Monday, May 28, 2007

Captain of the 'Cradle of Life' Discovery Team

Prof Angelika Brandt and her team’s ground breaking discovery of more than 700 new species of marine life in the Weddell deep sea is amazing! It has completely shaken up and turned around many old beliefs about biodiversity in the Antarctic.

Prof Angelika Brandt’s fascination for exploring life in the Antarctic deep sea can be traced back to her student days. During that time Angelika went on 12 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic including a Brazilian-German diving expedition in 1989 / 90 on King George Island (South Shetland Islands).

Later, as Professor at the University of Hamburg, she continued with her research into exploring life in the Antarctic Ocean deep sea. As head of the ANDEEP project that had 55 scientists from 14 different institutes from around the world, Prof Brandt guided research that explored life at the bottom of the Weddell deep sea.

In this interview Prof Angelika Brandt shares interesting experiences about how she and her team came to make this amazing discovery of 700 new species…

A discovery like this has not been reported from the Antarctic deep sea in the last 100 years.

What does it feel like to explore the ocean floor 20 000 feet below the sea?

It's quite an interesting venture because there's not very much known about the deep sea floor. I have had a colleague from Scotland who once told people in a lecture, that we know as much about the deep sea ocean floor as a football field, in comparison to all land masses worldwide.

We really know very, very little. All that you read in newspapers and magazines about deep sea creatures is a very small impression that we get about life down there. For us to explore the Antarctic was quite an interesting experience because there was so little known before.

Polarstern and Bellingshausen seafloor
If there have been surveys done, most of the surveys are geologic or geophysical surveys but there have been very few surveys by biologists. There were a few surveys done by Russian biologists in the last century with the research vessel VEMA.

But if you look at the zoogeographical map, there are blank areas all around the Southern Ocean deep sea. They have not been sampled at all. There are no surveys about the animal distribution in the Antarctic deep sea. It was a challenge to go there and to find out what's living there.

It's very exciting to do a study like this. Were all of you living on the icebreaker Polarstern all the time between 2002 and 2005?
We have done three expeditions within the framework of the project ANDEEP. The first two projects were in 2002 and the third project was done in 2005. Altogether, it was six months.

Weddell deep sea station

We took 40 complete deep sea stations. All the deep sea stations were usually managed in a similar comparative way. We deployed the same set of gears in a standardized way so that we could compare the results.



Here's the icebreak
er RV Polarstern

How big was
your team? You have scientists from 14 different research organizations from many different countries participating in the ANDEEP Project? How easy was it for you to coordinate research on this project?

Our aim was to look at different animal class types and to compare the zoo geographical pattern and the distribution of animals from protists and small meiofauna to mega fauna animals. In Germany, we do not have enough taxonomists, ecologists, systematists and other biologists who are specialized in deep sea research or would be able to cover all animal groups.

So, we tried to get the best experts from different places for all these different animal groups. That was the start of ANDEEP. First of all, we wrote the background about the project, why it was important to go to the Southern deep sea. Once we did that, we sent the information to 50 different deep sea biologists from around the world and asked them for their opinion. We got an interesting feedback from all of them saying that it was absolutely important and that you need to go.

Then, we applied for ship time. We tried to get a very good team together from all over the world. That's the reason why we took so many specialists from different nations on board.

When did you first decide to do the ANDEEP Project? Was that in 1999? 1998?

We really decided to go on for ANDEEP Project in 1998. The starting point was being on a vessel, being on the RV Polarstern and trying to get a sample. In those days, I had started with my Antarctic Project. I had worked in the Antarctic when I was a PhD student; I worked on the origin of isopods. At that time, I had already realized that there was nothing done in the Southern Ocean deep sea.

If you just look at the patterns, you find out that you have no idea about what really lies in the deep sea and especially when you compare the material in other areas. You realize immediately that you need to know about the Southern Ocean deep sea.

As a post-doc, I worked in the Arctic in an ecological special project supported by the German Science Foundation called “Environmental Changes, the Northern North Atlantic”.

As a Professor at the University of Hamburg, I also started with Antarctic research again. I applied for money to work on polychaetes. We take care of this animal group in my museum. I take care of collections of polychaetes besides crustaceans.

I got Brigitte Hilbig (now Ebbe) from Woods Hole to work with me for three years as a post-doc. When we went on board, we wanted to collect deep sea material because Brigitte wanted to compare Southern Ocean deep sea polychaetes with all her experience from the deep sea ocean of the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean.

It was very, very difficult to have shallow water biologists working together with us on the project. That's because if you really want to sample the deep sea, you face a lot of problems. First of all, logistic problems, depending on the sea, it can be quite difficult to get the gear down.

It takes a lot of time. It also costs a lot of money of course. You need eight hours for one sample. The sample is more expensive than a sample in the shallow water which you can get in no time. Besides this, we also experienced enormous pressure from shallow water biologists asking us to be quicker and quicker.

That's when we realized that it's very, very important to get a station only for deep sea biologists without arguing with people all the time. That's the reason why we started this.

We started in 98 doing the writing, the background, trying to obtain the funding later in 1999. In the Southern Ocean, you also need to go with an icebreaker. You need an icebreaker in order to set up a deep sea station. It's not possible to go and do research immediately there because of all the ice. You can only do research like that in summer. That's why we were really dependent on RV Polarstern or any other icebreaker.

Would you like to share with us some of your most memorable experiences during your underwater expeditions?

Of course, it's very difficult to say. There were moments when the gear came back in heavy sea that we were very happy when there was a sample (what worked out all the time with the epibenthic sledge). RV Polarstern lies 11.5 metres deep in the water. It is therefore a very good ship for heavy sea. When we could not deploy grabs or corers, we could still use the epibenthic sledge, even though the ship moved quite much.


In this picture you can see the epibenthic sledge with full cod ends and closed samplers.

It was a challenge to deploy gear from a shaking ship, and when you want to take a sample that's 5000 meters below the sea level one has to put out 7500 m of cable, and if you would try to see your gear behind the ship if it would be at water level, you would not be able to spot it. Return of the epibenthic sledge

A deployment of a trawled gear in these depths can take roughly 8 hours and one never knows what the gear was doing on the seafloor, whether it would collect perfectly or not. We always had to watch the tension meter carefully in order to see any blockade of the gear, for example behind a big dropstone. Once we saw the silvery shine of the gear being back at the surface, I was happy the gear was still there. Then, when the gear was on deck it was always a relief to see the material in the sledge after such a long time of deployment.

To be honest, the sledge was most useful. We did not have a single failure during all those three years of our expedition. That was quite interesting and very surprising to me.

Marguerite bay at dusk

We had some beautiful moments in the ice seeing seals and penguins on the ice flows or sometimes whales around the vessel. Even though sampling was happening, there's always time in between since all the 55 scientists are not sampling at the same time. We have some beautiful photographs of deep sea explorations and some beautiful underwater videos which Bob Diaz from Virginia took with his underwater camera system.

It was nice to see the elephant seals, leopard seals, or watch the penguins jumping in the water. There were beautiful moments of being in a fantastic and peaceful landscape.

Some moments after the expeditions were also indescribable, for example, when we met for the workshops and put all the material, put all our data on the table and started seeing patterns after a long time spent in identification, from the beginning up to now, up to the end.

It's not the end really. We are still working with the ANDEEP samples, with the content analysis of the key species of animals, trying to find out what they eat. We did not find time for that. We can still continue working with ANDEEP material.

Even now, after so many years it's still a very, very nice feeling about this expedition. I really have to say that ANDEEP was so successful because we had a fantastic team. Without a fantastic team, you can never manage to achieve a goal where everybody contributes a little to the whole picture. They have all helped to make ANDEEP such a successful venture. I have to say that the ANDEEP team felt like a family for being together, for doing something special in research.

My working group photograph: Standing from left to righ: Juergen Guerrero-Kommritz, Wiebke Broekeland, Somine Brandao, Madhumita Choudhury, Marina Malyutina and Saskia Brix

Seated: Cornelia Warneke-Cremer, myself, Bente Stransky and Stefanie Kaiser

As a leader of the team, you must have been a source of great inspiration for all the younger team members isn't it?

Yes, may be but it's really not one person, about whether one person is responsible for the success or failure of a venture. It really depends on the characters aboard and whether they are willing to contribute to a common goal.

I really have to say that the US Sloan Foundation have achieved an enormous goal of trying to tie up international organizations. The ANDEEP Project contributes to the CeDAMar project (the abyssal field project of CoML). People really felt like they contributed to a general goal with ANDEEP, even if it was just a little bit. Everybody realized that it was very important to contribute to CoML, to understand what lives in the ocean, to work out programs for environmental protection, and ANDEEP was and is part of all this.

How can we protect life in the ocean if we do not understand what lives there. All these questions were so simple, so obvious to people. Even though you have simple questions, it's only possible to answer this by doing the research.

The ocean is a vast area and covers 70% of our world and the deep sea is 90% of all ocean areas. People were aware that with every single species discovered, they would contribute to a major international CoML goal. May be in a way CoML was also responsible for the success of ANDEEP.

You and your team have discovered 158 live species of forams. Would you please share with us the unusual and interesting features about the forams and other animals in the Weddel Sea?

The Weddel Sea is quite an interesting area in the Southern Ocean because there's a lot of deep water production. The deep water gets established around the ice. The water is very cold and very salty. Because of being very salty and cold, the water is very dense and heavy and it settles down. We have a major production of Antarctic Bottom Water in the Weddell Sea., which generates the world's ocean circulation.

The water column in the Weddell Sea is almost isothermal. In the deep sea, the temperature difference is just 1-1.5 degrees C plus. This temperature difference does not really matter as much as in the tropics where you have 30 degrees C on the surface and 2 degrees C in the deep sea.

Thus, in the Weddell Sea, there's a lot of potential for migration of animals from shelf to deep sea. In the Atlantic for example, we could really document this with zoogeographic patterns of animal taxa. Some animals have migrated to the Southern Ocean shelf (polar emergence).

We also have evidence that lots of families migrated and colonized over millions of years from the shelf into the deep sea (polar submergence).

One of the most astounding findings was the remarkable diversity seen in the forams and especially the fact that the species occur bipolarly, both in the Southern Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean.

Interestingly, we also found that the forams found at the North Pole and the South Pole are genetically, the same species

It is for the first time the DNA of the Southern Ocean's deep-sea species have been examined.

Even more surprising, was the discovery of a much stronger gene flow in foraminifera from the Antarctic to the Arctic, but not vice versa. That's because deep Antarctic water flows northward, supplying much of the deep water in other world oceans.

This supports the idea that the bottom water may serve as Antarctic diversity pump of early life stages to more northern areas with the ocean currents.

If this could happen also for other animals that have been reproduced by larvae, then in this respect, the Southern Ocean deep sea may really be a cradle of life for other areas.

Do you have some new theories to share in evolutionary biology?

We will definitely do more evolutionary biology. What we have studied is the morphology of different species, especially among the isopod crustaceans. What we have tried to do is to identify whether they are morphologic species or the so called cryptic species.

Michael Raupach did the molecular work in the isopod crustaceans. Cryptic species are those species that could not be identified with morphological methods.
Raupach could document that some of our more frequently occurring species bear several cryptic species, documenting that our biodiversity estimates are rather under- than overestimations.

Besides population genetics, we will also have to understand phylogenetic relationships between closely related species. For some of these questions we will need more material. Very often, we find rare species. For example, among the isopods we found 52% of the species were rare. We really need to find more of the key species for our analyses. We don't know if our discovery is just a single time. It's really difficult. We don't know whether we will make a discovery like this again soon or may be not for the next 20 years.

Tell us about the carnivorous sponges, isopods and the roundworms that you and your team have discovered?

Carnivorous sponges were for us, quite striking animals. I had never seen them before. Carnivorous sponges were known in the deep sea like the Mediterranean but they have never been sampled in the Southern Ocean deep sea before. We found 7-8 new species of carnivores. They have some sort of glue. They can keep prey animals, like little copepods close to their tissues and then digest them. In that respect, I was astonished because I did not expect sponges to be predatory because they are filter feeders. That was quite interesting.

You can see some interesting photos of some of the speces that we found here: a.Komokiacea b. Condracladia (carnivorous sponge) c. Cuspidaria d. Limatula e Ophryotrocha f. Leptolaimus g. Munnopsis h. Ischnomesus

Within the isopods, I was absolutely astonished by the high biodiversity. In the northern hemisphere starting from the tropics to the pole, there is a decrease in species numbers, as has been published in two papers in 1993 in Nature by Rex et al. and Porre and Wilson..

Isopod Ceratoserolis
If you go further north, the numbers of different species increase. We expected that the numbers of species we would find in the deep sea would be much lesser.

Isopoda euricopinae

We found a completely different picture. We found a very high biodiversity. For example, among the isopods alone, we found 674 new species compared to 371 species known on the shelf. This compares to more than a century of research done in the Antarctic continent. I found this amazing.

How did you feel when you discovered that the Weddell Sea has more than 700 species? Did all of you have a big party celebrating the discovery?

Well, it's difficult to say. Not really. When we were on board, we worked very hard. Being on board Polarstern costs 50 000 Euros a day. It's very expensive. On board we didn't have that facility for parties. We had scientists coming from Vladivostok, Australia....

We never really had a special day when we said we would stop. We never really could celebrate something special. What we did of course was when we had a workshop at Southampton, we managed to get quite a big group during the last deep sea symposium. We had a nice celebration. We had a party in a restaurant.

We are looking forward to go on to the next deep sea Symposium. We just hope to be able to report more results from ANDEEP. Between November 2007and February 2008, we will go on another expedition.

We would like to understand a little more. We want to understand the coupling between atmospheric, pelagic and benthic processes. Moreover, we would like to understand the role of the key species we have already identified during ANDEEP in the food web and like to answer questions like: What do they feed on? Who feeds them? Why do we find so many rare species?

Evidence is emerging that Southern Ocean deep-water faunas are linked to both adjacent shelf and other ocean basin assemblages. This linkage is complex and varies between taxa. Even though we are only beginning to understand the patterns and scale of Southern Ocean biodiversity, we now want to understand some forces that drive biodiversity and biogeographic patterns. We want to understand the function of biodiversity, the role of rare and abundant species.

ANDEEP-SYSTCO (ANtarctic benthicDEEP-sea biodiversity: colonisation history and recent community patterns - SYSTem COupling) is a programme which builds on the ANDEEP results and is designed to study processes in different realms of the biosphere in Antarctica and uncover how these systems are linked to each other (atmospheric-pelagic-benthic coupling processes). SYSTCO will help to understand the role of the Southern Ocean in global energy budgets, climate change, and the maintenance of the diversity of marine life on the Blue Planet.

What do you predict will be the effects of climate change on the biodiversity of the species in the Southern Ocean deep sea?

This is a question that's not possible to answer because we don't know much. We have examined 1 33 000 square meters of the Southern Ocean bottom. The Southern Ocean deep sea has about 29 Million square kilometers of deep sea floor. But what I am sure is that if there's climate change, it will also influence life in the deep sea. If the ice melts, the water get mixed with fresh water, there will be an enormous physiological stress on the animals. It will have an impact on the key stone species. It may be that some of the rare species will face a problem. It's really difficult to say what will happen but something will happen.

Tell us, are there books on Southern Ocean deep sea research available? Which are your favorite books in your field?

I am a Professor at the University of Hamburg and I teach students zoogeography, biogeography, deep sea biology, ecology... During my talks, I tell them a little about my research and I also recommend books. The book on Deep Sea Biology by John D Gage and P.A. Taylor is a special favorite of mine.

We contribute to SCAR- EBA and will deliver our data also to SCAR MarBIN, a metadata base for Antarctic Research.

We have published one special volume in Deep-Sea Research II in 2004, and we are just completing another volume in this journal with articles ranging from sedimentology to phylogeny, ecology, etc.

May be after a couple of years and more experience, we will also be able to write books with a lot of photographs that are suited for a much wider audience.
We will all be waiting for your books. Would you consider having a database and online picture gallery?
That would of course be a fantastic and brilliant idea but at the moment it's impossible. We have some beautiful pictures which we contribute to SCAR-MarBIN.

Brigitte Ebbe is responsible for the education and outreach of the CeDAMar CoML project and can tell you more about illustrations and photographs.

Nuculanid seitlich

What about the colors? Were any of the species colorful?

They are usually not colorful at all. It's dark down there. It doesn't make sense to be colorful.
Most of them are white, brown, gray, mud colored. Some of the isopods have a yellowish coloration and some of the bivalves too are yellow.

Cylindrarcturus is a good example of a species we found with eyes

Would you please describe some of the species which had eyes?

In some of the species which had eyes, the eyes are vestigial. Some of the species that migrated from the shelf have vestigial eyes.

Those species that originated in the deep sea are blind. They don't have eyes at all.

What's your advice to young people?

I tell the young people that they must do what their heart tells them. If they love their work they will be good and have a chance to find a job. If they regard biology as a job they will never find one...

Would you like to tell us about your family? And how you like to spend your free time?

I live here with my boyfriend Thomas Walter. I really enjoy reading novels and listening to music. I enjoy reading in English and German. I also enjoy reading the assignments written by the students. …and I love diving and the life in the ocean.

Thomas Walter and Angelika Brandt on their roof terrece in Bremen

In this picture, you can see Martina Padberg, my sister, her son Carl Lorenz, my mother Annemarie Brandt, my father Karl Brandt and me.

My sister works in a bank. At the moment, she does not work. My sister is married and has a nephew. I like having the child around. She stays at home and looks after her child. Her husband is an economist just like my friend who is also an economist. My sister stays in Paderborn and my parents stay in Minden.


It must have been so hectic to complete such a huge amount of research work in such a short time, isn’t it? How did you and your team handle the stress?

I have a colleague Marina Malyutina who is an absolute fan of yoga. She gave yoga lessons everyday in the afternoon on board of the RV Polarstern. When we were on board, she would conduct sessions on yoga in the Blue Saloon. We would go in the afternoon and do some stretching and relaxation sessions. May be it really helped people on board.

Thank you very much, Professor Angelika Brandt for sparing your time to give us valuable insights into deep sea research and fascinating glimpses of life at the floor of the Weddell sea.

Photo credits : Prof Dr. Angelika Brandt and members of the ANDEEP Team


Sunday, May 27, 2007

Project Positions at ATREE's Community Environment Resource Centre (CERC) at Alappuzha

ATREE seeks to hire personnel for the following positions at its Community Environment Resource Centre (CERC) at Alappuzha for its conservation program “Strengthening Communities and Institutions for Sustainable Management of Vembanad Backwaters, Kerala” This is a Multi-pronged project that aims to strengthen local capacities in governance and wise use of wetland by establishing community monitoring systems and bringing together various stakeholders to envision a sustainable management plan.

1. Program Coordinator

The applicants are expected to lead the programme and contribute to the development of ATREE's Community Environment Resource Centre (CERC) at Alappuzha. The candidate must have experience in policy analysis, and an interest in catalyzing meaningful exchange and action among various stakeholder groups and institutions in the project area including government and non-government institutions. The work includes critically analysing policies with respect to the wetlands systems with a special reference to the Vembanad Backwaters and developing management models.

Qualifications: Applicants are expected to have a doctorate in Social Sciences/Environmental law, though candidates with a Masters degree and substantial professional experience will also be considered.

2. Program officer (Water Watch)

The applicants are expected to develop a proper scientific and planned strategy for regular monitoring of the water quality of Vembanad Lake with the participation of local communities and Local Self Government Institutions. The candidates are also expected to assist in developing the Wetland Conservation Information System.

Qualifications: A Masters degree in any branch of Natural Science with a sound knowledge in quantitative and qualitative research methods. Candidates with experience on working with rural communities would be preferable.

The candidates must have effective interpersonal skills and ability to work independently. The persons should be willing to work in tough field conditions, if the project demands. Candidates should possess good writing and communication skills and knowledge Malayalam will be beneficial

Interested candidates may send in their applications within 15 days after this advertisement or latest by June 15th (Clearly indicating the position they have applied for in the subject line) by email, to Ms. Kalpana Prasanna (kalpana@atree.org) with their CV, and a self-appraisal stating how best they suit to the position.

The selections will be done based on an interview of short listed candidates.

Dr. Priyadarsanan Dharma Rajan
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)
# 659, 5th A main, Hebbal, Bangalore - 560 024, India.
Phone: 91-80-3530069/3533942/3638771; Fax: 91-80-3530070

Source: email communication from Ms Kalpana Prasanna, Executive Assistant to the Director, ATREE
kalpana@atree.org

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Register before 31st May, 2007

The National Workshop on Prioritization & Characterization of Fast Growing Native Tree Resources

Venue: Institute of Forest Genetics & Tree Breeding
Forest Campus, B.B. No 1061, R.S.Puram P.O.
Coimbatore - 614 002. Tamil Nadu

Date : August 8th-9th 2007

Convener : Dr M. Surya Prakash
Director, Institute of Forest Genetics & Tree Breeding
email: director@ifgtb.res.in
Tel: 0422-243 1942

Organizing Secretary: R.S.C Jayaraj
Silviculturist, Institute of Forest Genetics & Tree Breeding
email : jayaraj@ifgtb.res.in
Tel: 0422-24598128

Last date for registration and submission of abstract : 31st May 2007

Last date for submission of paper : 10th July 2007

Registration fees: Free


Organizers: Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, Dehradun

Sponsor: Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt of India

ATREE Research Seminar 2007 is on 30-31st May 2007

Program details of the ATREE Research Seminar 2007 - Governance and Policy

Session 1: Policies and Institutions - 30. 5. 07 (Wednesday)

Moderator : Ganesh
Rapporteurs : Vivek and Chetan

9.40-9.45 am - Welcome and introduction - Ravi Chellam

9.45-10.00 am - Conservation governance and policy at ATREE - Seema P

10.00-10.30 am - National Capacity Self Assessment in Biodiversity - Ravi Chellam

10.30-11.00 am - Biodiversity Act 2002 - Priyadarsanan

11.00-11.15 am - Break

11.15-11.45 am - Defining Forests - Arpana B

11.45-12.15 am - Coastal Regulations - Aarthi Sridhar

12.15-12.45 am - Conservation and livelihoods in protected and other forests - Siddharth Krishnan

12.45-1.15 am - Socio ecological and institutional issues in forested landscapes - Nitin Rai

1.15–2.00 - Break

Moderator : Ankila Hiremath

Rapporteurs : Bharat Sundaram and Aravind

2.00-2.30 pm : Adaptive management for conservation and sustainable use - Sushmita Mandal

2.30-3.00 pm : BCRLIP – summary of social and institutional assessment across landscapes Nitin Rai

3.00-3.30 pm : Citizenry in green space management - Savitha Swamy

3.30-4.00 pm : Land tenure and coffee plantations - Prakruthi P

4.00-4.15 pm : Break

4.15-4. 45 pm : Ecotourism: institutions, indicators and incentives - Sheetal Patil

4.45–5.00 pm : Strengths and gaps in policy related work - Gopal Kadekodi & Sharad Lele

5.00-5.15 pm : Open discussion


Session 2: Natural Resource Management and Livelihoods - 31. 5.2007(Thursday)

Moderator: Jagdish Krishnaswamy

Rapporteurs: Kiran MC and Nikhil Lele

9.45-10.00 am : Designing forest based livelihood programs - Bhaskar Sinha

10.00-0.30 am : Community based conservation in Darjeeling Himalaya - Nishat Ali

10.30-11.00 am : Insights for conservation from the protected areas of Darjeeling - Sunita Pradhan

11.00-11.15 am : Break11.15-11.45 am : Sand dune ecosystems in tsunami-affected mainland India - Kartik Shankar

11.45-12.15 pm : Impacts of the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project - Sudarshan Rodriguez

12.15-12.45 pm : Strengthening Communities and Institutions for Sustainable Management of Vembanad Backwaters - Deepak Dayanandan and Jojo TD

12.45-1.15 pm : Building people friendly buffer around parks and sanctuaries - T Ganesh 1.15–

2.00 : Break

Moderator: Soubadra Devy Rapporteurs: Savitha and Aditya

2.00-2.30 pm : Integration of fire in the toolbox of forest managers - Ankila Hiremath

2.30-3.00 pm : Lantana camara: an invasive or a livelihood source - Ramesh Kannan

3.00-3.30 pm : Trends in landuse drivers in Karnataka - Sham Kashyap

3.30-4.00 pm : Drivers of reforestation - Harini Nagendra

4.00-4.15 pm : Break

4.15-4.45 pm : Strengths and gaps in NRM and livelihood related work - Gopal Kadekodi and Sharad Lele

4.45-5.15 pm : Open discussion

source : email communication from Dr Seema Purushottam, Associate Director, ATREE.

Controversy: The Bikram Yoga Patent Soup

Yoga is a 10 000 year old plus system of knowledge and healing followed by the people of India.

The regular practice of yoga by people in good health can work as a powerful, nearly cost free and simple way to stay fit and healthy for life.

Bikram Choudhary's efforts to patent yoga is shocking!

Equally alarming, till date, the US Patent and Trademark office has issued 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 trademarks on yoga accessories and 2,315 yoga trademarks.

Do take a look at this!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/US_patent_on_yoga_Indian_gurus_fume
/articleshow/2058285.cms


Here's another question

What is the best policy for the Indian government to follow to ensure that traditional systems of knowledge and healing like yoga stay protected as a people's low cost knowledge and healing system?

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

An interesting link

We hope this link will be very useful for PhD students struggling to master statistics.

http://my.execpc.com/~helberg/statistics.html#books
http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/

ICIMOD Books to be on-line by June 5th

Dear Friends,

We are pleased to inform you about the soft-opening of ICIMOD Books On-line. By soft opening, we mean that the site can now be accessed by outside users, but that we are not yet making any official announcement.

The site will be officially 'launched' on World Environment Day (June 5), we will use the time until then to identify and iron out any problems, if any. The resource is available at http://www.books.icimod.org , which is hosted along with the ICIMOD website in the USA, or can be accessed via the ICIMOD website.

Users accessing this site from ICIMOD will be automatically directed to an internal host, which is a copy of the above site but makes the resources accessible more quickly. ICIMOD Books On-line is a repository of downloadable electronic versions of ICIMOD technical /scientific publications in pdf files. It contains full-text and chapter-wise download options for all technical /scientific publications issued after year 2000 plus a few selected earlier publications, especially popular out-of-print manuals.

The title and table of contents will be posted for all other earlier publications, with an option to request the pdf file or photocopy (scan on demand). All books can also be ordered in hard copy.

The catalogue is searchable using full-text contents, title, year of publication, keywords, language, author and broad subjects. There are 140 ICIMOD publications (with 1300 pdfs) already added to the database, 103 documents of which are in complete full-text form and an additional 37 have the title page and contents page.

The e-library working team IKM-IMCO

Source: email correspondence from Tek Jung Mahat at tmahat@icimod.org to ATREE

Invitation to e-Conference on Climate Change and the Himalayan Glaciers

Hello Readers,

EAN is a member driven professional organisation of Environment Science, Environment Management and Environmental Engineering university graduates and professionals having long experience in the field of environment and development with special focus in Nepal.

Established in 2003, EAN aims to strengthen cooperation among the concerned professionals and build a network of like minded people and organisations in Nepal and abroad to ensure environmental sustainability in Nepal

We are pleased to inform you that the Environmentalists' Association of Nepal (EAN) in association with the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MoEST), Government of Nepal, is organising an e-conference on "Climate Change and the Himalayan Glaciers" form 7th May 2007 to 28th May 2007, to celebrate the World Environment Day in Nepal and the Himalaya. The event is supported by many international, regional, national organisations based in Nepal and abroad.

The objective of this e-conference is to facilitate a series of dialogues on the e-conference theme between different stakeholders. Synthesis of the first event in this series will be released on 5 June 2007, to mark the World Environment Day 2007. The e-conference is being organised to realise a need to promote knowledge sharing mechanism on the e-conference theme.

It's our great pleasure to invite you all to the e-conference and we hope your participation will be very useful in exploring and documenting various issues related to climate change and its impacts in particular to the youngest and most fragile mountain range of the world and also to promote information sharing mechanism in the region.

More information is available online at http://www.freewebs.com/climatehimalaya/index.htm .

You may also subscribe to the e-conference by sending your preferred email ID, full name and affiliation, if applicable.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you need more information or any clarification regarding the e-conference. You are also requested to forward the invitation to any individual or institutions, who you think would be interested to join and contribute.

We look forward to seeing your active participation in the e-conference.

Once again, welcome one and all, and thank you for joining us: We look forward to getting to know you!

With best regards,

Dr. Madan Koirala and Mr. Tek Jung Mahat
On behalf of the E-conference team
URL: http://www.freewebs.com/climatehimalaya/index.htm
Email: climatehimalaya@gmail.com

C/o Environmentalists' Association of Nepal
Kathmandu, Nepal
E-mail: eannepal@gmail.com
Web: http://www.ean.org.np/
Tel: 977 1 4410565, 4421071
Fax: 977 1 4411730--

"The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die." - Martin Luther King

Source: email correspondence to Mr Samuel Thomas, ATREE's Communications Officer from Tek Jung Mahat at tmahat@icimod.

1500 tribals in Gateha, MP attacked and forced to leave the land

On 19th April 2007, MP (Madhya Pradesh) state police and forest department officials rushed to Ghateha village in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh and using fire and tear gas, they forcibly made 1500 tribals vacate the land near the village.

The tribal communities were not issued any notices under Sections 26, 32 and 80 A of the Indian Forest Act.

You can read the full article here at http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/may/soc-ghateha.htm

Two Appeals

Appeal from Salim Ali Foundation

Dear Readers,

Many of you might be aware of a Hydro-Electric Project that is scheduled to come up in the Athirappilly region. The Athirappilly - Vazhachal area in the southern Western Ghats of Kerala hosts a unique ecosystem of evergreen, riverine forests intermingled with Myristica swamps.

This ecosystem supports a large number of endemic, rare, threatened and endangered species of plants and animals. As science is still discovering many new species from the area, a hydro-electric project threatens to wipe out these forests.

The Chalakudy Puzha Samrakshana Samithi (CPSS) has been at the forefront of much of the protests and activities against the dam with limited resources. The Sálim Ali Foundation has recently joined hands with them to help the cause.

We have recently made a website www.salimalifoundation.org, where we have attempted to collate information on the dam, the loss foreseen, the procedural flaws in the proposal, and activities scheduled with the help of CPSS.

We are planning a meeting of researchers who have worked in this region to collate all information available to make a strong case against the dam.

While many individuals and groups in the affected region have been campaigning against this dam, including organizing a 90 day satyagraha by the local people, the problem seems to be little known to people outside this region.

We are hence planning a series of meetings to increase public awareness regarding the same.
We are also hoping to raise some funds for such activities.

Support the Salim Ali Foundation


Wear a Salim Ali Foundation T shirt today!

The wildlife of Athirappilly - Vazhachal region will be grateful to you!

We are currently selling two t-shirts. The money you spend on buying a T shirt will go to save the wildlife of the Athirappilly - Vazhachal region.

The t-shirts showcase some wonderful art work done by leading wildlife artist Maya Ramaswamy. The diversity of birds and animals depicted in the art panels reflects their varied roles in the landscape, and typifies the complex and fragile ecosystem that is under threat by this dam today.

The 'Spectacular Birds' T-shirt

This is a mosaic of special birds- Malabar Pied Hornbill, Ceylon Frogmouth, Stork-billed Kingfisher, Black Baza, Crimson-backed Sunbird and Malabar Trogon that are found in the forests surrounding the proposed dam site.

The 'Cryptic Creatures' T-shirt

This is a lovely mosaic of some beautiful animals that live in this habitat.


The Malabar civet, Travancore flying squirrel, Nilgiri marten, slender loris, and the endangered cane turtle were once found in large numbers in the Athirappilly - Vazhachal area.

Today, their habitats are threatened and many of these animals are now on the list of critically endangered animals.

Please do visit our site today at www.salimalifoundation.org/to be done.html

There's loads of work to be done.

We would be very grateful to you for your support.

Sincerely


Dr V.S. Vijayan
Chairman,
Salim Ali Foundation

source: email communication from Bharath Sundaram, bharath@atree.org

Help Save Millions of Animals!

Millions of Animals to be Used to for Chemical Testing in Europe

A new European Chemical Testing Policy called REACH has now been finalised by the European Union.Under these proposals chemicals of every imaginable kind -from those used in industrial processes to the ingredients of consumer products - will be tested on millions of animals from mice to fish to dogs, causing untold suffering. Still worse, because of this reliance on outdated animal techniques, reliable and relevant information will not beprovided and our safety will not be assured.

If you believe that REACH should make more use of Alternative Testing to test 100,000 Chemicals that have been in general use since 1985 then please take action now. If you are a European citizen please contact your local papers and own MP asking them to promote the development of humane non-animal test methods under the REACH legislation,which is the best hope we have for sparing animals the misery of a testing laboratory.

A sample letter can be found at the BUAV (British Union forthe Abolition of Vivisection) website http://www.buav.org%20(select/ Campaigns and Chemical Testing and then get active by writing to the local press).

For all Non-European members, you can still help.

Please tell all your colleagues and friends in the UK and Europe about REACH. Write to your own local papers to try and inform others about what is going on in Europe.

More information on REACH can be obtained from

http://www.europarl.europa.eu. (search on REACH)http://www.euractiv.com/en/environment/chemicals-policy-review-reach/article-117452

Everyone can help and you can make a difference.

Thank You

Tony Gallett

Monday, May 21, 2007

EIC EcoWatch Star : Willie Corduff

The farmer who turned crusader to save Rossport


The Rossport Community led by Willie Corduff and his four friends are fighting Shell and the Irish Govt to protect the environment and the health of the community in Rossport, Mayo County in Ireland.

In 1996, the Corrib gas fields were discovered on the northwest coast of Ireland in Mayo County. A partnership between Shell Oil, Irish government owned Statoil Exploration and Marathon International Petroleum was formed to develop the gas field and meet upto 60% of Ireland’s demand for natural gas.

The problem was that Shell decided on an action plan that would involve building a high pressure gas pipeline that would go criss-crossing the fields and houses of the farmers in Rossport. In fact, in some places, the pipeline would be just 200 metres from the houses. In other places, the pipeline would be running parallel to the road, just 90 metres away.

The high pressure gas pipeline posed a serious risk to the lives of the people living in the surrounding areas. It could burst anytime. The pressure inside the pipeline was going to be four times more than similar pipelines that Shell had installed in Ireland and other parts of the world. Worse, the pipeline was going to be built on slippery, boggy land that was vulnerable to landslides. Shell was planning to stabilize the marshy bog using methods that had not been tried out before. Plus, emissions from the refinery would pollute the Carrowmore Lake which was a major of drinking water for the Rossport community.
What were the profits going to be like for Shell and partners from the project? More than US$60 billion. Shell and it’s partners would have gone ahead with their plan to build the pipeline but for the fact that a group of five heroic Rossport saviors stubbornly refused to allow Shell into their land.
These five Rossport saviors led by Willie Corduff were then arrested and jailed for 94 days. That’s when the entire community came forward to support the Rossport Five as they began to be called. The Shell to Sea Campaign is the Rossport community’s heroic struggle to protect their land, their health and their environment.
Today, Willie Corduff and the Rossport Community’s efforts have gained recognition and support from many parts of Ireland and concerned environmentalists from all over the world.
Willie Corduff was awarded the Goldman prize this year for his efforts to protect Rossport and the community.
In this interview Willie Corduff candidly shares his experiences, his viewpoints and most importantly, he narrates how the Rossport Five faced Shell and the Irish Govt, about their days in jail...and how the entire community came forward to support him.
This photo was taken when Willie Corduff and his wife Mary had just landed at Knock Airport, Ireland.
You were born and brought up in Rossport. What was Rossport like during your childhood?
This is how the coastline near the proposed pipeline site looks like

Beautiful, beautiful, I always say it was a simple easy going place, lovely place to live in, everything clean, clean water, clean air, a place where everyone would want their kids to be brought up. The neighbours were close to each other, everything like that you know, that’s the memory we have of Rossport.

Look at this estuary! Isn't it lovely? The proposed pipeline was to cut across this place.
Rossport was a very, very, beautiful place with rivers, lakes, estuaries, fish, birds, you name it, everything was in Rossport, so I mean you just couldn’t, you couldn’t see that being changed anyway.

It’d be a shame to destroy it. It’s about one of the only places left that isn’t destroyed. It’s got a low population density. Everybody knew each other and every one was related if not through birth through marriage. Rossport was that, that type of a place.

When Shell announced that they were setting up a high pressure gas pipeline that would run right through your farmland, what was your first reaction?

Oh! Well I mean, just stunned. Really! How could they think about doing something like that in a small little community like ours. That too, a high pressure gas pipeline running beside the houses! Well, I thought this just cannot happen.

When did you first hear the pipelines would be going through your land?

In 2000.

When did they plan to actually put the pipeline through?
This is the land through which Shell's proposed pipeline was going to criss cross

Well, the whole thing was supposed to be up and running by 2003. So, I mean it dawned on me straight away that it had to be a disaster like that, you couldn’t you know, install something so high pressured. Even though they didn’t tell the people at the time that it was such a high pressure, they just said, “a gas pipe”, so they didn’t really tell the pressure that was going to be in it.

So, that’s really how the people got conned, you know the people that did except they figured that, well maybe it was the same as what was in Dublin or Cork. They went as far as telling them that, some of them took it to be nearly the same as a water pipe. So I mean that’s the kind of awareness that was there about it.
When the Shell officials started exploring your land, how did you handle the situation?

Well, I suppose looking back on it I suppose I handled it good, when I didn’t kill some of them. I mean when someone comes onto your land and doesn’t even ask you like, just goes in, tells you they are going in, I mean you don’t do something like that to people, we’re living in a different world maybe a hundred years ago, that you might think about doing somethin
g like that when people were more afraid.

But then again I’d say they nearly had more of a chance now than then because the old people really adored the land and you didn’t abuse their land because it was all they had got to live off, so they really took good care of it and they wouldn’t like to see anybody destroying it.

The first officials came to show me where they where going digging trial holes. So he didn’t ask, he almost figured it was his land and not mine. That’s what really made me aware, if I wanted to go on somebody’s land or get into somebody’s land, the first thing I’d do is ask them, " Could I do it? ". I mean he didn’t even ask, he just told me he was going to do it.

Why was Shell so stubbornly refusing to go in for a safer and environment friendly offshore system? It would have been so much cheaper for the company in the long run and saved them a lot of adverse publicity?

Well, that we’re still wondering about, that I still wonder about, like why when they saw the opposition at the beginning and I told them at the beginning myself, that they would never do it the way they were planning on doing it. Whatever I’d have to do, I told them at the beginning, I would do to stop them.

I suppose they figured a bit of money was going to solve the problem. It did with some but they couldn’t figure out how small people wouldn’t take the money in a community that was starved for money.

Some people thought this would do no harm and they’d get a few quid out of it, and Shell probably thought that thi
s was going to satisfy everybody not thinking of the love we have for the land, or the place. Some people have more love for their land than other people; they just couldn’t figure it out.

And I have told them so often that they’d never do it the way they are planning on doing it. You’d wonder why they didn’t go to sea and when they had the expertise of doing it at sea, which they have, why they didn’t do it that way, it’d be up and running now.
We have made a lot of money for them I suppose. I mean that’s 7 years ago and gas was pretty cheap and it’s getting dearer all the time so they’re losing nothing really no matter what work they have done on the refinery anyway. It’ll cost them nothing. They are losing nothing. It’s the people of the area that’s losing more than them.

What about the possibility of future expansion?


Well it’s looking that way, there has to be something, something we don’t know that Shell knew. They have 600 acres up there. You don’t go getting 600 acres if you only need 100, so. I’d say there will be refinery after refinery up there, or they thought there would, there will be nothing there hopefully, because they are not going to get away with doing it like that…

Despite facing severe harassment, your strategy all the time has been peaceful, non violent protests? Has Mahatma Gandhi been a big influence in your life?

Well that’s what we wanted, to have it peaceful. We just tried to get the message across peacefully to Shell. I don’t know, it’s not really working. We are 7 years peaceful and we’re still trying to get the message across. They are still not listening so I don’t know if it’s as if they are waiting for a war to erupt here, you know I think it is.

We have been peaceful for 7 years now, which is a long time. We are getting abused by Shell and by Guards (the state police are called the Guardai) and by everyone. We still haven’t retaliated, as you could say. We’re still peaceful but how long that peace is going to last is just as you know, it's to be told.

You cannot be peaceful forever if there is somebody walking over you, trampling over you. You have to draw the line somewhere, so I think that day is coming close, the peaceful end to it is coming close to an end as far as I’d be concerned.


We’ve kept it peaceful for a long, long time which is more reason why Shell should listen to us now. They are not going to get away with it the way they are going on, it’d be time they listened to us.

Note from Aron: About the Gandhian influence : One of the Rossport 5 men has a son-in-law who often quotes Gandhi. The Rossport Solidarity Camp is based along non-violent direct action principles.

The Rossport Five's struggle and the Shell to Sea Campaign will now be cited as a useful case study for students of environmental studies? What advice do you have for young peo
ple?

The advice I have for young people is let them not be walked on. Just don’t give up. You don’t give up when you are put in a corner. The most time when you think you have to give up don’t give up. Because it has come to that stage in our lives that we cannot give up, when our government nor anybody are not protecting us so at the end of the day you have nobody to protect you, only yourself.

So the advice I give the young people is don’t be put aside by these big boys. I tell young people to go ahead and just make their own statement and do what they think themselves is right, in their own mind. If they think it’s right and they are doing what’s right, let them keep doing it.

Don’t just be told that you are stopping progress or you are this, that or the other. Because these big boys will all tell you that to get the better of you. That’s the advice I’d have for students or anybody that's fighting anything like this. Keep it peaceful as long as they can but don't let them be walked over.

You and your four friends were forced to spend 94 days in prison? Would you like to share your experience? At that time, did you feel that it would be possible to fight Shell and the Irish Govt at all?

Well there were days that we thought No! There were days we figured Yeah! You know, I mean it was a terrible experience for us, for people that were never before in a court house. I know I wasn’t and I don’t think the other four were either.

I mean to be brought to court and to be sent to jail for protecting your home and your family, it’ll never leave your mind. So, that’s why I say, you can never be walked on because the government didn’t protect us. We thought they would, we went as far and we thought the government was going to step in and protect us but it’s how they stepped out and let us be put to prison.

Even we have heard since, that Dempsey (a government minister) said the biggest mistake that he had made was not to have separated them and put them into separate prisons. Well he was supposed to have said that, that they would have broke us faster but No! That wouldn’t have broke us. It wouldn’t have broke me, anyway, because if I was to be in there still I’d have been in there.

They tried to scare us, they tried to do everything to us, and it didn’t work. Prison is a comical place. Lots of things come to your mind in there, will you give up or what will you do? But at the same time when you have people backing you on the outside it makes a huge difference and that’s where we really got the backing of the people, when we were put to prison. That’s when the people came out behind us, which was very, very good for us to have so much support. That's because we got an indefinite sentence so without the people's support we could have been still in there. We could be in there for
years, for what we knew was doing the right thing, it has been proven now that we done the right thing.

So you just don’t give up after a few days in there. It's not a nice place to be but we had the support of the prisoners so it was a different thing to being in there for doing something else, it might not be as nice, but when all the prisoners were supporting us it made it that much easier for us to wait in there.

If someone said to me 10 years ago you’ll go to jail I’d have been laughing at them

Aron's note: The Rossport 5 could have pledged not to interfere or prevent Shell from placing the pipe through their land and they would have been released from jail but they refused.

During your struggle did you get any help from all the world famous environment protection organizations and eminent people?
Well, probably we got more support from individual people than from organizations. I don’t think these organizations knew what was going on. It’s only now they realize what is going on with the message getting out from everybody, what is happening here. I mean they probably weren’t that interested in it and didn’t know what was happening but it’s only now we are getting support.

Community support for the Rossport 5
From different communities and different counties we got great support when we were in jail but apart from that people just wonder, well what is going on down there. But a lot of people have come to the area since and have seen how beautiful the area is and they just don’t want it to be destroyed no more than us, so, that is gaining more support for us.
Micheal O'Seighin, Brendan Philbin, Philip McGrath, Willie Corduff, and Vincent McGrath released from jail

We have big, big support all over the world not just in Mayo and other counties. We had great support from other counties when we were in jail, we had brilliant support which made it easier for us, I mean when you see people from Cork and Clare and Limerick and you name it…writing in.
We got 230 cards in one day. I mean that was 230 people that sent them and several of them were signed by maybe 10 people or 20 people
So I mean that’s what really kept us in jail.

The people of Ireland supported you strongly. Do you feel there is space for environmental campaigners in mainstream Irish politics?

Well there probably is, that would be up to the green party. They are supporting us at the moment, we have received a recognition from them in the last few days, that they are supporting us, which they should be.

They were quite quiet in the past with a few notable exceptions, but Trevor Sergeant now (the leader of the Green Party) has come out, he supported us to a certain extent but you'd feel that he wasn't going putting his neck out there for us.

There were days you'd ask what is he at? Is he just wanting to get into government but he has come out now, whatever it’s worth.

If he's using us for himself we don't know but we make use of it anyway so hopefully, if he did get into government that he would come out and help the people, and help the environment and keep it as it is here in Mayo, clean and healthy.
What are your hobbies?

Fighting Shell, at the moment and for the last 7 years. Them are my hobbies.

Do you get time for your wife and children? What do your children do?

Willie Corduff greets his family at the airport, medal in hand.

Well, my children are grown up now and they are all working. The last one has gone to work in the last fortnight, the baby as we call her, she's 17 and she's working in the hotel in Belmullet.

So, they are all working. There's five of them working, in Ireland, in Mayo in fact. So let people not be saying there's no employment in Mayo. There's five of them working and none of them are working for Shell. So, I mean there's loads of employment out there for the youth in Mayo at the moment, with hotels, tourism etc.

So let them not be saying the only employment we have is Shell’s employment. There was a fair amount of employment here even before Shell came. All my children are working so I try to spend any time with them that I can which has been very little in the last 7 years.

There's 7 years of our lives destroyed by Shell, which is hard to forget. You'll never forget it, them 7 years with our family would have been very, very important.


Willie Corduff's wife Mary faces the Guardai







Myself and my wife are some team together so we're nearly all the time together, which is not too bad, bar the 94 days that we were parted. That took us apart for 94 days which never happened to us before. Our life has been ruined as such but at the same time, we have to get on with it and try and fight this together.

Willie and Mary Corduff

What does winning the Goldman prize mean to you? How are you going to spend the money that you've received?

Well winning the Goldman prize, for me, it’s not for me really, as I have said from the beginning. I didn't look for the Goldman prize, I was happened to be picked, so I didn't even know I was picked. It’s for the whole community maybe even for the people that didn't join us, they had some hand or act or part in it.

There's people on the fence which I have discovered since I got the Goldman prize they have come down on our side. I have got cards from people I thought was against me, and we have got phone calls from people that I thought were against us. It has brought out a different view in our minds of the people. I think there's nobody now in this area that wants Shell or wants the gas in the current manner proposed.

I just feel happy about the recognition from all the people that have congratulated me that I thought wouldn't congratulate me. It has brought that out, and that to us is one great thing that I found out, there's nobody turned their back on me. At the moment, they're coming forward and they are congratulating me. That gives us a great hope for the future, so it does.

As for the money, I never went in it for money, I didn't think I was going to get a prize. If I got a plaque it would have done me grand. Nobody can ever say I was there for money because from day one money has never come into it with me.

So, as for how I'm going to spend it, I'm going to spend it in the community, I'm going to try and get more people on our side, if there's anything useful I can do with the money, I'll do it. It'll be a help, it'll help the campaign. Hopefully.

Thank you, Mr Willie Corduff for sparing your valuable time to attend to this interview and sharing your thoughts and your experiences honestly with the Eco-Informatics Centre.

The Eco-Informatics Centre also thanks Shell to Sea Campaigner, Mr Aron Baker for coordinating this interview with Mr Willie Corduff.

Aron Baker is 29 years old and has been involved in the campaign full time since August 2005.

Here's a note from Aron about his involvement with the Shell to Sea campaign and life at the camp.

In June 2005, the Five men were jailed. That’s when the issue became national news and many people became aware of it. Through social and environmental contacts the issue started getting more community support and public participation.
I am a construction engineer by trade but realized there is more to life than making money. So, I gave up my work as I could not do both and currently live on my savings. I have also in the past been involved with anti-war stuff and Palestine issues.

As part of my involvement I live at the Rossport Solidarity Camp which was established to allow activists who wish to help and work on the campaign to have somewhere to stay. It is a temporary camp but has all the basics to be called home, running water, and some electricity.

We have tried to make it, as far as reasonably possible, an example of sustainability and low impact. We have a grey water system for treating our water. All the waste generated is recycled or composted.

We are aware that here in Ireland as part of the Western world that we consume far more than our fair share of the world’s resources so we on camp try to live a more frugal life style.
We are here to support the local communities struggle against Shell but in turn the local community helps to support us through donations including turf, food and materials.

There is a link on the Shell to Sea website, http://www.shelltosea.com/ to the camp website, which has more information about the camp.

The photo I have attached is from the day the picket was broken on 3rd Oct 2006, and shows me being carried away by the Guardai (The Irish Police), as about 150 of us were. At that stage the Guardai were reasonably careful but since then have become increasing heavy handed.

Well to be sure the Guardai have hurt plently of people who have been protesting including Philip. I'm not sure about Wille. I had my thumb bent back by Guardai and it was useless for nearly 2 months. Philip had a thumb wrenched also and it was injured for a period of time. One person has been on crutches for 6 months after he was thrown down a steep bank into a drain and over half a dozen people have needed hospital attention after injuries recieved from the Guardai. People have even been struck by Guardai vehicles.

Photo Credits :
Willie Corduff (Portrait), The Rossport Five the day after their release from jail, Willie and Mary Corduff - William Hederman
Willie Corduff - On His Land in Rossport and Willie on a ridge near the pipeline site -
John Antonelli
The coastline near the proposed pipeline landfall site in Rossport, Estuary photo, land through which Shell's proposed pipeline would run through, The Rossport Five: Micheal O'Seighin, Brendan Philbin, Philip McGrath, Willie Corduff, and Vincent McGrath - Willie and Mary Corduff
All the remaining photos have been taken by Eve, Niall and, Aron Baker
If you would like to know more about how Shell functions in other parts of the world too, please read this press release from Friends of the Earth
You can also read two reports from the Centre for Public Inquiry at http://www.publicinquiry.ie/
The reports are titled:
  • The Great Corrib Gas Controversy
  • The Proposed Corrib Onshore System - An Independent Analysis