Acoustic alarms reduce porpoise mortality

Article Abstract:

Acoustic alarms play a valuable role in reducing the number of deaths of harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) in sink gill-nets, according to research involving 15 commercial sink gill-net fishers from the coasts of New Hampshire and southern Maine. This research used two visibly identical devices, some of which produced an acoustic alarm and others no alarm at all. It is not clear why the use of alarms led to a significant fall in porpoise catches, but it is possible that alarms may make porpoises aware of the presence of nets. Another possibility is that the presence of alarms affects the behaviour of herring, the main prey of harbour porpoises in the Gulf of Maine.

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Trade and environment: alarms about the risk of food contaminants may become a powerful non-tariff restraint on trade

Article Abstract:

Regulations enforced in most developed countries to protect consumers from contaminated food may be used to bar the importation of farm produce from developing countries. A conference in the Netherlands sponsored by the Dutch government and the International Policy Council on Agriculture and Trade examined the possibility that agricultural lobbies and environmental groups may collude on keeping the produce out by insisting that impossibly high standards of purity be enforced. The ongoing negotiations on GATT should address this threat to the developing countries' livelihoods.

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Genome diversity alarms

Article Abstract:

The Human Genome Diversity Project proposed by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza plans to explore the genetic history of Homo sapiens by documenting genome differentiation between different human populations. However, the project organizers failed to consider the public relations aspects and so it has raised concerns about racial discrimination generated by genetic characteristics. The use of informed consent and sampling of a broad industrial nation's population over an isolated group could resolve many of the public's concerns.

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