Saving Estuaries In Sri Lanka

Don't you just love a good news story. Well here is one. Over the past decade the northeast coastal district of Puttalam (Sri Lanka) has had decreasing fish catches. As a result the livelihood of the people living there is imperiled. The International Conservation Union (IUCN) has tackled this problem by training locals to cultivate aloe vera. This provides between $30-60 US to supplement their incomes. 

Conservationists say that the fisheries stocks collapsed because the mangroves were systematically destroyed, and in the process wiped out crucial nursery habitat for juvenile fish, crabs and prawns. IUCN is also educating the locals not to cut down any more mangroves with good results. Once they are engaged they realise the value of the estuary, and voluntarily conserve the ecosystem. 

BP Oil Will Kill Baby Fish

Louisiana's 3.5 million hectares of marshes and estuaries is teeming with life. This area contains far more species than that of the Everglades, Yellowstone Park, or the Rocky Mountains. This region contains major  nurseries for juvenile marine animals, and nearly everything that lives in the gulf is linked back to these estuaries. The natural capital of this area has been valued at around $1.3 trillion dollars due to the great contribution it makes to US fisheries.

These marshes are already devastated from hurricanes, canals built for the oil industry, as well as dikes. levees and channels that have altered the natural flow. However, now oil is about to further threaten life within this ecosystem and all the biodiversity it contains. At present huge populations of nesting birds are directly in the path of the incoming oil. This includes 400 pairs of brown pelicans, 8500 royal terns, 30000 sandwich terns, and 200 black skimmers.