WHEN fertiliser and livestock sewage wash off the land, nutrients build up in
lakes or coastal waters and toxic algae spread. According to a group of
ecologists at the University of Minnesota, this process of eutrophication is set
to double, if not treble, in the next 50 years, much to the detriment of the
world鈥檚 watery ecosystems
(快猫短视频, 21 April, p 11). I asked
Michael Meacher, the environment minister, what is being done to combat these
effects.
Meacher replied that soil and soil management practices have an important
part to play in combating aquatic eutrophication. However, there is also the
growing problem of terrestrial eutrophication. In natural terrestrial habitats,
nitrogen levels in the soil are low and this naturally can limit plant growth.
Results from the Countryside Survey 2000 show that between 1990 and
1998, plants linked with higher nutrient levels burgeoned in meadows, road
verges, stream sides, woodlands, moors and heaths. The effects of this burst of
plant growth can greatly influence biodiversity in the countryside as well as
protected sites. But we can鈥檛 be sure that damaged ecosystems will recover
naturally, said Meacher.
He added that Britain is committed, under the 1999 Gothenburg Protocol to the
Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution, to reducing both nitrogen
oxide and ammonia emissions by 2010. For example, we must reduce ammonia
emissions from the 1998 target of 350 kilotonnes to no more than 297 by 2010.
The European National Emissions Ceiling Directive now being negotiated, proposes
the same figure for ammonia and will also cover nitrogen oxide emissions, said
the minister.
Advertisement
I am glad to know that the new Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs will be drawing eutrophication into the next version of the Soil
Strategy for England. Meacher says that he will be asking his officials to be
sure that it is.
A GOOD friend and promising Conservative MP, Jack Aspinwall had his career
ruined when he participated in a parachute jump for charity. He landed badly and
was left disabled.
Parachuting can damage more than just the jumpers. Army medical teams must
often discard up to 25 per cent of the blood they airdrop because the jerk of
the parachute opening can be enough to cause the red blood cells to burst.
Earlier this year, 快猫短视频 reported that a team at the US
Army鈥檚 Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Massachusetts,
had developed a device that makes parachute landings amazingly gentle
(6 January, p 10).
I asked the Ministry of Defence if it was aware of this interesting development.
Because parachute matters were part of his responsibilities when he was the
armed forces minister, John Spellar said he could assure me that the department
was in close contact with its American counterpart about parachute trials, and
that information was regularly exchanged. Unfortunately, while the Ministry of
Defence considered the new American system to be sound in theory, it was too
complicated to be reliable in practice. Meacher went on to say that the MoD had
already introduced its own new personnel parachute, the Low Level Parachute
(LLP). This has a far less porous canopy than earlier versions, which reduces
the rate of descent. The LLP is now in regular use, and it has greatly reduced
the number of military personal injured, and medical supplies damaged, on
landing.
As a footnote, I should add here that in the new government Spellar has
become transport minister.