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Category Archives: Islands

GCP LCC Lunch Webinar Series: Barrier Islands Vulnerability (January 7, 2015) – Video

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GCP LCC Lunch Webinar Series: Barrier Islands Vulnerability (January 7, 2015)
Fragile barrier islands are important nesting habitat for focal species of the Gulf Coast Prairie Landscape Conservation Cooperative, such as brown pelicans, sea turtles, and black skimmers....

By: Gulf Coast Prairie LCC

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GCP LCC Lunch Webinar Series: Barrier Islands Vulnerability (January 7, 2015) - Video

Bay of Islands Police arrest car thieves

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Police have arrested a number of people in relation to vehicle crime around the Bay of Islands.

Over the last week there have been several theft ex-cars and stolen motor vehicles in the area and Police started an operation to target the offenders.

The operation began following a car that was stolen at Waitangi on Tuesday night.

The car was spotted by Police near Towai and the driver sped off.

Police spiked the car north of Hikurangi, but it continued driving.

Police eventually stopped the car at Whananaki South.

As a result of this incident one 17-year-old man is facing eight charges of unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, one charge attempted unlawful taking and a drug charge.

A second 17-year-old man is facing charges of dangerous driving, failing to stop, unlawfully getting into a vehicle and unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.

About 12.30am on Wednesday some offenders were seen trying to get into a vehicle near the Opua Marina.

They were disturbed and took off in another stolen vehicle.

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Bay of Islands Police arrest car thieves

NEWS: Polar bears heading to Arctic islands for more food, new research suggests

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NEWS: Around the ArcticJanuary 08, 2015 - 9:45 am NUNATSIAQ NEWS

Polar bears appear to be on the move, heading to Canadas Arctic islands thats what Inuit hunters in Nunavut have been saying and what the observations of people in many Nunavut communities also support.

Now a new research paper, published Jan. 6 in the online journal Plos One, whose authors include former Government of Nunavut polar bear biologist Elizabeth Peacock, provides genetic evidence that also points to movement by polar bears to the Arctic islands, where the polar bears can find better seal-hunting conditions.

The papers authors say there should be more research, monitoring and proactive conservation in this region due to the novel and recent gene flow towards the Canadian Archipelago.

For their research paper, called Implications of the Circumpolar Genetic Structure of Polar Bears for Their Conservation in a Rapidly Warming Arctic, Peacock and other scientists analyzed DNA from 2,748 polar bear samples as well as other samples and materials from 18 of the 19 recognized sub-populations of polar bears used in polar bear management around the circumpolar world.

The research goal: to evaluate polar bear genetic changes over the past 20 years.

The analyses find theres been a genetic flow of polar bear groups from southern Canada and the eastern polar basin towards the Canadian islands within the past one to three generations.

Previous research has suggested the Arctic islands area could become a future refugium that is, a safe place for polar bears as climate-induced environmental changes continue, although other studies have said warming Arctic conditions may become critical for polar bears by the end of this century, meaning favourable, year-round polar bear habitat may be gone by 2100, even in the High Arctic.

Researchers have also predicted the High Arctic islands could become more productive habitat for polar bears. Thats because annual ice over shallow waters, which provides better conditions for seal prey, will replace thick, multi-year and less productive ice habitat.

And, as a result, researchers have also predicted a northerly shift in polar bears.

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NEWS: Polar bears heading to Arctic islands for more food, new research suggests

Embankments are sinking Bangladeshs islands

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Bangladeshs estuarine islands are sinking, and ironically, this could owe to embankments built to protect them from tidal erosion. Some islands have sunk by as much as 1.5 metres in the last 50 years, says a study published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The over 50 large islands in southwest Bangladesh, once forested but now primarily rice growing, were embanked in the 1960s and 1970s to protect them against tidal and storm-surge inundation. But these earthen embankments, while buffering them against floods, have also prevented the deposition of sediment that helps maintain an elevation in this area.

The loss of elevation was felt most significantly during the 2009 cyclone Alia when large areas of land were left inundated for upto two years. Despite sustained human suffering during this time, the newly reconnected landscape received tens of centimetres of tidally deposited sediment, equivalent to decades worth of normal sedimentation, says the paper. Deforestation and a regionally increased tidal range have contributed to the phenomenon, say the researchers from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, U.S. and Khulna University, Bangladesh. Interestingly, while these islands in the GangesBrahmaputra river delta are fast submerging, putting millions of inhabitants at risk of flooding, the neighbouring Sundarbans mangroves are stable from their natural shield of vegetation, the paper adds.

Researchers used GPS and a theodolite survey of land elevations at an island called Polder-32 in southwest Bangladesh and compared it with the Sundarbans. They found that the mean elevation of Polder-32 is 1.15 metres lower than Sundarbans.

The study therefore implicates direct human modification of the environment and not global sea-level rise as the most important agent of change in the western Ganges Brahmaputra tidal delta plain, says the paper.

The striking contrast between the tidal inundation patterns of these landscapes highlights the impact of sediment starvation and the historical loss of elevation, which has severely exacerbated the effects of tidal inundation, notes the paper.

However it is possible to recover some of the lost ground, say the authors adding that controlled breaching of embankments can restore elevation and relieve environmental problems. The silver lining for Bangladesh and the delta system remains the one billion tons of river sediment that may be effectively dispersed onto the landscape to alleviate elevation deficits. On the basis of our observations, a feasible management strategy from the physical-science perspective may be to systematically breach embankment sections to facilitate sediment delivery and elevation recovery.

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Embankments are sinking Bangladeshs islands

Townhouse for sale Alayor in Balearic Islands Spain ref 122056 – Video

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Townhouse for sale Alayor in Balearic Islands Spain ref 122056
Second, third and fourth floors; 3 double bedrooms and 1 single and 1 shower on each floor ESTATE AGENTS Look at THIS! http://directory.spainpropertycentral.co.uk/places/estate-agents-Balearic...

By: Estate Agents Spain Viddeo.biz

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Townhouse for sale Alayor in Balearic Islands Spain ref 122056 - Video


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