The Food and Agriculture Organisation has issued a caution on the repercussions of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture. It is that the changes seen in the seas and oceans will have direct implications for food security. This is particularly relevant to developing countries where about 42 million people work directly in the sector and 2.8 billion depend on fish products for 20 per cent of animal protein.

It is just as well that the Centre is now seriously considering an alternative route for the Sethusamudram ship channel project. The idea of dredging the sea in shallow coastal waters to allow large seagoing vessels to pass around peninsular India is not new. Various alignments for the proposed channel have been suggested ever since 1860, all aimed at cutting costs by cutting shipping time. However, when the Manmohan Singh government gave signs of starting implementation of the project, it ran into a wall of controversy.

Prabhakar Rao Voruganti | ENS

THE Supreme Court on Tuesday heard inconclusive arguments on the Ramar Sethu issue. As soon as the hearing commenced, Roxena Swamy , wife of Subramanian Swamy , told a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justice R V Raveendran and Justice J M Panchal that the orders of the Madras High Court with regard to an archaeological study on the Ramar Sethu were not complied with.

By Christopher Pala

Off the palm-fringed white beach of Butaitari, Kiribati, the view underwater is downright scary. Corals are being covered and smothered to death by a bushy seaweed that is so tough even algae-grazing fish avoid it. It settles in the reef's crevices that fish once called home, driving them away.

Dead coral stops supporting the ecosystem and, within a couple of decades, will crumble into rubble, allowing big ocean waves to reach the beach during storms and destroy the flimsy thatched huts of the Micronesians.

London: The fragile marine ecosystems of Antarctica are facing a growing risk from icebergs floating freely in coastal waters due to global warming, a research has suggested.

A group of scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has found that while iceberg scour is a natural phenomenon, the rate of destruction is increasing as a warmer climate shrinks the winter sea ice that would otherwise lock the bergs in.
"The whole balance of the ecosystem could be affected, with consequences that are very difficult to predict,' said Dan Smale, who led the study.

acidic oceans: Dissolved CO2 makes water more acidic. UK researchers saw a fall in the species numbers and snails with their shells disintegrating in vents in the Mediterranean sea. They say impacts such as changing of marine food web and decrease in biodiversity might become common with the increase of CO2 levels. Some of the extra CO2 emitted enters the oceans, acidifying waters globally.