They started out as pets, perhaps living in little boys’ bedrooms, being shown off to friends and wrapping around arms. But then the Burmese pythons grew, and grew, and grew (about 7 feet in a year), and they weren’t so cute or easy to deal with any more.

So, trying to do the right thing, their owners gently released them into the wild, near the large, shallow “river of grass” that flows through much of south Florida, known as the Everglades.

Problem solved.

Not quite. Those pet pythons grew — up to 20 feet long and 250 pounds –and they eat anything from deer to bobcats to wood storks to endangered species. Less than a decade ago, there were only a few in the Everglades. Today, more than 100,000 of them are slithering around south Florida, crushing what was an already delicate ecosystem.

Even though the state is aggressively trying to find them and restrict the sale of them as pets, the python hunters will never catch up. And the giant reptiles are spreading, south into the Florida Keys and north into Central Florida. One estimate predicts they will eventually inhabit about one-third of the United States.

And that’s not taking global warming into account.

If there’s any wisp of a silver lining to this mess, it’s that the python problem has turned the nation’s attention toward the depth and scope of invasive exotic animals, fish, reptiles and plants.

The U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year to try and staunch the flow of invasive species. But the damage the invaders cause brings that total to about $35 billion annually, according to National Invasive Species Council. Worldwide, the economic toll from invasives tops $1.4 trillion, according to the Nature Conservancy, which publishes a list of ways people can help reduce that number.

The invaders tend to spread rapidly, eating or killing the food and habitats of native species. They can clog streams and rivers, alter entire ecosystems and potentially wipe out endangered species. They can cause major forest fires, destroy rangeland and even decrease tourism.

It’s hard to put a number on them in the US: The Fish and Wildlife Department estimates as many as 50,000 non-natives are here now, but of those, about 4,300 are trouble-making invasives.

“I can tell you that for the Nature Conservancy, wherever we work, globally and nationally, invasive species have been identified as one of the greatest threats to biodiversity,” said Doria Gordon, the Director of Conservation Science for Florida’s chapter of the Nature Conservancy.

Though relatively few imports become invasive, when they do, they can become a monumental problem, she said. Florida is a state where climate, population and ports create an ideal environment for voracious invasives. Reptiles such as monitor lizards, Cuban tree frogs and iguanas are growing quickly and gobbling up native species. “The Cuban frogs are capable of eating most of our native tree frogs,” she said.

The animals and reptiles may be more interesting, but it is the plants that really wreak havoc on the environment. They take over because, as exotics, they lack natural pests in their new territory. (Just as invading wildlife is able to run amok because their natural predators live on another continent.)

“Hydrilla and water hyacinth have been problems for years,” she said. “They constrain navigation and water flow, create hazards to navigation and power generation,” she said.

But Gordon reserves special scorn for a plant that poses perhaps the biggest threat to Florida’s native areas: Old World climbing fern.

Calling it a fern is misleading – it’s more like ivy on steroids. Native to Africa and Asia, Old World found its way into a nursery decades ago. Now, it covers large swaths of Florida’s uninhabited land, rapidly moving north thanks to wind-blown spores. Old World blankets the ground, bushes and even the top of forests, smothering everything it covers – like a leafy version of The Blob.

How can such a pervasive plant be controlled? “We try to contain them. At the edges, where densities are low, we can keep knocking them backwards,” Gordon said. Right now the northern boundary of Old World climbing fern’s range is near Orlando. “We’re now starting to look for spores in the air there,” she added.

“The real effort is to find a biological agent that can control the vine,” Gordon said, rather than using huge quantities of pesticides. Finding a living thing to battle back another living thing has only worked for a few species. “It’s difficult to find one that will only attack that specific species and not anything else.”

Hawaii is a perfect example of such well-intentioned plans gone wrong.

First Polynesians, then Europeans, arrived to the islands with their dogs, pigs, lizards, plants, cattle and sheep. The Westerners, unfortunately, brought along rats, too. The rats ate sugar cane and the unique flightless birds of the islands. To kill the rats, the mongoose was brought in. Unfortunately, the mongoose ate the birds, not the rats. Rats are nocturnal and the mongoose is not. Thus, dozens of the dwindling species of rare birds in Hawaii were wiped out.

Today, Hawaii’s struggle with non-native plants, animals and reptiles is worse than any other state, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Unleashing one exotic to battle another has happened on the mainland as well, according to Richard Mack, professor in the school of biological sciences at Washington State University. “Ironically, most of our problems we brought upon ourselves. Two-thirds of the plant invaders were deliberately introduced (via horticulture), and it backfired,” he said.

“The problem is that we don’t have a good handle on this. The funds, resources, they haven’t been allocated.”

There’s a cycle to it all, Mack said. “One of these invaders arises and causes havoc. There’s a call to deal with it and it takes a sustained effort and incredible persistence to get rid of one of these species.

“There may be initial success – the population numbers go down. That’s mistakenly taken as a sign that public funds can be pulled back. But these are living organisms, so they go back and build up their populations and it gets as bad as it was before,” he said.

Thus, money to combat the invasives dries up, and often the task of trying to control the pests falls on area communities.

One of the bad actors in the U.S. now, Mack said, is cheatgrass. It came from Eurasia about 200 years ago. “It’s had a devastating effect in the far west,” he said. Despite its size, it is a strong competitor with native plant species and is a factor in major forest fires in California or Nevada. “It also causes downstream siltation and erosion in the river systems in the west,” Mack said.

And who can forget what has come to be known as the “Vietnam of entomology,” the fire ant fiasco in the Southwest?

By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now

The world is not our oyster. At least, not according to The Nature Conservancy, which presented a pioneering survey on the state of global shellfish to the International Marine Conservation Congress in Washington, DC in late May that uncovered some startling statistics.

Conducted by Nature Conservancy scientists from five continents over a five-year period, the first-ever report states that 85 percent of the world’s oyster reefs have disappeared over the last 150-odd years, largely due to over-harvesting, poor water quality and degraded environments. The complex habitats, also called oyster beds by some, are vital to the world’s bays and estuaries. And as go the reefs, the report warns, so, potentially, go much larger, interlocking marine ecosystems.

“One third of the places that we looked at globally were functionally extinct,” lead author Mike Beck, senior scientist for the Conservancy’s Marine Initiative, told GreenRightNow. “That means they had less than 1 percent remaining of the former habitat, as best as we could tell. That occurs on every continent except Antarctica – where oysters don’t occur.”

He explained that European coasts once thrived with oyster reefs, and even the once legendary fisheries of America’s West Coast are in dire straits.

“Now, there’s virtually nothing left in all of Europe. We’ve also seen extraordinary declines in the Northwest and Chesapeake – and we’ve almost forgotten (laymen, not scientists) that there used to be a native Olympia Oyster out there, from British Columbia to Mexico. The San Francisco Bay used to be full of them,” Beck said, pointing out that one famous American writer made a few bucks off the Golden Gate’s oyster trade, in more ways than one.

A new report released today by The Nature Conservancy says 85 percent of oyster reefs have been lost worldwide and they are now the most severely impacted marine habitat on the planet.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented and alarming decline in the condition of oyster reefs, a critically important habitat in the world’s bays and estuaries,” Mike Beck, senior marine scientist at The Nature Conservancy and lead author of the report, said in a statement. “However, realistic and cost-effective solutions within conservation and coastal restoration programs, along with policy and reef management improvements, provide hope for the survival of shellfish.”

The Nature Conservancy said the report is the first comprehensive global analysis of the state of shellfish. It was written by scientists across five continents, from conservation organizations as well as academic and research institutions. The report was released today at the International Marine Conservation Congress in Washington, DC.

In addition to being a culinary favorite and a long-standing staple in seafood restaurants around the globe, The Nature Conservancy said oysters provide benefits to humans in less obvious ways. They act as natural water filters and improve water quality, provide food and habitat for fish, crabs and birds, and serve as natural coastal buffers that help to protect shorelines and keep coastal marshes intact, an important factor in protecting communities against storm surges and sea-level rise.

A number of conditions threaten oysters around the globe, according to the report:

• In the majority of individual bays around the world, there has been a greater than 90 percent loss of oyster reef habitat and in some areas, the loss of oyster reef habitat exceeds 99 percent.  Globally, 85 percent of oyster reefs have been completely lost.
• Reefs are functionally extinct in many areas, particularly in North America, Australia and Europe, and no are no longer able to provide any ecosystem benefits to people.
• Most of the world’s remaining wild capture of oysters comes from only five regions on the east coast of North America, and in most of these regions, oyster reefs are in poor condition or worse.

The report says the driving forces behind the decline of oyster reefs include destructive fishing practices, coastal over-development, and associated effects of upstream activities such as altered river flows, dams, poorly managed agriculture and poor water quality. Many of these threats have been around for decades and even centuries, but today there are two main issues that impede oyster recovery efforts.

According to the report, the first is a widespread lack of awareness that shellfish habitats are in trouble. In nearly all cases, shellfish are managed as fisheries, meaning they are viewed solely as a commodity but are not valued for the intrinsic role they play in keeping marine ecosystems healthy and intact. The second challenge is the common perception that as native shellfish decline, non-native shellfish can act as an ecologically suitable replacement. But previous introductions of non-native oysters and other shellfish into new areas have spread disease and have had other negative impacts on the surrounding environment.

The report lays out specific recommendations drawn from examples around the world, such as the need to elevate native, wild oyster reefs as a priority for habitat management and conservation, carry out large-scale restoration programs, and make better use of protected area policies for shellfish protection.

“We want to raise awareness that the world’s remnant oyster reefs and populations are important, since they may in fact represent some of the last examples of reef habitat produced by a particular species of oyster,” Christine Crawford, a scientist with the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute at the University of Tasmania in Australia and a co-author of the report, said in a statement. “We have an opportunity to conserve such reefs in Australia and elsewhere with the results of this assessment.”

Opening this week at New York City’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the exhibition “Design for a Living World” explores possibilities for ecological sensitivity in a realm of top-tier design work — from fashion star Isaac Mizrahi to artist/architect Maya Lin — in which conspicuous over-consumption is often the rule.

The show was developed by The Nature Conservancy, whose Project Director Sara Elliott says they “were looking for designers who demonstrated an innovative and open-minded approach to materials or who were thinking about the relationship between products and place or source,” instead of only recruiting those known for green-friendly work. Designers were pointed toward areas where the Conservancy works — from Bolivia to Australia to Idaho — and asked to draw their inspiration from whatever they found there.

The show, which is expected to travel to cities like Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco after leaving New York in January, wound up with a broad array of creations, from sculptural pieces to prototypes for what could be mass-produced, everyday objects. More important than marketability, Elliott says, is “that the objects say something about the place, the people who depend on that place for their livelihood, and/or the inherent qualities of the material.”

In a way, the show’s impact on viewers seems like a secondary concern: The challenge here was to designers, who make so many decisions on the consumer’s behalf long before a product is available for sale. Non-designers come away from the show, hopefully, ready to pay more attention to questions about where their goods come from and how their production affects a community. As for the creative professionals who participated, Elliott says, “I think in almost every instance, the designers have been inspired to pay closer attention to the materials they specify in their work and the impacts that those material choices have on real people and real places across the globe.”

Now that you’ve worn off the magnetic strip on the credit card buying presents for everyone, gotten the letter that your health insurance premiums are doubling and your job is being “redefined,” it’s time to think about those year-end donations. Sigh.

While environmental groups will likely have an easier time on Capitol Hill next year talking policy with a new Administration that sees global warming as a real threat, they paradoxically could be facing headwinds with donors.

Consider first that some of their large contributors may have been dragged down in the Bernard Madoff securities/Ponzi scheme, which savaged many charitable foundations. While the extent of that damage is being assessed, it’s safe to assume that even nonprofits that escaped that five-alarm fire, have been singed by the economic meltdown.

This holiday season, their biggest time to collect donations, finds them pressing for money from corporations and individuals who may be more flushed with worry than flush with cash.

Will a public that’s financially fragile have anything left over to help feed Pandas? Preserve forests? Save tigers? Support Darfur refugees? Buy back rainforests? Rescue polar bears? Stop mountain top mining?

Let’s hope so. The work list is long. The causes are legit. And climate change demands urgent attention.

Should you be making donations this season, here are links to some of the top environmental organizations. They all have worthy projects.

Defenders of Wildlife
I fell in love with this group when I heard about how they organize volunteers to ride Western ranges as part of an effort to help ranchers and the gray wolves live side by side in, if not harmony, détente. It’s just one of many innovative projects they support.

EarthJustice
Lawyers are the front lines when it comes to assuring everyone follows the rules under the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and other protections that only work if they’re enforced. Earthjustice provides free legal counsel to environmental groups large and small, because, as their motto goes, “the earth needs a good lawyer.”

Environmental Defense Fund
An alliance-building group that lobbies for protections for nature and we human inhabitants, from coordinating a drive to clean up school bus emissions to advocating for wind and solar energy projects. (If you can’t donate, consider buying EDF President Fred Krupp’s book, Earth: The Sequel, an informative primer full of real life anecdotes that examines our green energy options.)

Environmental Working Group
Scientists working with EWG have screened our water, food, furniture and cosmetics for toxins, creating valuable tools like the Dirty Dozen list of fruits and veggies most doused with pesticides, and Skin Deep, a database where you can check your body lotion for harmful additives. Their reporting helps us show us how to clean up our home and natural environment.

Greenpeace
A strong advocacy that works on behalf of endangered wildlife, marine life and forests around the globe. Known for their visual stunts, boycotts and blockades, Greenpeace takes action and makes news, helping raise the profile of many enviro causes.

Nature Canada
This group is working to save our Northern wildlife such as the caribou (Santa’s reindeer), as well as one of earth’s largest land carbon sinks, the Boreal Forest. It may be in Canada, but it is of global importance.

The Nature Conservancy
The conservancy works to protect land, rivers and marshes around the world, relying on a staff of 700 scientists to steer work in the right direction. They’ve also begun a campaign to Plant A Billion Trees in the Atlantic rainforest in South America.

Natural Resources Defense Council
They’re also covering the planet, working to mitigate climate change and preserve habitats. A new fund drive invites people to donate $10 to plant a tree to help Revive the Rainforest in Costa Rica.

National Wildlife Federation
The producer of Ranger Rick and Your Big Backyard magazines focuses on AMerican wildlife and nurturing a love of wildlife and the outdoors in children. One way to donate is through their “adoption” programs.

Sierra Club
The oldest and largest American environmental group has a membership of more than 1 million and works to save natural spaces. Want to see the national parks protected? Look to Sierra Club. But they also have their hands in the urban environment, working with the Cool Cities project to tamp down carbon emissions and make cities greener and cleaner. Read about founder John Muir, who started Sierra in 1892 to “make the mountains glad.”

World Wildlife Fund
Where to begin? WWF has wildlife saving projects in place from the Congo to the Arctic to the Galapagos Islands. They also have a wealth of information on their website, and adopt-an-animal donor programs. (Big givers can adopt whole acreages of imperiled habitat through the Partners in Conservation program.

Union of Concerned Scientists
At the forefront of energy and climate science, this venerable group helps link the latest scientific thinking on energy, climate change and invasive species into policies that makes sense and preserve our world.

Worldwatch Institute
Someone’s got to study, analyze and explain the problems facing the globe so we can find the right solutions. That’s Worldwatch, helping dissect the issues that stand between us and a just, sustainable and less-toxic environment.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media