Historic Opportunity to Protect the Coral Sea

Friends of RealSurf,

The good folks at Protect Our Coral Sea have contacted us about a petition they are running which is aimed at getting the Federal Government to include important reefs in the proposed management plan. It’s very easy to make yourself heard on this one!

The Coral Sea is a tropical marine jewel which lies east of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It’s one of the last places on Earth where large marine animals can still be found in great numbers.
The government’s draft plan for this iconic area leaves the majority of species-rich coral reefs, important breeding sites open to fishing.
Right now the federal government is considering the fate of Australia’s Coral Sea.

If the petition widget isn’t showing below on your web browser, please just click here to visit Protect Our Coral Sea where you’ll find it on the front page.

An Editorial On Sharks, In Byron Bay Today.

With all the media attention on the latest tragic shark attack in West Australia and the current Great White sightings, in Byron Bay today. I thought now is probably a good time to just remind folks of the reality of surfing with sharks these days. Firstly my sincerest condolences to all the family and friends of all the victims of any shark attacks, both recent and those long ago. I mean really let’s face it, the primal fear and terror of being eaten alive, is about as heavy as it gets. But that is not what this editorial is about; it is about the ,,,,,,,, for the full editorial go to In Byron Bay Today.

Work for Surfrider Foundation!

Coolest Jobs on the Coast!

Surfrider Foundation is seeking 2 people for our Avalon National HQ, to help us protect Australia’s waves and beaches. We are NFP organisation with 23 volunteer-based branches around Australia.

Operation Manager (30 hrs/wk)

The Operations Manager reports to the Board as the senior employee responsible for running our National Office. This is a challenging and rewarding role, requiring excellent administrative and management skills.

Applications close October 7 2011

Partnership Manager (20 hrs/wk)

The Partnerships Manager is responsible for building relationships with donors, sponsors, government and grand bodies, and developing related marketing and environmental campaigns with our branches.

Applications close October 14 2011

For more info and job descriptions visit www.surfrider.org.au

Sea Shepherd Fundraiser Film Night Manly Sun 16/10

Surfrider Beach Clean-up: Sth Curly, SUN 15 May at 0830

Grab your heavy gloves and join the Surfrider northern beaches crew for some beach cleaning activity at South Curl Curl this SUNDAY from 0830. Look for the Surfrider tent in the green space at South Curly where there’ll be bags and so on.
Questions? Contact Nick Mercer on 0410903712 or email him at nicholas.mercer[at]det.nsw.edu.au

Surfrider Northern Beaches
Surfrider Foundation Australia

Food Prices and Oil Prices

Not surfing-related, but interesting (to your webmaster, anyway).

Found this page by a guy named Paul Chefurka last night while browsing… worrisome… sadly.

Just for grins, I recently took the ten most recent years of world Food Price Index data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the monthly average oil price from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), and plotted them together. I’d never seen this done before, and I was interested to know if there was any correlation. Here’s the graph:

The thing that stunned me was the closeness of the correlation. For you math geeks, the correlation coefficient of the two data sets is 0.93!

The next thing that’s fascinating is that changes in the Food Price Index appear to lead changes in the price of oil by a few months. Since food prices don’t drive oil prices as far as I know, this implies that they are both responding to the same underlying situation, but that food prices are a more sensitive indicator.

The last thing that I noticed is the behaviour of food and oil prices in the last six months. The sharp rise in food prices is being noticed in the media now, but the graph hints that the story is just beginning.

Paul Chefurka
November 17, 2010
This article may be reproduced in whole or in part , in any manner and for any purpose whatsoever, with no restrictions.

The Duke’s Day and Surfrider Beach clean-up at Freshy Sat 15/1/2011

The organisers of the Duke’s Day say it will be a combination sustainability expo and fun events celebration and fundraiser for the Freshy SLSC. Surfrider Foundation will be on hand to conduct a beach clean up from about 0800 to 1000, so if you’re out and about on the day, say hi.

Sea Level rise impact on Sydney: SMH

An Ominous Warning on the Effects of Ocean Acidification by Carl Zimmer: Yale Environment 360

Um, this isn’t good.

In an article published in Nature Geoscience by
Andy Ridgwell and Daniela N. Schmidt from the University of Bristol, the world’s oceans are acidifying 10x faster than they did 55 million years ago when there was a mass marine species extinction event.
You’ll never guess what’s causing it…

In his summary of the article*published on Yale University’s environment360 site, science writer Carl Zimmer writes:

When we humans burn fossil fuels, we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where the gas traps heat. But much of that carbon dioxide does not stay in the air. Instead, it gets sucked into the oceans. If not for the oceans, climate scientists believe that the planet would be much warmer than it is today. Even with the oceans’ massive uptake of CO2, the past decade was still the warmest since modern record-keeping began. But storing carbon dioxide in the oceans may come at a steep cost: It changes the chemistry of seawater.

From: An Ominous Warning on the Effects of Ocean Acidification by Carl Zimmer: Yale Environment 360.

*Original citation:

Past constraints on the vulnerability of marine calcifiers to massive carbon dioxide release

Andy Ridgwell & Daniela N. Schmidt

Surfrider Foundation Slams Abbott Plan to Ban Future Marine Parks

www.surfrider.org.au/surfers-want-to-fillet-abbott

The peak coastal organisation Surfrider Foundation Australia has come out strongly against Tony Abbott’s sudden ban on new marine parks and has accused him of “eco vandalism” and “dog-fish-whistling”.

“The claim that marine parks harm tourism and fishing is totally untrue and irresponsible,” said the Chairman of the Surfrider Foundation Australia Board Dr Rex Campbell.

“Fishing and fish stocks improve greatly near areas where marine parks and sanctuaries have been created.”

“While Mr Abbott was filleting the 4kg Barramundi yesterday, I had to ask myself, was he fish-mongering or scare-mongering?” said Dr. Campbell. “Plus I wondered if the barramundi got to be 4kg only because it grew up in a protected sanctuary?”.

Surfrider Foundation is calling on all political parties to proclaim more marine sanctuaries, not less, to ensure protection against overfishing, oil spills, shipping hazards, whaling, offshore pollution and to grow tourism.

It would appear that Mr Abbott is purposefully blurring the line between marine parks and No Take zones, which typically are a small percentage of any marine park. Marine parks themselves constitute a miniscule amount of Australia’s nearly 36,000 kilometers mainland coastline and the 24,000 kilometers of island coastline.

Marine parks are multiple-use, meaning that a wide range of activities, including fishing, are allowed in many areas.

Marine sanctuaries are smaller areas within the marine park and are no-take, meaning that fishing and extractive activities such as oil drilling, is not allowed.

“The fishing industry scare campaign surrounding marine parks has been very successful, but the facts do not back up the fears. Marine sanctuaries actually help tourism and help recreational fishing.”

“I was heavily into fishing and diving long before I rode my first wave”, says Surfrider Foundation Australia Director Gene Hardy.
“I’ve recently been holidaying in an area within the iconic Ningaloo Marine Park, and enjoyed incredible fishing near large marine sanctuary areas.”

“It’s a simple concept, preserve some reasonably large areas as breeding / conservation areas and you are going to get spill over into your mixed fishing zones.”

“It’s not about stopping people fishing – sanctuaries work.”

“In fact the last thing anybody wants, especially serious fisherman, is to decimate our fish stocks so that no one can go fishing.”

“I want my daughter’s children to be able to catch their dinner the same way I have.” Said Mr Hardy.

“Surfrider Foundation fights for a clean oceans, not “cleaned out” oceans and calls on the Coalition to review this policy as this proposition simply will not stand up. Where these things are in place, coastal communities do well.” said Dr Campbell.

Find out more about Surfrider at surfrider.org.au

Media contact:

Dr Rex Campbell 0423 889 899
Brendan Donohoe 0422 900 501
info@surfrider.org.au

More Information:

Marine parks are multiple-use, meaning that a wide range of activities, including fishing, are allowed in many areas. Marine sanctuaries are smaller areas within the marine park and are no-take, meaning that fishing and extractive activities such as oil drilling, is not allowed. They protect fish stocks and provide safe breeding grounds for fish and other species. Spillover from these sanctuary zones enables sustainable fisheries and allows for fishers to come back year after year and catch their quotas. Sanctuaries become an ‘engine room’ for fish production. One recent study shows that one large female dhufish of 98cm was capable of producing the equivalent number of eggs as 11 60cm dhufish. (StJohn, 2009).

Ningaloo Marine Park in North Western Australia is an example of a marine park. 34% or 88,365 acres are made up of sanctuary zones. The remaining 66% is made up of general use, recreation, and special purpose zones. Recreational fishing is allowed in all of those areas. Rottnest Island off of Perth hosts a successful marine park and the one of the sanctuary zones (Kingston Reef) have 50x more legal lobsters and 100x higher egg production (Babcock et al., 2007).

Babcock, R.C., Phillips, J.C., Lourey, M., Clapin, G. Increased density, biomass and egg production in an unfished population of Western Rock Lobster (Panulirus cygnus) at Rottnest Island, Western Australia. CSIRO Marine Research, Private Bag No. 5, Wembley 6913 WA, Australia

R. Lenanton, J. StJohn*, I. Keay, C. Wakefield, G. Jackson, B. Wise and D. Gaughan Spatial scales of exploitation among populations of demersal scalefish: implications for management. Part 2: Stock structure and biology of two indicator species, West Australian dhufish (Glaucosoma hebraicum) and pink snapper (Pagrus auratus), in the West Coast Bioregion Final FRDC Report – Project 2003/052