Green Options

Organizers have announced a three-day music festival to take place in Port Lympne Wild Animal Park that will feature over 200 bands, visual artists, and poets. Half the profits from the event will be donated to the Aspinall Foundation.

World Species Survey details gloomy outlook for many animal species.In early October of 2008, the results of a global species  survey, conducted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, were released.  The numbers are startling:

• At least a quarter of mammal species are headed toward extinction in the near future.
• Nearly 80 percent of the primate species in southern and southeastern Asia are immediately threatened.
• At least 22 percent of reptile species are at risk of extinction.
• Perhaps 40 percent of North American freshwater fish are threatened.
• In Europe, 45 percent of the most common bird species are rapidly declining, and so are the most common bird species in North America.

But perhaps these figures are a bit too abstract. Here’s a more precise way to look at the present state of bio-diversity on Earth.

Clearing of mangroves in the name of land reclamation — land to be used for shoreline development — is a worldwide activity. According to University of Virginia and University of Georgia scientists William Odum and R.E. Johannes, more acres of mangrove may have been cleared worldwide than any other type of area except desert, an estimated “many hundreds of thousands of hectacres.” Clearing often results in high, long-term costs of battling increased erosion.

Mangroves are not areas to be “reclaimed.” They not only belong where they are, but they are actively reclaiming and preserving land on their own. The whole process is cyclical, beginning with the mangroves’ role as recyclers, and ending with protection of the outlying coral reefs.

The Role of Mangroves in Protecting Coral Reefs
The reclaiming process is as simple as it is vital. The mangrove roots act as natural filters, trapping sediment and run off from the land, thus preventing or slowing erosion.

Removal of mangroves causes a chain reaction. If the mangroves are cleared the sediment and pollutants run unchecked into the sea grass beds. The nutrient-rich effluent promotes the growth of phytoplankton and filamentous algae, which, combined with the sediment clouds the shallow water and blocks out light necessary for sea grass beds to flourish. The environment becomes anoxic, and the sea grass ecosystem dies.

A report released Wednesday from the World Conservation Union (IUCN) predicts an 80% population decline of the most common type of gorilla, the Western Gorilla, from 1980 levels by 2046. The 2007 Red List of Threatened Species finds "commercial hunting and outbreaks of the Ebola virus have virtually extirpated gorillas from a great deal of otherwise intact forest" where they were previously thought to thrive.

"What’s immediately needed if we are to halt the

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