According to WorldWaterDay.org, 27 percent of the urban population in the developing world doesn’t have access to piped water at home, and poor people in developing countries pay exponentially more for their water than people in North America.

But water shortages aren’t restricted to any one country or continent. As climate change continues to exacerbate environments around the world, recent droughts seen everywhere from the Amazon to the U.S. may become more frequent and more intense. If you haven’t started making every effort to conserve water, this World Water Day is the best time to start.

Here are some easy tips to start saving water at home, which will likewise lower your water bill. Submit your own tips to conserve water below, or tweet your idea with the hashtag #SaveWater and we’ll add it to the slideshow.

CLICK HERE to see how you can get involved with organizations that are helping to provide clean drinking water to those in need around the world.

We can’t measure the impact of global change unless we have a baseline for the biodiversity that exists today. By understanding the existing biodiversity, we can understand the impact of change on it. From there we can craft plans that might be able to mitigate the impact of those changes.

Watch this video to learn more.

Watch this video to learn more about the illegal fishing of sharks.

Click here to learn more about what YOU can do.

With every breath we take, every drop of water we drink, we’re connected to the ocean. It is our life support system, giving us more than half of the oxygen we breathe, regulating climate, and providing valuable resources.

Here’s what you can do to help save the world’s oceans:

1. Mind Your Carbon Footprint and Reduce Energy Consumption
Reduce the effects of climate change on the ocean by leaving the car at home when you can and being conscious of your energy use at home and work. A few things you can do to get started today: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, take the stairs, and bundle up or use a fan to avoid oversetting your thermostat.

2. Make Safe, Sustainable Seafood Choices
Global fish populations are rapidly being depleted due to demand, loss of habitat, and unsustainable fishing practices. When shopping or dining out, help reduce the demand for overexploited species by choosing seafood that is both healthful and sustainable.

3. Use Fewer Plastic Products
Plastics that end up as ocean debris contribute to habitat destruction and entangle and kill tens of thousands of marine animals each year. To limit your impact, carry a reusable water bottle, store food in nondisposable containers, bring your own cloth tote or other reusable bag when shopping, and recycle whenever possible.

4. Help Take Care of the Beach
Whether you enjoy diving, surfing, or relaxing on the beach, always clean up after yourself. Explore and appreciate the ocean without interfering with wildlife or removing rocks and coral. Go even further by encouraging others to respect the marine environment or by participating in local beach cleanups.

5. Don’t Purchase Items That Exploit Marine Life
Certain products contribute to the harming of fragile coral reefs and marine populations. Avoid purchasing items such as coral jewelry, tortoiseshell hair accessories (made from hawksbill turtles), and shark products.

6. Be an Ocean-Friendly Pet Owner
Read pet food labels and consider seafood sustainability when choosing a diet for your pet. Never flush cat litter, which can contain pathogens harmful to marine life. Avoid stocking your aquarium with wild-caught saltwater fish, and never release any aquarium fish into the ocean or other bodies of water, a practice that can introduce non-native species harmful to the existing ecosystem.

7. Support Organizations Working to Protect the Ocean
Many institutes and organizations are fighting to protect ocean habitats and marine wildlife. Find a national organization and consider giving financial support or volunteering for hands-on work or advocacy. If you live near the coast, join up with a local branch or group and get involved in projects close to home.

8. Influence Change in Your Community
Research the ocean policies of public officials before you vote or contact your local representatives to let them know you support marine conservation projects. Consider patronizing restaurants and grocery stores that offer only sustainable seafood, and speak up about your concerns if you spot a threatened species on the menu or at the seafood counter.

9. Travel the Ocean Responsibly
Practice responsible boating, kayaking, and other recreational activities on the water. Never throw anything overboard, and be aware of marine life in the waters around you. If you’re set on taking a cruise for your next vacation, do some research to find the most eco-friendly option.

10. Educate Yourself About Oceans and Marine Life
All life on Earth is connected to the ocean and its inhabitants. The more you learn about the issues facing this vital system, the more you’ll want to help ensure its health—then share that knowledge to educate and inspire others.

 Click here to learn what YOU can do.

Just like blood pressure in the human body, how and when water flows is a vital indicator and driver of the health of aquatic ecosystems and the species that depend on them—including we humans. This is the thinking behind the concept of environmental flows—which is a foundation of WWF’s work on freshwater, across Canada and around the world.

One of the key messages in the Living Planet Report is that the world’s fresh waters are coming under increasing pressure. The impacts of growing more food, generating more electricity with hydropower dams, and quenching the thirst of expanding cities and industry has lead us to a situation where 71 countries [PDF] are experiencing stress on what we call “blue” water—the water stored in and withdrawn from rivers, lakes, streams and aquifers. In the of worst cases, rivers are running dry [PDF]—rivers like the Yellow in China, the Murray in Australia, and the Rio Grande separating Mexico from the U.S. These tragedies are the result of withdrawing too much water or holding back too much of the natural flow behind dams, and increasingly, by the impacts of climate change which are leading to more severe and frequent droughts in many areas.

When a river’s flow is choked off, big problems arise for both nature and for people. When a river runs dry, the consequences can be devastating.

The global trends and comparisons in the Living Planet Report tell an important story about Canada’s fresh water, and Canadians’ use of this precious resource. Let’s start with water use. Canada’s Water Footprint of Production is the 16th largest of the 130 nations surveyed in the Living Planet Report. The Water Footprint of Production [PDF] is a measure of the amount of water that is consumed and polluted in the production of agricultural crops and livestock, and through household and industrial water use. It is an important indicator of the demands humans and our economic activities are placing on their nation’s water resources.

But in a country as large Canada, with our diverse geography and climate, national rankings and indicators can be misleading. This important point is stressed in the report [PDF]:

“One limitation of this analysis is that it looks only at a national level, whereas water use is very much at a local or river basin [or watershed] level. Thus, countries classified as not being under water stress may have areas under high stress, and vice versa.”

This is certainly the case in Canada. When we focus on the watershed scale—the scale that matters most when considering fresh water availability and use—we see a different and clearer picture of the health of Canada’s rivers, and of the impacts of our demands on the waters that follow their course. We demonstrated this in our report, released a year ago next week, titled Canada’s Rivers at Risk. In some rivers, such as the South Saskatchewan and the St. Lawrence, flows have been modified to the extent that freshwater ecosystems are in serious trouble. On the other hand, Canada is home to some of the world’s last large wild rivers—rivers like the Mackenzie and the Skeena that still flow freely from source to sea, unimpeded by large dams and over-taking of water—rivers worth protecting while we still have a chance few other nations do.

Skeena River near Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada (c) Mike Ambach/WWF-Canada

Dealing with the big problems, while at the same time protecting what we still have, will require a new freshwater conservation agenda for Canada.  WWF-Canada is hard at work setting that new agenda through the emerging Living Rivers Campaign—a multi-year initiative through which we intend to change the face of water policy and management in Canada to ensure nature’s water needs are addressed in all of Canada’s rivers.

The scale of our ambition with our Living Rivers Campaign rivals that of our Endangered Spaces campaign in the 1990s.  We doubled in a decade the amount of protected area in Canada.  In our Living Rivers Campaign, we’re targeting river flow across Canada: protecting it in wild waters, managing it better in tamed rivers, and restoring it in highly degraded systems.

Stay tuned for more as we build from the global picture presented in the LPR to our national Living Rivers Campaign that will deliver conservation results ‘on the water’ in rivers and watersheds across Canada.

http://blog.wwf.ca/blog/2010/10/15/fresh-water-lifeblood-of-a-living-planet/

Gulls flock in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: Ami Vitale.

The Washington Post today has an interesting story (registration required) about how the Earth’s oceans are getting crowded with competition for use — and how more and more ocean experts are pushing ocean zoning as the answer.

But even though such zoning (which experts call “marine spatial planning”) has high-level support within the Obama administration, it’s anything but easy.

Overlaying the maps of the many uses of the sea in any given area — uses ranging from fishing to fossil fuel extraction to recreation to sand mining and wind farms — “quickly becomes a train wreck,” according to Duke University ecologist Larry Crowder.

Still, Europe and Australia have been doing integrated ocean planning and zoning for a while. And scientists at The Nature Conservancy say the risks of not making a sea change in the way we do ocean management outweigh the inherent conflicts of trying to balance dozens of competing resource demands. As Conservancy scientists Lynne Hale, Mike Beck and Scott Smith wrote in March on nature.org:

In some U.S. states, one agency manages the habitats on the bottom of the sea, a separate agency manages the water above it, and a third manages the gas and minerals beneath the bottom. Even conservation organizations that advocate protection don’t always take into account fully the way people — often the poorest and most marginalized — depend on ocean resources for their livelihood.

Hale, Beck and Scott argue that we can take lessons learned in using zoning for terrestrial conservation — like transparency and interactive web-based maps — and apply them to seascape management practices. The Conservancy is already advising countries on how to make these knowledge transfers — for instance, helping the Venezuelan national energy corporation to preserve critical reef areas in the waters of that country while allowing for energy extraction.

But ocean zoning needs to be adopted widely if it’s going to work, say Hale, Beck and Smith. Individual efforts that don’t affect business as usual at the seascape level, they add, will just mean further decline of our marine resources.

Written by Robert Lalasz, http://blog.nature.org/2009/05/a-sea-change-for-ocean-management/

The first draft of global standards intended to measure and identify environmentally and socially responsible salmon farming was recently released for a 60-day public comment period.

Developed through the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogues (SAD), the standards aim to make salmon aquaculture operations around the world more sustainable by establishing a set of science-based, measurable guidelines, and incentivizing compliance through third-party eco-certification. The current draft standards represent the collective efforts of dozens of independent scientists, conservation groups, industry representatives and other stakeholders who have worked with the SAD steering committee over the last several years.

The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) has been an active participant in the multi-year investigation into the impacts of salmon farming on the environment and wild salmon in particular. However, there are still many unresolved issues and not all parts of the draft represent consensus agreement among members of the steering committee. While the coalition applauds the effort of many in the aquaculture industry to address the ecological and social impacts of salmon farming, many of the standards aimed at reducing or eliminating these issues have yet to be resolved in the document.

“A lot of information has been gathered and hard work done to identify both the problems associated with salmon aquaculture and the ways to measure the best ecological and social operations,” said Jay Ritchlin, director of marine and freshwater conservation at the David Suzuki Foundation and SAD steering committee representative for CAAR.

“We’re encouraging stakeholders to review and provide feedback on these draft standards, especially where uncertainties remain, to ensure they are of the highest possible quality, and offer the greatest opportunity for safeguarding our oceans.”

Nearly all of the issues around the ecological and social sustainability of salmon farming can be addressed through the use of closed containment technology. This technology, which is already providing product to retail outlets, is the most economically, socially and environmentally sustainable way of ensuring that salmon farming does not endanger wild salmon in British Columbia.

The standards themselves are meant to be “technology neutral” and do not mandate any one technology. Closed containment, however, does address the key ecological issues in the draft standards and also solves many of the unresolved problems that otherwise will require extensive monitoring and science to measure. Given the serious risks to wild salmon from open net cage salmon farming, the final resolution on how to measure key environmental impacts and on what levels of impact are deemed to pass the standard will determine CAAR’s support for the outcome of the standards process.

CAAR urges anyone concerned about salmon farming to review the standards document and submit comments that support meaningful and effective salmon aquaculture standards. CAARs own submission to the public comment period will be available on its website later this month.

Convened by the World Wildlife Fund-USA, the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogues began in 2004 and involved the efforts of a nine-member steering committee that includes five industry members (Marine Harvest, Skretting, Salmon Chile, the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, and the Norwegian Seafood Federation) and four NGOs (CAAR, Fundacion Terram, Pew Environment Group and WWF-US). Additional stakeholders provided feedback during 13 dialogue meetings held around the globe.

The process has produced a set of draft standards along with seven technical papers that summarize the state of science around feed, social impacts, disease, sea lice, chemical use, pollution and benthic impacts.

For more information, please visit Farmed and Dangerous.

Our oceans are dying, and without life in our oceans, life on land will perish. The threats to our marine environment, our global life support system, come` from many sources, but all have one common cause: human activity.

Human generated global warming, pollution, and overfishing have collided to create a perfect storm that has produced devastating changes in our oceans. The rapid extinction of fish species, destroyed ecosystems and changing weather patterns are affecting all life on earth.

Global average surface temperatures have already increased by 0.8º C above pre-industrial levels (the upper sustainable limit of temperature change is deemed to be 2º C). This is producing a warmer ocean that is more acidic, and less able to remove carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. The fear is that this will stimulate feedback loops that generate ongoing and irreversible temperature increases. Warmer oceans have also produced marine dead zones, where no life exists. These areas are increasing in number and size.

Massive overfishing is devastating fish stocks. Of all of the commercially fished species, 30% have crashed, 40% are overexploited and a further 30% are being fished at their maximum capacity. Pollution from storm sewers, dumping, and agricultural practices are killing our oceans. Like every country, Canada has stark choices to make and they must be made quickly. So what solutions could we employ to address these grave challenges?

1) Global Warming
This is a watershed year in the battle to arrest climate change. In August, the Third World Climate Change Conference will take place in Geneva, and in December, the world will meet again in Copenhagen to produce an international framework that goes beyond the Kyoto Accord.

In the end, the international community must put a price on carbon and set up an international trading mechanism for carbon credits. Doing so would help to put a stop to deforestation and the destruction of our carbon sinks. This is one of the easiest and quickest ways to decrease atmospheric CO2.

How this could work is as follows. Carbon sinks should be seen as a public utility. Currently, they have commercial value when trees are cut down and sold. However, they also have value as they remove CO2 and produce O2. A hectare of jungle removes approx 200 tons of carbon per year from the atmosphere. At $10/ton, a hectare of jungle is worth $2000 a year. This is real value and would create an incentive for developing countries not to cut down their jungles and forests. Indeed, this is our best chance to save the two lungs of our planet that are extremely threatened; Amazonia and the Congo Basin.

2) An Ocean’s Management Plan
Using the Ocean’s Act of 1996, Canada must enact a comprehensive ocean’s management plan. This will enable us to apply a holistic approach to manage the ocean’s multiple uses: resource extraction, shipping, conservation, fishing etc. This is the same approach used for managing land. Currently our oceans are a free for all. This structure will provide certainty for all user groups.

Part of the plan must include the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs). A commitment to do this was made in 2004, in Canada’s Ocean’s Action Plan. Sadly, only 0.5% of Canada’s Exclusive Economic Zone is set aside in protected areas, placing us 70th out of 228 nations.

3) Overfishing: Fish species must have time to recover. Reducing the number of fishing boats world-wide (there are 4,000,000) will be crucial. Total allowable catches must be reduced and must be based on sustainability. Enforcement capacity must be strengthened, including the establishment of zones in international waters that are crucial for species recovery where fishing is prohibited. Extremely destructive fishing practices like bottom dragging should be banned or used in a very limited way.

4) Forestry codes in Canada must be reviewed and enforcement must occur to ensure that forestry practices are not destroying critical spawning habitats.

5) Endangered fish species must also be listed under Canada’s Species at Risk Act. Despite provisions within the Act, Canada has not listed one single endangered or threatened fish species under SARA.

6) Local environmental assessments must drive repairs to storm sewers, and better source control mechanisms should be put in place to prevent the dumping of toxic substances into our water systems.

7) Canada should lead a worldwide phase-out of non-biodegradable plastics that kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and more than 2,000,000 seabirds a year.
Our oceans are the lifeblood of our planet. Canada has an opportunity to act, and be a leader in saving them. In saving our oceans, we will be saving not only ourselves, but all life on earth.