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Hawaii first to ban shark fin soup. Yao Ming: "Endangered species are our friends", stop shark fin soup, stop shark killing

NBA star Yao Ming pledged to give up eating shark's fin soup. 'Endangered species are our friends.'

every year tens of millions of sharks, their fins brutally sliced off, are thrown back into the ocean to die

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World's First Ban on Shark Fin Makes Hawaii Global Leader in Shark Conservation
HONOLULU, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- On the eve of the State of Hawaii becoming the first jurisdiction to ban sales of shark fin soup, local and international conservation groups praised the ground-breaking move as a first step to halting the decimation of global shark stocks.

China is the world's biggest importer of shark's fins, cut from sharks that are thrown back into the ocean to die.

Fins from up to 70 million sharks a year are used for shark fin soup often with the bodies of the animal dumped overboard dead or alive. In a recent study the world's top shark scientists (IUCN Shark Specialist Group) reported that of 64 species of open ocean sharks and rays 32% are "threatened with extinction," primarily due to overfishing. In addition, 24% were "near threatened," while another 25% could not be assessed due to lack of data. Yet only 3 species have any kind of international protection and the UN CITES convention recently declined to take any action due to opposition led by Japan.  read more »

Mexico bans junk food in schools & requires physical education to fight obesity from a young age

Mexico is looking to battle the bulging waistlines of its children by banning the sale of junk food in its schools

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Mexican Lawmakers Ban Junk Food in Schools, Require Physical Education
MEXICO CITY – The lower house of Congress approved two reform measures banning the sale of junk food in schools and making physical education classes mandatory in Mexico, where 30 percent of children are obese.

obesity can be slowed down by banning junk food in school

A majority of lawmakers voted during a regular session Tuesday to approve the changes, acknowledging that childhood obesity tripled in Mexico in the past 20 years and federal and state officials must take action to deal with the situation.

Schools will be required to provide 30 minutes of physical education time every day to help students lose weight.

even tacos will be off the menu in Mexican schools

Some 70 percent of adults in Mexico, according to official figures, are overweight, while 70 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 11, or some 4.5 million minors, are overweight. Some 40 percent of Mexicans, according to the 2006 National Health Survey, are obese.

The percentage of Mexico’s population classified as overweight or obese has tripled since 1980. “Childhood obesity has become a social problem and a serious health problem,” lawmakers said.  read more »

UN Conference on saving world's fish stocks: migratory species & high seas fish stocks fully exploited or over-exploited

A total of almost 80% of the world's fisheries are fully- to over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse. Worldwide about 90% of the stocks of large predatory fish stocks are already gone.

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UN News Centre: Conference on saving world’s fish stocks opens at UN Headquarters
24 May 2010 – A five-day conference on fish conservation opened at United Nations Headquarters in New York today amid warnings that three quarters of the world’s fish stocks are in distress and nearing depletion while marine ecosystems continue to deteriorate.

graph illustrating overfishing; habitat destruction, bycatch, incidental mortality

The conference chairman David Balton, United States Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Fisheries in the Bureau of Oceans, cited over-fishing, the effect of fishing on the marine environment and the need for further assistance to developing countries as among the forum’s main issues.

overfishing in the Mediterranean Sea has led to the targetting of smaller and smaller fish

The conference is reviewing implementation of the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement that established a legal regime for long-term conservation and sustainable use of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. It will provide an opportunity for countries to consider new measures to tighten implementation of the legal regime.  read more »

Sushi-cide tragedy. Eat bluefin tuna (97% gone) to extinction? Oceans at our mercy. We have a choice...

Sushi-cide blue fin tuna tragedy: 97% already gone. Eat it to extinction? Man-made catastrophe. Oceans at our mercy. Choose.
Unfortunately for blue fin tuna, ‘it is highly prized for its meat - a single fish recently sold in Tokyo for 16.28 million yen - around 250,000 New Zealand dollars.’
chart about high mercury levels found in tuna sushi in New York stores and restaurants

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The Economist magazine calls CITES suppress- ion of debate on bluefin tuna dis- honorable: IT WAS a moment of some drama when delegates assembled in Doha came to vote on a ban in the trade in bluefin tuna on March 18th. The previous evening many represent- atives of the 175 member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) had been at a reception at the Japanese embassy. Prominent on the menu was bluefin tuna sushi. On the agenda the next day at the CITES meeting was a proposal to list the bluefin tuna as sufficiently endangered that it would qualify for a complete ban in the trade of the species (The Economist supports such a ban).  read more »

Ocean pollution. Sea "dead zones", oxygen-deprived, fishless: 1st recorded in 1970, 417 in 2008, largest covers 70,000 sq km

ocean deadzones concentrated mainly around coasts of industrialized countries, causing widespread killing of fish & other marine organisms
A new global study of Earth’s oceans shows a rapid rise in the number of “dead zones” - areas of seafloor with too little oxygen to sustain most marine life. The oxygen-starved waters have proliferated since the 1960s and now rank as one of the world's most pressing environmental problems.
largest ocean deadzone in Gulf of Mexico from Mississippi River delta
Clocking in at over 8000 square miles (21,000 km2) this year, probably the largest dead zone today stems from the Mississippi River delta in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a site at the confluence of significant farming in the midwest and significant fishing (and shrimping) in the Gulf area. The dead zone spans east to west along the Louisiana and Texas coasts.
Expanding dead zones in the oceans: Mississippi Delta, Yangtze River, and Pearl River
Several visible sites with expanding dead zones. Mississippi Delta at the top, with Yangtze River in the bottom left and Pearl River in the bottom right. The dead zones are the tinted clouds swirling at the coastal edge.
Map of ever-rising, now 400+ dead zones in world’s oceans. Their murky waters generate blackholes - no fish, no birds  read more »

Who commits Trespass, Piracy (robbery at sea)? Whaler or Bethune? Whale Sanctuary, 304 females killed: 192 pregnant, 4 lactating

Top: people gathered outside the Japanese consulate in Melbourne to protest against Japanese whaling fleet slaughtering whales in Southern Ocean. Middle: minke whale harpooned by Japanese whaling ship Yushin Maru. Bottom: In protected waters..GPS locator shows Japanese whaler just 100 nautical miles from Davis Station & well inside Australian Exclusive Economic Zone.

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Responses to 'Is the Anti-Whaling Activist Who Boarded a Japanese Whaling Ship a Pirate?' Jim Says: The Japanese are trespassing and poaching within a known whale sanctuary. What type of research results in the SALE of WHALEMEAT to consumers - this is profiteering by the Japanese and they are the actual pirates? AnimuX Says: If Japan prosecutes Pete Bethune, he will become the political prisoner of a tyrannical government that has even violated the basic human rights of its own citizens (remember the Tokyo Two?) in order to support the whaling industry. Not to mention the fact that the captain of the ship that Pete boarded, Shonan Maru 2, is the same man who rammed and destroyed his vessel, Ady Gil, nearly killing Bethune and 5 members of his crew. If anything, the captain and crew of the Shonan Maru 2 should be apprehended and charged by New Zealand authorities for attempted murder.

As for the flawed concept that Japan is doing “legal” research in the Southern Ocean:  read more »

Ocean guardians - Earthrace joins Sea Shepherd to stop whale slaughter. Global community's tried but so far failed

Inset: [Left] Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd leader. [Right] Pete Bethune, skipper of Earthrace (Ady Gil). [Center] Endangered white whale, migaloo. Bottom: Japanese fisherman butchering captured whale

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Ady Gil, formerly Earthrace, joins Sea Shepherd fleet

Thanks to a $1 million donation from its namesake, US multi-millionaire Ady Gil, formerly known as Earthrace, the Ady Gil has become the latest addition to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's protest fleet. The Ady Gil will bear down on whalers at 40 knots, blaring Maori-inspired war cries through a 9000W speaker system. "They're going to think 'what the f..k have we got here?' " laughed Ady Gil's skipper Pete Bethune.

"It deflects radar signals, so it's very hard for radar systems to pick us up. It's effectively a stealth boat. Made of carbon, with carbon flecks in the paint you can have a big boat with a 20kW radar 400m away and they won't see you. In the past, the Steve Irwin has only been fast enough to keep up with the processing ship, the Nissan Maru, but not the harpooners. We can keep up with the harpoon vessels.” "The point of conflict will shift to include the harpoon vessels now, so it gives us a chance to stop the whales being harpooned." The boat holds the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe.  read more »

"Nothing will benefit human health & increase chances for survival of life on earth as much as evolution to a vegetarian diet"

Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

— Albert Einstein

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