From the Amazon jungle to the oceans, nature remains under attack. Myrtle Ryan looks at various battles being waged...
'Curtains of death," as longline fishing and drift gillnets have often been termed - due to the number of sea mammals, turtles and seabirds killed or injured in their deadly embrace - may again be allowed along the Pacific coast of the United States.
The Pacific Fisheries Management Council is locked in debate over the issue; but more than 133 scientists from 24 countries have appealed to it to not give the go-ahead to these two fishing practices.
In 1991 the United Nations banned drift nets on the high seas; in 2004 longline fishing was banned along the US west coast; and the Oregon coast was closed to drift gillnet fishers - who target swordfish - from August 15 to November 15 each year (to protect endangered leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles).
Prof Rudy van der Elst, director of the Oceanographic Research Institute in Durban, said the council was perceived as a strong body, doing good work.
While unattended drift gillnets often did a huge amount of damage, he said, if properly managed, longline fishing was not as lethal as many believed.
"Trawling is possibly worse," said Van der Elst. However, longlines had to be properly set to ensure they did not snare seabirds and other creatures.
According to Dr Robert Ovetz, of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project in the US, since 2002, 64 dolphins, whales, seals and sea lions had been killed by the drift gillnet fishery in west coast areas which remained open to gillnetting.
The proposed exemption, he said, would allow as many as two-thirds of the remaining 36 vessels in the drift gillnet fishing industry to return to previously closed areas.
Dr James Spotila, professor of environmental science at Drexel University in the US, who runs a leatherback nesting project in Costa Rica, said it did not make sense to rescind conservation measures which had proved successful in protecting critically endangered species.
Dr Wallace Nichols, of the California Academy of Sciences, said, "When my daughter grows up she'll look back and wonder how we ever allowed so many millions of animals to be killed, just because they got in the way of our seafood meal."
The issue was opened up to the general public for comment - who voted by about 2 200 to one against allowing these destructive fishing practices.
A unique coalition of 10 recreational fishing, animal welfare and marine conservation groups, with about nine million members, is also working to oppose the measure.
And when they're not at risk from humans, sometimes fish are under attack from Mother Nature. An unseasonable drop in temperatures has been blamed for the death of about 2 000 fish which this week washed up on the shores of Kosi Bay's First Lake in KwaZulu-Natal.
More than 90 percent of the fish were Natal stumpnose, but spotted grunter, kingfish, pouter and seapike also fell victim to the cold.
Scotty Kyle, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife's ecologist at Kosi Bay, said that the fish had probably been trapped in the shallow water of the lake at a time when the water temperature suddenly dropped by 7C overnight.
This proved lethal to fish already stressed by a reduction of salinity of water in certain parts of the lake system due to recent rains, said Kyle.
- The battle to save the Amazon rain forest from destruction continues. A petition currently circulating globally - and which emanated in Brazil - states that the Brazilian congress is currently debating a proposal to allow the deforestation of a vast area of the rain forest, to make way for agriculture and pastures for livestock.
The wood from the felled trees, in the form of wood chips, will be sold by large multinationals to international markets.
The Amazon rain forest is responsible for the generation of 20 percent of oxygen on Earth; 30 percent of the world's fresh water is contained within the Amazon basin; 60 percent of cancer-fighting drugs used today are derived from plants found only within its rain forest.
- Despite repeated calls for caution, the Canadian government announced this week that it would allow the culling of 335 000 harp seal pups this year - one of the highest ever quotas.
According to Olivier Bonnet, the International Fund for Animal Welfare's Canada Director, a poll conducted last year found that 69 percent of Canadians were opposed to the commercial seal hunt - which has seen more than a million pups killed over the past three years.
Many experts are calling for extra caution this year, including cancelling the hunt, due to unseasonably warm weather affecting ice conditions off Canada's east coast.
"Removing so many animals from one population year after year is putting the species at unnecessary and significant risk of serious depletion," said Dr David Lavigne, the fund's science adviser and marine mammal expert.