Trucks versus trucks

Spain is suffering one of the worst summers ever for the last 20 years in terms of forest fires. The largest forest areas destroyed by the fire are in Valencia, Catalonia and the Canary Islands, but most Spanish regions have suffered one or two forest fires. On 12 August, still in mid summer season, 140,000 hectares were already burnt. Just to get a clear picture: there are 67 countries in the world with a smaller surface area than the amount of hectares destroyed by fire in Spain. All these fires are due to different causes. On the one hand, Spain had some very rainy years followed by a very dry winter and an extremely hot summer, which is the perfect scenario to get a very thick and dry shrub layer, ready to burn. But on the other hand, there is another actor in this story: major cuts in fire brigades and clearout programmes imposed by the Spanish government and local authorities. Only in Valencia, the local authorities cut the budget to fight against forest fires in 15 million euros.
The Spanish authorities justify these major cuts with the current financial crisis: budgets should be cut if there is less money. True enough, but these cuts could be more selective. Last March, just to set an example, the Spanish government authorised the purchase of 772 military trucks for 149 million euros (no VAT included). We’d better buy fire trucks, don’t you think?

Sources:

1. Article at The Guardian about summer wildfires in Spain: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/22/cuts-blamed-deaths-spanish-wildfires
2. Summer wildfires in Spain: http://www.greenpeace.org/espana/es/Trabajamos-en/Bosques/Incendios-forestales-en-Espana/
3. On 12 August, 140,000 hectares were already burnt: http://www.greenpeace.org/espana/es/Blog/ms-presupuestos-y-menos-demagogia-contra-los-/blog/41820/
4. List of countries by total area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_total_area
5. Major cuts in Valencia: http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2012/06/30/actualidad/1341074103_491294.html
6. The purchase of military trucks: http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-consejo-gobierno-autoriza-compra-772-camiones-militares-mas-149-millones-euros-20120309155558.html

   
    
     
     

Golf courses and other outrages

Golf courses and ski runs are the sports fields with the worst environmental impact. At first glance, nobody would believe it because these fields are very green (or white) and they look much more “natural” than a basketball court. But golf courses or ski runs are built in the middle of “really” green areas and they waste a huge amount of water for maintenance purposes, so these sports fields are real predators for our environment.

Two data to better understand the amount of water necessary to keep a golf course:

• According to WWF/Adena, a golf course by the Mediterranean sea guzzles as much water as a town of 12,000 inhabitants.
• Only in the US, golf courses require 7,800 million litres of water every day. Bear in mind that the US has a population of about 310 million people, so every day more than 25 litres per person are meant to water golf courses.

Recently, some solutions are being tested to solve this problem, including the introduction of a grass family of Paspalum genus, which can be watered with salt water. Moreover, this type of grass does not need to be watered so often. However, there is a more sustainable, simple and cheap solution: try another sport to have a good time.

Sources:
WWF data about golf courses:
http://mediterranean.panda.org/?14176/Mediterranean-water-resources-threatened-by-expanding-tourism
The data about the amount of water guzzled in US golf courses is taken from the printed edition of National Geographic (April 2010 issue):
http://www.nationalgeographic.com

US population: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
Grass of Paspalum genus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paspalum

     
    
    
    
   

The Iberian lynx

There are four species of lynx around the world and three of them are not endangered because they can be found in large areas of the northern hemisphere. But a fourth species, the Iberian lynx (lynx pardinus), is the most endangered felid in the world. There are only two or three hundred individuals in some natural parks in the south and west of the Iberian Peninsula (Southern Europe). 
As usual among those critically endangered large mammals, the Iberian lynx has become an icon, especially in Spain since the late 1980s, when the first scientific census was conducted, resulting in a total amount of only 1,200 individuals, with no more than 350 reproductive females. Then people became aware of the species endangerment, so some campaigns were launched to save the Iberian Lynx. This animal became the protagonist of most TV and radio programmes, as well as books and encyclopaedias about the Iberian fauna. At present, the image of a lynx is so attached to the idea of threatened species and extinction that it is even used in other campaigns which have nothing to do with this animal. It seemed we could remedy this problem. But the situation of this feline species got even worse.
By the mid 1980s, the rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus first appeared in China and it soon spread around the world, killing rabbits everywhere. For instance, in Italy, this outbreak killed 80% farm bunnies. But what does it have to do with the Iberian lynx? Easy: wild rabbits represent 90% to 100% of the lynx diet, so the massive death of rabbits resulted in the death of many individuals of lynx in most of its native areas. Final outcome: at the beginning of the 21st century there were only 84 to 143 individuals (kittens excluded) worldwide.
In this last decade, many protection and investment funds have been launched to avoid the extinction of the Iberian lynx. Thanks to this effort, the population has tripled and its habitat has doubled. Moreover, about one hundred individuals are kept in captivity to make them breed and then release them again in the wild. But the future of the Iberian lynx is still in imminent danger, so we could easily loose a treasure.

Sources:

1. The Iberian lynx: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_lynx
2. The most endangered feline species in the world: http://www.iberianature.com/material/documents/LynxBrief12E.pdf
3. First WWF newsletter about the Iberian Lynx: http://awsassets.wwf.es/downloads/lince_online_english_newsletter.pdf
4. The rabbit hemorrhagic virus (RHV): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_hemorrhagic_disease_virus
5. Campaign launched by the Spanish Catholic Church against abortion using the image of a lynx: http://www.cadenaser.com/sociedad/articulo/conferencia-episcopal-lanza-nueva-campana-aborto/csrcsrpor/20090316csrcsrsoc_3/Tes