Sectors are a kind of catch-share system. That means fishermen get a percentage of the year’s total allowable catch (TAC). If scientists set the TAC at 100 tons, say, and you own 10 percent, you can catch 10 tons that year. But in sectors, that allotment – the 10 percent – goes to a group rather than an individual. The group then breaks it up among members.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has yet to approve the sectors, and the proposed sectors, which would go live in 2010, are voluntary. (The Magnuson-Stevens Act says overfishing must end by 2010.) Beginning in 2012, boats that choose to remain outside the sectors will also operate under total allowable catch, to keep things fair.

Here’s what’s so interesting about the sector idea: It mixes socialist and capitalist approaches to fishery management. The fishermen now “own” a share of the sea, a solidly corporate proposition. That theoretically is an incentive for stewardship. If fishermen can tread lightly and fish in ways that continue to grow the stock, that 10 percent allocation will be worth more fish next year. Greed, or at least self-interest, becomes the impetus for conservation.

(more…)

What would you expect to find some years later?

Writing in The American Naturalist, scientists who conducted this experiment in Trinidad say they found that the guppies quickly adapted to the conditions in each river.

Eight years – between 13 and 26 guppy generations – after releasing 200 guppies into predator-filled and predator-free waters, the scientists found that the two fish populations had divergent reproductive strategies.

With predators present, females produced more embryos per reproductive cycle. They might have only one chance to procreate, the scientists reason, so better to do it all at once.

On the other hand, with predators absent, female fish produced fewer embryos. There, the mother fish conserved resources for the future.

To confirm that these adaptations did, in fact, make the guppies fitter, the scientists swapped a few to see how they’d fare in different environs.

Fish adapted to predators went into peaceful waters, and vice versa.

As expected, the scientists observed that the original inhabitants had a 54 to 59 percent better chance of surviving than the new arrivals.

Wind turbines, a solar water heater, and the world’s highest green roof are just a few of the proposed improvements that the building’s owners and architects announced Wednesday for the 110-story, 1,450-foot skyscraper .

(more…)

Mammals that are relatives of today’s tapirs, rhinos, and lemurs inhabited swampy forests in Greenland, which were much like those now found in the southeastern United States.

Alligators, giant tortoises, and snakes lived there, too.

Scientists have long wondered: Did these animals – some of which reached 1,000 pounds – migrate there seasonally, or did they stay year-round through the winter darkness?

(more…)

But would that really be so bad? Sure, much of the South would be unbearable during the summer months (as would many of those tropical countries), but think of all that beautiful real estate in Alaska that we’d open up! And many of us here in Boston would willingly trade a dozen or more 100-degree F. days each year to wear shorts and flip-flops through October. Less snow shoveling, more Frisbee tossing. What’s not to like?

(more…)

The International Whaling Commission has just wrapped up its annual meeting in Portugal with a whaling ban still intact, but with fissures deepening between the save-the-whales crowd and countries such as Japan, which wants to see commercial whaling reinstated, at least on a limited basis.

(more…)

But by the 1990s, decades of overfishing by modern fleets had taken its toll. Cod stocks on Georges Bank and the Grand Banks collapsed.

Scientists have a number of explanations for why, somewhat bafflingly, they have yet to recover. For example, a pulse of cold water from the north may have slowed cod’s reproductive success. Or changes in the balance of species may have made life more difficult for cod. But one of the more intriguing theories relates to how predation – in this case, fishing – becomes an evolutionary force itself.

(more…)

They’ve included hazards to boaters, hazards to endangered migratory birds, hazards to aircraft flying between the Vineyard and the mainland, and of course, hazards to the property value of big-buck homes with scenic views of Nantucket Sound. Oh yes, one can’t forget the installation of transmission lines to link the turbines to the utility grid. And that’s just for one relatively small wind farm.

Now researchers are looking at another potential “unintended consequence” – the likelihood that collectively, groups of large wind farms in one region could alter weather patterns downwind of the turbines in another region.

So far, evidence suggests that large collections of wind farms could have small but measurable effects on atmospheric circulation patterns, cloudiness, and temperatures over substantial distances.

(more…)

This clean-electricity source is part of an innovative program conducted by Grameen Shakti, the environmental arm of Grameen Bank, which won a Nobel Peace Prize for its pioneering use of microloans in Bangladesh.

Its projects also include biogas production, improved cookstove technology, and solar power training centers for women.

Grameen Shakti (meaning “village energy” in Bangla) was started in 1996 as a way to bring electricity and better living standards to the country’s rural poor. “At that time, 85 percent [of the total population of 140 million] had no electricity,” says Dipal Barua, the nonprofit group’s managing director.

He’s speaking from his 19th floor office, which is lined with solar panel prototypes and overlooks the country’s capital, Dhaka.

When Grameen Shakti began, about 120 million people in the country didn’t have access to a source of electricity, he says. Most were poor rural residents living in primitive conditions. By providing electricity to them, the organization hoped it would also help increase education rates and economic opportunities.

Now, 13 years after the program’s inception, its efforts reach almost 2 million people in every part of Bangladesh.

Grameen Shakti first focused on solar panels because, as Dr. Barua notes, “Bangladesh has plenty of sunshine.”

And not only are solar panels portable, they are also better for the environment and more reliable than the nation’s present energy grid, which is not only unavailable to most areas outside cities but also prone to frequent blackouts.

Traditionally, most rural dwellers rely on kerosene or candles as energy sources. But they’re costly, give negligible light, and emit fumes.

Following the model popularized by the Grameen Bank, Grameen Shakti used microcredit loans for disseminating the panels. Buyers make down payments of 15 to 25 percent and then pay off the loans in two or three years.

The cost of the panels is offset by the buyers’ lower energy costs. For example, explains Barua, shop owners who purchase a solar panel system no longer have to buy candles in order to stay open at night. Previously, a shopkeeper might have spent $6.50 a month on candles, but for a small solar panel system with a battery, the monthly payment is about half that. And in addition, the solar unit would allow the store to stay open longer, generating more income.

Mawna, a rural village several hours north of Dhaka in the Gazipur region, is a model of Grameen Shakti’s success. Farmers like Mrs. Abdul Kalev can return home after a day of work, turn on the lights, and relax in front of a TV set powered by an 85-watt solar panel perched on the roof.

Kalev says that her six-person household enjoys its new energy source immensely. They’re pleased because it has improved their lives and also helps the environment. Now that they have reliable electricity, the children can study in the evening and don’t have to breathe kerosene fumes.

“Grameen Shakti’s innovative approach is not only providing families in the developing world with clean, regular energy sources,” says Katherine Miller, United Nations Foundation communications director, “it is helping strengthen local communities and providing economic opportunities.”

“Eventually we thought [about] how to maintain the [solar panel] system,” says Barua. And the group wanted to “involve the poor women also.” They realized that when women improve their lives, the whole family benefits.

One issue about the maintenance of the solar panels was that in this Muslim society, and especially in the conservative rural areas, women are home alone during the day and aren’t allowed to let in male technicians unless a male family member is present.

However, having female technicians would automatically eliminate this issue, they realized. So women’s engineering technology centers were created.

Now women like Champa Akter, who works at the engineering technology center in Mawna, learn to assemble home solar systems and also how to install and maintain them.

The technicians live on-site at the regional offices and go out into the field to provide service as needed. So far, the program has set up 20 centers and trained more than 1,000 female technicians.

Down a dirt road in Mawna and behind a large chicken coop of 2,000 egg-laying, red-feathered hens is Mrs. Mohammad Abdur Razzak’s underground biogas plant. It’s another project initiated by Grameen Shakti. The organization realized that individual farmers usually keep two to three cows or chickens, and wanted to help them set up small-scale biogas plants to use the livestock’s waste to their advantage.

Razzak hoses her poultry coop’s waste into the connected chamber, where it ferments and creates biogas, which is released into a pipe that’s connected to her cooking stove.

Since Razzak’s animals produce more gas than she uses, she makes an extra $71 per month by renting 10 cookstoves and the excess gas to her neighbors.

The leftover slurry that isn’t converted into gas is sold to local farmers for use as organic fertilizer.

A 2006 World Bank study found that rural women and children under the age of 5 had the most exposure to indoor pollution from wood-burning cookstoves. To help alleviate this, Grameen Shakti designed a more fuel-efficient stove that produces less smoke and costs less to use.

It burns half the wood of a traditional stove, the smoke is funneled away from the cooking area via a pipe, and the ashes can be used as fertilizer. “It’s very environmentally friendly,” says Barua.

Inspired by Grameen Shakti, the UN Foundation “helped finance a project in India that makes solar power affordable for more than 1,000 families” in 2006, Miller says. “We are also currently working on expanding portable, clean-energy cookstove programs across Africa.”

But can this be a successful model in more urban areas, where energy needs are greater? There is cautious optimism.

“If rural areas are successful in having expanded the generation capacity of renewable energy [and] solar energy,” says Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, chairman of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of Bangladesh, “then it can be replicated in [Bangladesh’s] cities in a gradual manner. If it can be supplied and be guaranteed, then people will go for it.”

Unfortunately, that’s apparently about as effective a pollution-control technique as the measures China implemented for the 2008 Summer Olympics, if a new study is any indication. The Chinese government made Herculean efforts to ensure that the air quality in Beijing during the 2008 summer Games would meet World Health Organization standards. Colleague Peter Ford wrote about those efforts at the time.

Beijing’s effort wasn’t fruitless. The study notes that during the last three months of 2008, concentrations of the largest of the two particles types researchers measured – particles 10 microns across – dropped by 9 to 27 percent compared with the same period in 2007. The team attributes the decline to tighter controls on sources of pollution and perhaps the economic downturn.

But for all the hard work, Beijing’s air quality violated WHO guidelines from 81 to 100 percent of the time, depending on which of two pollution-particle sizes you choose (either size is unpleasant).

The study appears in a recent issue of Environmental Science and Technology. A team of scientists from Oregon State University and Peking University in Beijing made the measurements.

(more…)