Seagrass-Watch E-bulletin 17 February 2008
SEAGRASS-WATCH E-BULLETIN
17 February 2008


Seagrass-Watch's electronic news service, providing marine and coastal news of international and national interest. Abbreviated articles are presented with links to their source.
Seagrass-Watch HQ recommends that readers exercise their own skill and care with respect to their use of the information in this bulletin and that readers carefully evaluate the
accuracy, currency, completeness and relevance of the material in the bulletin for their purposes. Seagrass-Watch welcomes feedback on the bulletins, and you are free to
distribute it amongst your own networks.
IN THIS BULLETIN
NEWS.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................1
Ocean Map Charts Path of Human Destruction ........................................................................................................................................................1
Healthy Seagrass (Cairns, Australia) ........................................................................................................................................................................2
Port Phillip Bay samples within green limits (Australia).............................................................................................................................................2
Power-Plant Flue Gas Enhances the Productivity of Seagrass (Tempe,AZ,USA)....................................................................................................2
Dredging 'destroying scallops' (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia).................................................................................................................................2
New report shows N. Naples mangrove forest improving (Naples,FL,USA) .............................................................................................................2
Melbourne dredging Environmental Management Plan approved ............................................................................................................................3
Oceans And Coasts Initiative Will Focus On Offshore Resources (Honolulu,HI,USA) .............................................................................................3
Endangered Okinawa Dugong Saved from US Marine Corps ­ For 3 Months (Hereford,England,UK)....................................................................3
Dangar Seagrass Project seeks interested community members.............................................................................................................................4
FROM HQ.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................4
NEW** Frequently Asked Questions .........................................................................................................................................................................4
Seagrass-Watch News Issue 31 ...............................................................................................................................................................................4
Seagrass-Watch Shop ..............................................................................................................................................................................................4
Virtual Herbarium ......................................................................................................................................................................................................4
Giveaways.................................................................................................................................................................................................................4
Future sampling dates...............................................................................................................................................................................................4
Handy Seagrass Links ..............................................................................................................................................................................................4

Please note: links to sources were active on date of publication. Some sources remove links periodically.
NEWS
Ocean Map Charts Path of Human Destruction
14 February 2008, By Eli Kintisch, ScienceNOW Daily News
BOSTON--Four years in the making, a groundbreaking new map of the state of the world's oceans was released
today, and its message is stark: Human activity has left a mark on nearly every square kilometer of sea, severely
compromising ecosystems in more than 40% of waters.
The map combines 17 anthropogenic stressors, including coastal runoff and pollution, warming water temperature
due to human-induced climate change, oil rigs that damage the sea floor, and five different kinds of fishing. Hundreds
of experts worked to weigh and compare the stressors, overlaying them on top of maps that the scientists built of
various ecosystems, with data obtained from shipping maps, satellite imagery, and scientific buoys. Then marine
scientists modeled how different ecosystems would be affected by the stressors, mapping so-called impact scores
onto square-kilometer-sized parcels worldwide. The scores correspond to colored pixels on the new map.
Those figures are sobering, says marine ecologist Benjamin Halpern of the National Center for Ecological Analysis
and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California, who led the effort. The data suggest, for example, that ecosystems found
in rocky reefs and on continental shelves "are being impacted even more" than coastal coral reefs, which get much
more attention. But coral reefs are in bad shape themselves: The map indicates that nearly half of global reefs are
experiencing serious, multiple impacts, including damage from fishing and ocean acidification.
"The takeaway message of the paper is that one needs to take into account the cumulative effects of different threats
to the ocean," says Duke University marine ecologist Larry Crowder, who wasn't part of the effort. Still, although the
map is a "bold attempt," Crowder notes that it is far from comprehensive. Some very severely threatened
ecosystems, such as certain rare reefs, are too small to show up on the map, he notes, and other data, such as the
cumulative impact of fishing historically, are simply not available. Scientists in the broader community will be able to
update the various data sets that form the map, which could fill some of these gaps.
more....................... http://www.seagrasswatch.org/news.html.
Related links: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200802151755.htm
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/946093.html
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Seagrass-Watch E-bulletin 17 February 2008
Healthy Seagrass (Cairns, Australia)
07 February 2008, The Cairns Post, p. 21
Seagrass-Watch reports that despite water temperatures of up to 38C, meadows at Yule Point and Green Island
have "never looked better". Mean seagrass cover was the highest since monitoring started in 2000 and canopy
heights were also seasonly high, providing good cover and food for marine animals.
For more information on Green Island and Yule Point sites....................... http://www.seagrasswatch.org/news.html.
Port Phillip Bay samples within green limits (Australia)
16 February, 2008, Melbourne Herald Sun
The first tests of dredging in Port Phillip Bay show the amount of sediment being stirred up is well within safe limits.
The Port of Melbourne Corporation yesterday released turbidity readings taken from monitoring buoys anchored at
key locations in the bay. The clean bill of health comes as 15 business groups and unions unite to promote the $1
billion project to deepen the bay's shipping channels.
Tests in the first week recorded a peak of 12 nepholometric turbidity units (a measure of suspended sediment) at the
monitoring buoy closest to the dredge. This was a third of the 35-unit limit in that area.
PoMC executive general manager Nick Easy said the test results showed the bay's assets were being protected. Mr
Easy said turbidity buoys had been placed to protect assets including seagrass, seabirds, fish, and sea squirts. He
defended a lack of monitoring of St Kilda's penguin population in the project's environmental management plan,
saying programs to monitor them already existed.
Full story and source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23221107-2862,00.html
Power-Plant Flue Gas Enhances the Productivity of Seagrass (Tempe,AZ,USA)
13 February 2008, CO2 Science Magazine
In a fascinating study that appeared as the lead article of volume 344 of the scientific journal Marine Ecology
Progress Series, Palacios and Zimmerman (2007) describe a unique experiment they conducted at the Duke Energy-
North America Power Plant at Moss Landing, California (USA), where flue gas generated by the power plant furnace
was piped approximately 1 km to a site where it was bubbled through outdoor flow-through seawater aquaria at rates
that produced four different aqueous CO2 treatments,
The researchers report that the elevated CO2 "led to significantly higher reproductive output, below-ground biomass
and vegetative proliferation of new shoots in light-replete treatments," i.e., those receiving light at 33% of the surface
irradiance level. More specifically, they write that "shoots growing at 36 µM CO2(aq) were 25% larger than those in
the unenriched treatment [16 µM CO2(aq)]," while "at 85 µM CO2(aq) shoots were 50% larger than those in the
unenriched treatment and at 1123 µM CO2(aq) shoots were almost twice as large as those in the unenriched
treatment." In addition, they found that at 1123 µM CO2(aq) "22% of the shoots differentiated into flowers, more than
twice the flowering output of the other treatments at this light level."
Full story and source: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V11/N7/EDIT.jsp
Dredging 'destroying scallops' (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)
11 February 2008, The Age
Sediment from the Port Phillip Bay dredging is wiping out scallop grounds along the Mornington Peninsula, it has
been claimed. Scuba diver Rubens Monaco said he and a colleague dived one kilometre from where the dredge
Queen of the Netherlands had just swept through on Saturday, and what they saw "was pretty devastating". The sea
floor was normally the habitat of seagrass, scallops, invertebrate animals such as sandworms, different fish, small
stingrays and octopuses, he said.
Port of Melbourne chief executive Stephen Bradford said he was not aware of any problems over the dredging and
declined to comment on progress made.
Full story and source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/dredging-destroying-scallops/2008/02/10/1202578607536.html
New report shows N. Naples mangrove forest improving (Naples,FL,USA)
9 February, 2008, By ERIC STAATS, Bonitanews
The Clam Bay mangrove forest in North Naples is on the mend overall but showing new signs of stress in some
places, according to a new monitoring report. A 50-acre mangrove die-off in the 1990s prompted Pelican Bay
taxpayers, Collier County officials and Pelican Bay developer WCI to launch a rescue mission, digging channels
through the forest to improve flushing.
In a report released last week, Pelican Bay Services Division consultants Turrell, Hall and Associates estimate 70
acres of mangroves aren't at optimum health compared to almost 75 acres in that category in 2006.
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As for sea grasses, Turrell, Hall and Associates expanded its monitoring in 2007 to cover the whole bay. The
expanded monitoring found seagrass beds that hadn't been found before but the report doesn't estimate seagrass
acreage. Se grasses and water quality will be getting more attention later this month.
Full story and source: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/feb/09/new-report-shows-n-naples-mangrove-forest-improvin/
Melbourne dredging Environmental Management Plan approved
Transport and Logistics News - Sydney,NSW,Australia
The Environmental Management Plan (EMP), the `rule book' for the Channel Deepening Project, has been given the
green light. Port of Melbourne Corporation (PoMC) today received the Federal Government approval for the EMP,
which details the environmental protections for Port Phillip Bay during the Channel Deepening Project. The Federal
Minister's approval of the 127 page document follows that of the Victorian Minister for Environment and Climate
Change, Mr Gavin Jennings, late last year.
The EMP also comprises 13 baywide monitoring programs and detailed work methods to provide broader information
on the status of key species, habitats and ecological processes in the bay. The programs will focus on fish stocks in
the bay, water quality, little penguins, nutrient cycling, plume intensity, contaminants in fish, algal bloom, Ramsar
wetlands and seagrass. The programs involve the use of various monitoring methods such as satellite imagery, aerial
photography, sampling for laboratory analysis, individual site monitoring, data collection, surveys, field
measurements and mapping.
The EMP is now available on the web. To view the EMP, please visit the Channel Deepening Project website
www.channelproject.com.
Full story and source: http://tandlnews.com.au/2008/02/05/article/JFLBDCYCRR.html
Oceans And Coasts Initiative Will Focus On Offshore Resources (Honolulu,HI,USA)
05 February, 2008 pacific magazine
U.S. President George W. Bush is proposing $7.9 million to launch a Department of the Interior initiative to help
protect ocean and coastal resources through unique partnerships to clean up marine debris, conserve coral reefs,
improve ocean science and map vital areas of the U.S. extended continental shelf. This increase is part of the
Department's overall contribution of $956 million to implement the Ocean Action Plan in 2009.
"Marine ecosystems are neither inexhaustible nor indestructible. They are vulnerable natural resources that need our
coordinated and concerted care," Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said in unveiling the initiative today. "By
working with state, regional and international organizations, we can better manage and protect ocean areas, coral
reefs, barrier islands, bays, deltas and wetlands. We can reduce the spread of aquatic diseases. And by doing that,
we can help protect communities, economies and wildlife that depend on these resources."
"On our coasts, nearly 80 percent of U.S. estuaries are threatened," Secretary Kempthorne said. "We have lost as
much as 90 percent of the sea grass in parts of the Gulf Coast. We are losing coastal wetlands that protect us from
major storms, purify water, and serve as nurseries for marine fisheries. Pollution and other human-caused threats
are stressing coral reefs around the world."
Included in the Ocean and Coastal Frontiers Initiative is an increase of $4.0 million to define U.S. jurisdiction of the
extended continental shelf under Law of the Sea requirements. Many nations that border the Arctic are now staking
seabed claims beyond 200 miles to secure rights to minerals and energy resources in the area. The project would
assure the United States has the geologic and geophysical information needed to determine extended continental
shelf boundaries successfully. The entire extended continental shelf includes energy and mineral resources with an
estimated value in excess of $1 trillion.
Full story and source: http://www.pacificmagazine.net/news/2008/02/05/oceans-and-coasts-initiative-will-focus-on-offshore-resources
Endangered Okinawa Dugong Saved from US Marine Corps ­ For 3 Months
(Hereford,England,UK)
January 2008, Wildlife Extra
The seagrass habitat of the endangered Okinawa dugong is safe from the U.S. Department of Defense, at least for
the next 90 days. The sea mammal will continue to swim in Henoko Bay off the Japanese island of Okinawa in the
place where the United States plans to build an airbase.
A federal judge in San Francisco Wednesday has ruled that the Department of Defense, DOD, is in violation of the
National Historic Preservation Act for failing to consider the impacts of a new airbase on the dugong in order to avoid
or mitigate any harm. The act requires agencies of the U.S. government to consider the impacts on cultural and
historic resources in other nations when undertaking activities outside the United States.
The lawsuit was brought by three individual Japanese citizens, six American and Japanese environmental
associations, and the Okinawa dugong, which is listed as a plaintiff in court documents. In her ruling, Judge Marilyn
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Seagrass-Watch E-bulletin 17 February 2008
Hall Patel wrote, `The current record contains no evidence that a single official from the DOD with responsibility for
the FRF has considered or assessed the available information on the dugong or the effects of the FRF.'
Judge Patel ordered the Department of Defense to `submit to the court, within 90 days, information necessary to
evaluate the impacts of the FRF on the dugong' and to `identify the DOD official or officials with authorization and
responsibility for reviewing and considering the information for purposes of mitigation. The court is troubled that the
2006 Roadmap embodying final plans for the construction of the FRF has received the highest levels of approvals
from the U.S. Secretaries of Defense and State. Yet, the impacts of the FRF on the dugong are currently not well-
understood,' wrote Judge Patel.
Full story and source: http://www.wildlifeextra.com/okinawa-dugong927.html
Dangar Seagrass Project seeks interested community members
Visitors and locals to the Hawkesbury River this summer have been treated to environment workshops discussing
Dangar Island seagrass. Workshop attendees joined representatives from FishCare, the Marine and Coastal
Community Network, the NSW Volunteer Rescue Association and the Central Coast Community Environment
Network to observe first hand how important seagrass is for the juvenile fish, sea horses, pipefish and turtles that live
there.
The Summer workshops held at Dangar Island proved popular with the local community, indicating a high level of
interest for protecting the seagrass bed. People interested in future seagrass activities should contact Kristy Guise at
Hornsby Council on 9847 6899. The Dangar Island Seagrass Protection and Education program is a joint initiative
between Hornsby Council and the Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority, funded through the
Natural Heritage Trust.
FROM HQ
NEW** Frequently Asked Questions http://www.seagrasswatch.org/faq.html
Seagrass-Watch News Issue 31 http://www.seagrasswatch.org/newsletters.html
Seagrass-Watch Shop http://www.seagrasswatch.org/shop.html
Virtual Herbarium http://www.seagrasswatch.org/herbarium.html
Giveaways http://www.seagrasswatch.org/shop.html#GIVE1
·
Seagrasses of Australia
·
Phytoplankton Guide
·
Seagrass Biology (Volume 2 only)
· Bookmarks

· Stickers
·
Seagrass-Watch Newsletter 31 (hardcopy)
·
Seagrass-Watch Newsletter 30 (hardcopy)
·
Seagrass-Watch Newsletter 29 (hardcopy)
·
Seagrass-Watch Newsletter 28 (hardcopy)
Future sampling dates http://www.seagrasswatch.org/sampling.html
Handy Seagrass Links http://www.seagrasswatch.org/links.html
************************************************************
DISCLAIMER

News articles posted as a free community service for the purposes of non-commercial education, research and study; review and the reporting of news; and archived for reference of students and researchers as a 'fair dealing' activity
under Australian Copyright Law.

Seagrass-Watch HQ does not guarantee, and accepts no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any material contained in this bulletin. Seagrass-Watch HQ
recommends that readers exercise their own skill and care with respect to their use of the information in this bulletin and that readers careful y evaluate the accuracy, currency, completeness and relevance of the material in the bul etin for
their purposes. This bul etin is not a substitute for independent professional advice and users should obtain any appropriate professional advice relevant to their particular circumstances. The material in this bulletin may include the views or
recommendations of third parties, which do not necessarily reflect the views of Seagrass-Watch HQ (or those of the Queensland Government) or indicate its commitment to a particular course of action.

Seagrass-Watch HQ is supported by the Australian Government's Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility (Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts) represented in North Queensland by the Reef and
Rainforest Research Centre, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), the Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries and by private donations.

Seagrass-Watch E- Bulletin is compiled by Len McKenzie & Rudi Yoshida.
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