.

by Heather Carr

Rain causes earthquakes? That's what a recent study examining heavy precipitation events and the timing of major earthquakes concludes.

Researchers at the University of Miami found that major earthquakes of magnitude 6 and above followed seasons of heavy tropical cyclone activity.

The mechanism behind it? "The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth's surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults," said Shimon Wdowinski, associate research professor of marine geology and geophysics at the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

Understanding how rain affects seismic activity could be valuable in predicting which regions are most at risk for earthquakes.

Mary Evelyn Tucker has been one of the innovators in the study of the connections between ecology and religion. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, she talks about her work and about a new film she co-produced that points to the spiritual dimension of responding to the world's environmental challenges.

As a pioneer in the field of religion and ecology, Mary Evelyn Tucker has long believed that science and policy alone are not enough to deal with the Earth's most pressing environmental challenges. What's also needed, she says, is a spiritual or religious framework for valuing the natural world, a sense that "there is something here that's larger than us, something that's given birth to all life forms and sustains us." That is the essence of a new hour-long film she co-produced, Journey of the Universe, which is premiering on PBS television stations this month, and a companion book she co-authored with evolutionary philosopher Brian Swimme.

Tucker, a religious historian who teaches at Yale University, has focused her work on exploring the ways that various faiths define the relationship of humans to nature. With her husband, John Grim, she founded the Forum on Religion and Ecology, which grew out of a series of conferences they sponsored on the outlook of the world's religions - including Confucianism, Hinduism, and Islam - and which now involves 10,000 people worldwide.

In an interview with Yale Environment 360 editor Roger Cohn, Tucker describes the evolution of her work and how it is brought together in Journey of the Universe. The film and book project, she explained, seek "to give a sense of how late we humans arrived, and yet how, in a relatively short period of time, our impact has been enormous." While the film does not include any overt religious references, it does seek to evoke a sense of what she calls "wonder and awe." Says Tucker, "There is a broad spiritual sensibility, which many environmentalists share, but often don't talk about or want to name."

Yale Environment 360: I was struck by the fact that your film, Journey of the Universe, ultimately is a celebration, unlike a lot of environmental-related literature and film that's filled with a heavy dose of doom and gloom. This film is optimistic and even celebratory in many ways. Why did you choose that approach?

Mary Evelyn Tucker: We decided that so many people are aware of the huge and complex environmental problems we're facing - ranging from climate change to toxicities to species extinction and so on - that people are so overwhelmed that they go into paralysis and despair. We didn't want to take people there. We wanted to engage their sense of awe and wonder, because humans are moved fundamentally by either wonder or by disaster. We wanted to draw out the wonder.

So in this film, we put the consequences of humanity's planetary presence - our burgeoning population, our overwhelming resource use, all the consequences of having exploded in one century from 2 billion people to 7 billion people - and we put that in the last 10 minutes of the film, where we do speak about humanity's impact and our current environmental crisis. We felt it was more effective there, because first you need to get a sense of the unfolding of a universe that is 14 billion years old, the evolution of our planet, and life emerging out of this tremendous journey. We wanted to give a sense of how late we humans arrived, and yet, how in a relatively short period of time, our impact has been enormous.

e360: You mentioned some of the environmental challenges the world is facing. How do you see the response to those challenges as fitting into the whole idea of religion and its connection to ecology, which has been the focus of your work?

Tucker:What we're trying to say in the religion and ecology work is that scientific facts are critical and necessary, and policy papers and legislation are indispensable. But they may not be sufficient when it comes to dealing with an environmental crisis. That may require other disciplines and other ways of looking at the world, including religion. For instance, on the issue of climate change, many of the world's religions have come out with statements about the urgency of climate change because of its effects on the poor and on those most vulnerable - for instance, in Bangladesh and in small island nations like Tuvalu, where people are already being evacuated [because of rising sea levels]. So this is not just an issue that involves science - it is an issue that involves ethics and religion.

e360: One could make the case that the influence of religion, particularly Western religions and the Judeo-Christian sense of humans having dominion over the Earth, has helped to create many of the environmental crises we now face.

Tucker: A lot of people would say that modern capitalism is what created this overconsumption, this excessive use of resources, this growth without limits. Of course, religions have both their problems and their promise. Religions have been somewhat late in coming to environmental issues, but they can be crucial partners with science and policy and economics.

e360: You are really one of the pioneers in this area of exploring the relationship between religion and ecology and ecological thinking. How did you develop an interest in this topic?

Tucker: Well, [my husband] John [Grim] and I had been studying the religions of Asia and the West in graduate school [in the 1970s] and became interested in the environment through our teacher, Thomas Berry [a cultural historian and Roman Catholic priest]. And we said to ourselves, "We're not scientists or policy people or lawyers or economists. What contribution can we make to environmental studies?"

e360: Do you see any signs that people are becoming more aware of the spiritual or religious dimensions to environmental issues?

Tucker: I think like many social changes, shifting people's perceptions about the environment is going to take a long time. Sometimes these changes move along at an incremental pace until people realize that there is a moral issue here. That's what happened with civil rights. There was something deeply wrong about living in an apartheid society in the U.S. in the 1950s and '60s. And there's starting to be a sense now that there's a moral issue about degradation of the environment, that there is something here that's larger than us, something that's given birth to all life forms and sustains us. And if we degrade that, it's to the degradation of future generations. So there's an inter-generational ethic here. And there's a new emerging ethic of responsibility to people in other parts of the world who are suffering from our actions with things like climate change, which is affecting people along coastal waters.

So where is the moral force going to come from for inter-generational ethics or ethical responsibility for people in other parts of the world? It's going to come from longer-range thinking, and that's what the religions can contribute. Every major religion around the world now has a comprehensive statement on the environment and the need for care for creation or for the common good, as well as some very powerful statements on specific issues like climate change.

e360: And the focus has been on the ethical dimension of environmental issues?

Tucker: Right. Over the last 15 to 20 years, religion and ecology has grown as an academic field, but also as a force in the larger society. So many colleges across the country now have courses in religion and ecology, certainly in environmental ethics and so on. And the religious communities - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - are moving forward as well. Each religion is developing its own language around this ethical responsibility - stewardship for the Earth is more in the Jewish and Christian traditions, trusteeship for the Earth in the Islamic tradition. Care for creation is what the evangelicals like to use.

e360: The evangelicals are one of the more interesting developments because generally the religious leaders and groups that have gotten involved and interested in environmental issues have been the more liberal elements of various religions. But there is now this green element among evangelicals. What do you make of that?

Tucker: "Creation care" they call it. And it's a different language than might be used by another Christian tradition. But what's very interesting in terms of the climate issue is that when a group of [U.S.] evangelicals were taken to Oxford [University] they went to hear two of the world's leading climate scientists, Gillian Prance and John Houghton, both of whom have been part of the [UN] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but are also evangelical Christians. And that was a real conversion moment for those American evangelicals, most of whom had been very skeptical [about climate change] up to that point. But hearing about it from scientists who also happened to be evangelicals had a profound effect on them.

e360: And what about other religious groups and leaders?

Tucker: Well, one of the international leaders in this whole movement has been the Dalai Lama as a Buddhist, and Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican Church, has been a leader. Even this pope, the present Pope Benedict, has made some very good statements on this issue.

But the Greek Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomewhas been without doubt the spokesperson for environment as a sacred entity. For the last 15 years, he's had water conferences throughout Europe, in Greenland, at the Amazon, and on the Mississippi, and he has convened [environmental summits with] very high-level people from the UN, from the EU, ministers of environment, and high-level scientists from around the world. And [in 2002], he issued a joint statement with Pope John Paul II about the shared Christian responsibility to safeguard the environment and spoke about what was happening as crimes against creation...

So there are some hopeful signs.

e360: The book you've written and the film, Journey of the Universe, are not about religion and ecology - at least not directly. What are the key themes in the book and the film, and how do they tie into your life-long work on religion and ecology?

Tucker: Well, many people will approach an environmental concern through the religion door, if you will. But many people will not come through that door - they'll be drawn in by a larger sense of the beauty and complexity of the natural world, the integrity of ecosystems, and this vast evolutionary journey that the world is a part of. So Journey of the Universe is an invitation to all of us, really, to reflect on the significance of deep time. And it's saying that if we have come out of the star burst of a super nova, if we see ourselves as emerging from these self-organizing dynamics of universe and Earth, and if life emerged over these billions of years, what is our responsibility for its continuity?

The language in Journey of the Universe is something that is deeply dependent on scientific discoveries. It's not using any kind of overt religious language. But it is suggesting, what are the grounds for environmental concern and ethics and action? We are not naming it from any particular perspective - it's an evocation more than a preachment.

e360: Spiritual rather than religious.

Tucker: Right, exactly. There is a broad spiritual sensibility, which many environmentalists share, but often don't talk about or want to name. And that's the point here, to a very large degree, in various religions and culture, humans share a spiritual connection to nature and that's tied in with a moral and ethical dimension as well.

e360: Certainly, when it comes to the issue of climate change, there's an ethical dimension, isn't there? We're talking about future generations that might be impacted, and we're talking about people in other parts of the world, including some of the world's poorest, who would be most affected.

Tucker: Yes. It's another dimension of human rights, really. But where is the moral voice here? Where is the ethical voice? I think the religious communities can and will draw this [issue] forward and help awaken the consciences of people. That is a huge hope because we have the science [on climate change] - the IPCC has done a remarkable job, the largest scientific work in human history of a collaborative nature. We've got policy papers, and we've got all kinds of green technologies emerging, which have to be part of the solution too. But this spark, this moral force, is absolutely essential, and I think it's emerging.

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by Jeremy Hance

Scientists and conservationists are increasingly relying on heat- and motion-activated camera traps to study rare or reclusive species in remote habitats. And the striking images they provide are proving to be a boon for raising conservation awareness worldwide.

The humble camera trap - an automated digital device that takes a flash photo whenever an animal triggers an infrared sensor - has been coming into its own, playing an increasingly important role in wildlife conservation.

In recent years, the use of camera traps has led to major discoveries, including documenting an Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) in China for the first time in 62 years; proving that the world's rarest rhino, the Javan (Rhinoceros sondaicus), is breeding, by photographing a female with her calf; rediscovering the hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana) in the Malaysian state of Sabah; recording the first wolverine (Gulo gulo) in California since 1922; taking the first video of the rare Bornean bay cat (Pardofelis badia); documenting the elusive short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis) preying on an amphibian in the Amazon; proving the extremely rare Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis) still inhabits Cambodia; and snapping the first-ever photographs of a number of species in the wild, including the Saharan cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki) and the giant muntjac deer (Muntiacus vuquangensis) in Southeast Asia.

The technology has even been behind the discovery of a few new species: Both the Annamite striped rabbit (Nesolagus timminsi) of Southeast Asia and the grey-faced sengi (Rhynchocyon udzungwensis) of Tanzania, an elephant shrew, were first identified via camera trap photos. One measure of the camera trap's rising importance was the release last February by the Smithsonian Institution of more than 200,000 camera trap photos online.

The camera trap has revolutionized wildlife research and conservation, enabling scientists to collect photographic evidence of rarely seen and often globally endangered species, with little expense, relative ease, and minimal disturbance to wildlife. Researchers are now using camera traps to document wildlife presence, abundance, and population changes, particularly in the face of deforestation and habitat destruction. And for the first time, camera traps are enabling researchers to collect baseline population data on tropical mammals and birds where only estimates - and often just guesses - were possible before.

Equally important, camera traps are increasingly being used to raise conservation awareness worldwide, with NGOs embracing the tool as a powerful way of reaching out to the public through You Tube, the Internet, and social networking sites. Groups such as WWF have found camera trap videos and photos to be an important part of campaigns to save threatened or endangered species.

In Sumatra, which has lost half of its forest cover since 1985, a conservation project called Eyes on Leuser is using camera trap videos and photos to publicize the threats to the Leuser forest's diverse wildlife. To date the group has used camera traps to shoot video footage of 27 species, including the rare Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), the colorful Argus pheasant (Argusianus argus), and the bright-eyed banded civet (Hemigalus derbyanus). "Until now, almost no videos existed of most of Leuser's cryptic wildlife," says Marten Slothouwer, a Dutch conservationist who runs Eyes on Leuser. "Our videos can make people realize that it's worth it to save this forest."

The first cameras to capture wildlife free from human presence were used in the late 1890s by photographic pioneer George Shiras, who employed trip wires and a flash bulb to catch animals on film; the photos were eventually published in National Geographic magazine. The first purely scientific use of camera traps was in the 1920s, when Frank M. Chapman surveyed the big species on Barro Colorado Island in Panama using a trip-wire camera trap.

But for decades, technological difficulties - including battery power, size of equipment, and unreliable trip mechanisms - left camera trapping for intrepid enthusiasts, rather than mainstream researchers. Not until the 1990s did a camera with an infrared trigger mechanism become available. Today, with the advent of digital cameras, the practice of studying wildlife through camera trapping has exploded.

Although the majority of camera trap photos are blurred or show only parts of an animal, some are on a par with the best in wildlife photography, capturing one thing that is truly difficult for photographers: a palpable sense of intimacy. More discoveries are expected as researchers undertake new and larger projects, including a study of tropical mammals in seven nations by The Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring Network, which is documenting long-term wildlife population trends in order to identify conservation priorities.

There is no tool better for finding out "what's out there" than the camera trap. Scientists usually place camera traps on trails or at watering holes or mud wallows (spots where animals or birds often appear), but also at locations where researchers can access the camera repeatedly to download photos and change batteries. Within a few months of setting up traps, scientists begin to gain a good sense of which large and medium-sized fauna reside in the area.

"Camera trapping provides a window into a world that was previously only accessible to researchers or individuals with intimate knowledge of that species or habitat," says Brent Loken, president of Ethical Expeditions, which uses camera traps to collect data on the mammals of the Wehea Forest in the Indonesian state of Kalimantan. The traps have proven the existence of elusive mammals, such as the banded civet (Hemigalus derbyanus) and the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), one of the least known big cat species in the world.

In the Pantanal, Brazil's great wetlands, Arnaud Desbiez of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland has used camera traps to document the presence of the world's largest armadillo (Priodontes maximus) - a rare, nocturnal species that spends much of its time underground. Using camera traps, he and his team have discovered that giant armadillo burrows play a bigger role in the ecosystem than anticipated, providing shelter to creatures such as collared peccaries.

In Africa, Ben Colleen of the Zoological Society of London and his colleagues have used camera traps to study rare pygmy hippos in West Africa's dwindling rainforests. The species is so mysterious that researchers only took the first photo of a wild pygmy hippo in Liberia in 2008.

Also in Africa, camera traps recently set up in Gabon took the first publicly released video of the African golden cat, the least-known feline on the continent. Unlike the other cats of Africa, the golden cat only inhabits rainforest, making it extremely difficult to spot, let alone study. University of KwaZulu-Natal graduate student Laila Bahaa-el-din captured footage of an African golden cat sitting directly in front of the camera and chasing a butterfly. On watching the videos for the first time, Bahaa-el-din says, "I felt, at last, like I was getting to know this elusive cat... The African golden cat has dominated my thoughts and energy for over a year-and-a-half now."

Bahaa-el-din's research is focused on understanding how the wild cat fares in pristine areas versus sustainably managed logging concessions and poorly managed logging tracts. Camera trap video footage taken in a logging concession in central Gabon that employs sound logging practices and aggressively pursues illegal hunters, indicates, says Bahaa-al-din, that "logging alone should not mean the depletion of wildlife." The evidence from these camera traps will eventually be used to develop a conservation plan for the African golden cat, now getting its first global publicity thanks to the remote cameras.

Camera traps have some drawbacks. As Arnaud Desbiez puts it, "Camera traps are limited in space. They can only gather information in the tiny area where their sensors are positioned. Therefore animals can easily go undetected, and you need a lot of cameras to properly survey an area."

The cost of camera traps also can be an issue, especially in developing countries. A single camera trap ranges from $150 to $600, not including extra batteries, battery chargers, and data cards. Camera traps also break; tigers, elephants, and other big mammals have been known to attack the traps. In addition, in areas where poachers are a problem, scientists occasionally lose camera traps to people who understandably don't like their photo being taken.

Still, camera trapping is now on the cusp of a new round of expansion. Camera traps could be used in rainforest canopies to study birds, reptiles, and monkeys, and underwater cameras could document marine wildlife and the fauna of lakes and rivers. With further technological advances, it may even be possible to use tiny cameras to document the world's micro-species, from stag beetles to brush-footed butterflies.

Indeed, proponents contend, the future of camera trapping may only be limited by our imagination.

by Tina Casey

Google Earth has become the epicenter of an international dispute among competing researchers as to whether or not cattle have a mysterious but widespread tendency to orient themselves along a magnetic north-south axis when grazing or at rest. Though the whole thing is worth a chuckle, it's also a reminder that Google Earth and Google Maps are emerging as important tools in fields related to sustainability, including renewable energy and energy conservation, not only for professional researchers but for the general public as well.

Using Google Earth to Spot Cattle

The magnetic cow ruckus has its origins in a 2008 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, in which a team headed by German scientists used images from Google Earth to conclude that herds of cattle routinely align themselves along the Earth's magnetic field. A Google Earth blogger responded with an ad hoc survey of his own, and his admittedly unscientific conclusion was that cows were indeed aligning their bodies along a north-south line, but only because that was the shortest distance between them and their feeding bins.

Google Earth Provides More Evidence...

In 2009 the same German-lead team found evidence that supported their original conclusion. They studied the effect of magnetic fields from high-voltage power lines on herds of cattle and determined that proximity to the power lines can disrupt the bovines' magnetic sense, causing them to align randomly. The phenomenon dissipates as the cattle move farther from the lines, as described in an article in scienceblogs.com by writer Ed Yong. Yong also pointed out that magnetic orientation in mammals has been known to scientists for quite some time, but the research has generally been confined to animals that are easy to study in a laboratory, namely, small mammals such as bats and hamsters. Google Earth provided the first opportunity to study large mammals on a systematic basis.

...Or Not

As chronicled in a recent article in nature.com by Daniel Cressey, earlier this year a research team based in Czechoslovakia attacked the German team's findings with a new set of Google Earth images that failed to indicate any magnetic alignment. The German team argued back that the Czech team selected individual cattle subjectively rather than surveying herds, and it included numerous images of cattle near power lines, and images that were not cattle at all but were sheep or even bales of hay. The issue is dormant for now, as Cressey reports: the Czech team lobbed back a snappy defense of their research and then announced their disinclination to pursue the matter further.

Google Earth, Google Maps and Sustainability

Google Earth is already being used as a tool for getting the most bang for your solar energy buck in California, where researchers at the University of California have used it to create a solar power map that lets homeowners predict the most efficient placement for solar panels. Meanwhile, Google Maps is being used as an urban forestry tool and an EV charging station locator. While the magnetic cow mystery is still somewhat up in the air, the agriculture industry has already begun using Google images to save energy and as a general management tool, as an alternative to drive-throughs and flyovers when surveying land or livestock.

The Last Word on Magnetic Cattle

It is tempting to point out one obvious explanation for magnetic alignment in cattle, which is that many domestic cattle actually have magnets - real magnets - in their stomachs. Yes, really.

Called cattle magnets, these are small, slim rods typically force-fed to young cattle at branding time. They probably feel nasty going down but they neutralize the effects of tiny bits of iron that cattle can swallow while grazing, such as pieces of barbed wire, nails, and other detritus known as "tramp iron." The cattle magnet settles in a forward stomach where it can catch and hold tramp iron safely for the lifespan of its host. However, the German research team had also surveyed deer, few if any of which were sporting cattle magnets, and found the same distinctive orientation. Until further research is conducted, the magnetic cow mystery will remain just that - a mystery.

by Earth Policy Institute

People born today will live for 68 years on average, 20 years longer than those born in 1950. By the mid-twentieth century, industrial countries had already made major strides in extending lifespans with improvements in sanitation, nutrition, and public health. After World War II, rapid gains in life expectancy in developing countries began to narrow the gap between these nations and industrial countries. Although average life expectancy worldwide continues to increase, gains have come more slowly in the last few decades. Worryingly, life expectancy has actually declined in some developing countries, while a few industrial countries have stalled or made slow progress on this important indicator of human health and well-being.

Low Life Expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Life expectancy remains lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, where people can expect to live 53 years on average. Six countries in this region have lower life expectancies today than they did in the 1970s: Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. These countries also have some of the world's highest HIV prevalences. South Africa, with 5.6 million people infected (11 percent of the total population), has more people living with HIV than any other country in the world. Following four decades of gains, life expectancy in South Africa has fallen dramatically - from 61 years in the early 1990s to 51 years today.

In Zimbabwe, where 10 percent of the population are infected with HIV, the change has been even more dramatic: life expectancy fell from 62 to 43 years between 1985 and 2005. Life expectancy in Lesotho, where 13 percent are infected, fell from 60 to 44 years between 1990 and 2005. Since 2005, life expectancy in these countries has begun to rise again with the spread of safer sex practices and antiretroviral therapy. But even in Botswana, which has the highest life expectancy of the group, people born today will live just over 53 years on average.

Life Expectancy Troubles in Former Soviet Union

Whereas Western Europeans can now expect to live for an average of 80 years, life expectancies in some former Soviet Union countries remain far shorter and improvements have stalled or even reversed. In Russia, life expectancy peaked in the late 1960s at a little over 69 years. It declined to 65 in the early 2000s before rising back up to 68 years today. Russian men born today will only live 62 years on average, compared with 74 years for women - which is the world's largest life expectancy gender gap.

Belarus and Ukraine also have significant gender gaps and lower overall life expectancies now than they did in the 1960s. Hazardous drinking in this region is a major concern: according to the World Health Organization, 20 percent of deaths among men in Russia and neighboring countries can be attributed to alcohol, compared with 6 percent among men globally. Extreme industrial pollution has also likely contributed to relatively early mortality in the region. A 2011 report from the Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland identified Eastern Europe as one of the regions where people's health is most affected by pesticide, lead, and mercury pollution.

U.S. Life Expectancy

Some high-income countries are improving life expectancy but failing to keep pace with their peers. For example, since 1980 the United States has only extended its average expected lifespan by 4 years, while Japan - the country where people can expect to live the longest, to age 83 - has increased it by 6 years. A 2011 study from the University of Washington found that in addition to lagging behind leading countries, the United States has significant geographic and racial disparities in life expectancy.

Studies suggest that the slower U.S. rate of improvement may be a legacy of heavy smoking - historically more common in the United States than in Japan and many European countries - as well as of obesity and a lack of universal health care.

The good news is that many of the places where life expectancy is lowest can increase it by working to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and by improving access to basic health care. As people in developing countries live longer and as their economies industrialize, however, the concern is that they may face the same challenges now holding back higher-income countries. Continuing progress in human health will depend on reducing pollution and fostering healthy lifestyles for everyone.

Photo by Dino ahmad ali/flickr/Creative Commons

by william laurance

More than half of the timber now shipped globally is destined for China. But unscrupulous Chinese companies are importing huge amounts of illegally harvested wood, prompting conservation groups to step up boycotts against rapacious timber interests.

In Chinese folklore, a dragon symbolizes strength. It is an apt icon for a nation whose rise as an economic superpower has been nothing short of meteoric.

While China's stunning economic advances have come at significant environmental cost, the boom has been a plus in a few realms. The country is investing avidly in green technologies, such as solar energy and high-tech car batteries. It has also undertaken an ambitious national reforestation program, while cracking down on illegal forest clearing and logging inside its borders. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, forest cover in China, including large areas of timber plantations, increased from 157 million hectares in 1990 to 197 million hectares in 2005.

Counter-intuitively, the expansion of Chinese forests has occurred at the same time the country has been developing an immense export industry for wood and paper products. China is now the "wood workshop for the world," according to Forest Trends, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, consuming more than 400 million cubic meters of timber annually to feed both its burgeoning exports and growing domestic demands. Production of paper products has also grown dramatically in China, doubling from 2002 to 2007.

But the rise of the Chinese dragon has a darker side. As much as half of the timber and much of the paper pulp consumed by China is imported, primarily from tropical nations or nearby Siberia. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with this - China has every right to grow economically and seek the kind of prosperity that industrial nations have long enjoyed. However, in its fervor to secure timber, minerals, and other natural resources, China is increasingly seen as a predator on the world's forests.

China is now overwhelmingly the biggest global consumer of tropical timber, importing around 40 to 45 million cubic meters of timber annually. Today, more than half of all timber being shipped anywhere in the world is destined for China. Many nations in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa export the lion's share of their timber to China.

China faces three criticisms by those worried about the health and biodiversity of the world's forests. First, the country and its hundreds of wood-products corporations and middlemen have been remarkably aggressive in pursuing timber supplies globally, while generally being little concerned with social equity or environmental sustainability. For instance, China has helped fund and promote an array of ambitious new road or rail projects that are opening up remote forested regions in the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Asia-Pacific to exploitation. Such frontier roads can unleash a Pandora's Box of activities - including illegal colonization, hunting, mining, and land speculation - that are often highly destructive to forests.

China is also a major consumer of wood pulp, which is helping to drive large-scale deforestation in places like Sumatra and Borneo. During a recent visit to Sumatra, I witnessed the felling of large expanses of native rainforests, which are being chopped up and fed into the world's largest wood-pulp plant, located nearby, and replaced by monocultures of exotic acacia trees.

Second, China, in its relentless pursuit of timber, almost exclusively seeks raw logs. Raw logs are the least economically beneficial way for developing nations to exploit their timber resources, as they provide only limited royalties and little employment, workforce training, and industrial development. As a result, most of the profits from logging are realized by foreign timber-cutters, shippers, and wood-products manufacturers. A cubic meter of the valuable timber merbau (Intsia bijuga), for instance, yields only around $11 to local communities in Indonesian Papua but around $240 when delivered as raw logs to wood-products manufacturers in China, who profit further by converting it into prized wood flooring.

Finally, China has done little to combat the scourge of illegal logging, which is an enormous problem in many developing nations. A 2011 report on illegal logging by Interpol and the World Bank concluded that, among 15 of the major timber-producing countries in the tropics, two-thirds had half or more of their timber harvested illegally. Globally, economic losses and tax and royalty evasion from illegal logging are thought to cost around $15 billion annually - a large economic burden for developing nations. Forest ecosystems suffer serious impacts as well, because illegal loggers frequently ignore environmental controls on cutting operations.

According to a 2010 analysis by Chatham House, a respected UK think tank, illegal logging is slowly declining globally but this is despite, rather than because of, China's influence. The report concluded that, from 2000 to 2008, China imported 16 to 24 million cubic meters of illegal timber each year. This is an incredible figure - twice the total amount imported annually by leading industrial nations.

Around a third of Chinese timber imports are ultimately exported, as furniture, plywood, flooring, disposable chopsticks, and other wood products. European countries, the U.S, and Japan are the biggest importers, with consumers there often unaware of the illicit origin of many wood products from China.

When it comes to illegal or predatory logging, it has not been easy to get China's attention. Stories about illegal logging rarely penetrate the Chinese news media. For example, in 2006 the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), an international scientific organization, held its annual conference in Kunming, China. At the time I was president of the ATBC, and I spoke at length to Chinese journalists about the problem of illegal logging and the risks it posed for Chinese exporters. To my knowledge, not a single story about my concerns was reported in China, even though I emailed the journalists a summary of my comments translated into Mandarin Chinese.

Outside China, the story is different. Awareness of the rapacious nature of Chinese timber interests is growing, especially since a 2005 report by a green group, the Environmental Investigation Agency, that detailed massive illegal logging and timber theft in the Indonesian state of Papua. Smuggled timber from Papua arrived in mainland China via international criminal syndicates involving corrupt Indonesian insiders, Malaysian loggers, and Singaporean shippers. Other groups, such as the World Resources Institute, Forest Trends, WWF, and Greenpeace, have laid similar claims against China. With mainstream organizations such as the World Bank, Interpol, and Chatham House joining in, what began as murmurs of concern is becoming a loud clamor for change.

This is a dangerous situation for Chinese businesses and exporters. Influential environmental organizations in Europe and North America have their eye on China. For example, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has waged a campaign urging corporate customers to avoid paper and pulp products originating from two of Indonesia's largest corporations, Asian Pulp & Paper (APP) and APRIL, which are felling large expanses of native rainforest for wood pulp. The pulp and paper have been used by Chinese manufacturers to make branded products for scores of well-known companies around the world. Some of those companies - including Gucci, Scholastic, Hachette, and Tiffany & Co. - have switched to recycled and sustainably certified paper products. As of this year, other companies - including Prada, American Greetings, Marc Jacobs, and the Rupert Murdoch-owned HarperCollins publishing - are continuing to use APP or APRIL paper products supplied by Chinese manufacturers, according to RAN.

Such actions could have a big impact on Chinese exports. Boycotts initiated by green groups can have a major influence on consumer preferences and have forced some of the largest retail chains in North America and Europe, such as Walmart and Ikea, to limit products sourced from old-growth forests. Meanwhile, eco-certified timber products accounted for $7.4 billion in sales in the U.S. alone in 2005, and were expected to grow to $38 billion there by 2010. At some point, Chinese companies will buck the trend toward sustainable logging at their peril.

Adding teeth to such consumer actions are tougher laws and initiatives in industrial nations. In particular, new provisions to the Lacey Act in the U.S., and the European Union Timber Action Plan in Europe are increasingly holding corporations that import illicit timber products responsible for their actions.

One senses that efforts to combat illicit timber imports are finally beginning to gain some traction in China. The relevant government agencies are now engaged, and the country has commissioned an analysis of its role as an importer of illegal timber and released draft guidelines to improve sustainability of its timber-importing corporations. It also recently hosted the Asia Forest Partnership Dialogue 2011, in Beijing, designed to assess progress in efforts to combat illegal logging in Asia over the last decade.

However, China still has no national action plan or legislation to prevent the import of illegally sourced timber, and no formal trade arrangements with major timber-producing countries designed to improve enforcement. Despite dominating the global timber market, Chinese wood-products corporations feel little pressure from buyers to improve the legality of their timber products and consider it largely unimportant to their future competitiveness, according to the Chatham House report.

The bottom line: China's efforts to limit the environmental impacts of its burgeoning timber imports are still mostly lip-service, with little practical impact.

Check the labels when you shop for any wood or paper products. If it says, "Made in China," be wary of the dragon, and think twice before buying.

by Heather Carr

Menhaden is a tiny fish with a big impact on the ecosystem. Because of recent overfishing, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recommended a change in the amount of catch allowed this year from 92 percent of the spawning population to 70 percent.

What is a Menhaden and Why Do We Care?

Menhaden is a small fish that filter feeds on phytoplankton. This makes it an important cleaning fish for areas that have algal blooms from industrial and agricultural runoff, like the Chesapeake Bay.

While they are considered inedible for humans, menhaden serve as a prey fish for many of the fish that people do like to eat. The overfishing of the menhaden has caused many of the edible fish species to decline, making it harder for small fisherman to earn a living, thereby impacting coastal communities.

Omega Protein, a company based in Texas whose largest plant is in Virginia, is responsible for 80 percent of the annual menhaden catch. The company cooks the fish at their Reedville plant and grinds them up for use in animal feeds, pet food, agricultural fertilizers, and fish oil supplements.

Omega Protein and the Menhaden Catch

Omega Protein has resisted fishing caps through the years and gotten their way. If it seems odd that a single company could sway scientific opinion, it is because the menhaden fishery is unique.

Most fisheries are regulated by local and state commissions, but the menhaden fishery is regulated by the Virginia legislature. In order for the fishing cap to be enforced, the Virginia legislature must agree to it.

Even though the recognition of the need for limiting the menhaden catch is a good thing, it may not matter if the Virginia legislature doesn't act on it.