Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Blue whales can hear sounds in wider range....

Blue whales can be affected even by sounds that are outside their vocalisation range, according to a new study.

Mariana Melcon and colleagues from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography observed the response of blue whales in the Southern California Bight to mid-frequency sounds created by military sonar, which occur between 1000Hz to 8000Hz, much higher than blue whale calls, which are 100Hz and lower.

They collected thousands of hours of recordings over two summers, and found that, when mid-frequency active (MFA) sonar (which is used to find submarines) was active in the region, blue whales' low-frequency vocalizations, known as "D-calls", dropped by almost half: a sign, the authors posit, that despite being well outside the whales' vocalization range, such relatively high-frequency sounds are within their hearing range.

One possible explanation for being able to hear sounds of such high frequency, Melcon and colleagues suggest, "is that it may be advantageous, for instance, to hear their predators, ie. killer whales, which vocalize in the same frequency range as MFA sonar," Discovery News reported.

Conversely, when confronted with the noise of shipping, which does largely fall within their vocalization range, the whales increased their D-calls - which "may be the vocal response of the animals to overcome the noise".

This new research just published in the online open-access journal PLoS One.

Indian, Australian scientists to participate in workshop on climate change

The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) in collaboration with the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania, will conduct an international workshop on 'Preparing for climate change on marine systems in Australia and India' from March 6-10 in the city.

Michael Carter, consul commercial and trade commissioner of Australia at Chennai will inaugurate the workshop at 10 am on Tuesday. Seven scientists from Australia led by Stewart Frusher, associate professor, IMAS, will participate in the workshop. The Indian team of 14 scientists will be led by G Syda Rao, director, CMFRI.

Funded by the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund, the aim of the workshop is to bring together an inter-disciplinary research team from both countries to improve understanding on the impacts of climate change on marine resources and stakeholders.

Both these regions have been identified as global warming hotspots.

Environment and forest ministry to demarcate no-go areas for mining within a month

The Union environment and forests ministry (MoEF) will demarcate the no-go areas for mining within a month. However, this time around, they have been rechristened as "inviolate areas".

The exercise will be carried out by a panel chaired by environment and forest secretary T Chatterjee.

The original no-go demarcation was scrapped since the coal ministry and industry had complained about it. Earlier, it was decided by Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, to instead demarcate "inviolate areas", where mining would not be permissible.

In the GoM meeting held on Thursday, it was decided that the process of demarcating the inviolate zone would be conducted within a month. The Chatterjee-led panel has been tasked to chalk out fresh criteria for the demarcation process that would decide how liberal the new regime is.

GoM members also pushed hard for a revaluation of the environment ministry's decision not to open Mahan and Chhatrasal captive coal blocks in Madhya Pradesh. The ministry has been asked to review its decision for which another panel will be sent to the sites.

Mahan had been allocated to the Aditya Birla Group and Essar in a joint venture, and the firm has made substantial investments in their power plants based on separate environment clearances. While the environmental clearance did put conditions about securing forest clearance, the GoM members noted that no concern had been raised for long, besides companies had pumped funds into the projects.

Chhatrasal block has been allocated to the Reliance Ultra Mega Power Project but the environment ministry's statutory Forest Advisory Committee had recommended against clearing the venture as it impinges upon the Rihand reservoir apart from other concerns.

The GoM would consider the two blocks' fate once the panel submits its report in 10 days.

The GoM also discussed if power projects could be given clearance without assessing the environmental and forest implications of the linked coal blocks. It was suggested that a decision could be taken based on a pool of coal supply being assured in advance as long as the quality of the mineral needed for the particular power project was available in the pool.

Green tag sought for Western Ghats

The entire Western Ghats must be considered as ecologically sensitive, especially to ensure the sustainability of the rivers of the Indian Peninsula, the Madhav Gadgil Committee report has said. Peninsular rivers such as the Krishna, Godavari and Cauvery that drain the Deccan Plateau and flow eastwards originate in the Western Ghats.

"Hundreds of shorter perennial monsoon fed west flowing rivers like Sharavati, Netravathi, Periyar and the Bharathapuzha travel through steeper and more undulating topography before emptying into the Arabian Sea. A rough estimate reveals that 245 million people in the five Western Ghats states directly depend on these rivers for their diverse water needs. Geographically, the Western Ghats is the catchment for river systems that drain almost 40% of the land area in India," reads the report. According to the report, the Ghats meets all these criteria and so deserve to be protected in its entirety.

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report Part II has now been placed unofficially in the public domain. The committee, which prepared the report was headed by noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil. Though the report was submitted in August last year, the union ministry of environment and forests has been reluctant to make it public.

The recommendation of declaring the entire ghats that traverse through the six states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa Maharashtra and Gujarat would mean a complete ban on mining and stricter green laws for other industries such as power and agriculture. The panel has based its recommendation on various studies carried out by scientists and institutions across the six states, geo-spatial database, etc.


By:times of india