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  Yahoo News 6 Apr 07
Global warming threatens natural wonders

WWF 5 Apr 07
Natural wonders feel the heat

Brussels, Belgium – From the Amazon to the Himalayas, ten of the world’s greatest natural wonders face destruction if the climate continues to warm at the current rate, warns WWF.

Released ahead of the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Second Working Group Report, a WWF briefing — Saving the world's natural wonders from climate change — reports on how the devastating impacts of global warming are damaging some of the world’s greatest natural wonders.

They include the: Amazon; Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs; Chihuahua Desert in Mexico and the US; hawksbill turtles in the Caribbean; Valdivian temperate rainforests in Chile; tigers and people in the Indian Sundarbans; Upper Yangtze River in China; wild salmon in the Bering Sea; melting glaciers in the Himalayas; and East African coastal forests.

“While we continue to pressure governments to make meaningful cuts in heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, we are also working on adaptation strategies to offer protection to some of the world’s natural wonders as well as the livelihoods of the people who live there,” said Dr Lara Hansen, Chief Scientist of WWF’s Global Climate Change Programme.

“We are trying to buy people and nature time, as actions to stop the root cause of climate change are taken.”

Faced with water shortages along the Yangtze River, WWF is working in China with the government and local authorities to help communities best adapt to climate change impacts. This includes developing a climate witness project in the Yangtze River basin so that people affected by climate change can speak for themselves.

In the Valdivian forests of Chile and Argentina, the global conservation organization is working with local partners to reduce forest fires and adjust conservation plans to ensure that resistant forests — where 3,000-year-old trees are found — can be protected.

“From turtles to tigers, from the desert of Chihuahua to the great Amazon – all these wonders of nature are at risk from warming temperatures,” stressed Dr Hansen. “While adaptation to changing climate can save some, only drastic action by governments to reduce emissions can hope to stop their complete destruction.”

END NOTES:

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change.

• On 2 February, the IPCC issued the first of three working group reports of its Fourth Assessment Report on the underlying science of climate change in Paris. According to the IPCC’s Working Group I, humans are the primary cause of the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases are causing global climate change.

• The report of Working Group II, to be released in Brussels on 6 April 2007, will assess impacts, adaptation and vulnerability of the Earth to climate change. It will look at consequences for the environment and nature, for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, health and disaster prevention.

Yahoo News 6 Apr 07
Global warming threatens natural wonders
By Arthus Max, Associated Press

BRUSSELS, Belgium - An environmental group said Thursday some of the world's greatest natural treasures are threatened with destruction because of global warming — from the Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rain forests and the unique ecosystem of the Mexican desert.

On the sidelines of a climate change conference in Brussels, the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a list of 10 regions suffering serious damage from global warming, and where it has projects to limit further damage or help people adapt to new conditions.

"What we are talking about are the faces of the impacts of climate change," said Lara Hansen, WWF's chief scientist on climate issues.

The group said coral reefs around the world, including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the MesoAmerican Reef off Belize, begin to lose their color and die with a rise in ocean waters of just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. They are also threatened by the increasing ferocity of tropical storms, another effect of global warming.

Environmentalists project the temperature of the Amazon River could rise by 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit within 50 years, turning between up to 60 percent of the rain forest into a dry savanna. In the Bering Sea, warmer winters are leading to the earlier breakup of spring ice and driving salmon stocks closer to the North Pole, disrupting the Arctic ecosystem.

Melting ice is also diluting sea water and affecting nutrients for small organisms on which fish feed. In the Valdivian rain forest in Chile and Argentina, the Alerce tree — which can live for 3,000 years — is threatened by forest fires and declining rainfall. Melting glaciers mean groundwater in the region will also become more scarce.

The Chihuahua Desert straddling the U.S.-Mexican border is suffering from drought and intensive farming and overgrazing. North America's largest desert, the Chihuahua has 3, 500 unique plant species, including an array of cactus and yucca, that could be at risk.

Many of the regions at risk were singled out in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an authoritative body of 2,500 scientists.

The report, which is undergoing governmental review at the five-day conference in Brussels, projects specific consequences for each degree of rising global temperatures, which the IPCC agrees is largely caused by human activity.

Some damage at the 10 areas listed by WWF is irreversible, such as shrinking glaciers, Hansen said. Certain types of coral reefs, however, can recover. The WWF listing also said:

_Six of seven species of Caribbean turtles are endangered as rising sea levels swamp nesting beaches and feeding grounds. _Some Himalayan glaciers are receding by 33 to 49 feet per year, causing floods now and threatening summer drought in the future.

_Glaciers in the Tibetan plateau that feed China's Yangtze river are also shrinking, adding to water flows now but threatening shortages of water, food and electricity to 450 million people as they reach a critical point.

_The Bay of Bengal is rising and increasingly violent rainstorms in India could inundate coastal islands, destroy mangrove forests and affect India's Sunderbans, home to the largest wild population of Bengal tigers and to 1 million people.

_Scientists predict East African coastal forests and the offshore ecosystem will also be vulnerable to more frequent and intense storms that will damage agriculture, shoreline mangroves and coral reefs.
links

Saving Nature on the WWF website

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By Seth Borenstein Yahoo News 31 Mar 07

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