Stormy weather reveals seaside trash and treasure

There's a plastic problem washing ashore with wildlife

This weekend heralds the beginning of National Marine Week, the Wildlife Trusts' annual celebration of sea life. Weather forecasters are warning that conditions could be stormy, and following wild weather, a variety of flotsam and jetsam can be found on British beaches.

There are plenty of natural wonders to discover. But conservationists say that a growing amount of what is washing up is manmade.

Treasure hunting

When it comes to the best things on Britain's beaches, Joan Edwards, who runs the Wildlife Trusts' Living Seas programme, says there's no better time for a strandline stroll than the calm days following a storm.

"At this time of year it's a pleasure to walk along the beach. You can see what you're looking for, the sun is shining and after a storm you never know what treasures you might find," she says.

Her top ten bits of biological booty you can find on the shore this summer are: mermaids purses, whelk egg cases, goose barnacles, cuttlefish bones, crab claws, sponges, tropical beans, by-the-wind-sailor jellyfish, kelp and limpet shells.

But stormy weather also washes up less welcome manmade trash, rather than natural treasures.

Every September, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) leads regular beach cleanups, including its annual Beachwatch Big Weekend campaign which aims to get an army of volunteers to the seaside to deal with some of the mess.

Last year the charity filled 1,800 bin bags with waste from over 90km of beaches in the two days.

Plastic problem

"Plastic bits and pieces made up almost 65% of what we found [in last year's Beachwatch] and beach litter levels just continue to rise - the problem's not going away," says Emma Cunningham, MCS Litter Campaigns Officer.Plastic poses a serious threat to our marine wildlife as they can become entangled in waste or ingest items that do not break down easily.Plastic bags are particularly fatal because they can block digestive systems when mistaken for jellyfish by larger animals, leading to starvation and death. Bags have been recovered from the stomachs of beached turtles and whales around the UK coast.Even the smallest plastic waste, such as particles known as "nurdles", pose dangers. Small creatures can mistake them for food and die from ingesting them, in turn denying larger animals the prey they need to survive.Also, biologists are becoming concerned that toxins in this micro-plastic waste are transferred through species with unknown effects."There is a worrying potential for toxins to accumulate through the food chain and ultimately on to us," says Mrs Cunningham."Nobody knows the true impact of this pollutant transfer."
From BBC Sci/Environment

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Deforestation in Africa's Congo Basin rainforest slows

Logging in one of the world's largest rainforests has slowed, a study suggests

The Congo Basin is the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon

Satellite images of Africa's Congo Basin reveal that deforestation has fallen by about a third since 2000.

Researchers believe this is partly because of a focus on mining and oil rather than commercial agriculture, where swathes of forest are cleared.

The work is published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

It is part of a series that is examining the state of Africa's forests.

Dr Simon Lewis, from the University of Leeds and University College London, said: "Most of the focus has been on the Amazon and on South East Asian tropical rainforests, and a big bit of the missing picture is what is going on the Congo Basin in Central Africa.

"We really wanted to pull together information about this amazing region that we know very little about."

Bigger trees

Sprawling across the heart of Africa, the Congo Basin rainforest is second only to the Amazon in size. It covers nearly 2 million sq km (800,000 sq miles).

This latest study reveals that it is in far better health than expected.

Images taken from space allowed researchers to track how the dense foliage was changing over time.

They found that during the 1990s nearly 3,000 sq km (1,000 sq miles) of forest were being felled each year.

But from 2000 to 2010, the rate of deforestation had slowed. Fewer than 2,000 sq km (700 sq miles) of rainforest were lost every year.

"The results were surprising," Dr Lewis told BBC News.

"This is partly because there is a network of protected areas. But it is also because of a lack of expansion from agriculture, and the way these [central African] countries have organised their economies.

"They are very dependent on oil sales and also minerals from mining, and they are investing in that and not investing so much in agricultural expansion."

Another study published in the same journal highlighted the differences between trees in the Congo Basin and those found elsewhere around the world.

Measurements of 130,000 trees show that African species were on average much larger in stature than those in the Amazon. As a result, scientists believe that the Congo Basin stores more carbon, acting as a carbon sink.

Losing parts of the rainforest would have an impact on climate change, biodiversity and the communities that depend on the environment, said Dr Lewis.

He said that Africa's rainforest was at a pivotal point.

Logging could continue to fall because of schemes such as the United Nations' Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) that offer financial incentives to keep forests intact.

"But on the other side, the big increase in human population and the rise in living standards globally means we may need more agricultural commodities... It could go the other way and go much more like South East Asia or the Amazon and see the expansion of commercial agriculture," explained Dr Lewis.

From BBC Sci/Environment

Bombs dropped on Great Barrier Reef by US jets

Four bombs have been dropped on Australia's Great Barrier Reef by American fighters jets, during a training exercise that went wrong.

Fortunately, the unarmed bombs didn't explode. They fell into water about 50m deep and away from coral to limit damage.

Two Marine jets dropped four 500lb bombs on the Great Barrier Reef this week after a fuel emergency meant they could not land while carrying the weapons. 

The AV-8B Harriers, part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, had been taking part in a training exercise when the pilots realized they were running low on fuel. 

Each Harrier was forced to drop two bombs on the UNESCO world heritage site, although there was no risk of them exploding, according to defense officials.

Two Harrier jets, like the one pictured, were forced to drop 500lb bombs in the Great Barrier Reef after running low on fuel

The planes were meant to drop them in a bombing range on a nearby island, but that was abandoned after hazards were reported.

The US navy said the planes were low on fuel and could not land while loaded.

The bombs were dropped about 16 nautical miles south of Bell Cay in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, according to NBC News.

Defense officials said they tried to pick a location that would reduce the risk of damage to the reef, and said the bomb site was in a 'deep channel' about 60 metres deep.

The pilots were supposed to drop the bombs on Townshend Island as part of a training exercise, but at the last moment they were told the range was not clear.

The Great Barrier Reef is the planet's largest collection of corals and a Unesco World Heritage site.

It stretches for more than 2,000km along the north-east coast of Australia.

From:

• BBC News
• Daily Mail