A trail of sealice

You have to watch this movie 
- This has to stop NOW!!!

Alex Follows a Trail of Lice from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.

Alex Morton has published some of the best science to date

Alex Morton has published some of the best science to date on those impacts fish farming has on wild salmons, and she has seen that science is suppressed, ignored, twisted, and too often ineffective in driving to change. No wonder she is frustrated and willing to try a different approach. If we truly wish to save wild salmon we must get beyond denial, lip service, and unwarranted attacks.


Link to source: http://www.salmonaresacred.org/



The Migration Begins! - The "Get Out for Wild Salmon" Video from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.

Alex Morton begins her migration to Victoria. She will walk and boat the 500 km, hopefully gathering people as she walks, encouraging everyone on Vancouver Island who cares about wild salmon to get out, make themselves seen, and show Ottawa & Victoria how many people want wild salmon.

A Mission Statement from Alex Morton: The Get Out Migration is a call to action to make government aware that we want wild salmon to take higher priority than farm salmon.  Farms belong on land.  We will start walking from Sointula, at the north end of Vancouver Island, on April 23 and arrive in Victoria May 8. 

Patagonia Fly Fishing and Surf e-catalog.

Patagonia is a company that takes environmental issues very seriously, a prof of that is their new e-catalogs.
This is the way of the future, no paper and no chemicals used.
On top of that - this kind of catalog contain a lot more interactivity - an  great features like videos, and live interviews etc.
Hope it inspires a lot more companies to follow this track.

Check it out here: http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/fb/index.jsp?id=1 (Fly fishing )

Check it out here: http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/fb/index.jsp?id=3&ln=302  (Surf)

The Mexican Gulf are slowly dying!!

Such a sad, sad situation - which there were something we could do to stop this nightmare!!

Link to source : http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/disaster_unfolds_slowly_in_the.html

Bikini Fly Fishing :O)

With all the serious issues brought to you here on the Pool 32 blog, 

I thought you should have something completely 

different to ease up your mind a bit :O)

Latest development in Bristol Bay

Alaskans Head To London To Confront Anglo American

Alaskan Red Gold still under threat from UK mining company

Bristol Bay leaders to attend London premiere of Red Gold documentary; meet with UK press, fly-fishing celebrities, and jewelry retailers

A delegation of Alaska Native leaders from Bristol Bay will fly to London next week to confront Anglo American executives and shareholders face-to-face with their concerns about the company’s massive Pebble mine project in southwest Alaska. The Alaskans say the leadership of the London-based company, one of the world’s largest mining conglomerates, has so far failed to grasp the depth and breadth of opposition to Pebble, which, if built, would be the largest open-pit copper and gold mine in North America and would sit at the headwaters of the world’s most-productive salmon-spawning rivers.

“This land of bounty is our home. It has provided for our families, our culture and our traditional way of life for tens of thousands of years,” said Lydia Olympic, a delegation member and past president of the Igiugig Village Tribal Council. “We need our lands and waters to stay pristine to continue living healthy lifestyles. We are the ones who will live with pollution and toxic mine waste long after Anglo American has left,” she said.

The delegation, which also includes Thomas Tilden, Chief of the Curyung Tribal Council and Bobby Andrew, board member of Nunamta Aulukestai, will participate as shareholders in Anglo American’s annual meeting on April 15, 2009. The group plans to raise important questions about the mine’s viability, given the ardent opposition and the environmental, engineering, and legal challenges it faces.

The Alaskans have also formally requested a personal meeting with Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll. And while street protests are not on their itinerary, the Alaskans fully intend to speak their minds.

“Traveling thousands of miles to London shows how strongly we feel about protecting our salmon, our families, and our way of life,” said Bobby Andrew, spokesperson for Nunamta Aulukestai (Caretakers of our Land), a group of eight Alaska Native village corporations opposing Pebble. “The people of London, and the entire world, need to know that Anglo American’s Pebble mine would ruin the greatest wild salmon fishery left on Earth and the cultures that depend on it,” he said.

The delegation will have some fun in London, too.

Prior to the shareholders meeting, the Alaskans will attend the City premiere of the award-winning documentary “Red Gold,” which tells the story of the people of Bristol Bay who depend on salmon and how Pebble could change their destinies.

English fly-fishing celebrities Charles Jardine, author and angler, and Peter Cockwill, owner of Albury Game Angling, will join the Alaskans at the April 14th screening at The Hub, followed by a reception featuring wild sockeye salmon from Bristol Bay, sponsored by SeaWeb and numerous UK and Alaska commercial and sport-fishing businesses.

The trip follows on the heels of a visit to Alaska in late March by Sir Mark Moody Stuart, president of Anglo American’s board of directors.. The British knight was greeted in Dillingham by the youth group Rebels Against Pebble and protestors waving “No Pebble Mine” and “Stop Cultural Genocide” signs. Sir Mark, joined by John Shively, the Pebble Limited Partnership’s executive director, held an open forum on the Bristol Bay campus of the University of Alaska, where they got an earful from local residents. The two men also met with concerned Alaskans in Anchorage.

Residents who wanted straight answers from Anglo American were disappointed.

"The heartburn for me is, every question we asked them in this meeting, the answer was, 'We'll get back to you,' " Frank Woods, a Dillingham gillnet fisherman, told the Anchorage Daily News after the meeting.

The Alaska Native leaders are not holding their breaths.

“How can we trust a company that won’t give us straight answers?” asked Tilden. “We’re going to London to tell the truth about how Pebble mine would forever alter Bristol Bay, and the places we call home.”

Source of information: http://www.ourbristolbay.com/Alaskans_Head_To_London.html

For further information about Bristol Bay go to this website: http://OURBRISTOLBAY.COM/index.html

More oil pictures - why do we humans keep destroying our planet?

It is strange how we are able to send men to the moon, build large bridges and heal rare deceases but we can't seem to co-exist in our surroundings.
We somehow keep on spoiling the most important factor in our lives - the environment we are so dependent of.

Here is some sad, scary and very serious pictures that show how fast our decisions, can make huge changes, with long term effects for the generations to come.

A relevant question could in this case bee - Should this oil rig have been placed this very fragile place in the first place??

Judge for your self !!!

Source of information :http://politiken.dk/fotografier/nyhederfoto/article964826.ece

This YouTube video shows what happened, and why it's so hard to fix.

Wild salmon may disappear with 30 years

Atlantic Salmon Trust chief says action is needed to clean-up fish farms and curb coastal netting

Wild salmon could disappear from many Scottish rivers within the next 30 years unless action is taken to clean up fish farming and curb coastal netting, the head of a leading conservation body was warned.

Tony Andrews, chief executive of the Atlantic Salmon Trust, whose patron is the Prince of Wales, said it was unlikely that future generations would be able to fish for wild salmon or sea trout in Scotland unless steps were taken to protect wild stocks.

There are concerns that genetically pure populations of wild salmon, which have survived since the Ice Age, are in danger of extinction.

Mixed stock fisheries, which allow for indiscriminate netting in coastal waters, have also been blamed for their decline.

Concerns have been raised that attempts by ministers to secure protected food name status for Scottish wild salmon from the EU could inflate wild salmon prices and encourage netsmen to maximise catches.

Andrews said it was not too late to reverse the damage and urged ministers to drive forward a “blueprint for the survival of Scottish salmon” to protect the country’s £120m salmon angling industry which supports more than 2,500 jobs.

His comments are believed to have the support of Prince Charles and the Duke of Westminster, the trust’s president.

In some Scottish rivers, according to Andrews, wild salmon are “at best holding the line” while in many others, such as the Balgy in Wester Ross, “we are seeing a continuing decline in the number of returning fish”.

“If we continue with the current poor levels of management of aquaculture and mixed stocks exploitation, it is unlikely that our grandchildren will be able to fish for wild salmon or sea trout in Scotland,” said Andrews.

“We are not fulfilling basic conservation measures to manage this incredibly important resource to Scotland and I don’t think politicians have grasped this. We have to find a way of working alongside the aquaculture industry to manage diseases and parasites.”

The Scottish government has been criticised for failing to clamp down on the fish-farming industry which allows one louse for every two fish. This figure has been described as too high to prevent a devastating impact on young migrating wild fish.

Wild fish are also vulnerable to infectious salmon anaemia, which was first detected in Scottish farm sites in 1998.

The practice of rearing salmon smolts in open pens within migratory fish systems in Scotland is also causing concern.

It is banned in Norway to prevent escaped farmed fish mating with their wild counterparts and diluting the gene pool.

Millions of smolts are reared in Scottish lochs such as the Ness, Arkaig and Lochy, where nearly 10,000 farmed fish escaped earlier this year.

Credit of source TimesOnline  April 18, 2010 - Link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7100990.ece

Save Bristol Bay - from a disaster.

“I think everyone has to realize that we have something in Bristol Bay that doesn’t exist anywhere else on earth, and we owe it to ourselves and each other to protect it.”

Katherine Carscallen - Bristol Bay resident

"Do not be swayed by those who lead you to think that this mine will be an ecological disaster"  

Brice Jenkins - COO of Northern Dynasty Mines.

The Bingham Canyon open pit copper mine, Utah

-and the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana

Who has the right to place that kind of industry here?!!

First of all, here are some hard facts about the Bristol Bay area

Bristol Bay is home to some of the most premier sport fishing destinations on the globe including: the Nushagak, Mulchatna, Koktuli and Kvichak Rivers, and Talarik Creek. These vibrant, wild Alaska rivers are as productive now as they were thousands of years ago and serve as magnets for anglers from all over the world who want high-end, “once in a lifetime” fishing experiences.

Bristol Bay supports the world’s largest runs of wild salmon, trophy rainbow trout, grizzly bears, caribou and a strong commercial and sportfishing economy. The Kvichak River is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run and is also within Alaska’s designated trophy wild rainbow trout area. The Nushagak and Mulchatna Rivers support the largest Chinook (king) salmon runs in Alaska, and perhaps the world.

Bristol Bay Sport Fishing is Big Money Sport fishing and hunting are key components of the local and state economies.Recreation and tourism spending in Bristol Bay brings $90 million annually to the state in the form of taxes and licenses.Sport fishing accounts for roughly $60 million of that spending, with non-residents and high-end lodge clients contributing the most.

In 2007, anglers in Alaska spent nearly $1.4 billion on fishing trips, fishing equipment, and development and maintenance of land used primarily for the pursuit of sport fishing in Alaska.

Resident spending was $733 million and nonresident spending was $652 million.

Bristol Bay sport fishing supported 846 full- and part-time jobs and accounted for $27 million in total wages and benefits paid to employees and proprietors.

In total, an estimated 37,000 fishing trips are taken annually to Bristol Bay freshwater fisheries. Tourists from outside of Alaska comprised about one-third of those trips.

Bristol Bay is a place of international importance

Because of its prolific wild salmon runs and it's outstanding nature. The proposed Pebble mine as well as hard rock mining on adjacent state and federal land in the Bristol Bay watershed, threaten to pollute and desecrate this incredibly valuable and unique slice of the American landscape. The Bristol Bay watershed should be off-limits to Pebble and other large-scale mining projects. 
Bristol Bay is an outstanding and fragile natural treasure of international importance, once it is destroyed, it will never return, and then this planet have lost something much more valuable than gold! 

Save Bristol Bay - from a disaster

The Bristol Bay region of Southwest Alaska is home to the Kvichak and Nushagak rivers, the two most prolific sockeye salmon runs left in the world. Foreign mining companies Northern Dynasty Minerals and An- glo American have partnered to propose development of what could be one of the world’s largest open-pit and underground mines at the head- waters of the two river systems. Mine backers claim the Pebble explo- ration site is the second largest combined deposit of copper, gold, and molybdenum ever discovered, and has an estimated value of more than $300 billion.

Despite promises of a clean project by officials, the accident-plagued his- tory of hard rock mining has sparked deep concern from Alaskans who love and depend upon Bristol Bay’s incredible wild salmon fishery. Red Gold documents the growing unrest among Alaska Native, commercial, and sport-fishermen. It’s a portrait of a unique way of life that will not survive if the salmon don’t return with Bristol Bay’s tide.

What is the current status of the proposed Pebble Mine and other mining developments in Bristol Bay?

The Pebble Project is in the exploration, planning, and baseline study phases of project develop- ment. Predominantly comprised of mining companies Anglo America and Northern Dynasty Mines, the Pebble Partnership has already invested roughly $360 million on drilling and sci- entific study at the site. The information provided from these stages will be used in permit ap- plications filed with the State of Alaska. Although Pebble will require upwards of 50 permits from the State and extensive review by State and Federal agencies, there has never been a mine project rejected in the State of Alaska, once it had entered the permitting process. We anticipate Pebble’s permit filing to begin in late 2010 or 2011.

How can the citizens of Alaska, the United States, and countries around the world get involved in this controversial development issue?

Write. Donate. And spread the word. Vote with your fork (and salmon dollars) for Bristol Bay wild salmon. Write members of congress today and express your support for protecting the watershed from mining development. Ask the new administration, specifically Secretary of the Interior Salazar, to keep Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands closed to mineral development. Write Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and tell her why the Bristol Bay watershed and its astounding fishery resources are important to American citizens beyond Alaska and deserve higher standards of protection. Donate to the cause. Trout Unlimited and other nonprofits rely upon your support to continue efforts to protect Bristol Bay. Raise more awareness by sharing this information and buy the Red Gold film 

- link: www.redgoldfilm.com If you have the opportunity to buy salmon, ask if it’s wild Alaskan or Bristol Bay salmon. By demanding Bristol Bay wild salmon, you are investing your dollars in Alaska’s renewable industries. Doing so reinforces the economic incentive to protect Bristol Bay.

Take action today - Help save Bristol Bay  

Use this direct link and the pre-made message to show your concerns, tell the Bureau of Land Management that you don't want a mining industry in Bristol Bay - send you message to day, and send it to your friends.

You will find the direct pre-made message to the Bureau of Land Management here - Link:

http://takeaction.savebristolbay.org/c.lqIOL1PKJtH/b.5467983/k.DF18/Speak_Up/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=lqIOL1PKJtH&b=5467983&aid=10319

Looks like this

Also use this link to state you opinion on a pre-made mail message to Cynthia Carroll

Use this direct link: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/676/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=3007

Her statement were - "I will not go where people don't want us. I just won't. We've got enough on our plate without having communities against us."  

--Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll in Fast Company online magazine

Looks like this

And buy the Red Gold DVD - it is an absolutely must. Amazing scenery, 

great music and very well produced. Plus you will support a very good case. 

Watch teaser here!! (website: www.redgoldfilm.com )

Does the money generated by the mine come back to benefit state and federal governments?

Northern Dynasty and its partner Anglo American are foreign mining companies that will take most of their profit out of the state and the country. Because antiquated 1872 mining law still governs U.S. operations, the state of Alaska will receive less than 1% of the resource’s mined value. In fact, many argue that the hardrock industry goes against the State of Alaska’s Consti- tutional mandate that resource development provide maximum benefit to all Alaskans.

What is the permitting process like in Alaska? What does the timeline for permitting look like in regards to the Pebble Mine?

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) primarily governs the permitting system in Alaska. Because DNR’s mandate is to facilitate the permitting of development projects, the agency has never turned down a large mine proposal, though stages of review and revision are often part of the process. There are key issues that Pebble will need to address and prove, such as no lasting water damage, no lasting impact on the fish and wildlife of the area, etc. However, recent studies concluded that well over 70% of mines violate the clean water standards they agree to meet during permitting. Pebble is currently in the pre-permitting phase and will likely initiate the permitting process this year next year. A decision can be made in less than two years time, and construction can begin 2012. Because of the remoteness of the watershed and cost of funding research, there is very little long-term scientific data to inform decisions. The majority of base-line studiesare paid for by the mining companies themselves without appropriate checks and balances or third- party oversight of scientific research.

Why isn’t this watershed already protected given its importance to Bristol Bay fisheries and Alaska’s economy? What steps need to be taken for protection?

Many environmental standards critical to maintaining sustainable fisheries in Alaska have not been modified for decades, if at all, and the laws have simply not kept up with science and research regarding the risks of mining development. Alaska State law says the government must act in the “Best Public Interest,” and many argue for the very short-term benefits of mining over long-term benefits of renewable fisheries. Some proponents of Pebble development also argue that protecting this area in advance of the permitting process would be a preemptive strike at development before proposals are even finalized. However, the track record of hard rock mining shows the industry cannot coexist with fisheries without tremendous risk and detriment.The State of Alaska needs to acknowledge the track record of hard-rock mining, understand that this kind of development is incompatible with healthy fisheries, and support special designation of this area. The federal government also needs to value Bristol Bay’s fisheries as a global resource and ensure protection by keeping federal lands closed to mining. People around the State, the Country and the World, need to support protection of this area to push policymakers to act.

Photo credits

From Erin McKittrick's photo story of her 450 mile trek along waters endangered by the Pebble Mine - link to her website: www.groundtruthtrekking.org

And also a lot of photo's provided by Scott Hed from Sportsman's Alliance for Alaska: www.sportsmansalliance4ak.org/ in credit to: Terry Gunn, Scott Hed, Patricia Edel, Scott Kuchta, Barry and Cathy Beck, Jim Klug and Brian O’keefe

The source written information comes from the Red Gold website : www.redgoldfilm.com and the Save bristol Bay website : www.savebristolbay.org 

For more information about Bristol Bay

Red Gold Film: www.redgoldfilm.com

Trout Unlimited Alaska: www.savebristolbay.org

Why Wild: www.whywild.org

Renewable Resources Coalition: www.renewableresourcescoalition.org

Earthworks: www.earthworksaction.org

No dirty Gold: www.nodirtygold.org

The Pebble Partnership: www.pebblepartnership.com

Anchorage daily News: www.adn.com

Anchorage Daily News, Pebble Blog: http://community.adn.com/adn/blog 61223

Erin McKittrick's website: www.groundtruthtrekking.org

Sportsman's Alliance for Alaska: www.sportsmansalliance4ak.org/

Our Bristol Bay: http://ourbristolbay.com/index.html