Anyone who is at all interested in marine conservation issues, would do
well to subscribe to the Pew marine science newsletter, at
http://www.pewoceanscience.org/newsletter/newsletter.php - they monthly
summarize and provide links to a wide variety of reputable and excellent
articles related to marine conservation all around the world - HIGHLY
recommended stuff!! They also maintain archives of past newsletters, at
http://listserv.miami.edu/archives/seaspan.html .

 From today's edition, a couple of coral reef articles:

7) SIMULATING HUMAN IMPACTS ON CORAL REEFS
   Ten years ago, biologist Les Kaufman had an epiphany while bedding down in a tent in western Uganda. "I was going to have to learn a lot more about people in order to save fishes," he says. In his lifetime, he'd seen the greater part of the Caribbean reefs bleach and disintegrate into piles of rubble. He'd seen the fantastic diversity of fish species in Africa's Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile, collapse from the double whammy of intentionally introduced Nile perch and runoff from denuded hillsides. In both cases, economic factors drove ecological disasters. If conservation efforts were to succeed, Dr. Kaufman realized, people's financial and political situations would have to be factored into the equation. Now at Boston University, Kaufman heads the Marine Management Area Science program (MMAS). Working with Conservation International, he aims to combine understanding from both the social and "hard" sciences and turn it into effective ecosystem management. A global network of monitoring sites informs MMAS, and a computer model of human and reef ecosystem interaction is central to the project. Still in the early stages of development, the Marine Integrated Decision Analysis System (MIDAS) will allow anyone with a decent computer to simulate human activity's impact on the reef environment.
Source: Christian Science Monitor, Moises Velasquez-Manoff, 14 December 2006
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-12-14-hotel-reefs_x.htm

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C) PEW INSTITUTE AND PEW FELLOWS (PF) NEWS

9) LES KAUFMAN SIMULATES HUMAN IMPACTS ON CORAL REEFS
   Pew Fellow Les Kaufman was interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor for a 14 December 2006 story about his Marine Integrated Decision Analysis System, a model that simulates the impacts of human activities on coral reefs. Kaufman’s work stems from his concern that humans are responsible for the degradation of coral reef ecosystems worldwide. He believes that conservation efforts should combine economic factors, such as financial and political situations, with physical and biological data.

To read the article, go to: vhttp://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-12-14-hotel-reefs_x.htm

Cheers from a cool nite in New Scotland,
ross mayhew.

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