News from Peru

This following press release summarises work carried out by a collaborative team of which I am and active member. In Jan/Feb 2014 we are planning a tagging expedition to the region. If you would like to be part of that expedition, please email me here. To download the original press release (with images) from my site, click here. Press Release joint collaborative project for mantas and mobulas, Peru. Development of a conservation project in the north of Peru has made significant inroads into understanding the human impact on manta and mobula populations in the region; but ‘there is still a long way to go’, say the leaders collaborating on the project. Peruvian conservation NGO Planeta Oceano, shark and ray conservationists Shawn Heinrichs and Mary O’Malley, and British manta conservationist and Manta Trust project leader Mark Harding formed a team in late 2011. The project aims to collaborate closely with fishing communities to identify risks to internationally threatened species of manta and mobula rays that are found off the coast of Peru’s Northern provinces and to investigate a possible migratory link between manta rays in Peru and Ecuador. Northern Peru is host to an aggregation of Oceanic Manta Rays (Manta birostris), a highly vulnerable species that is believed to take 10 or more years to mature and gives birth to only one pup every two to five years. Peru also holds a considerable population of mobula rays, species that are close relatives of the mantas and also of international conservation concern. Both rays are sometimes used in the local food dish ‘Chinguirito’. Oceanic mantas are reported by fishermen to migrate with the seasons to and from Ecuador where Mark Harding was the first person to begin researching these mantas back in 2005. This regional population of these rare and iconic animals is considered to be one of the most significant in the world. Planeta Oceano’s director Kerstin Forsberg says “We are turning up regular and exciting aspects of the behaviour of mantas and mobulas in the region, and also learning a great deal about the trends followed by the fishing communities there. This could be the key to conserving these species as well as helping local communities to develop more lucrative tourism revenue from the rays. Giant Mantas are a greatly sought after ‘megafauna’ (marine version of Elephants and Lions) and people will travel from all over the world to come and see them. We have already identified one regular aggregation point for the mantas and we know the likelihood of more sites existing is really high. However the most exciting thing we have found is that pregnant females and also juvenile mantas are present along the northern coastline. Manta rays have been part of Peruvian culture since pre-Incan times, showing on artwork made between 200BCE - 600CE, so to be working with these rays and to discover that Peru could be an internationally significant nursery site is very exciting”. Neighbouring Ecuador has spearheaded international conservation for Giant Mantas starting with national protection in 2010 throughout Ecuador’s waters and followed by their 2011 proposal to list the Giant Manta on the Convention on Migratory Species, an international treaty that encourages nations to cooperate to protect severely threatened animals that migrate across national borders. Success at CMS encouraged Ecuador, along with Brazil and Colombia, to propose Manta rays for international trade protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 2012. This March in Bangkok, Thailand, the 177 countries that are party to this binding international treaty will vote on the proposal. Mark Harding says, “With a high likelihood that Peru shares the same Giant Manta population with Ecuador, as well as being host to a nursery site that could be critical to the survival of this important manta population, we hope that Peru will join Ecuador by implementing protective measures for Giant Mantas whilst they are in Peruvian waters and supporting the CITES proposal this March”. This project is already attracting international attention and we are pleased to announce the recent grant from the New England Aquarium support this work. Collaborators continue to look for further funding as the future plans for the project are considerable. Guy Stevens, director of international manta conservation group, The Manta Trust says “We know so little about the lives of these beautiful ocean giants, so projects like this are extremely important to the global understanding and conservation of these charismatic animals, especially in the face of the increasing global threats now faced by these species. Unfortunately, in today’s commercial world our marine resources must earn their protection, as simply attempting to gain protection based purely on intrinsic values alone will not work. Science is the tool which enables conservationists, nations and the international community to make informed and worthwhile decisions which can help curb the growing pressures exerted upon our planet’s oceans and their inhabitants, paving the way for a more sustainable approach to the utilisation of our natural heritage. This multifaceted approach to the conservation of these species in Peru will be the key to its continued success.”

The end of the Amazon Rainforest?

The end of the Amazon rainforest could be in sight if a highly controversial road is allowed to go ahead, ploughing its way through the heart of Peru's most pristine rainforest, disturbing at least two previously un-contacted tribes.

The proposed road will connect directly with the 'Inter-Oceanica' highway, already well under way in Brazil, that would make road transport possible between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Such a highway has been the nightmare of conservationists for years, but until now political instability in the entire Amazon region has kept the completion of it at bay.

However, recently, many inter-Amazonian governments have stabilised due to high economic growth fuelled by a number of factors, including not least the boom in the Chinese economy that has seen investment in the Latin American region spiral without check.



If the 'Inter-Oceanica' highway goes ahead the fragmentation of the Amazon basin is likely to grow apace, so bringing the end the huge rainforest tract as we know it.

Scarred Earth

In just over 24 hours we will have completed the first decade of the millennium. It is an ideal time to look back over our recent history and see how we are faring from a conservation standpoint. The term Shifting Baselines entered the conservationist's vocabulary some time ago, along with the help of Jack Black and other Hollywood celebrities, they raised the perspective that we do not notice the changes going on around us; that over generations, even our own short lifetimes, the changes happening slowly around us are absorbed into our psyche and go pretty much unnoticed. Generational shifts are even less noticeable, with tales told to us by our grandparents of how this wetland used to be twice as large, or that housing project used to be a field with hedgerows full of wildlife, long forgotten by us in the mists of our childhood. And our own children, what we look upon as a degraded and destroyed environment, they will look upon as normal. And so what of our grandchildren?
I may be writing this at the risk of sounding a tad sentimental, but a recent online application made me realise that there are ways we can accurately look back into the past to weigh up the impact we are having on our planet, and what the real issues will be for our species in the years to come. The UNEP maps are viewable in Google Earth and other applications, that allow side by side comparisons of satellite images of a wide variety of sites around the world from very recent images and ones dating back numbers of years. The contrast of some of the images are stark to say the least, and certainly bring the changes we accept on a daily basis home to us. I recommend you look at it, if you are genuinely concerned about natural resource depletion, it is the cold flannel slap in the face you have been looking for to welcome you into 2011.

Get the Bite Back Calendar for 2011...

O.K. so it might be a little tiny bit late for Christmas shopping, but there is still plenty of time until January the 1st to get a Bite Back Calendar. It is featured here in a BBC Earth News piece today. I have long been a fan of Bite Back and recently had the pleasure of meeting founder and driving force Graham Buckingham. Bite Back have done an incredibly good job of bringing the sustainability issue of seafood to the attention of the UK's largest retailers, with several successful efforts at getting shark products and other endangered seafood removed from large retail shelves. Graham and his crew do sterling work for sharks and rays, and a purchase of this calendar is not just an option; It is essential.

The Real Deal

There has been an unfortunate amount of banter going on in the shark diving community over the past few weeks, and recently has come to something of a nasty climax. I am in two minds at this point whether or not to comment, but I think that one overbearing issue should not be ignored, nor forgotten. That issue, conservation, is the one that drives us all, and probably why we are all here in the first place.
The more infighting and back stabbing that goes on, the weaker we become as a group. Marine conservationists are a wierd bunch of poeple, we all ask for as much help as possible to achieve our aim from a joint perspective, but when it comes to working together for that sole aim; ideals, objectives, and cashflow get in the way, and before we know it, barriers go up and we become a collective of individuals, rather than a unified movement. This, I guess, given the nature of the beast, is inevitable. We all paint our garden fence nice and pretty, to attract the vital incomes that keep us all going, but that same pretty fence is a barrier to powerful alliances and friendships that could help us achieve our prime objective: to conserve the ocean realm.
I can count on one hand the individuals who I know that fully understand the significance of this, and one or two of them I know are involved in the recent debacle. I am surprised, and saddened by the tone of recent public communication over the issue, and I hope that all parties involved will consider the image I posted above, and make the right decisions over the coming months to unify a quickly dissolving alliance of like minds, for the benefit of all of us.
The SA press today released a story about a poacher being killed in Gansbaai, and typically of the media, the overriding tone of the article was not how we might control poachers, but whether the shark feeding industry in the area was to blame for the poachers death. It is this I guess that prompted me to write this blog. We have enough people in our world trying to shut doors on our good work. We should not be shooting each other in the foot. For the sake of sharks all over the world, the prime movers in the industry must reunify, and form a transparent, faultless standard for feeding practice that is beyond reproach.