School undertakes biodiversity survey

KOCHI: MES Eastern School, Eloor, never had any dearth of ideas when it comes to engaging its students to expand their horizons beyond mere academics.

Last month, the school undertook a biodiversity survey on its campus engaging members of its nature and science clubs. The entire 2.80 acres of the campus was covered in the survey. In fact, more than 20 species of medicinal plants and 100-odd plant species were found from a piece of 10 cents of land alone.

Forty students were divided into groups and assigned specific areas for undertaking the survey. They were then asked to draw up a list of the species of the flora and fauna they come across. The idea was to prepare a comprehensive list of the flora and fauna on the entire campus.

Soil analysis

Students were also taught how to dry plants and form them into a herbarium. Besides, they learned to detect soil fauna through soil analysis.

The survey that enabled students to learn more about their campus also laid the foundation for drafting a biodiversity directory.

The school now has plans to expand the survey beyond the school campus. Initially, a similar survey would be undertaken in the ward within the limits of which the school is located. This will be followed by a survey in 20 more wards of the Eloor panchayat.

The school also aims at bringing out a book by compiling reports of students based on the survey. “The objective of conducting such a survey was to encourage inquisitive mind in students and to promote research to understand scientific principles,” said Sasidharan Kallery, faculty member and one of the coordinators of the project.

He said that the school would conduct a photo album exhibition based on the survey. A herbarium of plants is another long-term objective.

Source: The Hindu, 20-10-2010

Asteroid 'influenced evolution' Melbourne

The Ediacarans are a weird bunch of organisms that included the world's first large-scale complex life. During the time they lived (635-542 million years ago) in southern Australia, the Earth experienced at least one cold snap that may have covered much of the Earth in ice.

At that time, southern Australia lay near Equator and low latitudes were devastated by impact of a 4.7-km-diameter asteroid that left a 90-km crater in central South Australia.

Now, a team of Australian geologists shows that this massive impact -- which struck with an estimated energy of 5.2 million megatons of TNT - coincided with period of glaciation, the 'Australian Journal of Earth Sciences' reported.

The effect of this double whammy -- extreme cold and killer asteroid -- could have been a major factor influencing the evolution of the Ediacarans, say the geologists.

"Release from the combined environmental stresses of a frigid, glacial climate near sea level and a major impact in low latitudes may have been a factor influencing subsequent Ediacaran biotic evolution," said team leader Victor Gostin of University of Adelaide.

Source: Deccan Herald, 20-10-2010

2010, 1998 hottest period on record: NOAA

NEW YORK: The combined land and ocean surface temperatures for the first nine months of 2010 along with the same period in 1998 was the the hottest period on record, according to US federal weather agency.

"For the year-to-date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 14.75 Celsius tied with 1998 as the warmest January-September period on record," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

"This value is 0.65 Celsius above the 20th century average."

"Warmer-than-average conditions dominated the world's land areas. The most prominent warmth was in western Alaska, most of the contiguous United States, eastern Canada, Greenland, the Middle East, eastern and central Europe, western and far eastern Russia and northeastern Asia," the analysis said.

Los Angeles set a new all-time maximum temperature on September 27 when temperatures soared to 45 Celsius surpassing the previous record of 44.4 Celsius set in June 1990.

Meanwhile, the Northern Territory of Australia had its coolest maximum temperatures since 1984 and Western Australia and Victoria each recorded their lowest maximum temperatures since 1992.

At the same time, Australia received an average precipitation of 1.91 inches (48.4 millimetres) during September, this is nearly double the 1961-1990 average and the highest September value on record.

Cooler-than-average regions included much of Australia, western Canada, parts of the northern United States, parts of western and central Europe, and central Russia.

The NOAA's National Climatic Data Centre has information dating back to 1880.

Further, the research found that the combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for September 2010 tied with 1998 as the eighth warmest on record at 15.5 Celsius which is 0.50 Celsius above the 20th century average of 15. 0 Celsius.

On the polar ice front, arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on September 19, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

"This year also marked the 14th consecutive September with below-average Arctic sea ice extent," the NOAA said.

Meanwhile, the Antarctic sea ice reached its annual maximum in September and September 2010 was the third largest sea ice extent on record (2.3 per cent above average), behind 2006 (largest) and 2007 (second largest).

Source: Times of India,19-10-2010

Call for positive action to conserve biodiversity

KOCHI: The Western Ghats have “some remarkably good areas of natural vegetation containing a high number of plant and animal species,” said R. Wendy Strahm, an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) expert assessing the region for the World Heritage List of UNESCO .

An IUCN team comprising Ms. Strahm and Brian Furze had been visiting some of the 39 serial sites of the Western Ghats which were nominated by India for the World Heritage List. They were in Kerala as part of the evaluation tour l recently

Referring to the biodiversity threats in the Western Ghats, Ms. Strahm said in an e-mail interview that “in any World Heritage nomination evaluation, it is inevitable that the nominated site will have positive as well as negative aspects.” “Our planet is such that sadly no pristine areas still exist, although World Heritage inscription is really about identifying which sites are the best of the best,” she said.

The participatory forest management system in Kerala won the appreciation of the visiting team as Ms. Strahm noted that the team was “very pleased with the visit to Kerala and particularly impressed with the participatory management that the Forestry Department is undertaking with local communities.”

Biodiversity threat

Biodiversity is always threatened in one way or another in the world and positive action from all stakeholders is required to reduce it in all possible manners and it is important to conserve the best areas that remain in the world, she said.

“Overall, the hope is that the world status would serve as an umbrella to recognise and conserve the most important places on earth. There is no automatic mechanism for this and conflicts do not just disappear because of the label. However, the listing does constitute a strong and high-level governmental commitment for conservation which is not only of national but international significance,” she said.

Ms. Strahm said most of the areas proposed in the nomination occur in protected areas either as national parks, tiger reserves, wildlife sanctuaries or reserved forests. It is understood that hydel or mining projects are expressly prohibited by the law in these sites, she said.

Evaluation process

The field evaluation undertaken by the visiting team was “one fundamental component of the evaluation process. Experts familiar with the Western Ghats are undertaking a complementary desktop review, and both the evaluation report as well as other reports will be presented to the independent IUCN World Heritage Panel which will digest all information, and decide whether additional information is required,” she said.

The nomination will then go to the World Heritage Committee which would decide on the inscription, considering the advice of IUCN. The visiting team will file its report by mid-November and the second level report would be ready by the last week of the month.

Source: The Hindu, 20-10-2010