Tracking technology to reveal whether food produced legally and sustainably

OpenSC venture, which will track Patagonian toothfish, developed by WWF and BCG Digital

Lisa Cox and Naaman Zhou

Thu 17 Jan 2019 05.36 GMTLast modified on Fri 18 Jan 2019 09.50 GMT

A new project that uses technology to track the movements of food through the supply chain will aim to inform consumers whether items such as fish they buy at a restaurant were produced legally and sustainably.

The new venture is called OpenSC and uses product QR codes that consumers can scan with a smartphone to automatically display information on where the product was caught, when and how it was produced, what its journey through the supply chain looked like, and even its carbon miles and what temperature it was stored at.

The tracking platform, which has been developed with WWF and BCG Digital Ventures, follows an award-winning pilot by the environment NGO that tracked tuna caught in the Pacific.

To work, businesses dealing with products such as seafood must make a choice to attach a digital tag at the point of catch, and then again at the point of production, and link their products in a blockchain platform.

Continued

WWF films tiger being released back to the wild

WWF has filmed an Amur Tiger being released back into the wild after spending time in a wild animal rehabilitation centre in the Russian Far East.

The tiger is a young male called Uporny, who was captured in November 2014 after being identified as a ‘conflict’ tiger.

He had been living in an area where there was a lack of prey and had killed dogs to survive. There were also fears that he could come into conflict with humans in a nearby town. 

After undergoing the necessary health checks in a wild animal rehabilitation centre in the Russian Far East, Uporny was released into a sparsely inhabited mountainous area. 

Uporny’s new home is an area with a good source of prey. It’s also home to a female Amur tiger, which provides hope that Uporny will not only continue to live wild and free, but also breed – contributing to the recovering tiger population in Russia.

The Russian government Forest Department (Ministry of Natural Resource of Khabarovsky Province) organised and implemented the translocation operation with the help of WWF and the Amur Tiger Center. 

Continued ...

Dallas Safari Club follows controversial rhino hunt with bids to shoot elephant

Club has postponed hunt for black rhino which attracted criticism

Chance to shoot African elephant in Cameroon listed at $20,000

Associated Press in Dallas

Saturday 17 January 2015 16.28 GMT

A Texas hunting club was once again scheduled on Saturday to auction off a chance to kill a large animal whose numbers are dwindling, a year after it faced international criticism over doing the same with a permit to shoot an endangered black rhino.

The Dallas Safari Club planned to auction a 12-day African elephant hunt in Cameroon during its annual three-day convention at a Dallas hotel, a hunt valued in the auction catalog at $20,000.

The African elephant is the Earth’s largest land animal. The World Wildlife Fund, the world’s leading conservation group, regards it as “vulnerable”, a step below “endangered” and “facing a high risk of extinction in the wild”.

Continued ...

Greenpeace says John West tuna fish deal with WWF is just green spin

Campaigners say John West owner MW Brand has backtracked on promise to stop using controversial FAD fishing devices

Sarah Butler

The Guardian, Friday 31 October 2014 18.08 GMT

Greenpeace has attacked a tie-up between conservation group WWF and the owner of the John West tuna brand as “green spin”.

Greenpeace said John West’s owner, MW Brand, had backtracked on a public commitment to eliminate the use of controversial fishing methods.

Under a deal with WWF, MW Brand has pledged to source all its products from fisheries and farms certified by the Marine Stewardship Council or the Aquaculture Stewardship Council. It will also push for the elimination of illegal, unregulated or unreported fishing. WWF will assess the group’s supply chain to see how it can be made more sustainable over the next six months. But the deal does not set a time by when MW Brand will ensure its fish is sourced sustainably.

Previously, MW Brand promised Greenpeace that by the end of next year it would stop using a controversial fishing method that can kill sharks, rays and turtles. The purse seine method employs large nets which scoop up all kinds of ocean creatures attracted by floating rafts known as fish aggregation devices (FADs).

Continued ...

Wildlife numbers halved over past four decades: WWF

Paris (AFP) - Wildlife numbers have plunged by more than half in just 40 years as Earth's human population has nearly doubled, a survey of over 3,000 vertebrate species revealed on Tuesday.

From 1970 to 2010, there was a 39-percent drop in numbers across a representative sample of land- and sea-dwelling species, while freshwater populations declined 76 percent, the green group WWF said in its 2014 Living Planet Report.

Extrapolating from these figures, "the number of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish across the globe is, on average, about half the size it was 40 years ago," it said.

The 52-percent decrease confirmed mankind was chomping through Nature's bounty much faster than the rate of replenishment, the WWF warned.

The last Living Planet Report, in 2012, found a 28-percent drop in numbers from 1970-2008, but that was based on only 2,688 monitored species.

The new report tracks the growth or decline of more than 10,000 populations of 3,038 species ranging from forest elephants to sharks, turtles and albatrosses.

Continued ...

Kangaroos abound but fears abound for smaller cousins, warns WWF

Sydney (AFP) - Australia's big kangaroos are thriving, but wildlife campaigners hold fears for their smaller cousins, including the little-known bettong and the rock wallaby, WWF Australia has warned.

"The kangaroo is probably the most recognisable Australian animal of all," WWF-Australia spokesperson Darren Grover told AFP ahead of national threatened species day on Sunday.

"But part of that larger kangaroo and wallaby family are all these almost unknown little animals; the bettongs and potoroos and rock wallabies that people haven't necessarily heard of.

"Many of them are really struggling."

Grover said the overwhelming risk to these smaller marsupials were feral cats and introduced foxes, along with a loss of shelter due to habitat loss and changed fire practices.

Continued ...

Huge Swath of Amazon Preserved in Record-Setting Deal (Op-Ed)

Meg Symington, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) | May 23, 2014 03:13pm ET

Meg Symington is managing director for WWF's Amazon program. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

On May 21, the Brazilian government, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and partners announced the creation of a $215 million fund to ensure long-term protection of the world's largest network of protected areas — 150 million acres of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.

It's not often as conservationists that we get to celebrate such a big win.

Continued

Death threats for WWF employee in DRC

Death threats have been received by WWF employees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The threats arelinked to the organisation’s opposition to oil exploration in Virunga National Park.

Unidentified callers have threatened the personal safety of two employees working in the city of Goma, angered by a staff member’s public statements about the negative impacts of oil. one caller said: “We want his head.” 

Reports of intimidation have increased in the weeks sinceVirunga Chief Warden Emmanuel de Merode was shot while driving alone in a park vehicle. The callers threatened that allthough they had missed killing de Merode, they would not miss WWF’s employee. 

The WWF insists that authorities in DRC do everything in their power to bring the perpetrators of these threats and de Merode’s attack to justice. 

Tensions are high in Virunga National Park as UK oil company Soco International PLC conducts seismic tests in Lake Edward. WWF condemns the testing and all exploratory activities in the protected World Heritage Site. 

The park is found along the equator on the western edge of Democratic Republic of the Congo and is Africa’s oldest national park, a World Heritage Site and a Ramsar wetland of international importance.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/wwf-death-threat.html

The Government-proposed Water Bill could endanger our rivers

WWF calls for safeguards to regulate water abstraction

November 2013: A third of England's rivers are in danger of long-term damage that could ruin the country's environment and threaten wildlife if new legislation comes into force without important safeguards in place. WWF argues that the Water Bill going through Parliament will cause even more water to be taken out of some of the nation's most water-stressed rivers, reducing water levels to a point that would not support native wildlife such as the Water Vole and the Kingfisher.

Continued

IUCN and WWF forge tiger conservation agreement

November 2013: IUCN’s Global Protected Areas Programme and WWF have signed an agreement to develop the IUCN Green List of Protected Areas in a bid to promote tiger conservation through the WWF’s Tigers Alive initiative.

The IUCN Green List of Protected Areas aims to recognise successful conservation endeavours by providing benchmark standards for equitable governance and effective management of protected areas. It is currently being developed in collaboration with pilot countries and jurisdictions including Korea, Colombia – Amazonas, Kenya, Italy, France and New South Wales, Australia. A coalition of partners, represented by WWF, will in turn apply the IUCN Green List criteria in the accreditation process for high-performing tiger protected areas in tiger range states.

Continued

WWF providing microchips for every rhino in Kenya in fight against poaching

Rhinos and horns will have 100% traceability

October 2013. Efforts to conserve Kenya's dwindling population of rhinos has been significantly boosted by WWF Kenya which handed over 1000 microchips and five scanners to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

The equipment is valued at more than £10,000 will be instrumental in strengthening active rhino monitoring as well as auditing stockpiles of rhino horn.

Sophisticated technology in the fight against poaching

With poachers getting more sophisticated in their approach it is vital that conservation efforts embrace the use of more sophisticated technology to counter the killing of wildlife.

100% traceability of all rhinos and horns

The deployment of specialised rhino horn tracking systems combined with forensic DNA technology will allow for 100 per cent traceability of every rhino horn and live animal within Kenya. This will serve to strengthen rhino monitoring, protect the animals on site and also support anti-trafficking mechanisms nationally and regionally.

Furthermore, investigators will be able to link any poached rhino to a recovered or confiscated horn and this forms crucial evidence in court contributing towards the prosecution's ability to push for sentencing of a suspected rhino killer. These technologies are now being used internationally in support of criminal justice responses to wildlife crime as well as strengthening inter-agency collaborations (between customs, police, justice, wildlife agencies and defence).

Continued

WWF alleges British oil company violated environmental and human rights provisions in Virunga

Soco’s exploration in Virunga violates OECD guidelines, WWF alleges

October 2013. WWF has filed a complaint alleging that British oil company Soco International PLC has breached international corporate social responsibility standards. WWF contends that, in the course of Soco’s oil exploration activities in and around Virunga National Park, the company has violated environmental and human rights provisions of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

“Soco’s operations are putting Virunga’s people, animals and habitats at risk. The only way for Soco to come into compliance with the OECD guidelines is for the company to end all exploration in Virunga for good,” said Lasse Gustavsson, Executive Director of Conservation at WWF International. “We urge the company to stop its activities immediately.”

Soco allegedly has used state security forces to intimidate opponents, and has failed to disclose during community consultations vital information about potential environmental and health impacts of its exploration. Further, the company’s contract contains a clause effectively exempting it from future laws aimed at protecting human rights and the environment.

Impact assessment

Soco’s own impact assessment shows that oil exploration could cause pollution, damage habitats and bring poaching to this fragile ecosystem. It could also harm residents’ health and damage the natural resources upon which 50,000 people depend.

Read on

WWF outlines seven sins of dam building

WWF criticizes dam projects worldwide that continue to violate fundamental sustainability criteria.

March 2013. In the WWF report, "Seven Sins of Dam Building," numerous dam projects under construction or planned are given a failing review by the conservation organization. Aside from the internationally controversial Belo Monte (Brazil) and Xayaburi (Laos) dams, European projects, such as in Austria and Turkey, are also on the list.

The ‘Seven Sins' outlined in the report include issues with dam location, neglecting biodiversity, environmental flows, social and economic factors, and risk analysis. WWF also notes that dam decisions often blindly follow "a bias to build" without considering better, cheaper, and less damaging alternatives.

Short-term thinking
"Properly planned, built, and operated dams can contribute to food and energy security, unfortunately short-term interests are too often the focus of decision-making", says Dr. Jian-hua Meng, Water Security Specialist for WWF.

"In order to guarantee acceptable levels of social and environmental sustainability, dam installations and operations should be stringently checked against sustainability criteria as formulated under the World Commission on Dams or the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol. If necessary, insufficiently performing projects must be modified or aborted," added Dr. Meng.

No sustainable outcomes can be expected when dam proponents rely on superior financial strength and political connections rather than on dialogue, transparency, and reason, says WWF. Additionally, some governments lack the capacity or independence to protect public interests. Successful and overall long-term beneficial dam projects need more than just the legal regulator's approval, according to the report.

‘Social license to operate'
"For large-scale projects, operators must also obtain the ‘social license to operate'. Acceptance of the project by the population is fundamental to sustainable management, "says WWF expert Meng.

"Negative effects, such as relocation, destruction of cultural sites, or the collapse of local fisheries are still too often dismissed as 'somebody else's problem'," Dr. Meng added.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/dam-sins.html

WWF launches mobile network – Talk and text to raise money for conservation

TO SIGN UP TO THE NEW SIM ONLY WWF WILDLIFE MOBILE VISIT:
WWW.WILDLIFEMOBILE.CO.UK

The very first conservation mobile network - WWF Wildlife Mobile 

January 2013. WWF has launched an innovative new Mobile Network - WWF Wildlife Mobile.

For the first time people in the UK with a passion for the environment and wildlife can generate funds for conservation every time they use their mobile phone. And it won't cost you a penny extra.

Every conversation helps conservation
The new, SIM-only mobile network from WWF promises ‘every conversation helps conservation'. And because it offers customers cheaper standard Pay As You Go rates than the other major networks, plus a range of competitive Bundles of calls, texts and data - it won't cost you any extra to help safeguard the natural world.

Not only is it great value, but customers of WWF Wildlife Mobile will also enjoy fantastic call quality with 99.7% UK wide coverage thanks to the partnership between operator Digital Spring Mobile and Vodafone UK.

10% revenue for conservation
Wildlife Mobile gives 10% of the net call revenues for conservation, which is ideal for the growing number of people with an interest in, or a concern for, the environment. It's open to anyone - not just existing WWF members.

Competitive rates
The rates are highly competitive; Pay As You Go starts from 5p per minute and customers get double call credit every time they top up. WWF Wildlife Mobile also offers great value bundles giving hundreds of calls and texts and large data allowances starting at just £9.50 per month.

So whether you choose the Penguin, Aardvark, Hippo or Rhino bundle it's ideal for customers who want value for money while helping the environment.

The hope is that thousands of people will come together to raise £millions for conservation simply by talking to each other. With WWF Wildlife Mobile ‘minutes means money' for conservation and the target is for customers to make 2 million minutes of calls by the end of this year.

It's easy to see how quickly Wildlife Mobile customers' conversations could make a tangible difference to wildlife.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/wwf-mobile.html

Bankrupting our oceans: Fisheries Ministers ignore 87% scientific advice

Fishing quotas on average 45% higher than scientists advise.

December 2102. An analysis by WWF shows that over the past nine years fisheries ministers have only followed scientific advice in 13 per cent of their decisions; and set fishing quotas on average 45 per cent higher than the recommended scientific advice. This means that ministers have approved fishing of 6.2 million extra tons of fish, in addition to the scientifically proposed catch levels - this is legalised overfishing.

WWF's analysis, developed ahead of the PECH committee (the specialist committee on fisheries in the European Parliament) vote taking place on the 18th of December as part of the EU fisheries reform process currently in progress, paints a worrying picture of legalised overfishing by EU governments.

Fisheries ministers doing a bad job
"The European Parliament needs to see what a bad job fisheries ministers have been doing over the past decade. One extraordinary example of this is a deviation of 264 per cent above scientific advice for sole in 2008! MEPs now have a unique opportunity and the power to right a wrong and the answer is simple - listen to science and let fish stocks recover", says Tony Long, Director of WWF's European Policy Office.

Quotas don't include discards
To add to the problem of not following scientific advice, the setting of quotas does not include the quantity of fish that is thrown overboard and wasted and not registered as catch. For example between 2003 and 2005, fishing of North Sea cod alone resulted in 18,000 tons of fish being discarded, equivalent to filling around 1,300 average sized rubbish trucks.

80% Mediterranean fish stocks are overfished
In Europe almost half the stocks in the northeast Atlantic are overfished and in the Mediterranean this figure is as high as 80 per cent. EU fishing fleets have been plundering European waters for too long, resulting in two-thirds of assessed fish stocks being overfished in total. Continuing this way will prove devastating not only to Europe's fish stocks but also to the fishing industry in the long-term, where we will see a decline in profits and income for fishermen, unless the upcoming EU fisheries reform ensures that fish stocks are recovered and managed at sustainable levels.

€7.5 million spent on ignored advice
"To add insult to injury, by disregarding scientific advice, fisheries ministers are effectively not only making decisions that are depleting a ‘public good' such as fish, but they are also wasting fish through discarding and wasting EU citizens' money. Between 2003 and 2012, the European Union paid around €7.5 million to ICES for a scientific service which the fisheries ministers are simply not taking into account when making their decisions. Something has got to change," continues Mr Long.

Positive trends in fish stocks recovering have been seen in recent years, however all too often they are an exception rather than a rule. The current situation needs to be reversed and legal overfishing needs to be stopped - fish stocks will only be able to recover when the right political decisions are made which follow scientific advice.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/fisheries-advice.html

$19 billion per year illegal wildlife trade threatens national security, says WWF

Illegal wildlife trade fuels poverty, terrorism, corruption and conflict

December 2012. Perceived by organized criminals to be high profit and low risk, the illicit trade in wildlife is worth at least US$ 19 billion per year, making it the fourth largest illegal global trade after narcotics, counterfeiting, and human trafficking, according to a new report commissioned by WWF.

Danger to wildlife, health and national security
Besides driving many endangered species towards extinction, illegal wildlife trade strengthens criminal networks, undermines national security, and poses increasing risks to global health, according to the report, Fighting illicit wildlife trafficking: A consultation with governments, which will be unveiled today at a briefing for United Nations ambassadors in New York.

"Wildlife crime has escalated alarmingly in the past decade. It is driven by global crime syndicates, and so we need a concentrated global response," says Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International.

Corruption
"It is communities, often the world's poorest, that lose the most from this illicit trade, while criminal gangs and corrupt officials profit. Frontline rangers are losing their lives and families that depend on natural resources are losing their livelihoods," he said.

Terrorism and gun running
Much of the trade in illegal wildlife products is run by sophisticated criminal networks with broad international reach. The profits from wildlife trafficking are used to purchase weapons, finance civil conflicts and underwrite terrorist-related activities, the report finds.

The involvement of organized crime syndicates and rebel groups in wildlife crimes is increasing, according to interviews with governments and international organizations conducted by global advisory group Dalberg on behalf of WWF.

Report respondents agree that the absence of credible law enforcement, prosecution, penalties and other deterrents to wildlife trafficking reduces the perceived risks for criminal groups. They also say that consumer demand is exacerbated by the increased accessibility of illegal wildlife products through the internet. 

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/wildlife-trade093.html

Rhino Crisis Round Up: Google Awards $5M to Help Protect Rhinos & More

A new grant from Google’s Global Impact Awards will help WWF deploy innovative technologies — such as “conservation drones” — in the battle to protect rhinos and other endangered species in Africa and Asia. The $5 million will enable WWF to develop an integrated state-of-the-art system to detect and curb wildlife trafficking.

Remote aerial survey systems, wildlife tagging technology and ranger patrolling guided by analytical software like the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) will be integrated to increase the detection and deterrence of poaching in vulnerable sites in Asia and Africa.

Read more at http://planetsave.com/2012/12/07/rhino-crisis-round-up-google-awards-5m-to-help-protect-rhinos-more/#F14U8R3I6koobFOC.99 

Cameroon deploys Special Forces to counter poaching gangs

Armed gangs are slaughtering elephants across Central Africa

Central Africa's last few elephants given a ray of hope

November 2012. Cameroon has mobilized its Special Forces units in an effort to prevent Sudanese poachers from entering its territory to hunt elephants for their ivory, in an operation it called "a first of its kind". WWF congratulates the Cameroonian government for taking concrete steps to address poaching and illegal wildlife trade, a lucrative criminal activity that undermines the sovereignty, security and economic prospects of the Central African region.

Killed hundreds of elephants in 2012
According to information obtained by WWF, this is the same group of poachers that in early 2012 travelled more than 1,000 km on horseback from northern Sudan across the Central African Republic and Chad to kill over 300 elephants in the Bouba N'Djida National Park in northern Cameroon. This information says that the group had decided to return earlier than usual this year in order to take advantage of the greater ground cover available during the rainy season and to catch the park guards by surprise by arriving sooner than expected.

Rapid Intervention Battalion

On Friday, high ranking officials of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), Cameroon's special forces, told WWF that the high command had as a priority "the conservation of biodiversity, including the fight against cross-border poaching."

"We are committed to avoid a repeat of the elephant massacre of early 2012," a BIR official said. "We are already on the ground, we know the poachers are coming, and we have forces deployed in the reserves. It is highly unfortunate that the military had to be called in to address this situation, but the reality is that we are dealing with well-armed and highly trained individuals, who do not hesitate to terrorize local populations to achieve their aims."

"It should be noted that this is one of the top priority missions that the BIR is dealing with at this time, and the operational and logistical scale of this operation is the first of its kind," the BIR representative said.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/cameroon-elephant-012.html

Wildlife crime whistleblower wins top WWF honour

Champion wildlife crime opponent awarded top WWF honours

October 2012. Ofir Drori, a tireless anti-corruption whistleblower and law enforcement activist working on the frontlines of endangered wildlife protection in West and Central Africa, has been awarded the 2012 WWF Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal.

Israeli educator, photojournalist and activist Drori, 36, arrived in Cameroon a decade ago where he founded the Last Great Ape Organization (LAGA), the first wildlife law enforcement non-governmental organization in Africa. Within seven months, LAGA had brought about Cameroon's first wildlife crime prosecution, providing a model that is now being replicated in West and Central Africa. Drori is also founder-director of the Central Africa Wildlife Law Enforcement Network.

"I am delighted to accept the WWF Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal - a great honour that will truly support our work to fight wildlife crime in West and Central Africa and beyond," Ofir Drori said. "I hope this award also inspires a shift to a more activist approach and bolsters the fight against corruption in our quest to save wildlife - while there are still magnificent elephants and other animals left to save."

Promoting wildlife law enforcement by combating corruption at all levels, LAGA enabled a shift in Cameroon's judicial system resulting in arrests and prosecution of major wildlife criminals. The LAGA anti-corruption success story has been replicated in West and Central Africa in activities that go beyond nature conservation to the defence of human rights.

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/wwf-prize-drori.html

WWF uncovers massive unreported trade of Atlantic Bluefin tuna through Panama

Huge amounts of Bluefin traded illegally

October 2012. A new study commissioned by WWF has uncovered that between 2000 and 2010 the equivalent of 18,704 tonnes of live Bluefin tuna were traded via Panama without being reported to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) - the international body managing the fishery. Besides Panama, Mediterranean countries including Spain, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey were involved, as well as Japan. WWF has called on ICCAT and the concerned countries to urgently investigate further.

Open secret

"This is the first ever study on this issue and it probably shows only the tip of the iceberg. We finally managed to get the proof of a situation that has been acknowledged for many years even by ICCAT itself", said Dr. Sergi Tudela, Head of WWF Mediterranean Fisheries Programme.

Based on official trade and customs databases, it has been revealed that over a decade as much as 14,327 tonnes of processed Atlantic Bluefin was traded via Panama. This volume of trade corresponds to an estimated weight of 18,704 tonnes of live fish.

Bluefin tuna has been exported to Panama from Mediterranean countries including Spain, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey and Panama, in turn, re-exported to Japan as much as 13,730 tonnes of processed Bluefin. The trade detected peaked in 2003 and 2004, with 3000-4000 tonnes per year, but was still on-going at a lesser extent as late as in 2010.

Crime
"According to available records, not a single shipment identified by the report was ever reported to ICCAT. If confirmed, it would fully qualify as illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing according to the United Nations' FAO standards and would equal environmental crime". added Tudela

Spain, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, and Japan were involved
All involved countries mentioned in the study were ICCAT Contracting Parties at the time the unreported trade operations were detected. According to ICCAT rules in force during all the study period, any international trade of Atlantic Bluefin tuna had to be duly reported, to enable cross-checking with catch quotas.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/panama-bluefin.html