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Trawling damages ancient shipwrecks Evan Lubofsky Five years ago, marine archeologists were fascinated to spot a pair of human leg bones dating from 300 BCE sticking out of an ancient shipwreck – dubbed the “Eregli E” – off the coast of Turkey. When they returned to the site less than a year later, the bones were gone – presumably dragged away by a fishing trawler. The researchers have since surveyed dozens of additional ancient wreck sites like Eregli E throughout the Aegean and Black seas and, for the first time, quantified damage from trawlers to demonstrate the threat bottom trawling poses to these ecological and cultural resources. The findings are published in the January 2016 issue of Marine Geology (doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2015.11.001). “We looked at more than 40 wrecks and quantified damage through counts of broken artifacts”, explains Michael Brennan, a marine archeologist with Ocean Explorat ion Trust (Old Lyme, CT) and E/V
India to regulate e-waste recycling Dinesh C Sharma India has unveiled new rules to regulate the safe handling and recycling of electronic waste. Officially introduced in March 2016, the “E-waste Management Rules, 2016” are more stringent than previous regulations issued in 2011, which had several loopholes. Now, manufacturers will be responsible for collecting e-waste and accepting used electrical or electronic products (such as household appliances, computers, and mobile phones) from consumers, as well as for preparing and implementing Extended Producer Respon sibility (EPR) plans in a timely fashion. Under the new rules, proposed mechanisms such as the Deposit Refund Scheme and industry-operated e-waste exchanges should boost recycling rates, and © The Ecological Society of America
Nautilus. “In the case of the Eregli E, we conducted repeat surveys in 2011 and 2012 and determined that 15 cubic meters of material – including the leg bones and a number of ceramic jars – had been dragged away from the site by trawlers within that time period. The speed of the damage was surprising.” Damage to ancient wrecks, which provide habitat for marine organisms including fish, is becoming a more regular consequence of bottom trawling. Football- field- sized nets drag indiscriminately across the seafloor, dredging up anything – including irreplaceable remnants of the ancient world – in their paths. According to Jason Krumholz (NOAA, Milford, CT), an environ-
mental scientist and coauthor of the paper, sizing up the damage could better inform fisheries management and policy around Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). He contends that protecting wreck sites from fishing will not only preserve artifacts, but could potentially increase the overall size of fisheries by protecting important habitat – a “win–win” for the scientific and fishing communities. “By preserving wrecks, you’re creating high-quality refuges that support large numbers of breeding adults”, he says. “This can increase the population outside of those reserves due to spillover and possibly improve future fisheries.” Brennan hopes greater protection of wrecks will also help thwart attempts by commercial “treasure hunters” who use trawl damage as an excuse to pull up and sell off artifacts for profit. “Salvors often justify salvage by claiming that the sites will be destroyed anyway”, Brennan reasons. “So proper establishment and enforcement of MPAs around shipwreck sites would prevent commercial entities from looting a wreck.”
third- party recyclers will also be licensed. Among the listed products that must now be recycled are mercury- containing electric lights, such as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), which are widely used in India. At present, most of the country’s 1.7 million metric tons of e-waste generated annually finds its way into landfills or backyard operations, where it is dismantled under unsafe conditions. “The new regulations will help India formalize e-waste recycling by putting the onus of collection, transportation, and recycling on manufacturers and producers”, points out Suneel Pandey (The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi). However, the unorganized recycling industry must not be overlooked, warns Chandra Bhushan (Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi). “Unregistered workers must also be trained to safely handle
e- waste, so that they don’t simply burn it to extract precious metals. Getting e-waste into the mainstream economy is necessary; otherwise it will continue to be diverted to the informal sector.” Major hurdles in enforcing the EPR plans include a lack of adequate capacity and the presence of a large number of generic goods. “In pollution control boards and other agencies, enforcement is lax and insufficient. This must be augmented quickly; there should be zero tolerance for noncompliance”, argues Ravi Agarwal (Toxics Link, New Delhi). Yet according to Bharati Chaturvedi (Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, New Delhi), “Enforcement alone will not be sufficient. We need more information in the public domain from manufacturers about the e- waste they generate and recycle. That will help us track these materials.”
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Human leg bones found at Eregli E wreck site.
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