Habitat Protection Under The Magnuson-Stevens Act: Can It Really Contribute To Ecosystem Health In The Northeast Atlantic?

New England’s legendary Atlantic cod fishery is in deep trouble. The cod, along with several additional fish species that make up New England’s groundfish fishery, remain critically depleted, and are at only a small fraction of healthy levels. In 2004, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC or Council) and the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) implemented the first comprehensive rebuilding program for groundfish in New England. This plan relies primarily on management measures designed to reduce fishing rates in order to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. The most recent scientific review by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) released in 2005, however, showed that overfishing was still occurring on several groundfish species, including the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod stocks. Their levels had plummeted another twenty-five and twenty-one percent respectively since the last comprehensive NEFSC review in 2001, leaving them at only ten and twenty-three percent of the target levels that scientists consider the minimum for health and sustainability. The continued depletion of New England’s critical groundfish populations is not only bad news for the fish, but also for coastal New England fishermen and their communities, who face economic hardship caused by regulators’ attempts to end overfishing. While ending overfishing is clearly a fundamental first step in addressing our fisheries problems, the healthy growth and development of juvenile fish is essential to rebuilding sustainable commercial fisheries and the healthy ecosystems fish require. Habitat is necessary to fish for food, shelter, and reproduction, and demersal (groundfish) juveniles are particularly dependent upon sea floor structure for predator evasion and energy conservation. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that many different types of fishing gear—especially bottom trawls and dredges but also gillnets, traps, longlines and other gear—degrade critical fish habitat which can lead to declines in fish populations. As a result, certain fishing gear should be restricted in sensitive habitat areas to protect juvenile fish habitat and to help ensure that marine fish populations are restored to healthy levels for years to come. Ten years after the Sustainable Fisheries Act was enacted in 1996 to strengthen the conservation provisions of our nation’s fisheries law, protections for Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) from harmful fishing practices remain inadequate. Over this time period, the NEFMC, like most of our nation’s fishery management councils, has demonstrated all the classic failures of protecting habitat by hiding behind scientific uncertainty, maintaining that existing management measures are sufficient, limiting prohibitions of destructive gear to where it currently is not a threat, and providing limited protection for some of the most vulnerable habitat types while ignoring other important areas. The NEFMC itself appears to recognize that it has fallen short in fulfilling the conservation promise offered in the habitat provisions added by the Sustainable Fisheries Act. The NEFMC is currently developing an omnibus habitat amendment designed to review and update its EFH designations and to consider new actions designed to protect habitat. Recently, in response to a request for proposals to identify habitat areas of particular concern in New England waters, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-Canada) developed an innovative new strategy to restore New England’s depleted cod and other groundfish populations. These groups proposed creating a network of Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPC), locations where large concentrations of young fish from eight struggling, overfished species, such as Atlantic cod, hake, and yellowtail flounder live (the Multi-species HAPC proposal). With the aid of a powerful computer modeling tool, the groups generated a unique, objective, and science-based proposal that seeks to restore and protect areas that provide critical habitat for many species at the same time, thus keeping the number of isolated habitat sites to a minimum. If implemented, the result would be an efficient system that conserves critical areas with large numbers of juvenile fish while minimizing the impacts to U.S. and Canadian fishermen. Unfortunately, when called upon to recognize the areas identified in the Multi-species HAPC proposal as HAPCs and to take action to protect them, the NEFMC abruptly set the proposal aside despite the strong support of the leading habitat scientists advising the Council. This rejection by the Council, which is overseeing the demise of one of the world’s legendary fishing grounds, is especially frustrating given modern scientific understanding of the value of habitat protection as the key component of ecological health. This rejection calls into question whether the Magnuson- Stevens Act’s habitat provisions are an adequate tool to help stop the decline of our ocean ecosystems and for restoring such ecosystems to a reasonable approximation of what they once were. This Article looks at the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s habitat provisions through the prism of the New England groundfish fishery. The fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic, under the oversight of the NEFMC, have played a pivotal role as case studies for Congress throughout the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s history. Examining the New England fishery allows us to evaluate where managers have delivered on the Act’s habitat conservation promises, where they have fallen short, and where one might look to begin to chart a better course for the health of our oceans. The Council’s failures also help bring into focus the need for new tools for restoring and protecting ecological health, the need for reform of the nation’s fishery management councils, and the need for a broader approach to ocean governance

Habitat Protection Under The Magnuson-Stevens Act: Can It Really Contribute To Ecosystem Health In The Northeast Atlantic?

New England’s legendary Atlantic cod fishery is in deep trouble. The cod, along with several additional fish species that make up New England’s groundfish fishery, remain critically depleted, and are at only a small fraction of healthy levels. In 2004, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC or Council) and the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) implemented the first comprehensive rebuilding program for groundfish in New England. This plan relies primarily on management measures designed to reduce fishing rates in order to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. The most recent scientific review by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) released in 2005, however, showed that overfishing was still occurring on several groundfish species, including the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod stocks. Their levels had plummeted another twenty-five and twenty-one percent respectively since the last comprehensive NEFSC review in 2001, leaving them at only ten and twenty-three percent of the target levels that scientists consider the minimum for health and sustainability. The continued depletion of New England’s critical groundfish populations is not only bad news for the fish, but also for coastal New England fishermen and their communities, who face economic hardship caused by regulators’ attempts to end overfishing. While ending overfishing is clearly a fundamental first step in addressing our fisheries problems, the healthy growth and development of juvenile fish is essential to rebuilding sustainable commercial fisheries and the healthy ecosystems fish require. Habitat is necessary to fish for food, shelter, and reproduction, and demersal (groundfish) juveniles are particularly dependent upon sea floor structure for predator evasion and energy conservation. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that many different types of fishing gear—especially bottom trawls and dredges but also gillnets, traps, longlines and other gear—degrade critical fish habitat which can lead to declines in fish populations. As a result, certain fishing gear should be restricted in sensitive habitat areas to protect juvenile fish habitat and to help ensure that marine fish populations are restored to healthy levels for years to come. Ten years after the Sustainable Fisheries Act was enacted in 1996 to strengthen the conservation provisions of our nation’s fisheries law, protections for Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) from harmful fishing practices remain inadequate. Over this time period, the NEFMC, like most of our nation’s fishery management councils, has demonstrated all the classic failures of protecting habitat by hiding behind scientific uncertainty, maintaining that existing management measures are sufficient, limiting prohibitions of destructive gear to where it currently is not a threat, and providing limited protection for some of the most vulnerable habitat types while ignoring other important areas. The NEFMC itself appears to recognize that it has fallen short in fulfilling the conservation promise offered in the habitat provisions added by the Sustainable Fisheries Act. The NEFMC is currently developing an omnibus habitat amendment designed to review and update its EFH designations and to consider new actions designed to protect habitat. Recently, in response to a request for proposals to identify habitat areas of particular concern in New England waters, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-Canada) developed an innovative new strategy to restore New England’s depleted cod and other groundfish populations. These groups proposed creating a network of Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPC), locations where large concentrations of young fish from eight struggling, overfished species, such as Atlantic cod, hake, and yellowtail flounder live (the Multi-species HAPC proposal). With the aid of a powerful computer modeling tool, the groups generated a unique, objective, and science-based proposal that seeks to restore and protect areas that provide critical habitat for many species at the same time, thus keeping the number of isolated habitat sites to a minimum. If implemented, the result would be an efficient system that conserves critical areas with large numbers of juvenile fish while minimizing the impacts to U.S. and Canadian fishermen. Unfortunately, when called upon to recognize the areas identified in the Multi-species HAPC proposal as HAPCs and to take action to protect them, the NEFMC abruptly set the proposal aside despite the strong support of the leading habitat scientists advising the Council. This rejection by the Council, which is overseeing the demise of one of the world’s legendary fishing grounds, is especially frustrating given modern scientific understanding of the value of habitat protection as the key component of ecological health. This rejection calls into question whether the Magnuson- Stevens Act’s habitat provisions are an adequate tool to help stop the decline of our ocean ecosystems and for restoring such ecosystems to a reasonable approximation of what they once were. This Article looks at the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s habitat provisions through the prism of the New England groundfish fishery. The fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic, under the oversight of the NEFMC, have played a pivotal role as case studies for Congress throughout the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s history. Examining the New England fishery allows us to evaluate where managers have delivered on the Act’s habitat conservation promises, where they have fallen short, and where one might look to begin to chart a better course for the health of our oceans. The Council’s failures also help bring into focus the need for new tools for restoring and protecting ecological health, the need for reform of the nation’s fishery management councils, and the need for a broader approach to ocean governance

The Organic Research Centre - Elm Farm:Bulletin 87

Bulletin 87 with coverage of Avian Influenza H5N1 in Suffolk,commentary on Biofuels, a paper on the organic "transition to sustainable resilience",paper on participatory approach to agronomy trials,update on evolutionary breeding of wheat project,article on formation of new growers alliance in UK

The Organic Research Centre; Elm Farm Bulletin 84 July 2006

Regular bulletin with technical updates of the Organic Advisory Service Issue contains: Battling on for Avian Flu preventive vaccination; Organic Colombian Blacktail eggs; UK Co-existence - GMOand non-GMO crops; Aspects of Poultry Behaviour; CAP in the service of biodiversity; Seeing the Wood, the Trees and the Catch 22; Beware of organic market "statistics"; A central role in energy review

Conservation Tillage: Repackaging the Message for Farmers

Improved agricultural conservation practices can benefit both the environment and farmers. A sample of farmers in the Western Lake Erie Basin Watershed were asked about conservation tillage, including where they learned about practices they use and why they adopted them. The study reported here found that farmers more commonly consult other farmers, magazines or newspapers, and family members to obtain information about tillage practices than they use Extension agents. Farmers said they practiced conservation tillage mainly because it saves time and fuel. Extension agents can increase their effectiveness by recognizing economics and using the popular press when delivering their findings

Risk factors for presentation to hospital with severe anaemia in Tanzanian children: a case-control study.

In malaria endemic areas anaemia is a usually silent condition that nevertheless places a considerable burden on health services. Cases of severe anaemia often require hospitalization and blood transfusions. The objective of this study was to assess risk factors for admission with anaemia to facilitate the design of anaemia control programmes. We conducted a prospective case-control study of children aged 2-59 months admitted to a district hospital in southern Tanzania. There were 216 cases of severe anaemia [packed cell volume (PCV) < 25%] and 234 age-matched controls (PCV > or = 25%). Most cases [55.6% (n = 120)] were < 1 year of age. Anaemia was significantly associated with the educational level of parents, type of accommodation, health-seeking behaviour, the child's nutritional status and recent and current medical history. Of these, the single most important factor was Plasmodium falciparum parasitaemia [OR 4.3, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.9-6.5, P < 0.001]. Multivariate analysis showed that increased recent health expenditure [OR 2.2 (95% CI 1.3-3.9), P = 0.005], malnutrition [OR 2.4 (95%CI 1.3-4.3), P < 0.001], living > 10 km from the hospital [OR 3.0 (95% CI 1.9-4.9), P < 0.001], a history of previous blood transfusion [OR 3.8 (95% CI 1.7-9.1), P < 0.001] and P. falciparum parasitaemia [OR 9.5 (95% CI 4.3-21.3), P < 0.001] were independently related to risk of being admitted with anaemia. These findings are considered in terms of the pathophysiological pathway leading to anaemia. The concentration of anaemia in infants and problems of access to health services and adequate case management underline the need for targeted preventive strategies for anaemia control

Inattentive Consumers in Markets for Services

In an experiment on markets for services, we find that consumers are likely to stick to default tariffs and achieve suboptimal outcomes. We find that inattention to the task of choosing a better tariff is likely to be a substantial problem in addition to any task and tariff complexity effect. The institutional setup on which we primarily model our experiment is the UK electricity and gas markets, and our conclusion is that the new measures by the UK regulator Ofgem to improve consumer outcomes are likely to be of limited impact

Sexual Risk Behaviors for HIV/AIDS in Chuuk State, Micronesia: The Case for HIV Prevention in Vulnerable Remote Populations

BACKGROUND: After the first two cases of locally-acquired HIV infection were recognized in Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a public health response was initiated. The purpose of the response was to assess the need for HIV education and prevention services, to develop recommendations for controlling further spread of HIV in Chuuk, and to initiate some of the prevention measures. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A public health team conducted a survey and rapid HIV testing among a sample of residents on the outer islands in Chuuk. Local public health officials conducted contact tracing and testing of sex partners of the two locally-acquired cases of HIV infection. A total of 333 persons completed the survey. The majority knew that HIV is transmitted through unprotected sexual contact (81%), injection drug use (61%), or blood transfusion (64%). Sexual activity in the past 12 months was reported among 159 participants, including 90 females and 69 males. Compared to women, men were more likely to have had multiple sex partners, to have been drunk during sex, but less likely to have used a condom in the past 12 months. The two men with locally acquired HIV infection had unprotected anal sex with a third Chuukese man who likely contracted HIV while outside of Chuuk. All 370 persons who received voluntary, confidential HIV counseling and testing had HIV negative test results. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Despite the low HIV seroprevalence, risky sexual behaviors in this small isolated population raise concerns about the potential for rapid spread of HIV. The lack of knowledge about risks, along with stigmatizing attitudes towards persons infected with HIV and high risk sexual behaviors indicate the need for resources to be directed toward HIV prevention in Chuuk and on other Pacific Islands

The Glasgow Voice Memory Test: Assessing the ability to memorize and recognize unfamiliar voices

One thousand one hundred and twenty subjects as well as a developmental phonagnosic subject (KH) along with age-matched controls performed the Glasgow Voice Memory Test, which assesses the ability to encode and immediately recognize, through an old/new judgment, both unfamiliar voices (delivered as vowels, making language requirements minimal) and bell sounds. The inclusion of non-vocal stimuli allows the detection of significant dissociations between the two categories (vocal vs. non-vocal stimuli). The distributions of accuracy and sensitivity scores (d’) reflected a wide range of individual differences in voice recognition performance in the population. As expected, KH showed a dissociation between the recognition of voices and bell sounds, her performance being significantly poorer than matched controls for voices but not for bells. By providing normative data of a large sample and by testing a developmental phonagnosic subject, we demonstrated that the Glasgow Voice Memory Test, available online and accessible fromall over the world, can be a valid screening tool (~5 min) for a preliminary detection of potential cases of phonagnosia and of “super recognizers” for voices

Modelling the cost-effectiveness of public awareness campaigns for the early detection of non-small-cell lung cancer

Background: Survival rates in lung cancer in England are significantly lower than in many similar countries. A range of Be Clear on Cancer (BCOC) campaigns have been conducted targeting lung cancer and found to improve the proportion of diagnoses at the early stage of disease. This paper considers the cost-effectiveness of such campaigns, evaluating the effect of both the regional and national BCOC campaigns on the stage distribution of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at diagnosis. Methods: A natural history model of NSCLC was developed using incidence data, data elicited from clinical experts and model calibration techniques. This structure is used to consider the lifetime cost and quality-adjusted survival implications of the early awareness campaigns. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) in terms of additional costs per quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) gained are presented. Two scenario analyses were conducted to investigate the role of changes in the ‘worried-well’ population and the route of diagnosis that might occur as a result of the campaigns. Results: The base-case theoretical model found the regional and national early awareness campaigns to be associated with QALY gains of 289 and 178 QALYs and ICERs of d13 660 and d18 173 per QALY gained, respectively. The scenarios found that increases in the ‘worried-well’ population may impact the cost-effectiveness conclusions. Conclusions: Subject to the available evidence, the analysis suggests that early awareness campaigns in lung cancer have the potential to be cost-effective. However, significant additional research is required to address many of the limitations of this study. In addition, the estimated natural history model presents previously unavailable estimates of the prevalence and rate of disease progression in the undiagnosed population