Best of our wild blogs: 11 Nov 07

Purple Duke
Insights into this special butterfly on the butterflies of singapore blog

Scouts' Way of Life
values for the kids on the flying fish friends blog

SEC Youth Portal
an introduction to this interesting wild resource on the leafmonkey blog

Daily Green Action
MORE stuff one person can do to make a difference
on the leafmonkey blog

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Politics, economy dominate dialogue session with youth on S'pore in 2030

Channel NewsAsia 10 Nov 07

SINGAPORE: Politics and economics were the hot topics at a dialogue session organised by the National Youth Council on Singapore in 2030.

The Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said the 150 young adults had a frank and honest exchange of views.

He also said they shared their anxieties, their fears of complacency and irrelevance, and their hopes for political change.

"The two key issues which came through were economics and politics. (In) politics, as I have said, they hope and wish for greater openness, greater contestability that we hear loud and clear. My answer also was there will be greater contests in the future. We take that as a given. What I am advising is we maintain high political hurdles not in order to reduce contest but in order to achieve political standards. So the Singapore of the future, regardless of who is in power, will be governed by people who are competent, who are honest and able to get the job done and do their best for Singapore." - CNA/ac

Dangerous to lower criteria to enter politics: Vivian
Jeremy Au Yong, Straits Times 11 Nov 07;
'High political hurdles' needed to ensure S'pore continues to have good leaders, says minister at youth dialogue

SINGAPORE must keep its entry barriers to politics high, to ensure that only the best get in, said Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan yesterday

To lower standards simply to encourage contests would be a 'dangerous short cut', he added at a dialogue with about 100 young Singaporeans.

'Many people are asking us to dumb down our political system. Lower the hurdles, lower the standards, lower the penalties, lower the deposits, so that we can have apparently more contest,' he said in response to a question about whether Singapore will have a more open political system in the future.

'I would rather have high political hurdles, so that anybody who seriously enters the contest is a good, strong, honest person, willing to pay the price and able to withstand the scrutiny of the public.'

The key, he said, was not about the future of the People's Action Party (PAP), but whether Singapore will continue to have good leaders.

'I'm not so obsessed with whether or not the PAP wins the election in 2030. What I'm more interested in is the quality of candidates who will be available for the electorate to choose and the quality of the leadership.'

If the candidates are strong, it really does not matter who wins from a 'purely national point of view'.

'From a partisan point of view, my objective then is to recruit as many of those people as possible into the PAP,' he said, adding that the ruling party had the 'lion's share' of talent now.

The 21/2-hour dialogue, organised by the National Youth Council, was lively with about 10 questions for Dr Balakrishnan and lengthy discussions.

With the focus on what Singapore would be like in 2030, the minister touched on issues ranging from dual citizenship to free education.

But it was the PAP's dominance which was on the minds of many participants.

Asked if the party would be willing to let go of the one-party system, Dr Balakrishnan replied that the Elected Presidency was created to prepare for peaceful transfer of power.

'With a second key, with a veto power on expenditure of reserves and appointment of judges and senior civil servants - if we were constructing a one-party state, there is no need to prepare all this,' he said.

Externally, he said that he did not share the 'dismal prognosis' of one participant, who was worried about Singapore's survival amid the rise of China and India.

Dr Balakrishnan believed that Singapore was never competing in the same league as the two Asian giants, and should see their rise as opportunities rather than threats.

In fact, Singapore is also positioning itself to take advantage of the growth of Asean.

'When Asean achieves an economic community, which we have targeted to achieve by the year 2015, 560 million people in one region then can compete with continental-size economies.

'If we get it right, we are in the game. If Asean succeeds, who is likely to be the Manhattan or the New York of Asean? Our neighbours will not like the answer but you and I know, we will be in the running.'

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National Library appeals to Singaporeans to donate heritage items

Channel NewsAsia 10 Nov 07

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans risk taking their culture or historical heritage for granted in a rapidly changing world, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said.

Speaking at the opening of the National Library Literary Heritage Showcase, the minister called on Singaporeans to develop a sense of history and appreciation of their heritage.

The showcase, which includes a series of exhibitions that outline Singapore's rich history including pioneer artists and Chinese clans, also features the second run of the Heritage Road Show.

The public are called upon to donate their photographs, postcards, pictures and other items to capture the memories of Singapore before 1970.

Donations of old report cards, school magazines, menus, invitation cards to official events, programme notes of concerts, bus tickets, maps, manuscripts, certificates, awards and the like are also welcome.

Digital images can also be donated through www.deposit.nl.sg

The availability of this deposit website means that local publishers can submit their published works digitally. The National Library Board will be sending out details to publishers to access the website within the next two months.

The showcase runs until November 28 at the National Library. - CNA/ac

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Singapore Land Authority makes 284 state fields available for public use

Channel NewsAsia 10 Nov 07

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is making 284 state fields available for public use, and more than half of them are located near housing estates and within easy reach of the public.

And the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) has adopted one of the available fields – Farrer Park field – under a new programme.

Launching the "Adopt-A-Field" programme, Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Professor Ho Peng Kee, who is also the president of FAS, hoped more companies will take up the cause to help maintain these open spaces.

In making these open spaces for the public, the SLA has also improved the ground conditions by turfing, levelling, compacting the soil, and installing new signs to remind the public to be careful when using the fields.

But Prof Ho stressed that these fields are not exclusive to soccer fans.

"It's for Singaporeans to be out there flying kite, playing frisbee. A field in Henderson is used by senior citizens for gateball. And I believe (the 284 state fields come) to a total space of 780 football fields. Especially for weekends (and) holidays… we hope Singaporeans will be out there with family and friends. And it's a way to bond the community," he said. - CNA/ac

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Monkey business

International Herald Tribune, Straits Times 11 Nov 07

It took an unfortunate death to push Delhi authorities to remove troops of aggressive monkeys from the city centre

NEW DELHI - The civic authorities here had managed quite successfully to do very little about the city's soaring wild monkey population - until the capital's deputy mayor toppled from his terrace to his death as he tried to fend off a gang of the marauding animals.

Sawinder Singh Bajwa, 52, was reading a paper on his balcony on a Sunday morning late last month when a group of four monkeys appeared. As he brandished a stick to scare them away, he lost his balance and fell, his son said.

While publicly lamenting the tragic accident, the mayor's office fought off powerful criticism for its failure to remove the aggressive troops of monkeys that coexist uneasily with Delhi's residents.

The phenomenon is a side-effect of India's rapid urbanisation. As Delhi expands, with another half a million people settling in the city every year, the green areas in and around the capital, which for centuries have been the monkeys' habitat, get smaller. Their own territory encroached on, many monkeys uproot to settle in the city centre.

Particularly irritating for the Delhi authorities is the monkeys' attachment to some of the capital's most prestigious monuments.

Guards watching over Rashtrapati Bhavan, the stately red sandstone President's Palace, are there as much to fend off the hundreds of monkeys who swing from the parapets as to contend with human intruders.

Legal efforts to force the Delhi government to take action have for years been tinged with farce. In 2000, a private lawsuit was filed accusing the government of failing to take any action, and legal proceedings dragged on with little perceptible progress until January of this year, when the Delhi High Court summoned a number of senior Delhi officials to explain themselves.

Official embarrassment intensified when a newspaper reported that the city's only monkey catcher, Nand Lal, a man with two decades of experience, had resigned his post and returned to his village, fed up with being harassed by animal rights activists.

When a three-month court deadline to remove the entire population expired in June, a member of the enforcement committee asked for an extension, pointing out that the summer was a cruel time to capture the animals because so many of them were pregnant.

Those monkeys that were caught were held in specially constructed monkey prisons at the edge of the city, waiting for a deal to be negotiated with neighbouring states so that they could be released into forest areas far from the capital. But the nearby states refused to take Delhi's refugee monkey shipments, and the animals remained incarcerated, enraging wildlife protection agencies, until a disused mine area on the city fringes was declared a sanctuary.

The lawyer charged by the High Court with ensuring the monkeys' removal said recently that things were as bad as ever.

It took the unfortunate death of the deputy mayor to inject new vitality into the removal drive. Delhi's mayor, Aarti Mehra, said 'after the incident, the process has really speeded up'. Already, she said, 35 monkey catchers had been hired. Over the next few months, a total of 100 catchers would be working. She estimated, however, that there were between 20,000 and 25,000 still to be caught.

Wildlife activists stress that responsibility for the growing tension between man and monkey lies not so much with the animals as with Delhi's citizens. India's population growth and economic boom are causing the rapid erosion of wildlife habitats across the country. Just as monkeys near the capital are losing their natural homes to developers, so too are the tigers of Rajasthan and the elephants of Assam.

'Humans have completely taken over areas which once belonged to the animals. That's why we are seeing more attacks by tigers, leopards, monkeys and elephants,' said Ranjit Talwar, a conservationist. 'This is a man-made problem.'

IHT

Monkeys on rampage in Indian capital
Yahoo News 12 Nov 07;

Just weeks after the Indian capital's deputy mayor toppled to his death fending off a pack of monkeys, the animals have gone back on the attack, sparking fresh concerns about the simian menace.

One woman was seriously hurt and two dozen other people were given first aid after monkeys rampaged through a neighbourhood in east Delhi over the weekend, media reports have said.

"There were about three or four monkeys involved," deputy police commissioner Jaspal Singh told AFP.

"Wildlife officials are trying to find them. As police we're not experts in dealing with monkeys. We can deal with mad bulls but monkeys are more difficult," he said.

Along with an estimated 35,000 sacred cows and buffaloes that roam free in the capital, marauding monkeys have been longstanding pests.

They routinely scamper through government offices, courts and even police stations and hospitals as well as terrorise neighbourhoods.

But the issue boiled over in late October when the city's deputy mayor, Sawinder Singh Bajwa, 52, fell to his death driving away monkeys from his home.

He was on his balcony reading a newspaper when four monkeys appeared. As he waved a stick to scare them away, he tumbled over the edge, his family said.

In the latest incident in Delhi's Shastri Park area, residents reported the monkeys appeared late Saturday and rampaged for hours.

"I was talking to someone at my door at around 11 pm when a monkey appeared," said Naseema, who goes by one name, told the Times of India. "As I moved inside, the monkey followed and sank its teeth in my baby's leg."

Estimates of the size of Delhi's monkey population range from 10,000 to over 20,000.

In 2001 residential districts petitioned courts to make Delhi "monkey-free."

And last May, federal lawmakers demanded protection from the simians.

But there has been little visible progress.

"We're trying to catch them but the difficulties are a shortage of monkey catchers. We're not able to take full action at full speed," A.K. Singh, a senior municipal official, said.

Delhi has set a 10-million-rupee (253,000 dollar) budget to capture the monkeys which are handed over to a shelter in a disused mine area on the city's outskirts. Neighbouring states have refused to release the monkeys into their forests.

Efforts to drive out the animals is complicated by the fact Hindus view them as a living link to Hanuman, the monkey god who symbolises strength.

Delhi's mayor has admitted authorities cannot cope with the violent animals.

"We've neither the expertise nor the infrastructure," said Mayor Aarti Mehra.

If they are caught, "we're under pressure to release them due to pressure from animal activists and from people due to religious reasons."

Kartick Satyanarayanan, head of India's Wildlife SOS, said the invasion of the animals' natural habitats by mushrooming populations was at the root of the problem. "Humans are taking all their space."

Thieving monkeys 'out of control' in northeast India
Channel NewsAsia 17 Nov 07

GUWAHATI, India: Troupes of monkeys are out of control in India's northeast, stealing mobile phones and breaking into homes to steal soft drinks from refrigerators, lawmakers in the region have complained.

"Monkeys are wreaking havoc in my constituency by taking away mobile phones, toothpastes, sipping coke after opening the refrigerators," Hiren Das told Assam state's assembly.

He said the primates were "even slapping women who try to chase them".

"It is a cause of serious concern in my area, with more than 1,000 such simians turning aggressive by the day," fumed Goneswar Das, another legislator representing Raha in eastern Assam.

Assam's wildlife minister, Rockybul Hussain, said the state government has formed a panel to study the problem.

Because of shrinking forest cover, monkeys have increasingly moved into cities elsewhere in India as well.

Last week, around two dozen people were hurt after monkeys rampaged through a New Delhi neighbourhood.

Last month, the deputy mayor of Delhi died when he fell from his balcony after being attacked by monkeys.

Efforts to drive out the animals are complicated by the fact that devout Hindus view them as an incarnation of Hanuman, the monkey god who symbolises strength. - AFP/ac

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UN chief highlights global warming in visit to Antarctica

AFP, Channel NewsAsia 11 Nov 07

KING GEORGE ISLAND, Antarctica : UN chief Ban Ki-moon flew to Antarctica on a fact-finding mission for climate change, becoming the first UN leader to make an official visit to the frozen continent.

Secretary General Ban, who has made a climate change a priority during his term in office, received a briefing from scientists at Chile's President Eduardo Frei Air Force base in Antarctica before visiting the Collins Glaciers and the Sejong Research Centre.

The UN chief was taken to the base by a C-130 transport plane of the Chilean Air Force to get a first-hand look on how global warming is affecting glaciers on the frozen continent.

"This trip, you may call it an eco-trip, but I'm not here as a choice," he told reporters as he stood on the landing strip in a red-and-blue parka.

"I'm here as a messenger of all the warnings on climate change," he continued. "I'm here to observe the impact of the global warming phenomena, to see for myself and to learn all I can about what's happening in Antarctica and actually around the world."

During the briefing, the scientists told the UN secretary general of melting glaciers both in Antarctica and the southern end of the Andes that they attributed to climate change.

The examples included the fate of an ice cap known as the Larsen platform that melted away in just 20 days, despite its considerable size of 400 square kilometres (155 square miles).

Hannah Point Glacier, for its part, receded 120 meters (yards) in several years.

Boarding a small Twin Otter plane, Ban flew around the island to get a bird's eye view of the situation and made a brief landing at Collins Glacier whose size shrinks by 10 meters (yards) every year.

"All we have seen can be impressive and beautiful, extraordinary beautiful, but at the same time it's a disturbing truth," Ban commented on his tour.

"You have seen the melting of glaciers," he continued. "The glaciers of King George Island have shrunken by 10 percent recently. If the international community does something now we will be able to prevent a further progress of the global warming."

After the aerial tour, Ban boarded a boat and crossed a narrow bay to visit South Korea's Sejong Research Centre, where scientists are monitoring the health of Antarctica.

The UN secretary general, who himself comes from South Korea, was warmly greeted there by researchers, who organized a dinner in his honour and briefed him about their work.

"The Antarctica is 20 percent of the total surface of the world, but a small change here amplifies many times in the rest of the planet," Kevin Kihm Kim, head of the Sejong Research Centre, told AFP.

Ban concluded his two-and-a-half-hour visit to Antarctica at Eduardo Frei Air Force Base, where he issued a plea for action.

"We have resources, we have technology, we have financing," he said. "All is lacking is political will. The main purpose of my visit is to galvanize such political will."

He said he wanted the international community to provide a political answer to the challenge of global warming.

"This is an emergency," Ban stressed. "To an emergency situation we need emergency act."

The UN secretary general then boarded the C-130 plane to Punta Arenas in southern Chile. On Sunday, he heads to Brazil to meet the country's President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.- AFP /ls

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Thailand saves pangolins bound for China restaurants

Yahoo News 10 Nov 07;

Thai Customs officers said Saturday they have rescued more than 100 pangolins and arrested three men attempting to smuggle the endangered animals to China, where they were destined for the cooking pot.

Customs officers Friday intercepted three pick-up trucks of pangolins, or scaly anteaters, which were to be smuggled across Laos to southwest China.

The pangolins, worth an estimated one million baht (29,400 dollars), were trapped in the Indonesian jungle and smuggled via Malaysia and southern Thailand.

"We investigated and found out that those pangolins are from Indonesia," Rakop Srisupaat, director of southern region Customs, told AFP by telephone.

All trade in Asian pangolins has been illegal since 2000. Their meat is regarded as a delicacy in China and their scales are believed to cure a wide range of ailments.

Rakop said the three suspects had declined to give details of who owned the pangolins but admitted they were hired to transport the scaly mammals.

They were charged with two counts of possessing and smuggling endangered wildlife, which carry a maximum 10 years in prison.

"I have instructed my legal officials to seriously prosecute them as their action is against the morals of Thai people," he said.

"The meat is for the cooking pot for restaurants and the scales are crushed for use in traditional Chinese medicine," he explained.

The pangolins, which were all alive despite being hidden under layers of coconuts, would be handed over to the Royal Forest Department to be nursed back to health before being released into an appropriate habitat in Thailand, he said.

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Asia-Pacific states to adopt climate goals at summit: report

Yahoo News 10 Nov 07;

Sixteen Asia-Pacific countries will seek to expand their combined forests at least 15 million hectares (37 acres) by 2020 to help fight global warming, Kyodo News reported Saturday.

The countries are expected to adopt a special statement on climate change at the East Asian Summit in Singapore on November 21, the Japanese news agency said.

A draft of the statement urges the development of sustainable planning and management of the region's forests, improving forest law enforcement, and fighting illegal logging and other harmful practices.

It also stipulates that the 16 countries will set voluntary energy-saving targets and compile action plans by 2009, and help develop an international climate change accord after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, Kyodo reported.

The statement will be the first of its kind to be adopted at the East Asian Summit involving the 16 countries.

The draft also says the countries should aim for a regional goal to reduce energy intensity at least 25 percent by 2030.

But India, which is lagging behind others in energy saving efforts, is strongly opposing such a target, Kyodo said, quoting a Japanese official.

The East Asia Summit members are the 10 countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

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40 Million Electric Bikes Spark Environmental Dilemma in China

Christopher Cherry, LiveScience.com,Yahoo News 10 Nov 07;

Grace Zhang is a like many other Chinese women. She is a middle-aged business owner, mother of a young daughter and one of more than 40 million new users of the electric bike, or e-bike, in China. Zhang is among China’s emerging and rapidly motorizing middle class, riding China’s economic growth. She leads a busy life; between operating an English school, transporting her child, and shopping, her day is full of activity. Her daily activities require high levels of flexibility and mobility, needs met by her new e-bike.

Electric bike users have taken Chinese cities by storm, quickly outnumbering the cars and in many cities, bicycles.

Electric bikes range in style from traditional pedal bicycles powered by an electric motor to larger electric powered scooters. They are loosely restricted on speed and size, but given the same rights as bicycle users, operate in bicycle lanes, and do not require driver’s licenses, vehicle registration or helmet use.

Good or bad?

Proponents would suggest that the e-bike phenomenon is a positive development; after all, e-bikes are quiet, non-polluting and provide more mobility than any other mode of transportation.

Opponents charge that e-bikes are unsafe, increase congestion, and indirectly pollute the environment through increased power plant emissions and lead pollution from their heavy batteries. Several cities have attempted to, or successfully, banned electric bikes from roadways, including the mega-cities of Beijing and Guangzhou.

Still, there has been little research on the true impacts of electric bikes in China.

As a Ph.D. student in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, I began conducting research, which led to a dissertation, on quantifying the impacts of electric bikes in China. I participated in the National Science Foundation’s inaugural East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute in China during the summer of 2005, and with support from the Volvo Foundation, I used this experience to examine several of the contentious issues surrounding electric bikes, including their seemingly negative impacts on the environment and safety, countered by their mobility benefits that allow access to jobs, shopping, and health care opportunities.

Filling a niche

Chinese cities are expanding and becoming more congested as new personal automobiles fill the scarce roadway capacity. With a long legacy of bicycle use, Chinese commuters are accustomed to personal mobility and short trips. Trips are getting too long for bicycles and public transit services are often incapable of serving populations in cities with disorganized urban development patterns while competing with cars for road space.

Electric bikes have filled the niche, providing high levels of personal mobility at a fraction of the cost of a car or even public transit.

I found that electric bikes travel about 35 percent faster than bicycles and have a much larger range. In the city of Kunming, an electric bike can access 60 percent more jobs within 20 minutes than a traditional bicycle. Compared to a 30-40 minute bus ride, an electric bike rider can access three to six times the number of jobs.

While this increase in mobility is remarkable, this mobility does come at a cost, namely increased lead pollution from battery use.

The environmental price

Electric bikes use one car-sized lead acid battery per year. Each battery represents 30-40 percent of its lead content emitted to the environment in the production processes, resulting in about 3 kilograms of lead emitted per battery produced. When scaled up the 40 million electric bikes currently on the roads, this is an astonishing amount of lead emitted into the environment.

This negative environmental impact is countered by other environmental benefits compared to most modes, including vastly reduced energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Ultimately, the success or failure of electric bikes as a sustainable mode of transportation should be evaluated in the context of the extent to which they displace automobile. They certainly have fewer negative impacts than personal automobiles, but they currently displace mostly bus and bicycle users and only a small number of car users.

As China motorizes, will electric bikes displace would-be car users or simply provide a stepping stone to full blown auto ownership? They will likely lead to both outcomes. To the extent that electric bike battery technology and production processes improve, electric bikes provide some of the highest mobility and access to an urban area with some of the lowest negative impacts to the transportation system or the environment.
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Editor's Note: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the federal agency charged with funding basic research and education across all fields of science and engineering. Christopher Cherry is Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

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