Did you know about 13 percent the planet’s ecosystems have no protected areas specifically aimed at conserving biodiversity?

A new paper in Biological Conservation by my colleagues Clinton Jenkins and Lucas Joppa predicts that without major investments in conservation globally, earth will miss the target set by the international Convention on Biological Diversity: To protect 10% of all ecological regions by 2010.

“Protected areas are the best chance we have to save the world’s biodiversity, and they are going to play an increasing role in climate change negotiations as well,” says Joppa. “Missing a conservation milestone is regrettable, but we hope our results turn attention to the achievable tasks at hand, and not to what the world has failed to accomplish.”

I hope so too. On a more positive note, the article also reports that Brazil is protecting a lot of the Amazon.

I’m at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific entering the second full day of an oceans workshop. Here’s a glance at my panel from yesterday:

Scientists and Communicators Working Together:  A Panel Discussion to Identify Keys to Success.  (Jerry Schubel, moderator)

VADM Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr U.S. Navy Retired, former NOAA Administrator

RADM Richard West, U.S. Navy Retired, former oceanographer/navigator of the Navy, past president, Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE)

Sheril Kirshenbaum, associate at Duke University and co-author with Chris Mooney; Unscientific America: How Scienctific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future

Edward Maibach, professor, Department of Communications, director of Center for Climate Change Communications, George Mason University

(more…)

Up to 90 percent of the coral surrounding Okinawa’s islands has died off in the last decade, so scientists are initiating one of the largest coral restoration projects in the world.  Why the need for rescue?  Overfishing, disease, pollution, acidification, global warming, and more have decimated reefs (and biodiversity) worldwide. They need rehab in the worst way–we’re talking more than Amy Winehouse. Hence, the Sekisei Lagoon Reef is now being used to test new techniques for transplanting coral.

Sure it sounds promising, but will it work? Critics say the project is wasted effort given coastal redevelopment, agricultural runoff, and other activities that destroyed coral in the first place are still going strong… not to mention oceans continue getting warmer as the result of our pesky carbon problem.  Still, let’s not throw in the towel on this possibility yet.  It’s already been in progress for four years and although survival is low, investigators remind naysayers that reef recovery happens slowly over decades.  Furthermore, transplantation techniques are improving with some success.

So for now the jury’s out on whether Japan’s coral restoration initiative will succeed, but I’m encouraged that enough of us care about shifting baselines to take action.  Read more at the NYTimes…

Last year we participated in Earth Hour, an international movement demonstrating that millions of people around the world are ready to do something about climate change. Join us again on Saturday March 28, 2009 at 8:30PM (your local time):

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first global election, between Earth and global warming.

For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.