“There’s no disputing climate change is the number one threat to the Great Barrier Reef. Without a worldwide effort the planet will lose its coral reefs” says Prof Hughes. Hughes is convinced that reoccurring bleaching episodes are the result of climate change that has “been happening for the last 20 years or so, and the Government hasn’t done enough about it”.

Last year, Prof. Hughes and a team of marine scientists made headlines around the world after revealing 90% of the Great Barrier Reef was impacted by coral bleaching.

“It broke my heart to see so many corals dying on northern reefs on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016…With rising temperatures due to global warming, it’s only a matter of time before we see more of these events. A fourth event after only one year is a major blow to the Reef” he adds.

One year on from the last study and unprecedented back-to-back bleaching is sending Terry back out to the Reef. For the next seven days he will carry out aerial surveys to find out to what extent global temperature rises are impacting the Reef.

Prof. Hughes tells the Ecologist, “the message is we have a narrow window of opportunity to save the Great Barrier Reef – but business as usual in greenhouse emissions will be incredibly damaging to it. We’ve already seen three events probably four. The sooner we start to curb greenhouse emissions – Australia as well as every other country – the better for coral reefs not just the Barrier Reef”.

Whilst some commentators believe the Great Barrier Reef is dead, those dedicating their life to researching the Reef are a little more optimistic. Despite four catastrophic bleaching periods, there’s hope a narrow window of opportunity maybe found.

Research shows heat is main cause of bleaching

Hughes, lead author on the most recent paper, Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals, maps the effects of increasing temperature across previous events in 1998, 2002 and 2016. In overlaying three maps from the three years, the research shows how the distinct geographies of the three events is caused by heat exposure.

Last year was incredibly hot in the north and that’s where all the bleaching was; the south was cooled down by a cyclone [Winston] in the nick of time and that saved the bottom half of the Great Barrier Reef from bleaching last year according to Prof.Hughes.

Bleaching – caused by increases in ocean temperatures from global warming – forces corals to eject zooxanthellae algae. Corals need the algae to help photosynthesize and reproduce. Without photosynthesizing the corals turn white, and eventually die. The Reef’s corals are in danger after three and now possibly a fourth bleaching outbreak has created what Professor Hughes sees as a “cumulative footprint off all three events. If you superimpose them the data indicates that more than 90% of the Barrier Reef has now bleached at least once over those three events”.

Prof. Hughes and his team also found that despite politicians throwing money at water quality improvement measures, poor water quality isn’t the major cause of bleaching.

“It’s clear that water quality nearest to the land is muddier than the middle and outer Reefs with their pristine waters a familiar sight in glossy tourism magazines, but building resistance or improving water quality won’t alter the bleaching”.

What’s needed to improve the Barrier Reef is a global intervention. At a local level “it’s not possible to build local resistant to climate change through local management. That’s not to say managing water and fishing is not a good idea as it does affect the reef’s capacity to bounce back” says Hughes.  

Who are the ‘Reefers’ behind the headlines?

Marine scientists are affectional known as ‘reefers’, and one of the biggest fish in the field is distinguished Professor, Terry Hughes FAA.

The most cited individual coral reef scientist in the world, he started working on Caribbean coral reefs in the 1970s. Since gaining his PhD from John Hopkins University, his work continues to reward him with an abundance of accolades. He’s been praised as everything from a “reef sentinel”, to the seminal researcher in the field of coral reef ecology. Growing up in Ireland, Terry studied at Trinity College Dublin, gained his PhD in the USA, and took a postgraduate job at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before moving to Townsville, in northern Australia during the late 1980s.

Hughes is supported by a team of marine scientists who are all based at the Centre for Excellence, including Senior Research Fellow, Dr Andrew Hoey.

Hoey has worked with coral reefs since moving from Sydney to Townsville in 1995. An economics graduate who never worked a day in the field, like every other Australian Andrew has a passion for the outdoors, and moved north to study corals for three years at James Cook University in 1995.

Andrew is also the President of the Australian Coral Reef Society – the oldest organisation in the world concerned with the study and protection of coral reef.

As a Senior Research Fellow at ARCCOE, Andrew’s role in last year’s project was to carry out underwater surveys of bleaching reefs at Lizard Island in the catastrophically damaged northern zone.  

Aerial surveys of the bleaching tell the scientists where the bleaching is occurring but he says to understand the scale, “you really need to get into the water, if you want to document the mortality.”

Hughes and Hoey agree global warming and changes in climate temperatures are responsible for the bleaching. Calling on more to be done by UNESCO and a speeding up of the 2050 Reef Plan will help make the most of the narrow window they have identified to halt the destruction.

Always take the weather with you

Whilst scientists are convinced that climate change is responsible for the bleaching, climate sceptics  think bleaching outbreaks are more likely a combination of natural weather patterns and increased global temperatures. The El Niño, La Niña and ENSO weather patterns circumnavigating the planet that bring warmer weather (El Niño), cooler weather (La Niña) and neutral weather (ENSO).

Prof. Hughes disagrees: “It’s a myth that El Niño contributes to bleaching. In 1998 one of them contributed to a bleaching event on the Barrier Reef. In 2002 the second bleaching event was not an El Niño year; five years later, (2017) we are seeing bleaching and again, it is not an El Niño year”.

Whilst, El Niño gives a slight spike of heat, “the reality is that La Niña years today are now warmer than El Niño years were 20 years, because of global warming” adds Prof. Hughes

Sceptics can no longer say that bleaching isn’t caused by global warming, “It’s us – it’s not El Niño. Blaming the weather is an excuse to say it’s not just us, it’s nature too but in truth it’s anthropogenic global warming”.

Last year was Australia’s fourth recorded hottest year with national temperatures reaching 0.87 °C above average. Ocean temperatures also rose to 0.77°C above average. Sea temperatures on the Great Barrier Reef spiked between February and April the time of corals bleaching.

International pressure could save the Great Barrier Reef.

After almost 40 years working with coral reefs, Prof. Hughes wants UNESCO do more.

UNESCO has until now, held back from listing the Reef as ‘in danger’ because the area has remained relatively pristine.

UNESCO is concerned about whether the attribute of the world heritage area that led to its inscription in 1981 is being maintained. The Outstanding Universal Values – OUV – relate to the northern part of the Barrier Reef, the area that is the most damaged.  

Prof. Hughes explains that before last year bleaching “Australia has argued that the OUV of the world heritage area is still intact, because the northern third is still pristine. That’s where the dugongs (manatee), turtles and corals, were. But, between February and October last year, two thirds of the corals in the northern Great Barrier Reef died. That is a catastrophic loss”.

Without the corals there is no ecosystem, biodiversity or habitat for turtles and dugongs (seacows). Corals are an integral part of the OUV. Without corals there’s no geological structures, no biodiversity, and no aesthetic value – all of which are OUV elements.

Mixed Messages over mines

Convincing UNESCO that mines and coastal development can co-exist with the future security of the Reef is a big task. But, politicians and UNESCO need to be brave enough to face up to the real causes of climate change.  

The Barrier Reef is in Australian waters, and it falls to Federal Minister for the Environment and Energy, Josh Frydenberg, to convince UNESCO the Reef is surviving.

Stewardship of the Barrier Reef is spilt in favour of the Federal Government, with the Queensland Government responsible for a very narrow strip along the coastal edge –  including fisheries, ports and dredging, coastal development and coal mining.

Although much of the responsibility for the Reef’s future survival depends on decisions made over 1,000 miles away in the capital Canberra, both Federal and State governments are united in support for a new Adani mega coal mine to bring economic growth to the area.  

The Professor is forthright in his views on coal, recently Tweeting to Queensland opposition leaders wanting to build a new coal fired power station in north Queensland, “I’m off tomorrow to measure back-to-back bleaching on #GreatBarrierReef. Leave the bloody coal in the ground!”

“Both governments are ‘singing from the same hymn sheets’ when it comes to developing the Adani coal mines, which is a terrible policy failure for the GBR. If the Adani Carmichael mine goes ahead it would make it impossible for Australia to meet its responsibility for the COP21 treaty” warns Prof. Hughes.  

“Australia at least has signed up for the 1.5 degrees centigrade target, which we are currently on a trajectory to miss. Remember these three bleaching events have happened with less than one degree of global average warming. Two degrees will not be comfortable place for corals” he says.

This policy disconnect between Australia’s love of fossil fuels, clean coal, fracking etc.; Queensland’s pledge to have 50% renewable energy, and Australia’s responsibility for stewardship of the world heritage area means advocates need to look in and outside of Australia for support.

Dr Hoey says, “We need to look for a global solution and Australia should be leading the way in discussions of clean coal. Don’t try and badge coal as a clean energy – it’s not a clean energy”.

UNESCO and Australian Government need closer ties.

UNESCO World Heritage Community will meet for its 41st session in Kraków in July, and the annual meeting could provide the narrow window of opportunity needed to save the Reef. But Prof. Hughes is adamant that his role in the future of the Barrier Reef is as a scientist and not a spokesperson or media personality.

“My niche role as a scientist is not to lead the charge on anti-coal or pro-renewable energy or even saving the reef – my role is to get the data and show what is actually happening to the GBR”.

But both Hughes and his colleague Hoey understand that media interviews and publishing papers play a critical role in educating people about the deteriorating health of the Barrier Reef.

Some of the coverage from last year’s bleaching had a tendency to be negative – like a requiem for the Reef. The message that’s getting out via the media is the Barrier Reef is dead and that’s not helpful adds Dr Andrew Hoey.

Terry gets that media reports with negative reporting, disaster discourses or blaming natural weather cycles “are not helpful, [and] the last thing we want to do is write off the Barrier Reef – these bleaching events are incredibly serious”. Instead as Director of the Coral Reef for Excellence, Professor Hughes would like to see more pressure from UNESCO and a fast tracking of the 2050 Reef plan.

More info here:

Integrated Coral Reef Studies,

UNESCO World Heritage Committee will next meet July between 2^nd and 12^th.

Prof. Terry Hughes paper Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals, by 46 co-authors, appears in the journal Nature. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature21707

This Author

Dr. Maxine Newlands is a lecturer in Political Science at James Cook University, and was not paid by the centre for this interview.  

When Liz Slooten and Steve Dawson graduated from university in New Zealand in 1982, they became interested in the country’s diminutive endemic dolphins, about which only six scientific papers had been written. A summation of all that was known about them was all of four pages long.

The New Zealand coastal dolphins, which have relatives in Chile, Argentina and South Africa, are the world’s smallest. They are friendly to people, fight rarely and have sex often. One sub-species, which hadn’t bred with the others for 16,000 years, according to a mitochondrial DNA analysis, is called the Maui’s dolphin,

When Slooten and Dawson decided to make the dolphins the centerpiece of their doctoral theses, they had no idea that 30 years later, fishermen’s nets would have reduced the Mauis to some 60 individuals, from 2,000 or so in the 1970s, making it the world’s rarest dolphin. The others, which are slightly smaller, are called Hector’s dolphins, and fishing nets have brought them down from 50,000 to 10,000, according to one estimate (New Zealand also has 11 species of non-endemic oceanic dolphins).

Slooten, tall and energetic, and Dawson, whose blue eyes are as piercing as his wit, never married, complete each other’s sentences and seem to do everything together. They made the dolphins the centerpiece of their doctorates at the University of Canterbury and later of their research as professors at Otago University in Dunedin, the southernmost university in the world. Together, they have published over 90 scientific peer-reviewed papers on the dolphins, more than anyone else.

In 1984, they set out in a four-meter inflatable dinghy for a six-month survey of 8,300 km of coastline to determine the dolphins’ distribution. In the late 1990s, they repeated the survey with a 15-meter sailing catamaran equipped with a crow’s nest. Each specialized in a different aspect of the dolphin: Liz on the dolphins’ behavior and breeding; Steve on the sounds they make and how they use them to communicate. He also photographs them and has compiled a data base of more than 400 dolphins recognizable by dents in their signature round dorsal fins or scars and markings on the upper bodies.

When they started their doctoral research, they noticed dead dolphins were washing up on beaches with clear gill-net markings. So as part of his research, Dawson interviewed fishermen every month about their dolphin interactions, and asked them bring their bodies for dissection. “We thought that over the four years of our Ph.D.s, we’d dissect maybe 10,” he said. “Instead, we got swamped, they brought us 61.” A paper he published in 1990 was the first to describe the extent of the carnage, with some fishermen reporting killing up to 44 a season.

It soon became clear that the dolphin populations diminished faster in the more heavily fished areas. Because they rarely travel for more than 50 km, the casualties are not replaced by members of another group. By 2004, a continuous population of Hectors around the South Island had become fragmented into 10 small groups, some with fewer than 40 individuals.

That’s why one sunny November afternoon, Slooten, Dawson and I found ourselves crisscrossing Akaroa Harbour on their fast dinghy, looking for dolphins to photograph. We saw 10 in several groups. The long and narrow bay, hemmed in by spectacular cliffs that keep out wind and swells, is an ideal place to view the 100 or so dolphins who call it home.

That’s no accident: In 1988, Slooten and Dawson’s research – and more than 6,000 letters from conservation groups and members of the public – persuaded the Labour government to create the first dolphin sanctuary around the South Island’s Banks Peninsula, into which Akaroa Harbour penetrates. It banned commercial gill nets, which rise like invisible curtains from the bottom and are believed to be the main cause of dolphin drownings, and restricted recreational nets.

Over the next three decades, as the numbers of dolphins elsewhere in New Zealand plunged, scientists, environmentalists and, from 2012, the International Whaling commission, urged successive governments to ban trawl and gill nets from all the areas where the Maui dolphins live and allow only fish traps and hook-and-line fisheries, which do not harm cetaceans.

But the result has been a case study of the influence of money and political ideology over conservation.

Every time a Labour government was elected, it would enact some protection, primarily reining in the gillnetters, who are more numerous, less profitable and tend to be owned by individuals. The trawlers, which are mostly owned by relatively large corporations, had the clout to fend off most trawl restrictions. In 2008, Shaun Driscoll, at the time the Fisheries Ministry’s head of investigations, complained in an unpublished report obtained by the Ecologist of an “overbearing and over-powerful fishing industry.”

Every time a National Party government came in, it asserted that protection was working well and saw little need for more restrictions. The fact that the president of the National Party, Peter Goodfellow, also happens to be a main shareholder, board member and former chairman of Sanford Ltd., the country’s biggest seafood company, is often cited as evidence of the close links between the industry and its government regulators.

In the Maui habitat, Sanford uses only trawlers and owns 60 percent of the quota for snapper, the most valuable fish. It has pledged to stop allowing fishermen to sell net-caught snapper from the Maui habitat at the auction houses it owns from April. It has also promised to stop its own ships from trawling in the Maui range by 2022 if it can’t find a way of avoiding dolphin deaths. Scientists say the measure won’t stop the decline of the dolphin population.

The biggest improvement to the dolphins’ prospects came in 2003, at the tail end of five years of Labour rule, when all nets were banned in 5 percent of the Maui’s habitat and gillnets were banned in an additional 14 percent. In 2008, at the end of the last Labour government, similar measures were put in place to protect the South Island’s Hectors. “That made the difference between rapid decline and slow decline,” Slooten explained.

A government-funded study published in 2012 found that the number of Maui dolphins was falling at a rate of 2.8% a year. A more recent study by the same authors put it at 1.5% to 2%. “We do not say that the population has stabilized,” noted lead author Scott Baker of Oregon State University. “The estimated rate of decline has decreased.”

That hasn’t prevented the government, citing the paper, as saying that “Māui numbers over the past five years have stabilized,” in the words of Conservation Minister Maggie Barry.

Opinion polls have shown that 60% of New Zealanders would be more likely to vote for a government that would restrict fishing nets and protect the dolphins and that 63% would be willing to pay more for fish to protect dolphins. NABU, a German charity, has called for an international boycott of New Zealand seafood until the government reverses the dolphins’ decline by banning all nets in its habitat. “Buy New Zealand fish, get dead Maui’s dolphins free,” goes NABU’s slogan.

New Zealand snapper caught in the Maui and Hector habitats is exported to several countries, including the US and the UK, but consumers have no way of knowing exactly where and how they were caught. “If British consumers want to be sure they’re not contributing to the extinction of this rare dolphin, they should avoid New Zealand seafood,” said Barry Torkington, a New Zealand fisheries expert.

The next parliamentary election is in September, after nine years of National Party rule. So far, both Labour and the Greens have backed the recommendation of the International Whaling Commission, the IUCN and dozens of other organizations to ban all nets in the Maui’s 600-km coastal range. The National Party’s position is that existing restrictions are working and there is no need to extend them.

This Author

Christopher Pala is a reporter based in Washington DC

This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute in New York.

A new report highlights research by BirdLife Cyprus and the RSPB, showing that illegal trapping activity on the island remains around its highest ever level.

The use of mist nets, lines of almost invisible netting, to trap birds has risen by 183% since 2002, and 21km of mist nets were in use in the survey area.

And almost half of the trapping is taking place in British territory on the island, in the two ‘Sovereign Base Areas’ (SBAs) used by British armed forces.

Almost half the total length of active net rides, about ten kilometres, are in the Dhekelia SBA on the east of the island, with more than 800,000 birds trapped a year. The principal trapping hotspot is base’s firing range at Cape Pyla.

The birds are killed to provide restaurants with the main ingredient for the local and expensive dish of ambelopoulia, cooked songbirds served as part of a mezze. A plate of 12 fried or grilled songbirds sells for between €40-80.

The Cyprus trappers have become increasingly bold, blatantly and extensively using electronic calling devices on the firing range at night in order to lure in birds to their deaths. These play calls at deafeningly-high volumes, falsely advertising the presence of blackcaps, robins and other songbirds, but also effectively proclaiming the territories of the illegal trappers.

There are now concerns that parts of the British firing range are effectively becoming a no-go area for the committed, but significantly outnumbered, local police force.

One of the worst bird killing grounds in the Mediterranean

Invasive non native acacia trees from Australia were planted on the British base by the trappers, and, as the only cover around, are a great draw for migrating birds to stop off, rest and feed. With the addition of around 20 to 40 tape luring devices in some areas, these leafy corners of the island become irresistible to birds, who arrive in great numbers.

The report estimates that over 1.7 million birds could have been killed within the survey area, which covers both the British base and Cyprus Republic areas, and nearly 2.3 million across the whole of Cyprus due to this extensive bird trapping activity.

The scale of this activity has also been confirmed in a Birdlife report, ‘The Killing‘, published in 2016, in which Cyprus was identified as one of the worst places for illegal bird killing in the entire Mediterranean.

Survey records (in the new report) show that while blackcaps are the main target, 155 bird species have been found trapped in mist nets or on limesticks. Of these, 78 were species of conservation concern including cinereous bunting, pallid harrier, red-footed falcon and turtle dove

The sheer numbers of birds involved here, and the importance of the area for migration, make this a significant conservation issue. Millions of birds migrate south through eastern Europe each autumn, and Cyprus is a natural route for them to take, allowing them to break up their journey over the Mediterranean.

The British military firing range at Cape Pyla is a bottleneck for birds at the southern tip of Cyprus, where they gather before crossing the sea.

Blockade prevents MoD clearing trees planted as lures – on their own land

Removing the acacia trees planted on Ministry of Defence land by the trappers is one of the most effective ways to stop this criminal activity. However the SBA administration were largely forced to abandon this in 2016 as the trappers organised large protests and a dramatic blockade (see photo).

Whereas the Base authorities had successfully removed 54 acres of acacia in the preceding two years, this autumn they were only able to remove a further 7 acres, leaving around 90 acres of this illegal-killing infrastructure still standing on the British firing range.

Organised criminal gangs are driving this illegal activity on a huge scale and it is estimated they earn millions of Euros every year from the songbirds they kill on British territory.

As there is a great deal of money to be made in trapping songbirds, many people on the island have strong vested interests in keeping it going. Many in Cypriot communities feel that this is an important tradition, even though today it is done on an industrial scale.

Understandably these local attitudes place the British Army authorities in a difficult position. The Dhekelia and Akrotiri SBAs comprise a UK Overseas Territory, so the UK has a responsibility for the protection of the wildlife on these sites. While almost all the trapping takes place at Dhekelia, the Akrotiri SBA is also vital for birds: it has a massive salt lake, recognised as a RAMSAR wetland site, which is home to major flamingo flocks.

Cyprus government and British authorities must get tough together!

Between August and October 2016 the small British Sovereign Base Area (SBA) police force, supported by specialist help from RSPB Investigations staff, opened more cases and confiscated more mist net than ever before.

However, the army must also take care to avoid stirring up opposition to British presence in Cyprus. Nevertheless, we do need to see more enforcement support from the Ministry of Defence to ensure the invasive tree removal operation continues.

In addition, the Republic of Cyprus must crack down on black-market restaurants which serve songbirds. Small-scale trapping of birds for human consumption in Cyprus was practiced for many centuries, but it has been illegal on the island for over 40 years, after being outlawed in 1974.

Enforcement against restaurants serving ambelopoulia has been almost non-existent in the last few years, yet as the key driver of this illegal activity it is crucial that urgent action is taken by the Cyprus Government.

Jamie Wyver works for the RSPB, the UK’s BirdLife partner.

• The new report: ‘Update on illegal bird trapping activity in Cyprus‘ by Tassos Shialis, BirdLife Cyprus, March 2017.
• Birdlife report: ‘The Killing‘.
• Find out more about illegal bird trapping on Cyprus.
• Learn more about the RSPB’s international work.

When Liz Slooten and Steve Dawson graduated from university in New Zealand in 1982, they became interested in the country’s diminutive endemic dolphins, about which only six scientific papers had been written. A summation of all that was known about them was all of four pages long.

The New Zealand coastal dolphins, which have relatives in Chile, Argentina and South Africa, are the world’s smallest. They are friendly to people, fight rarely and have sex often. One sub-species, which hadn’t bred with the others for 16,000 years, according to a mitochondrial DNA analysis, is called the Maui’s dolphin,

When Slooten and Dawson decided to make the dolphins the centerpiece of their doctoral theses, they had no idea that 30 years later, fishermen’s nets would have reduced the Mauis to some 60 individuals, from 2,000 or so in the 1970s, making it the world’s rarest dolphin. The others, which are slightly smaller, are called Hector’s dolphins, and fishing nets have brought them down from 50,000 to 10,000, according to one estimate (New Zealand also has 11 species of non-endemic oceanic dolphins).

Slooten, tall and energetic, and Dawson, whose blue eyes are as piercing as his wit, never married, complete each other’s sentences and seem to do everything together. They made the dolphins the centerpiece of their doctorates at the University of Canterbury and later of their research as professors at Otago University in Dunedin, the southernmost university in the world. Together, they have published over 90 scientific peer-reviewed papers on the dolphins, more than anyone else.

In 1984, they set out in a four-meter inflatable dinghy for a six-month survey of 8,300 km of coastline to determine the dolphins’ distribution. In the late 1990s, they repeated the survey with a 15-meter sailing catamaran equipped with a crow’s nest. Each specialized in a different aspect of the dolphin: Liz on the dolphins’ behavior and breeding; Steve on the sounds they make and how they use them to communicate. He also photographs them and has compiled a data base of more than 400 dolphins recognizable by dents in their signature round dorsal fins or scars and markings on the upper bodies.

When they started their doctoral research, they noticed dead dolphins were washing up on beaches with clear gill-net markings. So as part of his research, Dawson interviewed fishermen every month about their dolphin interactions, and asked them bring their bodies for dissection. “We thought that over the four years of our Ph.D.s, we’d dissect maybe 10,” he said. “Instead, we got swamped, they brought us 61.” A paper he published in 1990 was the first to describe the extent of the carnage, with some fishermen reporting killing up to 44 a season.

It soon became clear that the dolphin populations diminished faster in the more heavily fished areas. Because they rarely travel for more than 50 km, the casualties are not replaced by members of another group. By 2004, a continuous population of Hectors around the South Island had become fragmented into 10 small groups, some with fewer than 40 individuals.

That’s why one sunny November afternoon, Slooten, Dawson and I found ourselves crisscrossing Akaroa Harbour on their fast dinghy, looking for dolphins to photograph. We saw 10 in several groups. The long and narrow bay, hemmed in by spectacular cliffs that keep out wind and swells, is an ideal place to view the 100 or so dolphins who call it home.

That’s no accident: In 1988, Slooten and Dawson’s research – and more than 6,000 letters from conservation groups and members of the public – persuaded the Labour government to create the first dolphin sanctuary around the South Island’s Banks Peninsula, into which Akaroa Harbour penetrates. It banned commercial gill nets, which rise like invisible curtains from the bottom and are believed to be the main cause of dolphin drownings, and restricted recreational nets.

Over the next three decades, as the numbers of dolphins elsewhere in New Zealand plunged, scientists, environmentalists and, from 2012, the International Whaling commission, urged successive governments to ban trawl and gill nets from all the areas where the Maui dolphins live and allow only fish traps and hook-and-line fisheries, which do not harm cetaceans.

But the result has been a case study of the influence of money and political ideology over conservation.

Every time a Labour government was elected, it would enact some protection, primarily reining in the gillnetters, who are more numerous, less profitable and tend to be owned by individuals. The trawlers, which are mostly owned by relatively large corporations, had the clout to fend off most trawl restrictions. In 2008, Shaun Driscoll, at the time the Fisheries Ministry’s head of investigations, complained in an unpublished report obtained by the Ecologist of an “overbearing and over-powerful fishing industry.”

Every time a National Party government came in, it asserted that protection was working well and saw little need for more restrictions. The fact that the president of the National Party, Peter Goodfellow, also happens to be a main shareholder, board member and former chairman of Sanford Ltd., the country’s biggest seafood company, is often cited as evidence of the close links between the industry and its government regulators.

In the Maui habitat, Sanford uses only trawlers and owns 60 percent of the quota for snapper, the most valuable fish. It has pledged to stop allowing fishermen to sell net-caught snapper from the Maui habitat at the auction houses it owns from April. It has also promised to stop its own ships from trawling in the Maui range by 2022 if it can’t find a way of avoiding dolphin deaths. Scientists say the measure won’t stop the decline of the dolphin population.

The biggest improvement to the dolphins’ prospects came in 2003, at the tail end of five years of Labour rule, when all nets were banned in 5 percent of the Maui’s habitat and gillnets were banned in an additional 14 percent. In 2008, at the end of the last Labour government, similar measures were put in place to protect the South Island’s Hectors. “That made the difference between rapid decline and slow decline,” Slooten explained.

A government-funded study published in 2012 found that the number of Maui dolphins was falling at a rate of 2.8% a year. A more recent study by the same authors put it at 1.5% to 2%. “We do not say that the population has stabilized,” noted lead author Scott Baker of Oregon State University. “The estimated rate of decline has decreased.”

That hasn’t prevented the government, citing the paper, as saying that “Māui numbers over the past five years have stabilized,” in the words of Conservation Minister Maggie Barry.

Opinion polls have shown that 60% of New Zealanders would be more likely to vote for a government that would restrict fishing nets and protect the dolphins and that 63% would be willing to pay more for fish to protect dolphins. NABU, a German charity, has called for an international boycott of New Zealand seafood until the government reverses the dolphins’ decline by banning all nets in its habitat. “Buy New Zealand fish, get dead Maui’s dolphins free,” goes NABU’s slogan.

New Zealand snapper caught in the Maui and Hector habitats is exported to several countries, including the US and the UK, but consumers have no way of knowing exactly where and how they were caught. “If British consumers want to be sure they’re not contributing to the extinction of this rare dolphin, they should avoid New Zealand seafood,” said Barry Torkington, a New Zealand fisheries expert.

The next parliamentary election is in September, after nine years of National Party rule. So far, both Labour and the Greens have backed the recommendation of the International Whaling Commission, the IUCN and dozens of other organizations to ban all nets in the Maui’s 600-km coastal range. The National Party’s position is that existing restrictions are working and there is no need to extend them.

This Author

Christopher Pala is a reporter based in Washington DC

This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute in New York.

A new report highlights research by BirdLife Cyprus and the RSPB, showing that illegal trapping activity on the island remains around its highest ever level.

The use of mist nets, lines of almost invisible netting, to trap birds has risen by 183% since 2002, and 21km of mist nets were in use in the survey area.

And almost half of the trapping is taking place in British territory on the island, in the two ‘Sovereign Base Areas’ (SBAs) used by British armed forces.

Almost half the total length of active net rides, about ten kilometres, are in the Dhekelia SBA on the east of the island, with more than 800,000 birds trapped a year. The principal trapping hotspot is base’s firing range at Cape Pyla.

The birds are killed to provide restaurants with the main ingredient for the local and expensive dish of ambelopoulia, cooked songbirds served as part of a mezze. A plate of 12 fried or grilled songbirds sells for between €40-80.

The Cyprus trappers have become increasingly bold, blatantly and extensively using electronic calling devices on the firing range at night in order to lure in birds to their deaths. These play calls at deafeningly-high volumes, falsely advertising the presence of blackcaps, robins and other songbirds, but also effectively proclaiming the territories of the illegal trappers.

There are now concerns that parts of the British firing range are effectively becoming a no-go area for the committed, but significantly outnumbered, local police force.

One of the worst bird killing grounds in the Mediterranean

Invasive non native acacia trees from Australia were planted on the British base by the trappers, and, as the only cover around, are a great draw for migrating birds to stop off, rest and feed. With the addition of around 20 to 40 tape luring devices in some areas, these leafy corners of the island become irresistible to birds, who arrive in great numbers.

The report estimates that over 1.7 million birds could have been killed within the survey area, which covers both the British base and Cyprus Republic areas, and nearly 2.3 million across the whole of Cyprus due to this extensive bird trapping activity.

The scale of this activity has also been confirmed in a Birdlife report, ‘The Killing‘, published in 2016, in which Cyprus was identified as one of the worst places for illegal bird killing in the entire Mediterranean.

Survey records (in the new report) show that while blackcaps are the main target, 155 bird species have been found trapped in mist nets or on limesticks. Of these, 78 were species of conservation concern including cinereous bunting, pallid harrier, red-footed falcon and turtle dove

The sheer numbers of birds involved here, and the importance of the area for migration, make this a significant conservation issue. Millions of birds migrate south through eastern Europe each autumn, and Cyprus is a natural route for them to take, allowing them to break up their journey over the Mediterranean.

The British military firing range at Cape Pyla is a bottleneck for birds at the southern tip of Cyprus, where they gather before crossing the sea.

Blockade prevents MoD clearing trees planted as lures – on their own land

Removing the acacia trees planted on Ministry of Defence land by the trappers is one of the most effective ways to stop this criminal activity. However the SBA administration were largely forced to abandon this in 2016 as the trappers organised large protests and a dramatic blockade (see photo).

Whereas the Base authorities had successfully removed 54 acres of acacia in the preceding two years, this autumn they were only able to remove a further 7 acres, leaving around 90 acres of this illegal-killing infrastructure still standing on the British firing range.

Organised criminal gangs are driving this illegal activity on a huge scale and it is estimated they earn millions of Euros every year from the songbirds they kill on British territory.

As there is a great deal of money to be made in trapping songbirds, many people on the island have strong vested interests in keeping it going. Many in Cypriot communities feel that this is an important tradition, even though today it is done on an industrial scale.

Understandably these local attitudes place the British Army authorities in a difficult position. The Dhekelia and Akrotiri SBAs comprise a UK Overseas Territory, so the UK has a responsibility for the protection of the wildlife on these sites. While almost all the trapping takes place at Dhekelia, the Akrotiri SBA is also vital for birds: it has a massive salt lake, recognised as a RAMSAR wetland site, which is home to major flamingo flocks.

Cyprus government and British authorities must get tough together!

Between August and October 2016 the small British Sovereign Base Area (SBA) police force, supported by specialist help from RSPB Investigations staff, opened more cases and confiscated more mist net than ever before.

However, the army must also take care to avoid stirring up opposition to British presence in Cyprus. Nevertheless, we do need to see more enforcement support from the Ministry of Defence to ensure the invasive tree removal operation continues.

In addition, the Republic of Cyprus must crack down on black-market restaurants which serve songbirds. Small-scale trapping of birds for human consumption in Cyprus was practiced for many centuries, but it has been illegal on the island for over 40 years, after being outlawed in 1974.

Enforcement against restaurants serving ambelopoulia has been almost non-existent in the last few years, yet as the key driver of this illegal activity it is crucial that urgent action is taken by the Cyprus Government.

Jamie Wyver works for the RSPB, the UK’s BirdLife partner.

• The new report: ‘Update on illegal bird trapping activity in Cyprus‘ by Tassos Shialis, BirdLife Cyprus, March 2017.
• Birdlife report: ‘The Killing‘.
• Find out more about illegal bird trapping on Cyprus.
• Learn more about the RSPB’s international work.

When Liz Slooten and Steve Dawson graduated from university in New Zealand in 1982, they became interested in the country’s diminutive endemic dolphins, about which only six scientific papers had been written. A summation of all that was known about them was all of four pages long.

The New Zealand coastal dolphins, which have relatives in Chile, Argentina and South Africa, are the world’s smallest. They are friendly to people, fight rarely and have sex often. One sub-species, which hadn’t bred with the others for 16,000 years, according to a mitochondrial DNA analysis, is called the Maui’s dolphin,

When Slooten and Dawson decided to make the dolphins the centerpiece of their doctoral theses, they had no idea that 30 years later, fishermen’s nets would have reduced the Mauis to some 60 individuals, from 2,000 or so in the 1970s, making it the world’s rarest dolphin. The others, which are slightly smaller, are called Hector’s dolphins, and fishing nets have brought them down from 50,000 to 10,000, according to one estimate (New Zealand also has 11 species of non-endemic oceanic dolphins).

Slooten, tall and energetic, and Dawson, whose blue eyes are as piercing as his wit, never married, complete each other’s sentences and seem to do everything together. They made the dolphins the centerpiece of their doctorates at the University of Canterbury and later of their research as professors at Otago University in Dunedin, the southernmost university in the world. Together, they have published over 90 scientific peer-reviewed papers on the dolphins, more than anyone else.

In 1984, they set out in a four-meter inflatable dinghy for a six-month survey of 8,300 km of coastline to determine the dolphins’ distribution. In the late 1990s, they repeated the survey with a 15-meter sailing catamaran equipped with a crow’s nest. Each specialized in a different aspect of the dolphin: Liz on the dolphins’ behavior and breeding; Steve on the sounds they make and how they use them to communicate. He also photographs them and has compiled a data base of more than 400 dolphins recognizable by dents in their signature round dorsal fins or scars and markings on the upper bodies.

When they started their doctoral research, they noticed dead dolphins were washing up on beaches with clear gill-net markings. So as part of his research, Dawson interviewed fishermen every month about their dolphin interactions, and asked them bring their bodies for dissection. “We thought that over the four years of our Ph.D.s, we’d dissect maybe 10,” he said. “Instead, we got swamped, they brought us 61.” A paper he published in 1990 was the first to describe the extent of the carnage, with some fishermen reporting killing up to 44 a season.

It soon became clear that the dolphin populations diminished faster in the more heavily fished areas. Because they rarely travel for more than 50 km, the casualties are not replaced by members of another group. By 2004, a continuous population of Hectors around the South Island had become fragmented into 10 small groups, some with fewer than 40 individuals.

That’s why one sunny November afternoon, Slooten, Dawson and I found ourselves crisscrossing Akaroa Harbour on their fast dinghy, looking for dolphins to photograph. We saw 10 in several groups. The long and narrow bay, hemmed in by spectacular cliffs that keep out wind and swells, is an ideal place to view the 100 or so dolphins who call it home.

That’s no accident: In 1988, Slooten and Dawson’s research – and more than 6,000 letters from conservation groups and members of the public – persuaded the Labour government to create the first dolphin sanctuary around the South Island’s Banks Peninsula, into which Akaroa Harbour penetrates. It banned commercial gill nets, which rise like invisible curtains from the bottom and are believed to be the main cause of dolphin drownings, and restricted recreational nets.

Over the next three decades, as the numbers of dolphins elsewhere in New Zealand plunged, scientists, environmentalists and, from 2012, the International Whaling commission, urged successive governments to ban trawl and gill nets from all the areas where the Maui dolphins live and allow only fish traps and hook-and-line fisheries, which do not harm cetaceans.

But the result has been a case study of the influence of money and political ideology over conservation.

Every time a Labour government was elected, it would enact some protection, primarily reining in the gillnetters, who are more numerous, less profitable and tend to be owned by individuals. The trawlers, which are mostly owned by relatively large corporations, had the clout to fend off most trawl restrictions. In 2008, Shaun Driscoll, at the time the Fisheries Ministry’s head of investigations, complained in an unpublished report obtained by the Ecologist of an “overbearing and over-powerful fishing industry.”

Every time a National Party government came in, it asserted that protection was working well and saw little need for more restrictions. The fact that the president of the National Party, Peter Goodfellow, also happens to be a main shareholder, board member and former chairman of Sanford Ltd., the country’s biggest seafood company, is often cited as evidence of the close links between the industry and its government regulators.

In the Maui habitat, Sanford uses only trawlers and owns 60 percent of the quota for snapper, the most valuable fish. It has pledged to stop allowing fishermen to sell net-caught snapper from the Maui habitat at the auction houses it owns from April. It has also promised to stop its own ships from trawling in the Maui range by 2022 if it can’t find a way of avoiding dolphin deaths. Scientists say the measure won’t stop the decline of the dolphin population.

The biggest improvement to the dolphins’ prospects came in 2003, at the tail end of five years of Labour rule, when all nets were banned in 5 percent of the Maui’s habitat and gillnets were banned in an additional 14 percent. In 2008, at the end of the last Labour government, similar measures were put in place to protect the South Island’s Hectors. “That made the difference between rapid decline and slow decline,” Slooten explained.

A government-funded study published in 2012 found that the number of Maui dolphins was falling at a rate of 2.8% a year. A more recent study by the same authors put it at 1.5% to 2%. “We do not say that the population has stabilized,” noted lead author Scott Baker of Oregon State University. “The estimated rate of decline has decreased.”

That hasn’t prevented the government, citing the paper, as saying that “Māui numbers over the past five years have stabilized,” in the words of Conservation Minister Maggie Barry.

Opinion polls have shown that 60% of New Zealanders would be more likely to vote for a government that would restrict fishing nets and protect the dolphins and that 63% would be willing to pay more for fish to protect dolphins. NABU, a German charity, has called for an international boycott of New Zealand seafood until the government reverses the dolphins’ decline by banning all nets in its habitat. “Buy New Zealand fish, get dead Maui’s dolphins free,” goes NABU’s slogan.

New Zealand snapper caught in the Maui and Hector habitats is exported to several countries, including the US and the UK, but consumers have no way of knowing exactly where and how they were caught. “If British consumers want to be sure they’re not contributing to the extinction of this rare dolphin, they should avoid New Zealand seafood,” said Barry Torkington, a New Zealand fisheries expert.

The next parliamentary election is in September, after nine years of National Party rule. So far, both Labour and the Greens have backed the recommendation of the International Whaling Commission, the IUCN and dozens of other organizations to ban all nets in the Maui’s 600-km coastal range. The National Party’s position is that existing restrictions are working and there is no need to extend them.

This Author

Christopher Pala is a reporter based in Washington DC

This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute in New York.

A new report highlights research by BirdLife Cyprus and the RSPB, showing that illegal trapping activity on the island remains around its highest ever level.

The use of mist nets, lines of almost invisible netting, to trap birds has risen by 183% since 2002, and 21km of mist nets were in use in the survey area.

And almost half of the trapping is taking place in British territory on the island, in the two ‘Sovereign Base Areas’ (SBAs) used by British armed forces.

Almost half the total length of active net rides, about ten kilometres, are in the Dhekelia SBA on the east of the island, with more than 800,000 birds trapped a year. The principal trapping hotspot is base’s firing range at Cape Pyla.

The birds are killed to provide restaurants with the main ingredient for the local and expensive dish of ambelopoulia, cooked songbirds served as part of a mezze. A plate of 12 fried or grilled songbirds sells for between €40-80.

The Cyprus trappers have become increasingly bold, blatantly and extensively using electronic calling devices on the firing range at night in order to lure in birds to their deaths. These play calls at deafeningly-high volumes, falsely advertising the presence of blackcaps, robins and other songbirds, but also effectively proclaiming the territories of the illegal trappers.

There are now concerns that parts of the British firing range are effectively becoming a no-go area for the committed, but significantly outnumbered, local police force.

One of the worst bird killing grounds in the Mediterranean

Invasive non native acacia trees from Australia were planted on the British base by the trappers, and, as the only cover around, are a great draw for migrating birds to stop off, rest and feed. With the addition of around 20 to 40 tape luring devices in some areas, these leafy corners of the island become irresistible to birds, who arrive in great numbers.

The report estimates that over 1.7 million birds could have been killed within the survey area, which covers both the British base and Cyprus Republic areas, and nearly 2.3 million across the whole of Cyprus due to this extensive bird trapping activity.

The scale of this activity has also been confirmed in a Birdlife report, ‘The Killing‘, published in 2016, in which Cyprus was identified as one of the worst places for illegal bird killing in the entire Mediterranean.

Survey records (in the new report) show that while blackcaps are the main target, 155 bird species have been found trapped in mist nets or on limesticks. Of these, 78 were species of conservation concern including cinereous bunting, pallid harrier, red-footed falcon and turtle dove

The sheer numbers of birds involved here, and the importance of the area for migration, make this a significant conservation issue. Millions of birds migrate south through eastern Europe each autumn, and Cyprus is a natural route for them to take, allowing them to break up their journey over the Mediterranean.

The British military firing range at Cape Pyla is a bottleneck for birds at the southern tip of Cyprus, where they gather before crossing the sea.

Blockade prevents MoD clearing trees planted as lures – on their own land

Removing the acacia trees planted on Ministry of Defence land by the trappers is one of the most effective ways to stop this criminal activity. However the SBA administration were largely forced to abandon this in 2016 as the trappers organised large protests and a dramatic blockade (see photo).

Whereas the Base authorities had successfully removed 54 acres of acacia in the preceding two years, this autumn they were only able to remove a further 7 acres, leaving around 90 acres of this illegal-killing infrastructure still standing on the British firing range.

Organised criminal gangs are driving this illegal activity on a huge scale and it is estimated they earn millions of Euros every year from the songbirds they kill on British territory.

As there is a great deal of money to be made in trapping songbirds, many people on the island have strong vested interests in keeping it going. Many in Cypriot communities feel that this is an important tradition, even though today it is done on an industrial scale.

Understandably these local attitudes place the British Army authorities in a difficult position. The Dhekelia and Akrotiri SBAs comprise a UK Overseas Territory, so the UK has a responsibility for the protection of the wildlife on these sites. While almost all the trapping takes place at Dhekelia, the Akrotiri SBA is also vital for birds: it has a massive salt lake, recognised as a RAMSAR wetland site, which is home to major flamingo flocks.

Cyprus government and British authorities must get tough together!

Between August and October 2016 the small British Sovereign Base Area (SBA) police force, supported by specialist help from RSPB Investigations staff, opened more cases and confiscated more mist net than ever before.

However, the army must also take care to avoid stirring up opposition to British presence in Cyprus. Nevertheless, we do need to see more enforcement support from the Ministry of Defence to ensure the invasive tree removal operation continues.

In addition, the Republic of Cyprus must crack down on black-market restaurants which serve songbirds. Small-scale trapping of birds for human consumption in Cyprus was practiced for many centuries, but it has been illegal on the island for over 40 years, after being outlawed in 1974.

Enforcement against restaurants serving ambelopoulia has been almost non-existent in the last few years, yet as the key driver of this illegal activity it is crucial that urgent action is taken by the Cyprus Government.

Jamie Wyver works for the RSPB, the UK’s BirdLife partner.

• The new report: ‘Update on illegal bird trapping activity in Cyprus‘ by Tassos Shialis, BirdLife Cyprus, March 2017.
• Birdlife report: ‘The Killing‘.
• Find out more about illegal bird trapping on Cyprus.
• Learn more about the RSPB’s international work.