Maritime Issues : General

There are a wide variety of overlooked and forgotten ways in which humans participate with, and alter, the biological systems around them. A few seeds, trapped in the soles of our shoes, can cross oceans with us in airplanes, bringing gardens, and weeds, and parasite species to the other side of the earth; trace amounts of infectious diseases can cling to our clothes and decimate livestock several nations away; snakes, rats, spiders, mosquitoes – all can easily ride the ships and planes of globalization.

Our economy is crowded with invasive stowaways intent on surviving elsewhere – even if survival means irretrievably altering the new host environment.

In other words, travel itself can be something of a biological activity: we do the migratory work of other species for them. We take them with us. Importations of even the smallest microbe can sufficiently alter an ecological niche, opening it up to further changes – then compounding over time into whole new landscapes. What would happen naturally is accelerated: a thousand years in a decade.

Off the North Atlantic coast, Marine biologists maintain a vigilant watch over the few hundred right whales left in the world.

This year, they'll have a new tool: Using photographs taken underwater and above the surface, they will construct three-dimensional models of the animals to monitor weight changes or new scars from run-ins with ships and fishing gear.

SAN FRANCISCO // After the last patient of the day walked out the front of Raytel Medical Imaging clinic, veterinarian Frances Gulland slipped an oversized animal crate through the back door.

Inside was a California sea lion. The animal was emaciated, disoriented and suffering from seizures.

A female with silky, caramel-colored fur, wide-set eyes and long whiskers, she was named Neuschwander, after the lifeguard who had found her six weeks earlier, comatose and trembling under a pier at Avila Beach near San Luis Obispo.

Casual observers might be excused for thinking the navy’s planned voyage to the Northwest Passage in August will be the first in a long time.

But while all eyes focused on hurricane Katrina late last summer in the Gulf of Mexico, HMCS Fredericton was patrolling on the southeast coast of Devon Island just below the 75th parallel. It was the farthest north a Canadian warship had sailed in nearly two decades.

"Arguably, the mission was overshadowed by hurricane Katrina, the remnants of which we endured for four miserable days in Baffin Bay," said Cmdr. John Newton, the frigate’s captain at the time.

Dhaka - Chittagong port is the ‘most dangerous port in the world’ with the highest incidence of piracy reported in the first six months this year, the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre has said in its latest report.

BDNews news agency quoting the report said: ‘Chittagong in Bangladesh is the most dangerous port with 22 incidents, followed by Jakarta with only eight.’

‘Violence and intimidation of crew continues to be a hallmark of these attacks, with many of the pirates armed with guns and knives,’ it said.

‘Bangladesh and Indonesia remain the world’s most dangerous haunts for pirates with the number of reported attacks remaining steady since last year,’ the IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre based in Kuala Lumpur said.

Thai and German scientists will this week begin mapping the seabed of the Andaman Sea off the coasts of Phuket and Phang Nga to better prepare for similar disasters as the December 26, 2004 tsunami, media reports said Sunday.

After a year of preparations the team, including scientists from Thailand's National Research Council and the Deutsche Forschungsgeneinschaft, will begin surveying parts of the Andaman off Thailand's southwestern coast that are more than 500 metres deep, called the continental margin area off.

Japan has hit back at criticism that its slaughter of pregnant minke whales in the Southern Ocean is endangering the species.

The Humane Society International this week highlighted a Japanese government report showing almost 60% of female minke whales killed by Japanese whaling fleets in Antarctic waters were pregnant.

The environmental group said the report showed 853 minke and 10 fin whales were slaughtered last summer. Of the 391 female minke whales killed, 224 were pregnant with 227 foetuses.

Following oil slicks that devastated European coasts in the last decade, the Commission is taking further action to improve maritime safety by preventing accidents and pollution and better controlling their effects. Its proposals also seek to enhance passenger and crew safety against the risks of accidents and terrorist attacks.

A new microbe that may hold clues to the origins of life on a harsh, young Earth has been discovered by an international team of scientists including a University of Guelph microbiologist.

Besides opening a window on the beginnings of life on Earth and the search for life on other planets, the researchers have found that primitive organisms thriving in extremely hot, acidic conditions may be important players in cycling crucial elements such as sulphur and iron at deep-sea vents.

A paper describing the new organism was published today in Nature. One of the authors is Guelph Prof. Terry Beveridge, holder of the Canada Research Chair in the Structure, Physical Nature and Geobiology of Prokaryotes.

United States: Media advisory: International mercury conference coming to Madison Aug. 6-11

More than 1,000 scientists, academics, natural resource managers, environmental managers and policymakers will gather Sunday-Friday, Aug. 6-11, in Madison for the Eighth International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant.

Eligible media representatives will receive complimentary registration for all presentations, abstracts, advance materials and use of newsroom facilities during conference hours.

Throughout the week, conferees will consider a conference declaration summarizing the findings of four expert panels, each of which is addressing policy-relevant issues pertaining to environmental mercury pollution. The declaration will be the first such statement produced by this series of international conferences.

There are lots of fish in the ocean, and many are beautiful. But few would argue that a dolphin "lit up" fresh from the water in brilliant neon yellows, greens, silvers and blues wins top billing as the sea's beauty queen.

Considered the "perfect" game fish by many anglers, dolphin also are called "mahi mahi" or "dolphinfish" to distinguish them from the sea mammal with the same name. The fish complete their life cycles under a live-fast, die-young scenario.

Incredibly fast-growing and prolific, dolphin are the food source of many of the sea's greatest predators, including marlin and sharks. But little was known about the fish until a research project was begun five years ago, and anglers continue to contribute to the work.

IF the Mediterranean tuna fishery collapsed it would affect the price paid for southern bluefin tuna, however it is "not going to happen", according to Tuna Boat Owners Association president Brian Jeffriess.

An international wildlife organisation has called for an immediate closure of the bluefin tuna fishery out of the East Atlantic and Mediterranean amid fears it is being overfished.

An independent study commissioned by World Wildlife Fund said the Mediterranean and North-East northern bluefin tuna fishery was on the verge of collapse following the unrestricted expansion of tuna farms across the Mediterranean sea and high demand for the highly prized fish.

The second of four hi-tech warships has been officially handed over to the South African Navy today as part of government's controversial Strategic Defence Package. The patrol frigate, the SAS Isandlwana which will complement naval acquisitions such as submarines and maritime helicopters, is intended to boost the country's defence capability and broker peace on the continent.

After completing sea trials of her newly fitted weapons systems, the SAS Isandlwana cruised into Durban early this week ready to be commissioned into the fleet. She joins the SAS Amatola - both named after famous battles. With two sister ships still to be commissioned, the fleet will not only serve domestic interests, but assist in missions across the continent.

For the first time, scientists have found regions of the earth's crust which are stretching apart to form new sea floor; their findings are published in Nature today (27 July). Most new ocean floor is made when undersea volcanic activity splits the crust and molten rock fills the gaps. However some new ocean floor develops when rock stretches along gently inclined tectonic faults called detachment faults.

The new research suggests the significance of this stretching process as a way of creating new sea floor has been underestimated. No active examples of these detachment faults had been seen - until now.

A provincial government report showing alarming contaminant levels near Greater Victoria’s sewage outfalls has brought the region’s sewage treatment debate to an abrupt conclusion.

The report, which has yet to be released, indicates significant contamination on the sea bed and in waters surrounding the outfalls at Clover Point and Macaulay Point, Environment Minister Barry Penner said Monday.

Unites States: Scientists: Global warming triggering fish-killing "dead zone"

Bottom fish and crabs washing up dead on Oregon beaches are being killed by a recurring "dead zone" of low-oxygen water that appears to be triggered by global warming, scientists say.

The area is larger and more intense than in past years, and there are signs it is spreading north to Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

Scientists studying a 70-mile-long zone of oxygen-depleted water along the Continental Shelf between Florence and Lincoln City have concluded it is being caused by explosive blooms of tiny plants known as phytoplankton, which die and sink to the bottom.

If the United States decided to drill for oil 50 miles off the coast of China, we would be embroiled in WWIII overnight. Thanks to wacko environmentalist Congressmen and Senators using the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] to stymie drilling along the continental shelf of the United States, oil that rightfully belongs to American oil companies is now being drilled by Canada, Spain and Cuba—with help from both China and India. With only modest energy needs and no drilling expertise or money, Cuba's government-owned oil corporation, CubaPetroleo—with money and expertise from China's national oil company, Sinopec—is now "exercising its option" in the Straits of Florida. China, according to reports, is slant drilling. Slant drilling is what oil companies do when the oil they are trying to tap is on someone else's property. China will try to tap into reserves on the "American-side" of the Florida Straits that legally belongs to the United States in a 2-year renewable treaty negotiated with Cuba and signed by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

JAKARTA: Indonesia will place sirens on cellular phone towers in a bid to warn coastal residents of a tsunami, a minister said on Wednesday, more than a week after huge waves killed hundreds of people on the south coast of Java.

Officials in Indonesia have come under fire for the lack of any warning ahead of the July 17 tsunami, despite regional efforts to set up an early alert system after the massive 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

A NOAA ocean researcher and three astronauts are on a mission to Aquarius, NOAA's undersea laboratory off the coast of Florida, to pursue similarities in ocean and lunar exploration technologies.

Karen Kohanowich, NOAA program manager for Aquarius, is working with mission leader Astronaut Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, NASA astronauts Andrew J. Feustel and Karen L. Nyberg, and Aquarius technicians Mark Hulsbeck and Dominic Landucci of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

United States: Research vessel Bigelow uses technology to aid commercial fishing

It's a stealthy craft, able to glide through the sea and slip up on its target with nary a sound, perform its mission, then move on the next job leaving little trace.

But the Henry B. Bigelow's missions will never involve combat. Its owner is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And unlike the Navy warships that periodically leave the shores of the Mississippi Sound for overseas deployments, the Bigelow will not be performing military duties.

The Bigelow is NOAA's latest research vessel; a ship designed and built to study the seas that surround the United States and support the country's fishing industry by studying the nation's marine environment and aquatic life.

Morocco and the European Union signed a new fishing agreement Wednesday that includes waters off the disputed Western Sahara, despite protests from Sweden and independence activists.

The deal, signed in Brussels, allows 119 boats from E.U. member states to fish the North African kingdom's Atlantic waters for the next four years in return for $181 million, the Moroccan Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries said.

But the inclusion in the package of rich waters off the coast of Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara has provoked outcry that the deal may break international law and robs the territory's indigenous inhabitants of resources.

Canada: Forces prepare for summer sovereignty exercise in Arctic

The Canadian army, navy and air force will patrol the waters of the eastern Northwest Passage next month.

Operation Lancaster will see more than 400 personnel, the navy frigate HMCS Montreal, icebreakers, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft doing a joint patrol near Lancaster Sound.

Colonel Kevin Tyler, the senior operations officer for the Canadian Forces in the Arctic region, said the exercise has two main goals: increasing joint manoeuvre capabilities of the country's defence forces in the North and projecting Canadian sovereignty into the Arctic.

BANGLADESH has been inheriting many boundary-related problems as a historical legacy, especially with India. One may recall the last meeting held in the capital city of officials of the two countries to settle the boundary disputes. Such disputes arising from ill-defined or undemarcated international boundaries, are a perennial problem in many parts of the world. So far India and Bangladesh are concerned, an intergovernmental body constituted earlier to look into land boundary demarcation problem has been meeting from time to time to resolve it. But an intergovernmental body has been formed by the two countries to settle territorial disputes in the sea. There should be one for amicably resolving any dispute that may crop up while exercising their right to ownership on the freshly emerging lands within their territorial waters, or conducting exploration of their marine resources.

Australia is too harsh in dealing with illegal fishing vessels and potentially breaking international laws, a university report says.

Forfeiting illegal fishing vessels including their gear and catch and jailing crew in default of a fine threatened Australia's strong stance on illegal fishing, The University of Queensland report says.

Japan: Concerns over bluefin tuna / Report asks Japan to check origins of its fish imports

A recent WWF report calling Japan's penchant for fatty bluefin tuna a major cause of the dramatic decline in the fish's population has sent shockwaves through the fishing industry of Croatia--two-thirds of whose exports to Japan comprise tuna.

Farming of bluefin tuna has risen sharply in the Mediterranean Sea as local fisherman try to keep up with demand, much of which comes from Japan. For Croatia, which accounts for one-fifth of bluefin tuna catches in the region, the industry has proved a boon for the economy.

Yemen, Djibouti and France are currently discussing programs to strengthen cooperation in securing international navigation in the Red Sea, a top French military official said last Monday.

In a press conference held in Sana’a, Hubert de Gaullier de Bordes, Commander in Chief of the French Naval Forces in the Indian Ocean said that dialogue is taking place between the three countries to boost the triple cooperation program. He also highlighted current military cooperation between Yemen and France, saying that the Yemeni coast guards are now well qualified and trained due to technical assistance donated by the French.

Singapore's shipyards want a bigger share of the offshore shipbuilding industry, eyeing areas now dominated by South Korea, Japan and Norway.

Singapore-listed yards have secured well over half the 92 oil drilling rigs under construction worldwide, and are now looking to expand capacity in a bid to meet a next wave of demand for vessels and platforms needed to pump oil and gas from the ocean bed to the market.

Industry executives see rising demand for deep-water floating production capacity as oil prices remain high and some 84 new offshore fields are set to come on stream in the next five years.

Researchers have discovered what they believe are as many as 50 new marine species in waters southwest of Nova Scotia.

The research ship Hudson spent the last two weeks in the Discovery Corridor, an area that fans out from the East Coast 800 kilometres into the Atlantic Ocean.

The ship has been in the area before, but this time researchers went deeper than ever and used a remote-controlled diving machine that can scan the bottom of the ocean, 2.5 kilometres below the surface.

Ellen Kenchington, a senior scientist, said the crew brought up about 50 creatures that have never been seen.

In an unprecedented move, the government is planning to dispatch its most state-of-the-art drill ship as part of an international oil exploration project in the Indian Ocean, an Australian oil company said Monday.

The oil-well exploration project, which will use Chikyu, a deep-sea drilling vessel belonging to the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, is being carried out jointly by the agency, international firms and the Kenyan government, Australia-based Global Petroleum Ltd. said.

A series of earthquakes affected at least five regions in Indonesia on Sunday: Gorontalo and Banggai in Central Sulawesi, Nias in North Sumatra, Sibolga in North Sumatra, Bali, and Molucca.

The quakes varied in magnitude from 4.4 to 6.6 on the Richter scale.

Coming on the heels of two big earthquakes that hit Indonesia in the last two months, killing thousands of people and displacing tens of thousands more, it seems no island in Indonesia is safe, save Kalimantan.

At least there were no reports of damage or injuries on Sunday.

Atlantic: Bluefin Tuna in Atlantic Nearing Extinction, Conservation Group Says

Bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea and east Atlantic Ocean are nearing extinction because of widespread illicit fishing, the international conservation organization WWF warns.

In a report released this month, WWF calls for an immediate end to fishing of the once common tuna.

Every year, Japanese consume about 600,000 tons of the fish, more than 25 percent of the world's entire catch.

So when the tuna haul began to decrease drastically worldwide due to indiscriminate fishing, all fingers pointed to Japan.

Tuna resources in the western Atlantic Ocean, one of Japan's major bluefin tuna fishing areas, declined to 5,000 tons in 2001, about one-tenth of the amount roughly 30 years ago.

According to a Fisheries Agency survey in fiscal 2005, tuna is either ''over caught'' or ''caught to the limit'' all over the world.

Since about the time when the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea went into effect in 1994, controlled tuna fishing has become the global trend.

The Canadian navy will return to the Northwest Passage this summer for the first time in more than a generation to get a firsthand look at shipping in the increasingly ice-free waters -- and to help tend the graves of two long-dead RCMP officers near the derelict remains of one of the force's loneliest outposts.

Sri Lanka: SRI LANKA NAVY…LTTE SEA TIGERS AND THE RIGHT TO TERRITORIAL SEAS

Being an Island nation, the requirement of a Navy as the First Line of Defence had been identified at the time of inception as the Royal Ceylon Navy (RCN) more than fifty years ago. Navy had developed from the very basic initial facilities but gradually developed into a naval force which satisfied the requirements at that time.

With a small fleet at the initial stage, the Sri Lanka Navy then went on to develop the fleet mainly to cater for the logistic transportation, assisting to keep law and order in the country when the services are requested. Most of the other times, Navy was carrying out ceremonial duties.

Don Chaney hoped on Thursday night that 75 red tide researchers would give environmental activists some ammunition to take to state and federal lawmakers.

Something to get the kind of local, state and federal laws that might quell the blooms, that might lead to the cleanup of coastal and river runoff.

Chaney, who grew up in Sarasota and is a member of the Healthy Gulf Coalition, says he remembers eating shellfish on the beach.

"And there were a lot of them," he told scientists.

Some 150 fishermen in Parit Jawa, Muar stopped going to sea, fearing for their safety following rumour of the presence of pirates and criminals in several areas near Malaysian waters.

Parit Jawa Fishermen's Association advisor Chong Chee Seong said that according to the rumour, any fisherman going to sea would face great risk and trouble from the pirates while at sea.

"Widespread rumour of the trouble waiting for the fishermen at sea worries them as it could be real and they are reluctant to take the risk," he told Bernama, here today.

He said so far, none of the association members, comprising some 300 fishermen, had come forward to make an official report about the rumour either to the association or the local authorities, particularly the marine police.

Indonesia: It is required to improve equipments for detecting earthquake and tsunami indications

President, on Tuesday (18/7) afternoon, lead a cabinet meeting particularly to study the handling of earthquake and tsunami disasters. In the future it is necessary to increase the detection system, said the Vice President; Jusuf Kalla.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono instructed that the system of detection and information of earthquake and tsunami must be improved continuously. And so do as its equipments and network. The Vice President; Jusuf Kalla, on Tuesday (18/7) night told such matter to journalists, after holding a cabinet meeting particularly to study the earthquake and tsunami disaster hapenned in south coast of Java. The Meeting was directly chaired by President SBY.

New research in Antarctica has suggested the long-term effects of ozone depletion could have a dramatic impact on the ocean's food supply.

A group of Tasmanian scientists have measured the effects of ozone depletion on levels of phytoplankton - the major food source of lower species, like krill.

They measured a 60 per cent reduction in phytoplankton levels at low ozone concentrations, compared with the six per cent of previous studies.

Andrew Davidson, of the Australian Antarctic Division at Kingston, south of Hobart, says his team used different methodology, taking measurements over a series of days.

Swarms of lowly thumb-sized ocean creatures that often resemble chains of transparent Gummy Bears play a critical role in transporting a greenhouse gas deep into the deep sea, scientists report.

The semi-transparent barrel-shaped creatures, called salps, emerge by the billions in groups that occupy as much as 38,600 square miles of the sea surface (about the size of the state of Indiana), Laurence Madin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution wrote in a newly published study.

Madin and his colleagues have now estimated that "hotspots" of salps could spell a dead-end for carbon dioxide, transporting tons of it daily from the ocean surface to the deep sea and preventing it from re-entering the atmosphere and contributing again to the greenhouse effect and possibly to global warming.

Canada: Canada's New Government Moves Forward to Establish Limits of Our Continental Shelf

Canada's new government today announced an important initiative in support of its commitment to secure seabed resources beyond the 200-mile limit to the edge of the continental shelf.

The continental shelf refers to the natural prolongation of the continent before the bottom descends to the deep oceanic floor.

The Honourable Loyola Hearn, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, today announced the award of a $2-million contract to Fugro Jacques GeoSurveys Inc. of Newfoundland and Labrador to identify the outer edge of the continental shelf beyond the 200-mile limit on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap.

The European Commission, on behalf of the European Union, and Kiribati have initialled a 6-year fisheries partnership agreement (FPA). The new agreement, which provides fishing possibilities exclusively on tuna, will come into force on 16 September 2006. The new protocol will continue to provide fishing possibilities for 16 vessels. The annual EU financial contribution will amount to € 478,000, representing the same amount of compensation as under the current protocol: € 416,000 compensation for a reference tonnage of 6,400 tonnes of tuna catches per year, plus a specific allocation of € 62,400 to support the application of Kiribati's national fisheries policy. The contribution by vessel owners will amount, as now, to € 35 per tonne, and the EU’s to € 65.

Indonesia: Indonesia to install tsunami warning system in Java, Bali islands

Indonesia will prioritize the southern waters off Java and Bali islands when setting up tsunami early warning system, a minister said Thursday.

Research and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman said the government would install the device on the basis of the density of population, the amount of assets and the vulnerability of the area from the possible disaster.

"We put priority on southern sea off Java and Bali islands," Kusmayanto said.

Java island is the most populated area in Indonesia and Bali island is the most favorable tourist destination in the country. Both of them have huge infrastructures.

The authority would determine which areas of the islands were vulnerable to the quake, he said.

Greenland: On front line of global warming threat, Greenland sees a bright side

QAQORTOQ, Greenland — Stefan Magnusson lives at the foot of a giant, melting glacier. Some think he’s living on the brink of a cataclysm. He believes he’s on the cusp of creation.

The 49-year-old reindeer rancher says a warming trend in Greenland over the past decade has caused the glacier on his farm to retreat 300 feet, revealing land that hasn’t seen the light of day for hundreds of years, if not more. Where ice once gripped the earth, he says, his reindeer now graze on wild thyme amid the purple blooms of Niviarsiaq flowers.

The melting glacier near Magnusson’s home is pouring more water into the river, which he hopes soon to harness for hydroelectricity.

Average temperatures in Greenland have risen by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 30 years — more than double the global average, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. By the end of the century, the institute projects, temperatures could rise another 14 degrees.

Stratic Energy Corporation is pleased to provide an operational update on its exploration and development activities in the North Sea, Turkey, Morocco and Syria.

United States: NOAA Fisheries Extending Comment Period on Steller Sea Lion Plan

NOAA Fisheries Service will take comments through September 1, 2006 on the draft revised Steller Sea Lion Recovery Plan, the agency announced today.

"This is a comprehensive document describing actions necessary to recover the endangered Steller sea lion. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council requested more time for scientists on their Science and Statistical Committee to review the plan" said Doug Mecum, Acting Administrator for NOAA Fisheries in Alaska. "Given the importance of this document and the complexity of the recovery actions, we agreed to the extension. The more thoughtful comments we receive on our draft plan and more public participation the better."

The Red Sea is parting in a way that could ultimately create a new ocean basin and redraw the map of Africa and Arabia.

A huge rift that appeared last year along a fault in the Afar desert in Ethiopia, where the African and Arabian tectonic plates meet, has provided the strongest indication yet of how the plates are separating to create a new sea.

Geologists believe they are witnessing a tectonic process similar to the one that formed the Atlantic Ocean, as adjacent plates push apart over millions of years to alter the shape of the continents.

While the precise course of this continental drift is difficult to predict, the fault’s movement promises eventually to widen the Red Sea between Africa and the Arabian peninsula and extend it southwards, cutting a marine inlet deep inland.

Geologist Dereje Ayalew and his colleagues from Addis Ababa University were amazed -- and frightened. They had only just stepped out of their helicopter onto the desert plains of central Ethiopia when the ground began to shake under their feet. The pilot shouted for the scientists to get back to the helicopter. And then it happened: the Earth split open. Crevices began racing toward the researchers like a zipper opening up. After a few seconds, the ground stopped moving, and after they had recovered from their shock, Ayalew and his colleagues realized they had just witnessed history. For the first time ever, human beings were able to witness the first stages in the birth of an ocean.

Gas escaping from the ocean floor may provide some answers to understanding historical global warming cycles and provide information on current climate changes, according to a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The findings are reported in the July 20 on-line version of the scientific journal, Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

Remarkable and unexpected support for this idea occurred when divers and scientists from UC Santa Barbara observed and videotaped a massive blowout of methane from the ocean floor. It happened in an area of gas and oil seepage coming out of small volcanoes in the ocean floor of the Santa Barbara channel -- called Shane Seep -- near an area known as the Coal Oil Point seep field. The blowout sounded like a freight train, according to the divers.

Atmospheric methane is at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide and is the most abundant organic compound in the atmosphere, according to the study's authors, all from UC Santa Barbara.

The British navy has arrived in Halifax with some Nova Scotia technology in tow.

HMS Scott, a deep-ocean mapping ship, will soon be using a high-tech sensor developed by Brooke Ocean Technology Ltd. of Dartmouth to gather information on ocean temperature, salinity and the sea bottom.

Arnold Furlong, co-owner of Brooke with Geoff LeBans, said Tuesday the sensor, which is going through a series of sea trials before becoming fully operational, was designed for this vessel. "That ship is used for doing deep ocean mapping, and the (sensor) system on that vessel is the largest-moving vessel profile built to date," he said. "It is the only one in the world built primarily for that vessel and is used to measure temperature and salinity profiles while the vessel is underway."

The prehistoric-looking creatures known properly as Limulus polyphemus are more closely related to spiders and scorpions than true crabs. The innocuous sea creatures are living fossils and have been scuttling about quietly pretty much unchanged for some 250 million years.

So who cares? As a primate who can think, you should. The primitive immune system of the horseshoe crab makes them medically quite useful to humans. Every drug certified by the FDA must be tested using the horseshoe crab derivative known as Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL).

Indonesia: No working tsunami alert system in place to guard quake-prone Indonesia

Lack of funds has crippled the creation of a tsunami warning system, leaving earthquake-prone Indonesia without a single working detection buoy, an official said yesterday, a day after a tsunami killed more than 340 people.

No sirens alerted residents in Pangandaran beach, the worst-hit area of Monday's tsunami, after a 7.7 magnitude quake struck 180km offshore in the Indian Ocean.

Edi Prihantoro, an official at the Ministry of Research and Technology that oversees a national warning project, said the southern Java area had no system to warn people of coming waves.

Jakarta: Indonesia is stepping up repairs on a damaged tsunami detection system on Wednesday.

Two tsunami detection buoys were deployed off Sumatra Island last year as part of a project to install an early warning system to protect people living on the shores of Indonesia.

Both were found bobbing around the ocean in a damaged state six months after they were deployed, and have been sitting since then in storage waiting for spare parts.

This year, Canada has assumed key leadership and command functions over the 35 coalition ships, 160 aircraft and 19,000 personnel that have gathered to conduct the 2006 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise. While RIMPAC is scheduled and planned by the U.S. Navy Third Fleet, the multinational exercise is an opportunity for nations like Canada to assume leadership at an important level, while further developing interoperability among nations of the Asia-Pacific region.

Canada’s contribution to the exercise includes 1,200 personnel, three ships, clearance divers, helicopters, fighters and other aircraft. Most of the Canadian participants are involved in a variety of activities aimed at improving war fighting skill sets and coalition interoperability.

VERY recently, oil price has skyrocketed in the international market. The immediate cause of this new price hike of oil is conflagration of war in the Middle East. Before this fresh escalation of oil price, the standoff between the USA and Iran over the latter's nuclear ambition caused the earlier rise in oil price. In fact, the dominant behaviour of oil is that its price must go up; you are only to supply a reason for that.

Being a net importer of oil, Bangladesh is severely affected by this perennial volatility in the international oil market. The lion's share of the country's foreign exchange is expended annually to pay the ever-swelling bills for oil import. However, the only redeeming feature is that the country produces some gas.

BALANGA CITY—Rep. Albert Garcia of Bataan has passed a bill that will allow the government to permanently impound vessels caught illegally fishing.

Under the existing fisheries code, which the bill seeks to amend, violators can redeem their vessels, like trawls, sudsud and bulibuli, after paying fines.

Garcia said he filed the bill in response to the all-out war declared by the provincial government against illegal fishing in the sea of Bataan.

Earlier, the lawmaker’s father, Gov. Enrique Garcia, formed the Provincial Anti-Illegal Fishing Task Force to spearhead the protection of the peninsula’s marine resources and environment.

THE death toll from the tsunami that crashed into Indonesia’s Java coast on Monday passed 340 yesterday, amid growing anger that the country still lacks the early warning system that it was promised after the devastating Boxing Day tsunami 19 month ago.

As bodies in white sheets piled up at mortuaries, soldiers and desperate relatives searched the debris in search of more than 160 people who are still missing, including two Swedish children.

“I don’t mind losing any of my property, but please God return my son,” cried Basril, an inhabitant of the resort town of Pangandaran.

PANGANDARAN, Indonesia -- A government minister said Tuesday that Indonesia received warnings from two regional agencies that the powerful undersea earthquake had the potential to trigger a tsunami, but it did not try to pass them on to threatened communities.

Science and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman said Indonesia received the bulletins from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and Japan's Meteorological Agency after the quake, but "we did not announce them."

LOS ANGELES (AP) - As many as 1.5 million people are sickened by bacterial pollution on Southern California beaches each year, resulting in millions of dollars in public health care costs, a new study has found.

The study prepared by researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles and Stanford University is believed to be the first to examine illnesses at a large swath of the nation's most popular beaches. Previous studies have linked health problems to contamination at individual beaches.

A strong undersea earthquake struck off Indonesia's West Java province on Monday, triggering a tsunami that killed at least 230 people, officials said on Tuesday.

Ports from throughout the Great Lakes region are joining scientists and the federal government in an effort to evict some of the lakes' most unwanted tenants.

The collaborative team, which includes the Port of Indiana, met in Duluth, Minn., last week to announce its plan to control invasive aquatic species threatening the ecological balance of the Great Lakes.

The Great Ships Initiative is a $3.5 million plan that will establish a research center designed to specifically research, combat and prevent the problem of foreign organisms brought into the lakes on ships every year. Rich Cooper, Port of Indiana executive director, said he thought the plan would change the shipping industry.

Pacific: Climate change threatens Pacific Ocean mangroves – UN-backed report

Action is needed to conserve mangroves in the Pacific amid concern that rising sea levels, linked with climate change, are set to drown large areas of these precious and economically important ecosystems, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said today citing new research.

Some islands in the region could see over half of the mangroves steadily lost by the end of the century, with the worst hit being American Samoa, Fiji, Tuvalu, and the Federated States of Micronesia, the agency said.

The study, “Pacific Island Mangroves in a Changing Climate and Rising Seas,” assessed the vulnerability of the 16 Pacific Island countries and territories that have native mangroves, finds that overall as much as 13 per cent of the mangrove area may be lost.

As predicted in our previous monthly report, the last aggregations of the late migrating South Patagonian Stock (LSPS) moved through the northernmost part of the FICZ further north to spawn in the warmer waters of the Brazil Current, off the coasts of Uruguay and southern Brazil.

Consequently, most of the jiggers licensed to fish for illex in Falkland waters preferred to fish on the high seas, with only two to four vessels remaining in the FICZ in the first half of the month.

After the storm on June 1, catches of the jiggers peaked for the last time at 16 tonnes per night on June 4. The following day, catches dropped to 1-3 tonnes per night and had not recovered by the end of the illex fishing season, which finished this year as normal on June 15.

CHENNAI: The earthquake that struck 240 km off the Java coast caused a more localised tsunami. Despite meeting all the conditions essential for producing a tsunami — the epicentre was on the ocean bed, the magnitude was 7.7, it was a shallow focus earthquake (about 10 km in depth) and it produced a vertical uplift of the ocean crust — the killer waves were more localised and in no way comparable with the deadly one that struck on December 26, 2004.

"That is because the vertical uplift of the ocean crust was only about 90 cm and had a fault length of about 150 km," said R.K. Chadha, scientist at the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Lack of funds has crippled the creation of a tsunami warning system, leaving earthquake-prone Indonesia without a single working detection buoy, an official said on Tuesday, a day after a tsunami killed over 270 people.

No sirens alerted residents in Pangandaran beach, the worst-hit area of Monday's tsunami, after a 7.7 magnitude quake struck 180 km (112 miles) offshore in the Indian Ocean.

Edi Prihantoro, an official at Indonesia's Ministry of Research and Technology that oversees a national warning project, told Reuters the southern Java area had no system to warn people of coming waves.

SCIENTISTS from across the world are gathering in Walvis Bay to discuss the monitoring and management of the global marine ecosystem.

As part of the working group of the Commission for the Conservation of the Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), experts from countries such as England, Spain, Russia and New Zealand will deliberate for the next two weeks on the implementation of the ecosystem approach to marine management.

The ecosystem concept was adopted by the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 where the target for implementation was set at 2010.

United States: TCS Daily Launches In-Depth Examination of 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season

TCS Daily.com, an online journal with news, commentary and analysis written from a free market perspective, today launched a new resource to monitor the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. The new web page, http://hurricanes.tcsdaily.com will provide exclusive insight, commentary and analysis by leading climatologists and meteorologists.

TCS Daily is taking a closer look at the factors contributing to the strength and frequency of hurricanes with leading hurricane and atmospheric experts providing in-depth commentary and analysis. The hurricane site will be updated regularly, providing reports on factors that may contribute to a particular storm's severity or course.

Sitting astride key sea lanes on the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean and not far from the Arabian Peninsula's oil fields, Somalia on the east coast of Africa is not an obscure piece of real estate.

This country of roughly 9 million people represents an increasingly dangerous problem to its neighbors in the form of international piracy and the potential for outside forces to meddle.

Lacking an effective central government since the downfall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, it appears Somalia could be hitting another turning point as the Council of Islamic Courts of Somalia (CICS) has gained control over much of the south, including the capital Mogadishu.

Canterbury University researcher Dr Victoria Metcalf will travel to Scott Base in October, where she will fish "Eskimo-style" to gather research subjects.

Metcalf, 32, has won three scholarships and prizes for her biochemistry studies in the past six weeks, including the 2006 Zonta Science Award presented by Prime Minister Helen Clark last month

"We get on the sea ice, drill a hole and drop in a baited hook. It's totally Eskimo style," said Metcalf.

Samples from those fish will be taken by Metcalf to Northeastern University in Boston next year, where the researcher will use genetic filter technology to study how the fish metabolise fat.

For most countries, coast guard duties consist of inshore search and rescue, security patrols and environmental protection, and are performed by smaller vessels, Many are even operated by civilian agencies. Not so for the Norwegian coast guard, which is a branch of the Norwegian Navy and operates in Norway's entire Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ) and protection zones, a total of 2.2 million square kilometers as well-known known for the North Sea's and Arctic's harsh conditions as it is for its oil platforms and rich fisheries.

To perform these duties, a whole series of new Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) ranging in size from 700-6,500 tons have been developed by Norwegian designers over the last decade. The traditional corvette designs were avoided - instead, the new ships were based on 30-40 years of experience designing civilian offshore support and fishing vessels for the North Sea. Lately, as advanced OPVs have begun riding a crest of popularity and the littoral threat continues to rise, the Norwegian branch of Rolls Royce has found itself designing coastal and environmental protection vessels for France, Spain and India; they are considered strong candidates with other countries as well.

Jessie Johns has flown across the country and across the ocean just so she can get a glimpse of what she hopes her future will hold.

For the past three weeks, the 14-year-old student from Baltimore has been on O'ahu participating in the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth program. Her dream is to be a marine biologist and the program, through a partnership with Hawai'i Pacific University and Oceanic Institute, is giving her a taste of ocean reality.

Parks Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) have announced that Northwest Rive will open for a limited recreational salmon fishery beginning July 13th for a quota of 50 fish.

The conservation Plan for Northwest River Atlantic Salmon was developed by DFO and Parks Canada in consultation with the Northwest River Atlantic Salmon Working Group, a local advisory group composed of community residents and government representatives from Parks Canada and DFO. This is an innovative approach to river management where local community representatives and government work together to achieve a common goal – a healthy salmon population and a healthy river ecosystem.

Foreign, invasive species often get into US waters by hitching a ride in the ballast water of ocean going ships. Now, a new research center will work to stop the spread of these invasive species. The research center hopes to develop new treatment systems aimed at catching the critters before they get out. The GLRC's Stephanie Hemphill has more:

India said there was no tsunami threat on its eastern coast after an earlier undersea earthquake off the Indonesian coast on Monday, but asked coastal authorities to be vigilant overnight.

"We have not issued a tsunami alert but have just asked the (Indian) states to keep an eye on the situation," a senior disaster management official told Reuters.

"We are monitoring the situation but are not expecting any problems," he said. "There is no change in the sea level in the Indian Ocean."

A long-awaited report by the United Nations shows the need for an international moratorium on bottom-trawling and other destructive fishing practices that damage deep sea life, Conservation International (CI) said.

The U.N. Division for Ocean Affairs and Law of the Sea (DOALOS) reviewed measures to protect the vulnerable deep oceans of the high seas – the 64 percent of ocean that lies beyond the national jurisdictions of any individual nation. Its review, ordered by the U.N. General Assembly in 2004, was based on reports from member states on steps taken to stop destructive high seas fishing practices.

A draft version of the review posted July 14 on the DOALOS Web site said extremely vulnerable deep sea habitats require protection, but that fishing for newly discovered resources in the high seas often proceeds unregulated to the point of serious harm.

Apparently, Kermit the Frog was right. It's not easy being green.

Conflict and emotion within the Long Island environmental movement were on display Tuesday night at Massapequa High School. The federal Minerals Management Service hosted a public hearing on the Long Island Power Authority's quixotic plan to erect 40 power-generating windmills, each reaching 442 feet into the air, in the ocean roughly 3 1/2 to 5 miles off Jones Beach and Robert Moses State Park.

Naturally, the most passionate environmentalists that night seemed to agree that the Earth was going to you-know-where in a handbasket because of mankind and fossil fuels. There were complaints about "gratuitous development," a "climate crisis" and even "murderous discharge" of carbon dioxide.

But division existed on windmills off our South Shore beaches. Cheers and boos greeted each side, with the anti-windmill numbers holding the edge among attendees. Pro-windmill speakers emphasized redressing so-called man-made global warming, in part by moving from fossil fuels to wind power.

The project is a joint expedition of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution of Woods Hole, Mass., and Nautilus Minerals Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia.

The expedition includes a 32-day WHOI research program funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation to the Pacmanus vent sites in the Eastern Manus Basin. Nautilus will fund an additional 10-day program to explore and sample the Vienna Woods sulfide prospects on the Manus Ridge, northwest of the Pacmanus study area.

WHOI Geophysicist Maurice Tivey will head the 42-day expedition, which begins Friday aboard the research vessel Melville, operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Tivey and other WHOI scientists and students will be joined by colleagues from universities and scientific institutions in the United States, Germany, South Korea, Australia and Papua New Guinea.

WASHINGTON - The House gave its approval Monday to a U.S.-Russia treaty to help protect polar bears from overhunting and other threats to their survival.

The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union estimates the polar bear population in the Arctic at 20,000 to 25,000, and projects a 30 percent decline in that number over the next 45 years. Climatic warming that melts the bears‘ sea ice habitat is regarded as the main threat, but pollution and overhunting are other major concerns.

Margaret Williams, Anchorage-based director of the Bering Sea Ecoregion Program of the World Wildlife Fund, said there has been no permissible hunting in Russia since 1956, but illegal hunting on the Russian side is a real concern. She added that polar bears commonly breed on Russian territory.

ON BOARD FPSO MUNIN, South China Sea: Perched on a floating oil processing plant, cook Pang Shaojie reels tuna in from the tranquil seas that Beijing hopes will meet its energy hunger as well as feed drilling crews.

Analysts warn a technology gap, disputes with neighbours, unfavourable terms for foreign companies and questions about the size of reserves could hinder the hunt to improve security by finding more oil and gas at home.

China has identified its seabeds as the next frontier in the search for the energy it needs to fuel growth. A recent policy paper put underwater hydrocarbons, already providing around one-fifth of output, at the heart of plans to boost reserves.

But with much underwater acreage already well mapped, some of the most tempting sites for new finds lie hundreds of metres below the surface in areas where the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) Ltd is ill-equipped to hunt.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Rising seas caused by climate change could destroy half the mangroves on some Pacific islands, according to a United Nations study released Monday.

"There is an urgent need to help vulnerable communities adapt to the sea level rise which is already underway," Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, said in a statement.

About half of mangroves have been destroyed worldwide, mostly because of development and pollution. But in recent years, climate change has posed an additional threat since rising seas effectively drown the mangroves.

Already, rising seas in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea in the southwest Pacific have forced hundreds of islanders to abandon vulnerable coastal homes for higher ground.

The U.N. warned that the loss of mangroves on these islands will "increase the threat to human safety and shoreline development from coastal hazards such as erosion, flooding and storm waves."

Australia is losing control of its Antarctic territory as an energy-hungry world prepares to move in, writes Andrew Darby.

THE Larsemann Hills are the last place on Earth you'd expect to be an international flashpoint. These hills are bare rock hummocks surrounded by ice on the shore of Prydz Bay in eastern Antarctica. The Larsemanns would seem to offer little to squabble about unless you were a snow petrel looking for a nest crevice.

Now India has decided to build a base there, and it is the first dispute in years to publicly break the diplomatic calm of the Antarctic Treaty system.

Chennai: MY Esperanza, an iconic campaigning ship of the environmental group Greenpeace, docked at Chennai Port this morning for a week-long tour of the sub-continent to highlight the fragile beauty and vulnerability of India's coastal and marine ecosystems. This is the Esperanza's maiden voyage to India, although the country has played host to the Rainbow Warrior and the Arctic Sunrise, part of the Greenpeace fleet, on three prior occasions.

The Esperanza was given a warm welcome by the sailing community of Chennai who created a flotilla with sailboats and yachts to receive her. The visit to Chennai is part of a global 'Defending our Oceans' expedition – Greenpeace' most ambitious expedition to date – that started in November 2005. As the Esperanza continues her expedition, she will sail four of the world's five oceans (with the sole exception of the Arctic Ocean) to bring into focus the urgent need to set in place protective measures to conserve marine ecosystems before they are irretrievably destroyed.

Zakynthos, July 16: An endangered species of sea turtle on the Greek island of Zakynthos is fighting a battle to share a place in the sand with more than one million tourists, in a conflict between conservation and cash.

Despite a national marine park established in 1999 in Laganas Bay on Zakynthos, the most important Mediterannean nesting ground and home for the largest population of the endangered Caretta Caretta Loggerhead sea turtle, ecologists say conservation measures by park officials and locals are not being locally enforced or carried out.

Tourism is threatening nesting and disrupting the turtle's habits, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) representatives say.

SEVEN illegal Indonesian fishing boats and 67 people have been caught off Australia's northern coast.

With hulls filled with about 4,300 kilograms of fish, the seven fishing boats were rounded up by two naval patrol boats and a customs aeroplane.

HMAS Dubbo and HMAS Success had to run down five of the ships after they ignored calls to stop.

A joint statement from Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and Fisheries Minister Eric Abetz said 67 people were captured as part of the operation.

"The capture of these boats shows that the Australian Government and the Australian Defence Force will not muck about when securing Australia's sovereign waters and economic interests," Dr Nelson said in the statement.

Japan: Head-fish inhabiting sea around Japan resemble those found off Australia

HIROSHIMA -- Research conducted by a post-graduate student suggests that two types of head-fish inhabit the sea around Japan, one of them resembling a species found near Australia.

The finding also points to the possibility that head-fish resembling species found off Australia migrate about 7,500 kilometers between Japan and Australia.

16th century -- A Spanish explorer records stories by Florida Indians of toxic "red water" and the resulting death of birds and fish.

1844 -- The first scientifically documented red-tide episode in U.S. waters occurs in the Gulf along what is called the West Florida Shelf, off the Panhandle near Panama City.

1878 -- Florida's first protracted period of red-tide episodes begins and continues for 10 years.

WASHINGTON – The Tacoma Narrows holds “significant promise” as a site for one of the nation’s first projects to generate electricity by tapping the tides, according to a new report.

But the cost of the power it would produce could be pricey. And even though they already have a preliminary permit from federal regulators, Tacoma Power officials remain cautious about committing $4.2 million for a pilot plant.

If a full-scale project was developed, it could involve 64 underwater turbines near the north end of the Narrows, according to the study from the California-based Electric Power Research Institute.

Each turbine would be equipped with two blades, each almost 60 feet long. The blades would rotate at about 10 revolutions per minute and generate enough electricity to power nearly 11,000 homes. The project would cost an estimated $103 million.

The layers take you back in time.

As researchers at Florida Gulf Coast University collect core samples from local estuaries, they can use the layers of sediment, rock and fossils to determine what the environment may have been like about 5,000 years ago — and how sea levels affect estuaries.

"How estuaries form and degrade depends on how fast sea level rises," Michael Savarese, a professor of marine science, said Friday as he and graduate student Sasha Linsin looked at a core sample taken from Horseshoe Key in Estero Bay.

The university will continue collecting samples from throughout Southwest Florida this summer.

CLIMATE change is a far bigger threat to civilisation than terrorism, says leading American climate scientist Robert Dunbar.

The message was being blocked by greenhouse sceptics, fossil fuel industry spin, stubborn governments and difficulty explaining the science to the general public.

Professor Dunbar, from Stanford University in the US, was speaking in Hobart last week at the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research conference, attended by some of the biggest names in climate science.

He said climate change as a result of human-induced global warming might see millions of people displaced and an increase in catastrophes such as that caused in the US by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

More than 1,000 indigenous people from several Arctic countries -- including a Russian governor and Greenland's prime minister -- poured into Barrow this week as the Inuit Circumpolar Conference returned to its birthplace for the first time in nearly 30 years.

At the four-day meeting, the group's 72-member general assembly agreed to fend off threats to subsistence whaling, press for indigenous human rights and continue addressing global warming in the Arctic, where many say the effects of climate change are most dramatic.

INITIAL approval of funds for America's newest national monument provides some assurance that its designation as a protected zone won't be in name only. Guidance and leadership from Hawaii's delegation should persuade Congress to deliver the necessary resources for management and preservation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument.

Though pleased that President Bush designated the 140,000-square-mile area surrounding the northern islands of the archipelago for protection, Hawaii's Senator Inouye and Congressman Abercrombie both voiced uncertainty about funding for its operations.

"Without the funding to back up the high ideals that the president stated in his proclamation last month, the protection afforded to our islands would be a 'paper tiger,'" Inouye said.

The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) and National Cheng-kung University (NCKU) have successfully deployed a deep-diving marine meteorological observation buoy 200 km from the eastern Taiwan coastline, with an anchor stationed a record-breaking 4,880 meters beneath the surface, a CWB spokesman said yesterday.

The CWB -- with the joint efforts of several academic institutes -- has already constructed a near-shore marine observation network around Taiwan and its outlying islands, with data buoys positioned roughly between 1 km and 10 km off the coast at depths of up to 100 meters. However, this is the first time the CWB has placed a buoy so far from Taiwan and anchored it so deep in the Pacific Ocean, which CWB officials described as a "great leap forward."

China launched its biggest oceanic environment survey on Saturday, to probe the conditions of its maritime space.

The program, sponsored by the National Bureau of Oceanography, will last two years and cover 1.02 million square kilometers of sea area off China's coasts.

Scientists will record data on water depths, waves, water levels, ocean currents, water temperatures and colors, mineral contents and plankton in four seasons.

The research findings are expected to guide development of the maritime economy, tapping of oceanic resources, maritime disaster relief and prevention, and oceanic environmental protection.

Soaring oceanfront land prices have come between old friends and threaten a Puerto Peñasco marine ecological research institute with strong ties to Tucson.

A Mexican judge's injunction has stopped bulldozers, making space for upscale condos, that last weekend knocked down part of a wall outside CEDO.

CEDO — Centro Intercultural para el Estudio de los Desiertos y Oceanos or the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans — has operated near the beach at Las Conchas outside Puerto Peñasco, or Rocky Point, since the early 1980s.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — FPI Ltd. and the union representing 2,000 Newfoundlanders employed by Atlantic Canada’s largest seafood processor will resume collective bargaining talks on Monday.

Negotiations in St. John’s will take place with the help of a provincially-appointed conciliator.

The talks broke down in May after the union rejected what it called an "insulting" offer of a five-year deal from FPI.

FPI, whose groundfish operations are on hold, is seeking concessions as the division has losses of about $50 million over the last four years — an average of more than $1 million a month.