The latest issue of Seagrass-Watch news (the official magazine of the global
seagrass and assessment program) is now available online at
http://www.seagrasswatch.org/magazine.html.

Special thanks to:  Len McKenzie
Principal Scientist
Seagrass-Watch Program Leader
Seagrass-Watch HQ
Email: hq@seagrasswatch.org

http://www.iisd.ca/download/pdf/sd/ymbvol68num5e.pdf

A summary report of the Fifth Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts and Islands  

Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in collaboration with the Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, UNESCO, and the Government of France

I am writing to let you know that Forest Rohwer’s new book “Coral Reefs in
the Microbial Seas” is now out!
The book is written so anyone can understand the evidence linking coral reef
health and microbes. There are humorous stories at the beginning of each
chapter to convey the main points and the art work is wonderful (done in pen
and ink by a famous tattoo artist, Derek Vosten).  The science is very
current and will give you a good overview of marine microbiology,
metagenomics, and coral reef sciences.
Here’s the publisher’s descriptions:

   For millennia, coral reefs have flourished as not only one of the
planet’s most magnificent ecosystems, but also as its most biodiverse.
However, since the 1980s the corals have been struggling. Both coral
bleaching and disease have spread globally. During recent research
expeditions to the remote Line Islands, microbial ecologist Forest Rohwer
and his colleagues found that the large-scale changes to the reefs in recent
decades are the work of the microbes as they respond to various human
impacts. Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas is the first book to recount this
story, complete with introductions to the coral reef ecosystem, 21st century
metagenomic research tools, and the coral’s microbial and viral partners. An
engaging book, its science is liberally spiced with artistic illustrations
and playful stories from the research expeditions.

 If you want to browse an excerpt, please look at coralreefsystems.org  and
click on “Our Book”.
 -Becky

—
Dr. Rebecca Vega Thurber

Florida International University
Department of Biological Sciences
Office MSB-355
Lab MSB-330
3000 NE 151 Street
North Miami, FL 33181
(305) 919-4009
(305) 919-4030 FAX
rvegathurber@gmail.com
_______________________________________________
Coral-List mailing list
Coral-List@coral.aoml.noaa.gov
http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list

Learn more at:  http://www.savejapandolphins.org/   DV

Tokyo, Tuesday, June 8:
I’ve just arrived in Tokyo, tired and hungry, and afraid I might be turned away by immigration.

But surprisingly, they escorted me through a single lane away from everyone else and, after passing me through the biometric fingerprint and retinal scan, I was met by a horde of 30 police and a Japanese media blitz that surrounded me in a frenzy of TV and still cameras, lit up by scores of portable lights.

Onlookers must have thought I was some kind of film celebrity, although in the past the Japanese media always ignored me. When asked about The Cove movie, I mentioned that Japan’s constitutional article 21 prohibits the censorship of an issue where the people have the right to know. After that I was quickly rescued by officials of Unplugged Inc, distributors of the Oscar-winning Cove documentary, who whisked me to their car bound for my hotel in Tokyo.

Yesterday a total of 55 Japanese people, including journalists and filmmakers, harshly criticized theatre owners in Tokyo and Osaka for giving in to the demands of the Nationalist activists to cancel screenings of the award-winning Cove documentary. The outraged group said the cancellations threaten freedom of expression.
Read the article here:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2010-06-08-dolphin-killing_N.htm?csp=34

The Cove is still scheduled to be opened in more than 20 theatres later this month.

We are off to a very good start in getting the truth out to the people of Japan about the dolphin slaughter. This will be the first chance the general public in Japan have the opportunity to view The Cove.

Thanks for all your help in supporting our efforts here. It is making a huge difference.

RIC O’BARRY;
Campaign Director, Save Japan Dolphins, Earth Island Institute

http://www.thew2o.net/blog-entry/world-ocean-day-june-8-2010

We are celebrating World Ocean Day, a date designated by the United Nations to recognize our relationship with the ocean through so many different ways of connection. The official day is June 8, and around the world, through the World Ocean Network, The Ocean Project, and many other associations with ocean interests, events will take place to highlight the value of ocean resources. There will be maritime festivals and beach clean-ups, school projects and environmental presentations the world over – in Africa and Asia, Europe and the Americas. What was once a bright idea is now an international event that for one brief moment focuses some part of ephemeral world interest on the ocean and its benefit for all mankind.

Of course, every day is ocean day. And we can claim that with the authority of the headlines that every day point to an ocean issue of import:  the catastrophic disaster of a failed oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, incidents of piracy and attack in Asian waters, the decline of fisheries across the world economy, and growing evidence of the negative impact of climate change on the ocean and its capacity for supporting all aspects of human survival.

What is Ocean Day meant to do? If all those concerned with ocean issues were to shout at once, there would be a compelling noise, enough to let us know that others around the world also care, enough to give us confidence that our whole is greater by the sum of our individual voices, and perhaps enough to penetrate the consciousness of a political structure that for the most part ignores ocean issues until it is too late.

Recently, around the climate issue, 350.org, a small organization with a big climate agenda, used the Internet to mobilize what has been characterized as the largest public expression of environmental concern in history. Literally thousands of organizations, encompassing millions of people, gathered round one issue and one response on one day. On that day as well, an estimated 500,000 marched through the streets of Copenhagen in a comparable expression on the same issue, a manifestation intended to influence the many national leaders and policy makers who were gathered there to conclude a climate treaty.

That effort failed. The thousands and millions were not enough.  What, then, does it take for the political will of the people coalesced around a single issue to be heard and accommodated? The analogy that occurs of course is the ocean itself, believed to be infinite in its capacity to dissolve the toxins, absorb the oil, sequester the CO2, cleanse the waste, circulate the protein and fresh water, heal itself along with the poisons of others.  Cleaning the beaches is a reminder of what the ocean cannot assimilate – the poly nets and fishing lines, plastic bags and containers, and, as in today’s news, the congealed residue of too much oil spilled, the dead fish and birds, and the destroyed lives of many who make their living from the sea, “environmental refugees” in the most developed nation on earth. That detritus is ample evidence that the ocean has reached its limits and that, if we continue to despoil it, we risk a vast, terrible, foreseeable, irretrievable loss.

When we stand by the sea, when we imagine it in our minds, we perceive Nature in the reality of its movement, shifting light, and sense of life. When we study the ocean, we understand its contribution to our health and well being through water, food, energy, and economic and cultural connection. Why would we put such a thing at risk? Why, deliberately, through acts of commission and omission, would we allow such a thing to be compromised, poisoned, and killed? Surely, if on Ocean Day we can come to the realization that such an act is truly self-destructive, we can then use every other day to spread the word, to act in some overt way, and to otherwise express the will of one, becoming thousands, becoming millions, who demand that the ocean be returned from scarcity to abundance, from conflict to accommodation, from despoliation to sustainability.

The ocean will serve us well, if only, worldwide, we demand to serve it better.