OCEAN ISLE BEACH, NC (WWAY) — Good news is brewing for the sea turtles in Brunswick County.
Makai Brewing Company created Loggerhead Lager to help raise money for the Ocean Isle Beach Sea Turtle Protection Organization and Sunset Beach Turtle Watch. For every pint purchased, Makai pledged to donate $1 to the organizations.
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The brewing company gathered donations throughout last summer and accumulated $1300 to save the sea turtles.
The two organizations split the money right down the middle and were presented with checks for $660 on Sunday.
Makai has created a new summer brew called Hoppy Loggerhead Lager that will raise money for the local turtle protection organizations until Labor Day when they will have a new batch of the classic Loggerhead Lager for the fall.
The last 50, and especially 20 years, proved to be fruitful for Turkey’s maritime essence, as the country marked countless achievements in shipbuilding and partly maritime boundary agreements under international law, as I had outlined in a previous article.
Engaging with the "Blue Homeland" doctrine, which advocates Ankara's territorial claims in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean and the Black Sea, is crucial for Turkey to comprehend its naval potential, sustain previous achievements, and continue to benefit from the sea – one of the major natural resources of the country.
The first and foremost step to engage Turkish society with the seas is to create awareness and spread Blue Homeland and the norms of the United Nations Convention on the Sea (UNCLOS) among the public.
Incorporating the doctrine into the school curriculum, offering new courses and launching public relations campaigns could be a good place to start.
Likewise, it is equally important to implement major maritime projects promptly, such as essential seaports and shipping facilities in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea to maintain a deterrent foreign and security policy on the seas.
Giving an example of solid steps, it is urgent to complete the construction of the shipping line in the Taşucu town in Turkey's southern province Mersin, which was to be built in 1999 with the National Security Councils' (MGK) decision due to its strategically important location but could not be implemented for various reasons so far.
Similarly, it is advisable to construct a shipping facility and a maritime port in Northern Cyprus for protecting the country from opponent intervention after Southern Cyprus opened its ports to French and U.S. warships.
In short, it is crucial to understand the following maxim: Whoever has the sea has power – especially in the Eastern Mediterranean, where there is an abundance of crises and natural resources. Since the sea:
provides independence in national supply and defense, guarantees a state's steadfastness
allows natural demarcation from trouble spots and averting external threats
enables the extraction of natural resources, such as natural gas
provides strategic advantages; for example, the laying of underwater cables and the passage of foreign, civilian and military ships requires the consent of the respective coastal state
can contribute to the economy through fishing, tourism and shipping operations
So, a closer look at international law and signed international treaties show that Greece has only de facto, but not de jure, power over the Dodecanese islands and, in part, over numerous other islands in the Aegean.
To counteract, prompt state action and the internalization of the Blue Homeland doctrine are required.
Accordingly, Turkish people must be fully aware of the importance of the sea. Thus, in addition to geostrategic concerns, Turkey must also address all other facets of the sea, such as marine biology, conservation of biodiversity, guarding against overfishing and protection from foreign fish species that may enter the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
In this context, Turkey's insufficient fish and seafood export and gastronomy should also be focused on. Turkey's performance in this area is inadequate as compared to Iran, an almost total territorial state, the geographically small Netherlands and South Korea, even though the country is a peninsula which is a big opportunity for the sectors related to the sea.
The same applies to the energy sector. Despite an extensive maritime area, Turkey does not have a single offshore wind farm that could foster a sustainable and revenue-generating turnaround in Turkey's energy sector and contribute to energy independence except the first Akkuyu nuclear power plant in the Mersin province.
Marine tourism
Furthermore, in Turkey, the sea is hardly used for domestic transport of goods and people, as these have so far mainly been done by land or air.
The need for new cruise ports in addition to the Galata Port in Istanbul and some other small ones in diverse coastal cities is remarkable as it would offer a high tourism potential and a consequently striking income.
Although the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has published an influential report to this effect, it has hardly achieved its goals.
Moreover, marine tourism in Turkey is poorly exploited. For instance, despite great potential in the southeastern coastal provinces of Mersin, Adana and Hatay, there is a lack of major investments that could turn these places into international tourism destinations and generate additional income.
The same applies to the Black Sea region, which is hardly designed for sea tourism and is largely unknown abroad.
The northern region does not attract many tourists and thus does not generate significant national budget revenues since it performs inadequately in domestic Sea tourism, although the Black Sea is a surfing paradise.
With this in mind, Turkey is simply missing out on potential revenues, inherent new main and niche markets, and job opportunities by not taking advantage of its existing natural resources.
Even though the country is one of the best yacht producers globally, its revenue from proceeds is far from sufficient for a country surrounded by seas.
Income from ship production contributes just under 3% to Turkey's gross domestic product (GDP). In comparison, Italy's ship production accounts for nearly 15% of its GDP, even though both countries have the same starting point.
The sports aspect
Another point is that the country has very few athletes participating in water sports such as surfing, sailing, rowing, kayaking, and stand-up paddling.
Turkey has not participated in the Olympic Games for water sports so far. It is also surprising that modern professional surfing in all its forms is absent from the country, even though Ottomans themselves practiced bodysurfing in the Black Sea centuries earlier.
That is highly connected with the lack of sports clubs and facilities that offer professional water sports and train athletes.
The number of universities offering these sports is limited to a small number.
However, rowing and sailing are among the most elite sports globally and can be very important for a university's reputation even before its academic achievements.
As revealed in Operation Varsity Blues in 2019, one of the biggest deception scandals in the U.S., a good performance in water sports can be a reasonable admission requirement to the Ivy League. So, why shouldn't Turkish universities achieve international fame through water sports?
After screening the topic from different perspectives, all statements speak for Turkey's maritime opening, which begins with a social acceptance and awareness of the importance of the seas.
If Turkey wants to achieve geostrategic, military and economic success in the Mediterranean, engaging the society with the sea is inevitable.
Hence, Turkey has to perceive itself as a peninsula, as it is already, and become a seafaring nation.
Ankara could establish as a first step a Ministry for Maritime Affairs and maritime faculties, institutes, and a permanent commission in the Turkish national assembly in this regard.
Furthermore, investments in local infrastructures, incentives for the construction of new shipping companies, the opening of various sports clubs in and outside universities, and the organization of water sports tournaments under the Ministry of Sports and Youth could be the first critical social approach.
*Author, master of arts at Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany
Portland Sea Dogs outfielder Johan Mieses and pitcher Josh Winckowski were honored by the Double-A Northeast League on Monday.
Mieses, who had two doubles, four home runs, five run scored and 10 RBI in six games, was named the Player of the Week. Winckowski, who pitched seven shutout innings, allowing one hit and striking out nine on Saturday, was named the Pitcher of the Week.
Mieses is batting .288 in 22 games this season. He is tied with Jo Adell of the Salt Lake Bees for most home runs in Minor League Baseball with 11. He also leads the league in RBI (22), slugging percentage (.725) and total bases (58).
Winckowski is 2-0 in five starts this season with a 1.33 ERA and 26 strikeouts.
Portland went 4-2 last week.
SOCCER
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Zinedine Zidane left Real Madrid because he didn’t feel he had the support or respect he deserved from the club, the coach said in an open letter to fans.
In his first public comments since quitting last week, Zidane said the club didn’t fully value his work and hinted it leaked information to the media to undermine him. The Frenchman said he wished his relationship with president Florentino Pérez had been different in recent months.
Zidane left a year before the end of his contract in his second stint with the Spanish club. The stint began in March 2019 and ended with Madrid finishing the season without a title for the first time since 2009-10.
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: Toni Kroos has arrived at Germany’s preparation camp for the European Championship but the Real Madrid midfielder was to undergo medical tests before he can start training with his teammates.
Kroos was only allowed to fly to the camp in Tyrol, Austria on Sunday after 14 days of quarantine and a negative test result for the coronavirus. Madrid said on May 17 that he tested positive while already in isolation after contact with another person who recorded a positive test.
The 31-year-old midfielder was to give blood samples and have an electrocardiogram among other tests on Monday to see what kind of training program he needs before he joins the rest of the team. He said last week on a podcast he hosts with his brother that he had a fever.
COPA AMERICA: Brazil will host Copa America for the second consecutive time after Colombia and Argentina were stripped of hosting rights for the tournament, prompting local health experts to criticize the decision to hold the troubled event in one of the countries hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alejandro Domínguez, the president of South American soccer body CONMEBOL, announced the move on Monday hours after Argentina was ruled out amid an increase in COVID-19 cases in the country. Colombia was removed as co-host on May 20 as street protests against President Iván Duque rocked the nation.
CONMEBOL added that the tournament is confirmed to take place between June 13 and July 10. Brazil is the defending champion, winning the competition in 2019 as hosts. The Brazilian soccer confederation did not respond a request for comment from The Associated Press.
HOCKEY
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Cal Petersen had 33 saves for his second consecutive shutout and the United States won its fifth straight game at world hockey championshipsin Riga, Latvia, with a 2-0 victory over Germany on Monday.
Jason Robertson and Colin Blackwell scored for the U.S., which will close out its preliminary round games on Tuesday against winless Italy. The win was the third in the tournament for Petersen, who plays for the Los Angeles Kings. Germany outshot the U.S. 33-15.
Russia edged Sweden 3-2 in a shootout, eliminating the Swedes after the preliminary round for the first time since the current round-robin play was adopted in 2012.
Russia took over the lead in Group A with 13 points. Switzerland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic also will advance from Group A to the quarterfinals, starting Wednesday.
Finland and the U.S. both have 15 points and have advanced to the quarterfinals. Germany, Canada and Latvia have nine points with a game to play in the round.
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The unseasonable Nor’easter canceled many Memorial Day weekend boat trips. On the few days that winds relented last week, though, fishing off the Cape was fabulous.
Keeper stripers had dramatically arrived in the Canal, and bluefish were all over Vineyard Sound. But for anglers more concerned with eating delicious fish, the presence of newly legal black sea bass took center stage.
Limits of spawning black sea bass and big scup were there for the taking just off Hyannis and the Centerville River. Some commercial fishermen will soon be putting out pots at rocky hotspots like Colliers — not for lobsters — but for sea bass, which can bring home a big paycheck.
Making a living fishing Nantucket and Vineyard sounds isn’t easy. The few who figure out how to do it necessarily have to diversify, variously trapping conch, scalloping — and setting out pots for sea bass — if they get the proper permits.
Sea bass pots, unlike lobster pots, can be fished with or without bait because sea bass are curious, always moving in and out of structures for food and cover. In this case, they get caught in the two-sectioned, lobster-pot-like enclosures and can’t figure how to get out.
Sea bass trappers who do use bait typically place squid, fish, or sea clams in mesh bags or bait tubes while always looking for rocky structures upon which to optimally place their pots. Sometimes, scup, a.k.a. porgies, flounder, fluke, tautog, or skate swim in, too.
My son, Capt. Matt Blazis, looks forward to sea bass season every year to make his renowned and much-anticipated ceviche and sea bass tacos. Valuing their deliciousness, Matt always encourages us to throw back any minimally-legal fish (15-inchers) — and keep just the biggest knuckleheads — mature, spawning males whose heads develop a prominent blue hump.
Surprisingly, most black sea bass are protogynous hermaphrodites — meaning that they start life as females — and with maturity — develop into very different-looking males. Ichthyologists aren’t totally sure why this happens. The prevailing theory is that a relative scarcity of males in a spawning group stimulates females to switch sexes to provide the essential sperm. Generally, there are many more females than males in a given sea bass population, so males will gather females to mate with and defend their territory. This bizarre but practical sex change explains why the oldest female sea bass reach just 8 years, while males can live to 12 and grow much bigger.
Mastering the jigging technique can help anglers fill their limits. It’s important to have your jig hit bottom before you immediately begin lifting up on your rod tip. This pumping action can produce hits either on the ascent or descent of the jig. Many of our hits typically come just as the jig hits bottom. If the current is too fast, though — and that has been an increasingly aggravating problem with our windier weather — the boat can drift too fast, making it more difficult to hook up. Many boats will consequently use a wind sock or even an anchor to help get a better drift or stay positioned in a productive honey hole.
Some sea bass anglers do best using bait, taking advantage of sea bass’ favorite foods: crabs, squid, sea clams, sea worms, small fish and shrimp. Sea bass aren’t just on our menus. Frequent local predators of these special fish are spiny dogfish, monkfish, big fluke, spotted hake and skates.
Commercial landings of sea bass here average close to 4 million pounds and involve mostly trawls as well as weirs, hooks-and-lines, as well as pots. Minimum size for the commercial fleet is 12 inches. Weir fishermen have no possession limit. Trawlers can possess 100 pounds; hook-and-line fishermen 200 pounds; and pot fishermen 400 pounds. The commercial season ends on an unpredictable date — whenever the annual quota is reached — and that usually means a harvest worth around $12 million dollars. Our recreational sea bass season, in contrast, runs from May 18 until Sept. 8. Anglers can keep just five fish 15 inches and longer. We try to keep just big males around 20 or more inches.
By the way, Chilean sea bass, aren’t sea bass. They’re not even in the same genus. They’re actually Patagonian toothfish — a name that was changed for marketing reasons.
At a fish market, I smirked when I saw some black sea bass that had been caught in Chile. I’m sure that more than one purchaser naively went home erroneously believing they were going to be eating Chilean sea bass — arguably one of three most delicious fish in the world.
I last ate fresh Patagonian toothfish off southern Argentina just before venturing to Antarctica a year and a half ago. Wegman’s will occasionally carry it — but only frozen. No one can get fresh Chilean sea bass. And even when frozen, it sells for well over $30 per pound — more than double the cost of black sea bass.
Bottom line: just know that a sea bass caught in Chile isn’t Chilean sea bass.
Plenty of mackerel
Trying to avoid Memorial Day mayhem, Auburn’s Russ Therrien did some scouting last Thursday, launching from Green Harbor in Marshfield. While more than a handful of my fishing friends wouldn’t share their secrets with their own grandmother, Russ, to his great credit, generously shares his with regularity.
With a full moon, the tide was as low as Russ had ever seen.
“There was barely enough water to get out," he said. "Without a depth finder, a fisherman unfamiliar with the water could easily run aground. The bottom’s muddy though. Our mission was to see if keeper stripers had arrived, and if there were any haddock around. First, we stopped at Stone Ledge off Scituate — often a rewarding haddock hotspot. Nothing. A huge porbeagle, though, swam by the boat making that leg more than worth it. It was easily 9 feet long.
“We then headed due east to Stellwagen Bank to check for haddock there and load up on mackerel." Russ added. "Disappointingly, there were no haddock — but, as usual, there were plenty mackerel. Our plan was to live-line some and freeze the rest for later use.
“We then shot over to Race Point, trolling tube-and-worms and later live-lining mackerel, to check for stripers. We came up empty again. There were lots of surfcasters on the beach, but we didn’t see anyone catch anything. The big stripers are still just a little farther south of Stellwagen, where we would have gone if we weren’t trying to catch a few haddock, too.”
At least it was possible for some boaters to stay fairly close to shore and limit out on delicious winter flounder just off Quincy.
—Contact Mark Blazis at markblazissafaris@gmail.com.
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – All that water. It’s the very thing that makes living in South Florida so attractive, but it also poses one of the biggest threats to communities.
Earlier this year, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced the county’s new sea-level rise strategy, an ambitious plan to stay ahead of rising sea levels — and ultimately those severe flooding events.
“Now we have the ability to look into the future and project the sea-level rise and see the consequences and to plan and construct,” said Jim Murley, Miami-Dade’s chief resilience officer. “Those are billion-dollar projects.”
Murley says the primary focus when it comes to sea-level rise is not right at the shoreline — it actually involves inland areas.
“Our No. 1 priority working with the state and federal government is to update the basic regional drainage system,” he said.
Canals used to carry water out to the coast are now in need of an updated design and upgraded pumps to handle stormwater and tidal flooding.
“The original design thought that the water inland would be a foot and a half higher than the water in the bay,” Murley said. “So water flows downhill and we had a good drainage system. Since Hurricane Andrew, we’ve had four inches of sea-level rise.”
People living in certain neighborhoods say tidal events can bring water nearly up to their doors.
“When the king tides go in, the whole street is flooded and it’s just a mess,” one said.
A South Florida community on the front lines has already invested millions in innovations to keep streets from flooding.
“The people breaking ground on this is the city of Miami Beach,” Murley said. “They’re out there, they get these impacts before the mainland.”
Miami Beach’s new pump systems and elevated streets have made an impact in several neighborhoods, including parts of West Avenue where Tim Carr lives.
“A lot of good came out, for example, you’ll see we don’t flood anymore,” Carr said.
But in areas like Palm and Hibiscus islands, how much roads were raised left some neighbors’ homes sitting several feet below the streets.
“There’s a lot of controversy talking about how much do you actually elevate in this process?” Carr said.
The county is now looking into help for residents to finance changes like elevating or flood-proofing their homes — just one more example, Murley says, of how everyone is in this together.
“We start the long process of preparing for sea-level rise and making the investments that will protect our property and people,” Murley said.
Among the other priorities: getting people off of vulnerable septic systems, shoring up critical county facilities as well as access to safe and affordable housing options. But it is a long and costly to-do list.
CLICK HEREto view and download our 2021 Hurricane Survival Guide.
The big sagebrush is far from your typical tumbleweed. In the dry landscape of the American West, the sun catches the plant’s fine silver hair like light reflecting off a stormy ocean. Growing as tall as your thigh, their lanky limbs seem frozen in a permanently petrified stance.
“They kind of look like tortured little bonsai trees,” says Kathryn Turner, an evolutionary ecologist and assistant professor at Idaho State University. But this delicate bush is an essential native plant for desert wildlife—and it’s under threat.
Eighteen sagebrush species grow throughout North America’s Great Basin, a massive network of watersheds and prairies that spans the arid lands of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and California. Sagebrush growing here creates the largest interconnected habitat in North America, spanning across 175 million acres. This keystone plant supports over 350 species, including the adorable pygmy rabbit and charismatic greater sage-grouse.
“It’s one of the only things around here that’s really green all year round,” says Elizabeth Leger, professor and director of the Museum of Natural History at the University of Nevada, Reno.
“It’s literally the foundational shrub of this whole huge, cold desert area.”
A closeup of a sagebrush's narrow segmented leaves reveals its tiny silver hairs
While mostly recognized for its sea foam-green luster, sagebrush is actually part of the sunflower family. In the late summer and fall, small light yellow buds bloom “off the top of the shrub, kind of like candles on a birthday cake,” says Leger. Big sagebrush, scientifically known as Artemisia tridentata, is even Nevada’s official state flower. But unlike springtime bluebonnets and poppies, she says, “They’re not really showy flowers.” You have to look close to see the dozens of tiny flowers dotting the stalks.
Maybe even more distinct than its little florets is the smell of sagebrush, which shares the same genus as absinth. Not to be confused with the sage herb that you use to season your cooking, “sagebrush has this wonderful really herbal spikey smell,” Turner says. The plants unleash a pungent musk of camphor and aromatic compounds, particularly after a desert rain. The fragrance lures various wildlife, but Turner says “in order to eat it, these herbivores have had to adapt to deal with these particular compounds.”
For many birds and animals, the tiny flowers and leaves are delicacies. Sagebrush are “the grocery store” in these desert ecosystems, Leger explains, supporting large communities of birds, reptiles, pronghorns, and mule deer. If you’re lucky, you might spot a pygmy rabbit or the greater sage-grouse nibbling on the plant. During the winter, it becomes almost 100% of the adult sage grouse diet, as it stays alive and leafy above the snow line.
Sagebrush also acts as a soil anchor and canopy for communities of wildflowers and other small plants. “If you put a big shrub out in the middle of the desert, one thing it’s going to do is collect nutrients around it,” says Turner. “The wind will blow topsoil to the base of the sagebrush, and it’ll settle there. So they kind of act as these fertility islands for other plants.”
But this icon of the American West is under constant stress. Increasing wildfires, invasive plants, and human land use have quickly changed the Great Basin’s landscapes, putting pressure on its wildlife. Alarmed scientists, such as Turner and Leger, are now trying to assess how the diminishing sagebrush is impacting already threatened species.
Hundreds of years ago, a sea of sagebrush washed over great swaths of the continent, stretching from Northern Canada to Northern Mexico. It’s estimated that sagebrush used to cover more than 280 million acres. But since European colonization, this habitat range has been cut in at least half, according to a 2012 report.
A lot of this loss is due to human activity. When settlers moved west in the mid and late-1800s, “they had these huge herds of grazing animals that basically mowed down all the native plants,” Leger says. Through the 1920s and 1930s, people intentionally plowed down and burned sagebrush and other native bunchgrasses to make way for livestock, crops and growing cities, Leger explains. “Even in the 1960s, you can find these old pamphlets about how to get rid of this ‘rangeland weed.’”
Sagebrush has also fallen victim to the west’s raging wildfires. These fires can be devastating to ecosystems. “After fire in the Great Basin, you go from these like landscapes covered with plants to this moonscape-looking situation,” Leger says.
In the ashes, there is unfortunately one plant that thrives: an unruly, straw-colored invasive species known as cheatgrass. Brought to the west by European settlers in the 1800s, cheatgrass is well-adapted to fire. Once it takes hold, it runs rampant, quickly sapping up resources and dominating other species. “Cheatgrass is like a sprinter, whereas our native plants are more like marathon runners,” says Leger. “One-to-one with another seedling, cheatgrass always wins.”
Unlike sagebrush, cheatgrass is not a convenient food source. Greater sage-grouse, pygmy rabbits, and other native wildlife don’t eat cheatgrass—and those animals and livestock that do only get a short grazing season. “You get grass for like five minutes, and it dries up and you have a giant pile of annual weeds,” Leger says.
But these dried-out weeds are perfect fuel for future fires. Cheatgrass not only takes advantage of landscapes devastated by wildfires, but can make future fires worse. This vicious cycle means that the sagebrush that manages to live alongside cheatgrass are at jeopardy. Sagebrush, filled with essential oils and aromatic compounds, burns hot and fast, says Leger.
“It’s like a dead man walking,” Leger says. It can take as long as 30 years for a sagebrush stand to recover, she adds. And climate change is prolonging and worsening wildfire season, as it continues to make water irregular in the west. Areas of the sagebrush steppe are now burning once every five years or fewer, compared to once every 60 to 110 years. “If you keep having these repeated fires, it doesn’t have time to regrow before it burns again,” Leger says.
To make things worse, “climate change is making the hotter places where sagebrush lives too hot, potentially,” says Turner, explaining that it is causing sagebrush territory to shrivel at its southern edges. “It used to go all the way down to northern Mexico, but now it’s kind of hard to find even in Arizona.”
The loss of habitat is accelerating. In just the last half-century, an estimated 50% of sagebrush has been lost in the Great Basin alone.
“The sagebrush range is really fragmented, and it’s shrinking every year,” says Turner.
That’s why Turner and Leger are both working independently in their regions of the Great Basin to help restore the sagebrush habitat. As part of a larger multi-lab research project, Turner’s lab at Idaho State University is looking into the genetics and seed germination conditions of different sagebrush populations to help design plant communities that prevent invasive plants from returning after a fire. The team is investigating what seeds germinate at what layers of soil, and if those differences lead to traits that help plants survive under environmental stressors—like cold, drought, and post-fire conditions.
Turner says soil can serve as a kind of time machine: “Do older layers of soil have different species? Are the seeds of invasive species concentrated near the top?” Turner asks. “We are hoping to understand what members of this plant community can germinate after a fire, and therefore contribute to the new community.”
Sagebrush habitat is diminishing at an accelerated rate from mining and energy development, cropland conversion, invasive grasses, and increased wildfires
At the University of Nevada, Reno, Leger is unpacking similar questions by growing sagebrush and native plant species in test plots in the field and on campus to identify which species might grow better in these fire-disturbed, weed-ridden environments.
“That’s not what our native plants evolved to do. This is all sort of new to them, but we have found that some populations are better at growing in those really bad conditions than others,” she says.
Species that are smaller, emerge early from seeds, and grow a lot of roots may be able to better establish themselves against cheatgrass. The team recently published findings from their small-scale seed collecting, cleaning, and harvesting strategies in the spring 2021 issue of the journal Native Plants.
Turner and Leger’s research can help choose the best seeds of native plants and sagebrush to bring into a site for restoration. After a wildfire, restoration groups often go out to the scorched lands to plant seed mixes. One effort that has helped plant more than a million sagebrush seedlings is the Sagebrush in Prisons Project, coordinated by Stacy Moore of the Institute for Applied Ecology, Department of Corrections, and the Bureau of Land Management.
Since 2016, prison inmates have helped grow, care, plant, and transplant sagebrush seedlings to burned sites. Inmates at some of the facilities are paid a small wage, but all volunteer to participate. The program provides educational and field work opportunities, allowing inmates to connect with the environment and local community, says Leger, who has helped teach some of the classes at participating facilities.
“A bunch of my students and I have gone into the prisons to give lectures, and you’ll never find a more engaged audience. They want to learn all about these systems,” she says. “It’s really interesting to think about how in the 1930s we were plowing it under, and now sagebrush is part of this whole effort to do good in multiple ways.”
(Watcha videoby Oregon Public Broadcasting profiling the project at one of the participating facilities, Snake River Correctional Institution in eastern Oregon.)
Sagebrush remains underappreciated by many, says Leger. For some, the endless vista of sagebrush in the American West may be an eyesore. “People joke that nobody wants to drive across Nevada, because all you do is look at a bunch of sagebrush,” Leger says. “I think people who drive by it every day, take it for granted.”
But scientists who study these ecosystems, understand the value of this humble shrub, and the rippling consequences if it disappears. Leger looks out fondly at the “little remnant sagebrush community” growing wild in her backyard this spring—a silver-green oasis in the middle of the desert.
On Saturday, an Indonesian passenger ferry caught fire in the remote Molucca Sea, forcing the passengers and crew to abandon ship.
At about 0700 hours on Saturday morning, the ferry Karya Indah was under way on a voyage from Ternate to Sulabes when a fire broke out. When the master ordered abandon ship, the passengers and crew jumped over the side in lifejackets and boarded the vessel's liferafts. SAR assets got under way at about 0850, according to Indonesian coast guard agency Basarnas, and the first responders were on scene at about 1020 hours.
All 181 passengers and 14 crewmembers listed on the vessel's manifest were safe and accounted for, Indonesia's Directorate General of Sea Transportation (DGST) said Saturday. However, on Sunday, the total number of passengers on the manifest was revised upwards to 257, plus one individual who is believed missing.
The wife of passenger Dedi Hidayat, 43, reported that he had been on board and had not returned, according to Kompas. Search efforts are under way.
The head of the Ternate office of Indonesian coast guard agency Basarnas confirmed to local outlet Okezone that the survivor count recorded by responders was at odds with the number of individuals on the manifest. He allowed that this made it challenging to assess the exact number of passengers who were on board the vessel.
The burned-out Karya Indah has been towed to a nearby island for evaluation.
Lloyd’s Register, a third-party assessor of the North West Bering Sea/Navarinsky Area pollock fishery, has determined the fishery has met the basic requirements of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard and can further proceed to gain full certification.
But once certified, the fishery must additionally address four aspects through supplemental action plans, the conformity assessment body said.
Russia’s Pollock Catchers Association (PCA), the group client for West Bering Sea pollock, initiated the certification process in late 2020. Previously, in 2013, PCA managed to get pollock from the Sea of Okhotsk – the largest area for fishing pollock – MSC-certified and re-certified it five years later, in 2018.
The West Bering Sea area is Russia’s second-largest pollock fishery, with the total allowable catch (TAC) being between 311,554 and 567,873 metric tons (MT) in 2003 and 2019. The fishery’s TAC for 2021 has been set at 415,000 MT.
In its draft report, Lloyd’s Register said the fishery’s operations are based on extensive scientific information provided by VNIRO, including “data on species biology, ecosystem elements, and fishing [data] in the Bering Sea going back as far as the middle of the 20th century.” It praised the PCA for “the application of modern, international-standard stock assessment models of great flexibility and complexity, and the adoption of harvest control rules within a precautionary approach generate confidence in the fishery,” as well as its adherence to sustainable fishing principles. It said the fishery has invested in “necessary actions, including boosting the quantity and quality of fishery-independent observations.”
But its report scored some areas of the fishery lower than what was required for obtaining an unconditional MSC certification. Specifically, it named four performance indicators that PCA failed to meet, primarily linked to the monitoring of the overall level of bycatch and discards, including the target species, and the occurrence of endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) species, as well as the lack of a comprehensive ecosystem-based approach to fishery management, and the absence of regular reviews of the effect of the fishery on other species.
Lloyd’s Register said the PCA has not yet demonstrated it has conducted a review of alternative measures to minimize mortality of unwanted catches of secondary species, and said are “no direct measures in place that might help mitigate interaction of ETP species with midwater trawl gear.”
The non-conforming issues must be addressed in action plans, which then must be implemented over the next four years, if the fishery is to attain and retain MSC certification. Provided the action plans are created and approved, the PCA will be eligible to receive its certification as soon as this summer, which is early enough in the season that all PCA members will be able to use the eco-label on all of its West Bering Sea pollock for the bulk of its catch this season.
Lloyd’s Register also issued an additional, non-binding condition, suggesting the client install an onboard information recording system to “record the depth profile of the gear on each trawl and the lowest proximity of the gear to the seafloor.” The system is supposed to also monitor “if at any point the gear touches the seafloor or fouls any submarine feature” and, in the event of fouling, “any benthic organisms that may be found is recorded, as well as any lost or abandoned gear noted or recovered.”
The certification process is now in the stakeholder input phase, opening the report to public comment. Two groups have already commented: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the At-sea Processors Association (APA), a trade association representing six member companies that own and operate 16 U.S.-flag catcher/processor vessels that participate principally in the Alaska pollock fishery and U.S. West Coast Pacific whiting fishery.
In its comments, WWF said it supported common fishery management and assessment transparency. It recommended letting all stakeholders have “full access to the primary Russian-language reports produced by observers [and] at-sea monitoring to ensure substantial data analyses.”
“At the moment, the stakeholders can only see the summaries of the reports developed by VNIRO,” WWF wrote.
WWF also pointed out the absence of reliable data on the amount and distribution of lost trawling gear in the Russian pollock fisheries and suggested fishery observers should collect this data to ensure better protection of habitats used by endangered marine mammals and species vulnerable to entanglement in marine debris.
For its part, the APA listed more than 40 specific and general concerns with the certification, often challenging the assessor’s conclusions to some degree, with most criticizing a lack of adequate information or questioning the reliability of the data used in compiling in the report. In particular, it wrote that “there is no clear information on the retained versus discarded species in the [report], only that there is no incentive to discard herring.”
Of the sources of information used to create the report, including independent observers, reports by vessels at sea, and scientific research, the APA said “no one is independently verifying catch data reported by vessels, [and] only retained catch is accounted for during transshipment and routine inspection” by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
“Observers are not independent,” it wrote. “They have no legal rights while onboard and are subject to harassment and intimidation.”
Lloyd’s Register’s assessment team reviewed and responded to the stakeholder comments. Some comments were accepted and resulted in corresponding changes of the rational of the firm’s decisions and its scoring of the fishery, but the fishery retained enough points to allow the certification body to proceed with its recommendation that the fishery be certified.
Portland added two more unearned runs in the fourth inning to make it 3-0. The Sea Dogs loaded the bases on a single, error and hit batsman. Next, Ryan Fitzgerald walked with the bases loaded, scoring Meneses, giving Portland a 2-0 lead. Jhonny Pereda followed with a double play grounder bringing home Mieses and making it 3-0.
The US Coast Guard said Sunday it had ended its search for 10 Cuban migrants listed as missing since Thursday in seas off Florida.
Earlier, eight migrants were rescued and two bodies were recovered.
The survivors said they had left the Cuban port of Mariel last Sunday, but that on Wednesday night, some 15 miles (25 kilometers) from Florida's Key West, 10 of their shipmates had disappeared, the Coast Guard said.
It said elements of the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Customs and Border Patrol agency had launched searches by sea and air over a wide area, but in vain.
Cubans, fleeing deteriorating economic conditions in their home country, have increasingly taken to the sea in flimsy vessels ill-suited for the 95-mile passage across the Florida Strait, and many do not make it to the United States.
In the last eight months alone, the Coast Guard has intercepted 298 Cubans, up from 49 in the fiscal year ending in September.
WORCESTER — Rain may have poured down on Elm Park Sunday, but it did little to deter the city's annual Memorial Day Water Ceremony honoring soldiers lost at sea.
"It's a Water Ceremony, might as well have a little more water," Patrick McAdam, who threw a wreath off the Myra Hiatt Kraft Footbridge into Lincoln Pond Sunday, said.
Phil Madaio, president of the Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans Memorial, served as master of ceremonies for the event commemorating those who were lost at sea while serving the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Merchant Marine.
“We got to honor these people. It’s what made America great. This is what made this country,” Madaio said.
Water Ceremony returns
The Water Ceremony returned after the event was cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Madaio said those who served and gave their lives in the military helped make the U.S. the country that it is today.
Pastor George Vogel offered the invocation at the start of the ceremony and the benediction to close it. Vogel asked for God's continuing support as the country remembers past wars and conflicts and deals with newer adversaries.
“We do this every year when weather allows, but each time we do it, it seems to have more significance and meaning,” Vogel said. “We know that although this weekend is seen by many as a long, enjoyable weekend to officially start the summer, we come here for a much different purpose today. We come here today to honor those who have lost their lives at sea and other bodies of water.”
Mayor Petty, others, honor soldiers lost at sea
Vogel’s invocation was followed by a singing of the national anthem by Evelyn Rose Bousbouras and remarks by Mayor Joseph M. Petty.
“The fighting men and women who go to sea carry a special place in the minds and hearts of every country,” Petty said. “Since the dawn of the age of exploration, we have given captains special powers and reverence, a tacit understanding of the risk that they take on every time they go to sea.”
The Worcester Detachment Marine Corps League served as the firing detail while Worcester police officer Sean Lovely, a U.S. Army veteran of the Persian Gulf War, played the bagpipes. Alex Arriaga, director of veteran's services for the city, threw a wreath on Lovely’s behalf in honor of those lost in the USS Bennett.
McAdam served in the USS Intrepid from 1969 to 1973 and has participated in the Worcester ceremony for seven years.
"We need to remember, never to forget," McAdam said. "People gave themselves and you don't want to forget those guys."
McAdam honors 243 lost at sea on USS Intrepid
McAdam, who is originally from New York, said he liked the Water Ceremony from the very first time he saw it. This year, he dedicated his wreath to the 243 who were lost at sea on the USS Intrepid, especially for Richard Francis Urban. McAdam said Urban was 19 when he died in 1972. The Intrepid was launching jets in rough waters and a runaway jet took Urban off the side of the ship, McAdam said.
Urban and McAdam both worked on the flight deck of the Intrepid in different divisions. McAdam said he reflected on the life he got to live after serving on the Intrepid and how Urban was not able to have that phase of his life.
“I think of him a lot because he was the same age as me. He was 19 years old,” McAdam said. “Here I am. I'm 69 now and he didn’t live that part of his life.”
Ceremony one of Toomey’s favorite events of Memorial Day weekend
Among the handful of spectators who braved the rain to attend the event was City Councilor-at-Large Kathleen M. Toomey. The Water Ceremony is one of Toomey’s favorite events during Memorial Day weekend.
“It’s really a meaningful ceremony. It's beautifully done and I think to be able to get out and to join together in memory of those whose lives have been lost at sea is really a very cathartic experience for all of us,” Toomey said. “It’s important that we don’t forget history.”
Toomey said she hoped people remember the reason why Memorial Day was created.
“People have to remember that this weekend was created to remember those who gave the supreme sacrifice so all of us could live in freedom. And it’s not about sales, it’s not about barbecues and things like that. It’s great to enjoy family and those times, but we all should take a few minutes to remember those that gave that supreme sacrifice.”
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - As Memorial Day Weekend marks the unofficial start of the summer, the American Red Cross wants to remind Hoosiers to celebrate safely.
"Memorial Day weekend is a big weekend for families to hang out, come together, and we just want to make sure as people come together, that they are being as safe as possible," said Hyacinth Rucker, the communications manager for the American Red Cross Indiana Region.
Lauren Kitayama is an avid ocean conservationist, outdoorswoman, artist and the Manager of Kayak Connection in Moss Landing. Throughout the ebb and flow of this past year, while downtown commerce areas felt like ghost towns, traffic slowed and beach concerts took a hiatus, our local parks, coasts, and trails filled with people. Elkhorn Slough was no different, and anyone who has driven down Highway One towards Monterey is likely familiar with the bright yellow kayaks sprinkled throughout the estuary.
Kayaking provided a safe and relaxing pastime, and Kayak Connection weathered multiple storms to keep their services going. “We closed for 70 days last year due to the pandemic and poor air quality from fires,” Kitayama tells me. “But we were very lucky. My staff is amazing. We worked hard and we were able to move our business outside, and reopen in May of 2020. And then we were busy. Like really freaking busy. We did almost 10% more rentals than in 2019. We were consistently booked out on the weekends.”
Kitayama, who is from Watsonville and whose family owns the cut flower nursery Kitayama Brothers, has spent her life immersed in nature. Growing up on her family’s coastal farm, which is a long-term partner and supporter of the state parks system and situated near Sunset State Beach, she has an intimate familiarity with the coastline and its connected wetland ecosystems, and has developed a deep sense of responsibility in caring for Nature; “Nature with a capital N”, she lovingly tells me. “I learned how to kayak on the slough when I was about 5 years old, and it is such an amazing ecological area that it never ever gets boring. If you get on the water in the early morning, or in the winter when no one else is willing to brave the rain, it’s one of the most amazing experiences.”
Kitayama says that having access to the slough was the reason she “didn’t go completely insane during the pandemic, and why staff was willing to work so hard day after day.” She says, “What we offered our customers was not just a chance to go kayaking, but a couple of hours to forget that the world was a mess.
Masks were not allowed on the water due to the risk of drowning, so for that short amount of time, families got to hang out in sunlight, fresh air, have fun, see wildlife and get away from it all. We have a handful of guides that regularly integrate mindfulness and meditation into their tours, and these were exceptionally popular this last year.” She continues, “The very cool thing was that we got more locals than normal, like people who lived nearby or had driven over the highway bridge for years but never stopped. They were always amazed by how much wildlife there is.”
Kitayama’s knowledge of Elkhorn Slough’s diverse organisms has given her quite the reputation along with some great nicknames, including “The Sea Slug Queen” due to her knack at finding and identifying sea slugs. “My favorite experience always revolves around people’s reaction to sea hares, the largest slug on the face of the planet. They can be 15 pounds and the size of a basketball. Most people have absolutely no idea that an animal like that exists, so they freak out when you let them hold it. Plus they are slimy – really, really slimy,” she says.
While Kitayama loves introducing all people to the slough, her favorite aspect of the job is bringing young children on the water to help them foster an appreciation for the environment, providing formative experiences outdoors similar to her childhood. “There’s amazing wildlife right here. Nature is often perceived as this far away thing that is unreachable, and that makes it hard for people to understand how their actions impact it.”
Kitayama has been passionate about marine debris since she was a high schooler at Aptos High. She obtained her undergraduate degree from UC San Diego in ecology and went on to receive a graduate degree in marine conservation with an emphasis on Marine Debris from the University of Miami.
While in Miami, she worked with Debris Free Oceans “tracking and mapping marine debris, taking an approach that looks beyond just the “oh no, there’s trash in the ocean!” to the “what trash is on this beach, whose trash is it, and how do we get those people to take responsibility.” She has brought her learning full circle, and incorporates debris tracking and corporate responsibility into her daily life.
“Like most environmental issues, there’s a lot of talk, and not a lot of meaningful action, and plastic pollution is complicated; a lot more complicated than most people think. We have to rebuild the entire recycling infrastructure and actually make it work, and recycling is not the solution. Single-use product consumption has skyrocketed during COVID because of fear over contamination,” says Kitayama.
She’s noticed trash entering the slough along its flooded banks at high tide, including items like plastic bottles, food wrappers, and plastic beach pails. “What I would like is for people to go to their workplaces and ask themselves how they can use less plastic at their business, including putting pressure on their suppliers to ship and package without it. For example, at Kayak Connection we’ve stopped selling any drinks in plastic bottles, and we’re working to find suppliers that will ship drinks without plastic. Thanks to Tim Ward, all of our stickers are shipped in paper envelopes, and I’m in the process of reaching out to our other various suppliers to pursue sustainable options.”
If that weren’t enough, Kitayama creates nature-inspired art depicting the wildlife found here in Monterey Bay and beyond, highlighting endangered species and drawing awareness to their beauty and fragility. For those interested in purchasing Kitayama’s designs, visit Redbubble.com. Kitayama invites the public to the annual Gerbera Festival at Kitayama Brothers Farms on June 19, benefiting Friends of State Parks and the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau Agricultural Worker Vaccine Program. This year the festival returns as “Gerbera-N-Go,” with pre-ordering online at thatsmypark.org.
Next time you drive down Highway 1, pull off before the bridge, pop in to say hello to the Sea Slug Queen, and consider exploring this dynamic marine protected area right in our own backyard.
Rachel Kippen is an ocean educator and sustainability advocate in Santa Cruz County and can be reached at singleuseplanet@gmail.com.
PORTLAND — When the Red Sox demoted outfielder Franchy Cordero to Triple-A last week after he batted .179 in 34 games for Boston, it only made the Andrew Benintendi trade look worse. Especially with Benintendi batting .337 this month for Kansas City.
But so far there is one bright spot for the Red Sox in that three-team deal, and it can be found in Portland, where Josh Winckowski continues to excel.
Winckowski, obtained from the Mets, allowed one hit over seven scoreless innings Saturday afternoon, striking out nine to pace the Portland Sea Dogs to a 4-3 win over Hartford at Hadlock Field.
Johan Mieses, another offseason acquisition as a minor league free agent, hit a two-run homer in the first inning – his minor league-leading 11th home run. Portland added two unearned runs in the seventh.
Winckowski, 22, appeared to be a minor piece in the Benintendi-Cordero deal that also will include three players to be named going to the Red Sox (two from Kansas City, one from the Mets). Winckowski was a 15th-round draft pick by the Blue Jays in 2016 and was traded to the Mets only two weeks prior to being sent to Boston.
“With the Blue Jays, I thought I had done well enough with them, so (the trade to the Mets) was super unexpected,” Winckowski said. “The Mets told me they were really excited to have me, so (the trade to Boston) was definitely surprising.”
Based on recent results, the Red Sox should be excited to have Winckowski. In five starts with the Sea Dogs, Winckowski is 2-0 with a 1.33 ERA. He has 26 strikeouts and nine walks in 27 innings.
On Saturday, he needed only 84 pitches (60 strikes) to get through seven innings. He walked none and went to a full count only once. His fastball was down a couple notches, sitting at 93 mph – Winckowski cited the 47-degree damp weather as a factor – but he induced eight ground-ball outs with his sinker. He tossed in an occasional slider and change-up.
“He attacked the zone, established his fastball right away and used all his pitches,” Sea Dogs Manager Corey Wimberly said. “His stuff will play.”
Winckowski struck out the side in the first inning on 13 pitches. Two batters reached by error in the second, but he erased one with a double-play grounder. Matt McLaughlin got the only hit, a two-out bouncer down the left-field line for a double in the third inning. Winckowski retired the next 13 batters, the last two by strikeouts.
“I was definitely amped (in the seventh inning). I could sense the finish line,” he said.
Winckowski was drafted out of high school in the Fort Myers, Florida, area – and, yes, he went to Red Sox and Twins spring training games. After a couple of so-so pro seasons, he’s come on with increased velocity (usually at 95, sometimes hitting 97) and a better sense of how to pitch.
“It’s been a mix of things,” he said. “Getting older, stronger – with more velocity – and smarter. Command and velocity are usually a good combination.”
Hartford pitcher Will Gaddis (0-4) pitched five scoreless innings after the first.
But in that first inning, he gave up a two-out double to Joey Meneses (his first of two) and then served a 90 mph fastball to Mieses, who crushed it over the message board in left-center – 108 mph off the bat, an estimated 416 feet.
Mieses, who went 1 for 4, has 11 home runs in 76 at-bats. He’s batting .289 with a 1.116 OPS.
“I see a guy doing damage on pitches in the zone,” Wimberly said. “He’s ready to hit and he makes the pitcher come to him.”
Both Mieses, in left field, and center fielder Jeisson Rosario made impressive, diving catches.
Two unearned runs in the seventh made the score 4-0.
In the eighth, Sea Dogs reliever Joan Martinez loaded the bases with one out, on a hit batter and two walks. Matt Kent relieved and gave up another walk and a sacrifice fly before containing the damage.
Closer Jose Adames got his sixth save in six chances, although he allowed a run.
Second baseman Grant Williams singled twice in four at-bats and still has not struck out this year in 59 at-bats.
NOTES: The attendance was a socially-distanced sellout of 2,087. … The Sea Dogs (14-9) and Yard Goats (7-16) complete their series at 1 p.m. Sunday. … While Winckowski is shining, the top Red Sox pitching prospect on the Sea Dogs roster is looking for medical opinions. Thad Ward went on the injured list May 19 because of a forearm strain and is still being evaluated.
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Philippine Coast Guard personnel survey several ships believed to be Chinese militia vessels in Sabina Shoal in the South China Sea, in a handout photo distributed by the Philippine Coast Guard on May 5 and taken according to source on April 27, 2021. Philippine Coast Guard/Handout via REUTERS
The Philippines has protested China's continuing "illegal presence and activities" near an island in the South China Sea held by the Southeast Asian nation, the foreign ministry said on Saturday.
Manila lodged the diplomatic protest on Friday over the "incessant deployment, prolonged presence, and illegal activities of Chinese maritime assets and fishing vessels" in the vicinity of Thitu island.
It demanded its giant neighbour withdraw the vessels.
The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside business hours.
Tensions between Manila and Beijing have escalated over the months-long presence of hundreds of Chinese boats in the Philippines' 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The Philippines says it believes the vessels were manned by militia, while Beijing has said they were fishing boats sheltering from bad weather.
"The Pag-asa Islands is an integral part of the Philippines over which it has sovereignty and jurisdiction," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Thitu, known as Pag-asa in the Philippines, is 451 km (280 miles) from the mainland and is the biggest of the eight reefs, shoals and islands it occupies in the Spratly archipelago.
China has built a mini-city with runways, hangars and surface-to-air-missiles in the Subi Reef about 25 km (15 miles) from Thitu.
This was at least the 84th diplomatic protest the Philippines has filed against China since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016.
An international tribunal that year invalidated China's expansive claim in the South China Sea, where about $3 trillion worth of ship-borne trade passes annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have competing claims to various islands and features in the area.
Duterte shelved the favourable ruling and pursued a rapprochement with Beijing in exchange for pledges of billions of dollars of loans, aid and investment, much of which are pending.
Hair cuttings from salons are being used to mop up oil spills and hair bleaches, and dyes are being burned to create energy as part of a scheme to make the hairdressing industry greener.
Over the past 10 months, 550 salons across the UK and Ireland have signed up to the Green Salon Collective (GSC), an initiative that reduces salon waste through recycling and education programmes.
“Hair salons are one of the biggest contributors to waste on the high street,” said GSC co-founder Paul Seaward. “We were shocked to see how far behind the UK is with salon sustainability, this was long overdue.”
About 99% of hair cuttings from salons are sent to landfill sites, GSC says, but as part of the initiative the group has started collecting cuttings to make hair-booms – cotton or nylon tubes packed with hair, which are placed on the shores of beaches to stop oil spills from spreading.
GSC says 500kg of hair has so far been collected, of which 50kg has been used in cleanup operations.
Other leftover hair is given to farmers to use in compost as it contains protein and nitrogen which enrich plants.
Hair colourings and bleach are usually washed down the sink, which poses a risk as they can leach toxins that pollute soil and groundwater. Salons participating in the scheme are able to collect the waste liquids and send them to a facility to be burned to generate electricity for the National Grid.
The scheme also makes it easier to recycle hairdressing foil, of which only about 1% is recycled. Within the first three months of the scheme, 2.2 tonnes of foil was sent for recycling.
Karine Jackson, whose Covent Garden salon joined GSC last year, said: “Every salon should be joining, we have to take responsibility for our own waste. This is just the start of something huge.”
GSC charges a one-off £125 payment to join the scheme, and encourage salons to add a small “green fee” to their prices to cover this.
Paula Todd, the owner of the Green Ginger salon in Newcastle, said: “The feedback has been so positive, it makes clients value what we do and know that we care a bit more, not just for them but for the whole environment.”
Helen Bird, strategic technical manager for plastics at Wrap, the government’s waste advisory body, said: “With nearly 90% of us now regularly recycling at home, more of us want to ensure that we recycle all that we can at work too. It’s great to hear of initiatives such as the Green Salon Collective to enable the recycling of valuable resources such as aluminium foil.”
On June 14, NATO will be holding a summit in Brussels, and at the top of the agenda will be the rising Russian presence in the Mediterranean. As a precursor to the summit, the NATO Steadfast Defender 2021 exercise kicked off early this month off the Coast of Portugal. The live maritime exercise includes participation from 11 allied nations from North America and Europe, and it will be led by U.S. Second Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Andrew Lewis, who also heads NATO’s Joint Force Command Norfolk.
“This is a much more subtle fight - literally from seabed to outer space across all domains – when compared to World War Two’s transportation of goods and manpower from North America to Europe,” Lewis said in describing the exercise.
According to Lewis, there is an urgent need for a coherent approach to transatlantic security that links the two continents and stretches to the Arctic. This need is occasioned by Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its increasing aggressiveness since 2014. But why is Russia a concern for NATO’s generals as far as its sea power in the Mediterranean region is concerned? To answer this question, we need to contextualize a century-old confrontation between Europe’s major powers and Russia and why Black Sea is one of Russia’s most important geopolitical strongholds.
This was the subject of a recent article by Paul Stronski, a senior fellow at Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia program. Stronski argues that Russia will leverage its Black Sea presence to project its power and influence in the Mediterranean, protect its economic and trade links with key European markets, and make southern Europe more dependent on Russian oil and gas.
Further, the only access that Russia has to the Mediterranean is the Black Sea, forming an important route for its military operations beyond the neighborhood as well as the means to export its hydrocarbons. However, the Mediterranean is currently dominated by NATO, requiring Russia to be more strategic in its bilateral outreach to key states within this region.
Specifically, in recent years there has been renewed commitment by Russia to collaborate with states such as Egypt, Israel, Cyprus and Libya ostensibly to make political, economic and military inroads in the Mediterranean.
However, Turkey and Ukraine - both with connections to NATO - present a real challenge to Russia’s ambitions. To a great extent, Turkey controls Black Sea’s access from the Mediterranean via two important choke points; Bosporus and Dardanelles. On the other hand, following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Black Sea has become a maritime trouble spot between Russia and Ukraine. In 2018, Russia seized three Ukrainian military vessels as they were trying to access the Black Sea via Kerch Strait. This kind of pressure is seen by some analysts as a concerted effort by Russia to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. So far, Crimea’s annexation has allowed Russia to obtain dominance in the northern Black Sea.
In his article, Stronski further states that Moscow self-justifies Crimea’s annexation as necessary to prevent the strategic balance from shifting decisively in NATO’s favor should Ukraine decide to join the Western Alliance.
Besides its military strategy, Russia has an economic drive to seek dominance in the Black Sea. By leveraging the southern port city of Novorossiysk, Russia hopes to cement its regional influence the land-locked Central Asia, which is dependent on the port for oil exports. The Black Sea is also an important transport artery for the Russian natural gas market, most importantly the TurkStream pipeline, which strengthens Russia’s foothold in European energy markets especially in Southern Europe.
In view of the growing power competition in the Black Sea, a recent strategy paper by Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) treats the Black Sea region as the center of four great forces: democracy on its western edge, Russian military aggression to the north, Chinese financial aggression to its east and instability in the Middle East to its south. It’s literally a philosophical frontier between democracy and autocracy.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
One of the largest topside removal projects of its kind is beginning in the North Sea involved the removal of the platform from one of the area’s largest oil and gas wells after the crew left the platform nearly two years ago. Two of the world’s largest semi-submersible crane vessels, converged in the North Sea, for the first time, to commence the unique project.
The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC known as TAQA commissioned Heerema and AF Offshore Decom to undertake its first major asset removal project. The Brae Bravo platform, commissioned in 1988, at its peak produced over 94,000 barrels per day. It is located more than 100 miles east o the Shetland Islands in Scotland. Decommissioning began in December 2017 with the last of the personnel leaving the platform in July 2019.
“TAQA Europe is embarking on one of the largest decommissioning exercises in the North Sea to date,” said Donald Taylor, TAQA Managing Director for Europe. “The Brae Bravo has been an integral part of the Brae fields for more than three decades with the size and scale of the platform, including the topside structure, almost the height of the London Eye. The arrival of Thialf in the field was a historic occasion, heralding the moment when we started converting many years of planning into practical implementation.”
Heerema’s semi-submersible crane vessels Thialf is one of the two largest crane vessels in the world. Built in 1985, it is capable of a tandem lift of 14,200 tons with its two cranes providing a depth reach lowering capability. It became the world’s second-largest when the SSCV Sleipnir was introduced in 2019. The two vessels, each of which is over 650 feet in length, are both being employed for this project. They recently met for the first time in the North Sea to begin the first phase of the three stage project that will last until 2022.
The first stage of the project recently began with the two SSCVs simultaneously in the field for several days to prepare and ultimately remove the flare tower, bridge, and jacket. The Thialf has remained in the field to complete final preparatory works and module separation to allow final removal in the summer. The Sleipnir will return to the site to remove the remaining topsides during two trips to the field during the summer of 2021, at which point the only remaining visible element of Brae Bravo will be the top of the jacket above the sea surface. A dedicated navigational aid will be placed on the remaining structure and a 500-meter safety zone will remain in place until jacket decommissioning is completed in 2022.
“Over the last 33 years, Brae Bravo has been an important contributor to the UK oil and gas industry with many people having long-standing connections to the platform. This project will involve more than 500 people working offshore on the program during peak decommissioning operations, and we are committed to delivering safe and efficient execution of this milestone,” said Taylor.
All the waste materials from the platform will be transported to the AF Environmental Base in Vats, Norway, and processed aiming for a 95 percent recycling or reuse target.
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