Wild Tobago

Dr Anjani Ganase, coral reef ecologist, looks at the bleak picture through the lens of the degradation of coral reefs worldwide, and what we must do to reverse the trend towards an unsustainable existence.   El Niño climate conditions aggravated by man-made global heating caused mass bleaching on coral reefs in the northern hemisphere during the summer of 2023, and brought devastation and mortality to reefs throughout the Caribbean. In Tobago, above average temperatures persisted for three months (September to November 2023). Over the past month, these conditions have delivered a deadly blow to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Anomalously high ocean temperatures have been washing over the reefs for at least ten weeks, similar to the heat waves experienced in Caribbean.   Initial reports from the Australian Institute of Marine Science who conducted aerial surveys state that broadscale mass bleaching has occurred along the shallow reefs in the impa...

Caroline Mair-Toby talks about COP 28 and the discussions to avert the global climate crisis.  Photos courtesy Caroline Mair-Toby   Caroline Mair-Toby first attended the COP (the UN Climate Change Conference held annually since 1995) as part of the London-based Legal Response International team in 2011 on behalf of Small Island Developing States. She has been part of the Trinidad and Tobago delegation as legal advisor and negotiator; and expresses relief that the Loss and Damage negotiations were finally operationalized and funded at the recent COP 28. She chose to visit civil society and indigenous peoples’ gatherings in the 2023 meetings. It was, she reports, the most organized COP ever, on a beautifully laid out site extending over many acres, requiring “Carnival level walking.” COP 28 was staged in Dubai from November 30 to December 13, 2023.   Mair-Toby is a lawyer for over 14 years, and has more than a decade of experience and research in climate diplomacy a...

Dr Anjani Ganase looks at some of the latest marine and climate science research.     The World Meteorological Office reported a seven-fold increase in extreme events since 1970s. While some of the increase is associated with better reporting mechanisms and population expansion, climate change is a major driver. Given the projected increase in extreme climate events, researchers from New Zealand have assessed the global cost of extreme events attributed to climate change over the last twenty years. Assessments pertaining to the US alone estimated a cost of $260. 8 billion in economic damages related to climate change, which roughly made up 53 % of the total cost. Most of the cost was associated with storm damage (64 %), followed by heat waves (16 %), then flood (10 %) and drought (10 %), wildfires (2 %) and cold events (2 %).   Over the last twenty years, the extreme events that cost the most in the US were the storm events of 2005 – Katrina, ...

  Human activity and the changing climate are affecting life and life cycles in the oceans. Dr Anjani Ganase discusses some of the observations made this year.   Marine plastics on deep coral reefs Scientists from the California Academy of Sciences in collaboration with scientists around the world have conducted over 1,200 surveys on coral reefs from 83 countries to quantify plastic pollution on coral reefs. This study included deeper sections of coral reefs (the mesophotic zone) that can extend to depths of 150 m in some locations and accessible only to a handful of technical divers and remotely operated vehicles. Surveyed sites varied from reefs adjacent to cities and populated areas to remote and uninhabited islands. As expected, areas closer to human populations had greater amounts of plastics. However, plastics were found even on some of the most remote sites. The coral reef with lowest density of plastic occurred around the Marshall Islands in ...

Dr Anjani Ganase urges leaders and influential sectors in the society to consider the health of our ocean backyards. Connect the dots, she says, there is an urgent need to link land-based lifestyles with the life of the ocean, indeed the life of the planet. The Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) is upon us: will we use it to stem the degradation and revitalize the planet’s most precious resource? UNESCO has outlined a roadmap to improve the health of the ocean and to manage resources sustainably. Major challenges include understanding how marine pollutants impact ocean systems in order to mitigate impact, conserve marine biodiversity, and harvest the ocean sustainably to ensure food security. Further, could we build the capacity of ocean dependent states to address societal issues through ocean awareness? For the Caribbean, we need to build community resilience and disaster management with the use of early-warning systems against hurricanes, tsunamis and ev...

While this year’s global climate summit continued to discuss the finances required to support mitigation and adaptation, there is now a growing need to assist those regions that have suffered loss and damage. Dr Anjani Ganase summarises the urgent need for dedicated financial flows.   COP 27, the global climate summit – Conference of Parties - brought together representatives of all countries in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt from 6 to 20 November. This follows last year’s meeting COP 26 in Glasgow. The Glasgow Climate Pact - to stay below 1.5 C global temperature rise – precipitated a two-year plan to accelerate endeavors toward net zero, through the themes of mitigation, adaptation, finance and collaboration. One year after this Pact, here are some highlights of the Sharm-El Sheikh Implementation Plan.   The Latest Science The IPCC sixth assessment report released in the beginning of 2022 describes a code red for climate emergency and the need for dras...

Dr Anjani Ganase considers how Earth’s water cycles are changing, affected by global warming.   Currently parts of the world appear to be experiencing a series of severe droughts, while other areas are the suffering from severe floods. Over the last weeks, Pakistan received nearly three times the average monsoonal rain of the past years, wiping away towns and villages resulting in over 1000 deaths and displacing over 33 million people. Meanwhile Sudan has experienced torrential downpours that destroyed 9600 homes and damaged 22,000 more with 79 dead. USA flash flooding in Texas, New Mexico has seen record amounts of rainfall in just 24 hours.      Areas at risk of drought as a result of climate change (image courtesy IPCC AR6).   At the same time, most of Europe has been under severe drought conditions with water reserves low enough to unbury the past. World War II ships full of explosives dumped by the Nazis in the Danube River have r...