Finance ministers in Bali count climate costs

Gde Anugrah Arka, Reuters 10 Dec 07:

JIMBARAN, Indonesia (Reuters) - Forty nations held unprecedented talks about ways to slow global warming without derailing world economic growth on the margins of U.N. climate talks in Bali on Monday.

Deputy finance ministers met on the fringes of December 3-14 U.N. climate talks where more than 10,000 delegates are trying to lay the groundwork for a broader treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol global warming pact beyond 2012.

"Having this meeting...having the finance ministers meeting..itself is a breakthrough," Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said. The meeting will prepare for talks by about 20 finance ministers in Bali on Tuesday.

Trade ministers also met at the weekend, the first time the annual U.N. climate talks have expanded beyond environment ministers in a sign that combating climate change will require big economic shifts in coming decades.

The trade ministers failed to ease splits between Brazil and the United States over "green" exports.

David McCormick, U.S. Under Secretary for International Affairs, said the talks were a crucial first step.

"The very start of this conversation among finance ministers is a real step forward and as we think about the agenda for our treasury in the coming years, we think that this issue, the environment, will be a central issue."

Gabriel Kuhne, deputy director of Germany's Finance Ministry said the talks did not aim to decide anything. He said he was told the main purpose was to convince skeptical finance officials of the need to act swiftly to tackle global warming.

"It is a huge problem. We have to take action immediately, not in 20 years. The window of opportunity will close in about 10 years, and so we are convinced that action has to be taken."

The U.N. Climate Panel, which will collect the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday in Oslo along former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, has said that the strictest measures to offset warming will slow annual world growth by 0.12 percentage point at most.

"The role of the finance ministers is to lead this discussion so that we have wider policy options," Indrawati said, referring to taxes or incentives for green technologies such as wind, solar power or "clean coal."

ENERGY

Karim Alloui, a vice president of the Islamic Development Bank, said issues raised in the meeting would have broad implications for lenders because they cut across many industrial sectors such as mining, energy and forestry.

A U.N. study projected that net annual investments of $200-$210 billion by 2030 were needed in cleaner areas, such as renewable energies, in a gigantic shift from dirtier fossil fuels.

Funding is expected to come from government budgets and multilateral organizations but a substantial amount would come from the private sector.

Building protective barriers against sea level rise around 50 of the coral islands making up the Maldives in the Indian Ocean alone could cost $1.5 billion, according to Angus Friday, head of a group representing small island states.

The 190-nation climate talks are seeking to agree on the ground rules for launching two years of negotiations on a broader climate change pact involving all nations to succeed or replace the Kyoto Protocol from January 1, 2013.

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:

blogs.reuters.com/environment/

(With extra reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison and Rob Taylor in Canberra; editing by David Fogarty and Alister Doyle)

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South Korea counts cost of national park oil spill

Jack Kim, Reuters 10 Dec 07;

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea was on Monday tallying the environmental and economic cost of the worst oil spill in its history as thousands of workers struggled to protect an area known for its nature reserve and vibrant marine economy.

The slick spread from a very large crude carrier on Friday after it was holed by a barge. Oil has now washed up along more than 40 km (25 miles) of coastline in the Taean region on the Korean peninsula's west coast, about 150 km southwest of Seoul.

The region is home to the Taean maritime national park, famous for its sandy beaches popular with tourists, marine farms and oyster beds.

"We don't have an estimate on the cost of the damage yet," a maritime ministry official said by telephone. "The focus now is to minimize the damage."

The government has declared parts of Taean county "a special disaster area" and will release an initial fund of 6 billion won ($6.5 million), Minister for Home Affairs Park Myung-jae was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

Some 10,500 tons of crude is estimated to have spilled from the Hong Kong-registered Hebei Spirit and the cost of cleaning up was expected to far surpass the 96 billion won it cost South Korea to deal with a 1995 spill on the south coast, when about half that much oil was released.

The total cost from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, which was about three times bigger, was an estimated $9.5 billion including clean-up and settlement of claims.

A spokesman for the tanker's owner Hebei Ocean Shipping Co. of China said its offer to swiftly unload the cargo after the spill has been turned down by the receiver, Hyundai Oilbank, as it did not want the oil in small batches.

Hyundai officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

MONTH TO CLEAN UP

As the slick spread along the coastline, the government raised to 8,800 the number of police, troops and workers in the clean-up efforts. The coast guard had 138 vessels at work, deploying containment fences and oil skimmers.

The clean-up was expected to take more than a month, Maritime Minister Kang Moo-hyun has said.

A spokesman for Samsung Heavy Industries, which owned both the barge carrying a large crane that drifted and punched holes in the tanker's hull and the tug boat that was pulling the unpowered vessel, said the company was cooperating with the clean-up but declined to comment on compensation.

Samsung Heavy declined to identify the insurer of the two vessels, but the maritime ministry has said it was Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance.

Shares of Samsung Heavy Industries closed 6.4 percent lower at 39,300 won, compared with a 1.4 percent decline in the broader Korea Composite Stock Price Index.

The slick washing up at Mallipo beach, where one of the largest patches of oil had spread, appeared to thin slightly but the crude is threatening to spread further along the west coast.

Residents of Taean and environmentalists said the spill was a devastating blow to the local fisheries industries and to the nature reserve along the coastline.

"It is an area that is considered to have very great conservation value, particularly for landscapes and with relations to fisheries," said Nial Moores, director of the conservation group Birds Korea.

"It is a massive spill and it's going to have enormous impacts on the local ecology."

The government has come under criticism that its slow response to the spill led to the extensive damage. The maritime ministry said in its initial report on Friday that it would likely take about 48 hours for the slick to reach the coast.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Kim Yeon-hee in Seoul and Jo Yong-hak in Taean; Editing by Keiron Henderson and Alex Richardson)

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Indonesia vows to protect endangered orangutans

Sugita Katyal, Reuters 10 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia launched a program on Monday to save its dwindling orangutan population, the last of Asia's great apes, from the brink of extinction by protecting its vast tropical rain forests.

Orangutans once ranged the region, but the shaggy brown primate's population in Indonesia has been decreasing rapidly as its habitat in Borneo and Sumatra has been disrupted by illegal logging, forest fires and the illegal pet trade.

A recent WWF report said climate change would add to the pressure already caused by human-induced activities such as massive conversion of forests into plantations by reducing the orangutans' food stock. Thousands will be driven out of forests into villages and plantations to look for food.

"In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

"The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests ... To save the orangutan we have to save the forest."

As part of the orangutan conservation plan developed by the forestry ministry and NGOs, Indonesia will aim to stabilize orangutan populations and habitat from now until 2017 and return orangutans housed in rehabilitation centers to the wild by 2015.

A 2004 survey showed there were around 60,000 orangutans left in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra. Some ecologists say the country has lost 3,000 orangutans a year since the 1970s and the species could eventually become extinct.

"As much as 1 million hectares of orangutan habitat scheduled for conversion to oil palm will be saved through the plan's implementation," Erik Meijaard, a scientist with The Nature Conservancy which will help implement the plan, said in a statement..

"This could lead to 9,800 orangutans being saved and prevent 700 million tons of carbon from being released."

Indonesia is one of few countries that still has swathes of rainforests left, and is pushing a proposal to make emission cuts from protecting forests eligible for carbon trading.

Even though it has lost an estimated 70 percent of its original frontier forest, it still has a total forest area of more than 225 million acres, with a host of exotic plants and animals waiting to be discovered.

Indonesia's forests are a massive natural store of carbon, but environmentalists say rampant cutting and burning of trees to feed the pulp, timber and palm oil sectors has made the country the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions.

"If payments for avoided deforestation become an official mechanism in global climate agreements, then carbon buyers will likely compensate Indonesia for its forest protection," said The Nature Conservancy's Meijaard.

"Protecting orangutans will then lead to increased economic development in this country. Such a triple-win situation is not a dream. With some political will, it can soon be reality."

(Editing by Roger Crabb)

Indonesia begins plan to save orangutans
Yahoo News 10 Dec 07;

Indonesia has begun a 10-year program to save endangered orangutans from extinction by protecting tropical jungle habitat from logging, mining and palm oil plantations, its president said Monday.

The plan, revealed on the sidelines of the Bali climate change conference, aims to preserve up to 2.5 million acres of forest on the Indonesian half of Borneo island.

As many as 50,000 orangutans have been lost over the past 35 years due to shrinking habitat, and "if this continues, these majestic creatures will likely face extinction by 2050," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.

"To save orangutans, we must save the forests," he said.

Two thirds of Borneo's 74 million acres of primary forest have already been destroyed and environmental groups say the remainder is disappearing at a rate of 300 football fields per hour.

The Nature Conservancy, a coalition of non-governmental groups, pledged $1 million to the program, which "could lead to 9,800 orangutans being saved," said Erik Meijaard, a senior ecologist for the coalition.

As of January 2004, about 6,650 Sumatran orangutans and 55,000 Borneo orangutans remained in the wild, while rapid deforestation has directly and indirectly led to around 3,000 orangutan deaths every year since 1970, the organization said.

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'The biggest environmental crime in history'

Cahal Milmo, The Independent 10 Dec 07;
The Canadian wilderness is set to be invaded by BP in an oil exploration project dubbed ...
'The biggest environmental crime in history'

BP, the British oil giant that pledged to move "Beyond Petroleum" by finding cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, is being accused of abandoning its "green sheen" by investing nearly £1.5bn to extract oil from the Canadian wilderness using methods which environmentalists say are part of the "biggest global warming crime" in history.

The multinational oil and gas producer, which last year made a profit of £11bn, is facing a head-on confrontation with the green lobby in the pristine forests of North America after Greenpeace pledged a direct action campaign against BP following its decision to reverse a long-standing policy and invest heavily in extracting so-called "oil sands" that lie beneath the Canadian province of Alberta and form the world's second-largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia.

Producing crude oil from the tar sands – a heavy mixture of bitumen, water, sand and clay – found beneath more than 54,000 square miles of prime forest in northern Alberta – an area the size of England and Wales combined – generates up to four times more carbon dioxide, the principal global warming gas, than conventional drilling.

The booming oil sands industry will produce 100 million tonnes of CO2 (equivalent to a fifth of the UK's entire annual emissions) a year by 2012, ensuring that Canada will miss its emission targets under the Kyoto treaty, according to environmentalist activists.

The oil rush is also scarring a wilderness landscape: millions of tonnes of plant life and top soil is scooped away in vast open-pit mines and millions of litres of water are diverted from rivers – up to five barrels of water are needed to produce a single barrel of crude and the process requires huge amounts of natural gas. The industry, which now includes all the major oil multinationals, including the Anglo-Dutch Shell and American combine Exxon-Mobil, boasts that it takes two tonnes of the raw sands to produce a single barrel of oil. BP insists it will use a less damaging extraction method, but it accepts that its investment will increase its carbon footprint.

Mike Hudema, the climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace in Canada, told The Independent: "BP has done a very good job in recent years of promoting its green objectives. By jumping into tar sands extraction it is taking part in the biggest global warming crime ever seen and BP's green sheen is gone.

"It takes about 29kg of CO2 to produce a barrel of oil conventionally. That figure can be as much 125kg for tar sands oil. It also has the potential to kill off or damage the vast forest wilderness, greater than the size of England and Wales, which forms part of the world's biggest carbon sinks. For BP to be involved in this trade not only flies in the face of their rhetoric but in the era of climate change it should not be being developed at all. You cannot call yourself 'Beyond Petroleum' and involve yourself in tar sands extraction." Mr Hudema said Greenpeace was planning a direct action campaign against BP, which could disrupt its activities as its starts construction work in Alberta next year.

The company had shied away from involvement oil sands, until recently regarded as economically unviable and environmentally unpleasant. Lord Browne of Madingley, who was BP's chief executive until May, sold its remaining Canadian tar sands interests in 1999 and declared as recently as 2004 that there were "tons of opportunities" beyond the sector. But as oil prices hover around the $100-per-barrel mark, Lord Browne's successor, Tony Hayward, announced that BP has entered a joint venture with Husky Energy, owned by the Hong Kong based billionaire Li Ka-Shing, to develop a tar sands facility which will be capable of producing 200,000 barrels of crude a day by 2020. In return for a half share of Husky's Sunrise field in the Athabasca region of Alberta, the epicentre of the tar sands industry, BP has sold its partner a 50 per cent stake in its Toledo oil refinery in Ohio. The companies will invest $5.5bn (£2.7) in the project, making BP one of the biggest players in tar sands extraction.

Mr Hayward made it clear that BP considered its investment was the start of a long-term presence in Alberta. He said: "BP's move into oil sands is an opportunity to build a strategic, material position and the huge potential of Sunrise is the ideal entry point for BP into Canadian oil sands."

Canada claims that it has 175 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Alberta, making the province second only to Saudi Arabia in proved oil riches and sparking a £50bn "oil rush" as American, Chinese and European investors rush to profit from high oil prices. Despite production costs per barrel of up to £15, compared to £1 per barrel in Saudi Arabia, the Canadian province expects to be pumping five million barrels of crude a day by 2030.

BP said it will be using a technology that pumps steam heated by natural gas into vertical wells to liquefy the solidified oil sands and pump it to the surface in a way that is less damaging than open cast mining. But campaigners said this method requires 1,000 cubic feet of gas to produce one barrel of unrefined bitumen – the same required to heat an average British home for 5.5 days.

A spokesman for BP added: "These are resources that would have been developed anyway."

Licenses have been issued by the Albertan government to extract 350 million cubic metres of water from the Athabasca River every year. But the water used in the extraction process, say campaigners, is so contaminated that it cannot be returned to the eco-system and must instead be stored in vast "tailings ponds" that cover up to 20 square miles and there is evidence of increased rates of cancer and multiple sclerosis in down-river communities.

Experts say a pledge to restore all open cast tar sand mines to their previous pristine condition has proved sadly lacking. David Schindler, professor of ecology at the University of Alberta, said: "Right now the big pressure is to get that money out of the ground, not to reclaim the landscape. I wouldn't be surprised if you could see these pits from a satellite 1,000 years from now."

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US plan to cut greenhouse gases by 70 per cent signals change of heart on climate change

Geoffrey Lean, The Independent 9 Dec 07;

Key measures to tackle global warming have been approved in the US Congress, signalling the first crack in the granite face that the Bush administration has set against cutting the pollution that causes climate change.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives last week advanced Bills that would drastically reduce US carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, raise fuel economy in US vehicles and set radical targets for increasing renewable energy production.

US government representatives last week suggested for the first time that they may agree to binding international targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

On Wednesday the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11-8 to cut emissions by about 70 per cent by 2050. This would make the US a world leader in tackling global warming.

The Bill – put forward by the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman and Republican Senator John Warner – would limit businesses' gas emissions, but allow those companies that exceeded them to buy allowances from those that overshot targets.

The second Bill – passed by the House of Representatives by a 235-181 vote on Thursday – would force the country's cars, small trucks and SUVs to achieve an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 192 million tons a year, equivalent to taking 28 million vehicles off the roads.

The Bill would also require electricity utilities to produce 15 per cent of their power from renewable sources by 2020, cutting annual emissions by another 180 tons. By 2022, cars would also have to be using 36 million gallons of biofuels, and nearly half of these must be second-generation fuels, derived from wood, weed and other crops that do not compete with food supplies. The Bill will also ban conventional light bulbs.

Although President Bush has vowed to fight the Bills, both of the front-running Democratic contenders for the White House, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have signalled that they intend to embrace the climate change agenda, suggesting Capitol Hill is already looking ahead to life after the president's departure.

The measures would be financed by repealing a $13bn (£6.4bn) tax break for big oil companies.

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Protestors Gather at Georgia Aquarium After Whale Deaths

Julia Harding, Fox Atlanta 9 Dec 07;

ATLANTA (FOX 5) – After the death of a fourth animal at the Georgia Aquarium, protestors were calling for protection of the large fish Sunday.

As people walked out of the Georgia Aquarium Sunday they were greeted by protestors from the Georgia Animal Rights and Protection group.

The group was asking patrons to boycott the aquarium after Marina the beluga whale died on December 1.

Protestors said they protested after each of the aquarium deaths.

This year, two whale sharks and two beluga whales have died. The most recent was Marina last week.

Marina, the second beluga whale to die at the aquarium this year, was on loan from New York's aquarium. Staff members said they noticed Marina was sick on Thanksgiving.

"She lost her appetite and became disoriented to the point where she would hurt herself," said Dave Santucci of the Georgia Aquarium.

Early results from Marina's necropsy showed she appeared to be older than her estimated age of 25, but it could take months for scientists to analyze the tissue samples and determine an exact cause of death.

Another beluga whale, Gasper, was 17 years-old when he was euthanized in January after suffering from a bone disease.

Two of the Georgia Aquarium's whale sharks have also died this year. Ralph died in January and Norton died in June.

After their deaths, protestors gathered outside the aquarium saying captivity wasn't right for the large fish.

Back in June, aquarium CEO Jeff Swanagan disagreed saying, "In one sense, we are very saddened by this. We wear our hearts on our sleeves, but we're also committed to the education and conservation."

Early findings of beluga whale's death at US aquarium inconclusive
The Associated Press, International Herald Tribune 3 Dec 07;

ATLANTA: Early results from a necropsy performed on a beluga whale that died at the Georgia Aquarium produced no conclusive findings on the cause of death, officials said Monday.

Marina had fallen ill at the aquarium and died early Saturday morning.

It may take months for scientists to analyze the whale's tissue samples and determine a cause of death, said spokesman Dave Santucci.

Scientists from the aquarium, the University of Georgia and the University of Florida began the medical examination into Marina's death on Saturday,

The whale's central nervous system will continue to be a focus of the investigation, Santucci said. Officials previously said the whale increasingly showed disorientation in her swimming behavior and she stopped eating on Nov. 22.

The initial examination did reveal that Marina appeared to be much older than her previously estimated age of 25.

"She was in a late stage of life," Santucci said. "Age is not a cause of death but it is a major factor in the body's ability to fight" disease and injury.

Marina was the second-oldest of four beluga whales at the aquarium. Marina was among three beluga whales that were transferred in November 2005 from Wildlife Conservation Society's New York Aquarium.

RELATED ARTICLE

Ill beluga whale at US aquarium dies
Associated Press, International Herald Tribune 1 Dec 07;

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Dutch debate building Tulip Island in North Sea

Emma Thomasson Yahoo News 10 Dec 07;

The Netherlands wants to redraw the map of Europe -- literally.

Dubai has built Palm Island. Now the world leaders in land reclamation are considering an island in the shape of a tulip to fight overcrowding and shield the coastline from the rising sea.

Supporters of the scheme say it will give Dutch companies a chance to showcase water management skills that are increasingly in demand due to global warming, but critics say the plan will be prohibitively expensive and harm delicate ecosystems.

While a poll in October by research company TNS NIPO with the Red Cross showed the Dutch are more afraid of flooding than a terrorist attack, many have a strong faith in Dutch expertise and technology to protect them from the water.

The Dutch parliament has asked a commission on coastal development to look into the idea of building islands in the North Sea that could be used for housing, farming or a nature reserve, while at the same time helping to protect the coast.

"People live on top of each other in the Netherlands," said Christian Democrat politician Joop Atsma, who sponsored a parliamentary motion on building in the North Sea. "We are hungry for land. A huge area is needed for building."

Atsma says high land prices threaten the country's position as the world's third biggest exporter of agricultural products, and make a 100,000 hectare island potentially worth 10 billion euros ($14.69 billion) -- enough of a return to fund the project.

A government body set up to promote innovation has drawn up proposals for an island about 50 km long, sparking fierce debate which inspired one blogger to joke that a cannabis leaf may be a more suitable shape than the tulip on the formal plans.

"The Netherlands has a lot of know-how in terms of water. It exports this knowledge but it is missing out on innovation. More experiments are needed in the fields of alternative energy, tides and wind," said Maria Henneman of Innovation Platform.

"Of course it is an expensive investment but with current technology a lot is possible."

NO WET FEET

The Netherlands -- literally the Low Countries -- has a long history of pioneering technology to help it claw back land from the sea and fight recurrent flooding.

U.S. officials sought advice from Dutch experts on water management after floods devastated New Orleans in 2005, and Dutch firms have been central in major coastal developments worldwide.

Dutch firm Boskalis developed techniques during the Zuiderzee and Delta projects to become the world's largest dredger, helping build the island for Hong Kong's airport and now working on Oman's "Wave" project -- a huge resort added to the coast.

Dubai's island, that juts into the shallow waters of the Gulf in the shape of a palm tree, was built by Dutch marine contractor Van Oord using more than 100 million cubic meters of sand.

"I live far below sea level and I have never had wet feet at home," Atsma said. "So much can be done with water management."

One of the world's most densely populated countries with 16 million people living in an area about half the size of Scotland , a quarter of the Netherlands is below sea-level and it lies on the flood plains of three big rivers.

The country's earliest inhabitants built their homes and farmsteads on mounds to protect them from flooding. From around 1300, windmills were developed to pump water off low-lying land. Steam-driven pumps accelerated the process in the 19th century.

In 1932, work was completed on a mammoth 32-km dike that closed the Zuiderzee off from the North Sea and allowed 1,650 square km of land to be drained.

After devastating floods in 1953 killed more than 1,800 people, the Dutch launched one of the world's largest construction schemes -- the Delta project -- to raise dikes, close sea estuaries and build a huge storm-surge barrier.

Scientists expect global warming to raise sea levels along the Dutch coast by up to 85 cms in the next century, and cause more severe storms that could make rivers more likely to flood.

NORTH SEA CHALLENGE

"Funny shapes like tulips, clogs and windmills are a good way to start a debate, but they should not be considered as realistic," said Bert Groothuizen, spokesman for Van Oord, the builder of the Dubai palm island.

While Dubai's Gulf rarely sees waves above two meters high, the North Sea is much stormier with waves of up to 10 meters.

"The seaward protection must be stronger than in the Arabian Gulf which means that construction costs are greater," he said, adding it might be more realistic to extend current Dutch beaches into the sea or move the main airport onto a new island.

That idea was already floated after a plane crashed into an apartment block in Amsterdam in 1992, but it was shelved due to cost and environmental concerns. Nature-lovers have also scuppered plans to drain more land onshore.

Independent environmental group the North Sea Foundation notes that an artificial island could disrupt shipping, fishing and migrating birds.

"The North Sea is not a wasteland where you can do whatever you want. Especially the coastal zone is one of the most fertile seas in the world. An island would do a lot of damage to the animal life," said the foundation's Lisa van der Veen.

Given rising sea levels, Van der Veen said it made more sense to protect existing land than build a new island:

"If you build houses on it you would have to build it really high to protect it from storms and waves. Building an island is a huge investment and you could much easier fortify the dikes."

(Editing by Sara Ledwith)

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Balinese Farm Coral to Boost Fish Catch, Income

Emma Graham-Harrison, PlanetArk 10 Dec 07;

SERANGAN, Indonesia - Algae-covered lumps of cement would make a strange catch for most fishermen, but they have helped revive a Bali fishing village devastated by reckless tourist development and "mining" of reefs for building materials.

Seaside Serangan has become a modest center for the unusual coral-farming trade, with thousands of the formations growing in offshore iron grids. They are sold for export or used to reconstruct reefs that nurture fish and draw diving tourists.

Beside the farmed coral, cement chunks that are shaped like the rocks that line the ocean and reefs, are picking up a patina of natural growth that turns them into valuable decorations for aquariums from Australia to the United States.

"Before reclamation, the fish here were not so plentiful. Also, the numbers of different kinds of fish were lower," said Nyoman Sopi, leader of the fishermen who set up the farm and who previously worked in the tourist center of Kuta.

Once a small island off Bali's shore, the area was claimed in the 1990s by a developer who planned to build a huge resort, and set about expanding it to six times its original size, and linking it to the mainland.

To do this, giant pumps sucked filler from the sea floor, pulverizing corals they vacuumed up with the sand, said Asyma Sianiapar, Program Assistant at the Global Environment Facility, which is also supporting the venture.

Combined with traditional "mining" of coral for building houses and temples, which was officially banned around 2002, and damaging fishing practices, the reefs that supported the local fishing industry were decimated.

The resort was never built, hit by the Asian financial crisis and the domestic turmoil that accompanied the end of former President Suharto's reign in 1998. But the damage was done.

Catches fell by half, and the seaweed banks that the women used to walk around the island harvesting for food and to sell disappeared, fishermen and their families said.

Earnings fell and children were forced to drop out of school.

"If you don't make an alternative income source for the families, what will they eat, what will they put on the table for their children?" said Nael Ginting, manager of the project for NGO Telapak, which promotes sustainable fishing in poor communities.

"Many people in Indonesia are only thinking about the present ... because they need some money to live off."

CLIMATE RISK

Now they have about 800 square metres (8,600 sq feet) of cultivated coral, including the farms and new reefs and sell around 20,000 pieces a year, for around US$3 to $5 each.

The nearly 40 families, about 10 percent of the village, who are involved in the farm make US$50 a month, an important supplement to other income from fishing and tourist work.

Coral farming seems surprisingly simple. All you have to do is break off a branch from a living coral, glue it to the cement bases that anchor it in the off-sea cages, and leave them in a shallow, clean, wave-swept part of the sea.

A hard coral in a month can grow to the size of a toddler's hand, and in a year it can expand to the span of a large adult hand, with fingers fully stretched.

Plucked from the farm and held by their long cement stems, the corals, which range from purple and white to green and orange, look like bouquets of surrealist flowers.

But the village's new-found income faces a serious risk from a source that 190 nations have gathered to discuss at UN-led climate talks less than an hour's drive along the coast.

Hotter seas have been causing "bleaching," a mass die-off. Experts say 16 percent of the world's coral was wiped out in 1998 when global warming and the "El Nino" weather phenomenon combined to cause the highest sea temperatures ever recorded.

And while Serangan has so far been untouched, the nearby West Bali National Park has been badly hit, with many soft corals disintegrating altogether -- making loss of reefs, or coral farms, another danger for poor seaside communities already at risk from rising seas and storm surges linked to climate change.

"If the reality of climate change brings bleaching of corals we must be prepared because we don't want to lose our income," said Telapak's Ginting. (Editing by David Fogarty)

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South Korea's worst oil spill spreads along coast

Jun Kwanwoo, Yahoo News 10 Dec 07;

South Korea's worst ever oil spill spread along a pristine coastal region Monday as the government came under fire amid charges it acted too slowly to limit the disaster.

Almost 9,000 troops, police and volunteers armed with shovels and buckets struggled to clean up the huge slick. But officials said it would deal a heavy blow to tourism and oyster and abalone farms in the area.

The crude oil had so far hit 160 marine farms out of a total of 445 in the area under threat, said Cho Kyu-Sung, an official of Taean county 90 kilometres (56 miles) southwest of Seoul.

"The damage will be enormous if you include long-term environmental expenses," he told AFP.

Some 140 ships and five planes were helping, but the Coast Guard said the slick has already hit 50 kilometres of coastline, and more oil was expected to come ashore.

Park Myung-Jae, home affairs minister, said four townships would be declared a disaster zone, making them eligible for extra help and compensation.

Park vowed immediate aid of 5.9 billion won (6.4 million dollars) and said more state funds would be forthcoming soon.

Northwest winds were quickly pushing the slick south along the coast, said Lee Jae-Hak, of the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute.

"Damage was bigger than expected because of wrong weather forecasts by the authorities," Lee told AFP.

"High waves and strong winds were the main cause. However, authorities failed fully to take seasonal winds into consideration after booms were set up."

Lee said it may take months or a year to remove oil from the land surface, "but it will take four or five years to remove chemicals and other pollutants."

About 10,500 tons of crude oil leaked into the Yellow Sea when a drifting barge carrying a construction crane smashed into an oil tanker Friday.

The barge's cable to a tugboat had snapped during rough weather before it holed the 147,000-ton Hong Kong-registered Hebei Spirit in three places.

Officials reported difficulties contacting the tug captain to warn him of the imminent danger.

The captain, for as yet unknown reasons, did not receive a warning radio message about the tanker's presence in the area, said Song Hee-Sun, a regional traffic official of the maritime ministry.

Officials then tried to call his mobile phone but when they finally got through, it may have been too late to prevent the collision, Song told AFP.

"He is under questioning by police. So we cannot say whether he is responsible or not," he added.

The leak from the tanker, which was anchored eight kilometres off the coast, was only completely stopped early Sunday. The oil spill is about twice the size of South Korea's previous worst such case in 1995.

Newspapers alleged a slow response to the disaster, saying no lessons had been learned since then.

"Precious time was lost in preparing seaside communities for the impending ecological disaster," a Korea Herald editorial said.

"Equipment to contain the oil spill was not distributed promptly, leaving villagers helpless as they watched the oil move ashore."

The JoongAng Ilbo said it suspects "authorities tackled the accident in a loafing and idle manner."

Shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries, who operated the barge and tug, said the tanker's owner would be able receive a maximum 300 billion won (326 million dollars) through an insurer to cover damage from the spill.

Samsung was responsible for compensating the owner, a spokesman told AFP.

"We are awaiting the outcome of an investigation by police. But we are basically responsible for the incident," the spokesman said. "We will not swerve from our duty."

"It is regrettable that it came under unfavourable circumstances."

The Samsung group is already under official investigation over allegations that it had operated a huge slush fund to bribe officials in the past.

Volunteers struggle to save the beach that turned black
Jun Kwanwoo Yahoo News 10 Dec 07;

Using buckets, shovels and even dustpans, volunteers Monday battled to save one of South Korea's most pristine beaches from a relentless tide of oily sludge.

An army of police, troops and volunteers several thousand strong was labouring on Mallipo beach, even as the tide remorselessly deposited more and more crude oil onto the sand.

"I felt like crying. This was such a good place for my kids," said Kim Mi-Sook, a Salvation Army volunteer from nearby Seosan county, as she scooped up oil with a dustpan.

"The sand was so good, with flowers blooming here and there," she told AFP.

"The sludge was initially 50 centimetres (20 inches) high on the beach in some places. The waves could not get over it."

About 10,500 tons of crude oil leaked into the Yellow Sea when a drifting barge holed an oil tanker on Friday. The Coast Guard said the slick has already hit 50 kilometres (31 miles) of coastline including Mallipo and more was expected to wash ashore.

Helicopters hovered and mechanical diggers were busy on the beach, which had turned black apart from the cleaned areas.

Workers carried filled buckets to hundreds of big rubber tanks set up along the two-kilometre beach. A long line of tanker trucks emptied the tanks, while oily sand was bagged separately for disposal.

Everyone involved donned rubber boots and gloves and some wore face masks to avoid the stench of the crude oil.

"I think it may take more than 10 years to return the beach to normal," said volunteer Chae Gil-Mook, 46, who runs a boarding house for tourists.

"It is too much. It will cause us big trouble in making a living here. People in the region rely on (Korean) tourists to make a living. I doubt they would visit here now."

Im Seong-Il, 43, who has run a fish restaurant on the beach for 11 years, said he is thinking of leaving. Future visitors "may get skin diseases or other problems. They will not get into the water or even in the sand."

Marine farmers around Taean county, 90 kilometres southwest of Seoul, were also in shock. At Uihangri village, where 150 farms are located, they were spreading absorbent material to try to soak up the oil.

"It is a complete disaster," said oyster farmer Lee Nam-Kyu, 64.

"No one knows how long it (the oil) will last.. 10 years, 20 years? The sea farms have been shut down. There is no chance for them to reopen in my lifetime."

In the neighbouring village of Sogunri, Kook Kyung-Ho criticised authorities for failing to put a boom across the 1.5 kilometre mouth of the bay.

"It's over, it's over, it's over," he said. "I don't know how I will make a living from now on."

Read more!

Climate Change to Hit Australia Farm Exports - Report

Michael Byrnes, PlanetArk 10 Dec 07;

SYDNEY - Climate change could hit Australian agriculture hard, cutting production of a wide range of goods by almost 20 percent and causing a significant impact on international trade, a report said.

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said in a study that Australian production of wheat, beef, dairy and sugar could decline by 9-10 percent by 2030 and by 13-19 percent by 2050 because of climate change.

"Australia is projected to be one of the most adversely affected regions from future changes in climate in terms of reductions in agricultural production and exports," it said.

"These changes would also have significant implications for international agricultural trade."

The bureau projects that Australian exports of key farm commodities could fall by between 11 percent and 63 percent by 2030 and by between 15 percent and 79 percent by 2050, with sugar hit hardest.

Global wheat, beef, dairy and sugar production is forecast to decline by 2-6 percent by 2030 and by 5-11 percent by 2050.

Australia is the world's second-largest exporter of wheat and beef, the third-largest exporter of sugar and is one of the biggest dairy exporters.

The country's worst drought in 100 years has already decimated crops in three of the last six years, halving the biggest crop, wheat, to around 12 million tonnes this year.

The bureau projects that Australian wheat production will fall by 9.2 percent by 2030 and 13 percent by 2050.

Beef production is forecast to fall by 9.6 percent and by 19 percent over the same period; sheep meat by 8.5 and 14 percent; dairy by 9.5 and 18 percent; and sugar by 10 and 14 percent.

Australian exports of wheat are forecast to fall by 11 percent by 2030 and 15 percent by 2050.

Beef exports are forecast to fall by 29 percent by 2030 and by 33 percent by 2050; sheep meat by 15 percent and 21 percent; dairy by 19 and 27 percent; sugar by 63 and 79 percent.

Australia's exports of wheat are presently worth around A$3 billion a year and are worth A$4 billion in a good year. Beef exports are worth about A$4.5 billion a year; dairy about A$2.5 billion; and sugar about A$1.5 billion.

Agricultural productivity in Australia is forecast to fall by 17 percent by 2050.

Climate change is forecast to reduce agricultural productivity in India by 25 percent by 2050; in Southeast Asia as a whole by 12 percent; Brazil by 10 percent; Argentina by 7 percent; China, Japan, the United States and Europe all by 4 percent.

Read more!

All UK homes could be wind powered by 2020: Government

Yahoo News 9 Dec 07;

The target was greeted with wide skepticism, including from the Renewable Energy Foundation, which accused the government of "green exhibitionism."

Every home in Britain could be supplied by wind power alone in 2020 by making full use of the wind-swept seas around the country, Energy Secretary John Hutton said on Monday.

Britain has some of the best wind conditions for generating carbon-free electricity in the world but high construction costs and a sluggish planning process has limited its growth.

There are 8 gigawatts of offshore wind farms planned in the UK, but the government thinks another 25 GW could be added to that by 2020, Hutton said in a statement.

"This potential major expansion will be subject to the outcome of a strategic environmental assessment. But if we could manage to achieve this, by 2020 enough electricity could be generated off our shores to power the equivalent of all of the UK's homes." he said.

"The challenge for government and for industry is to turn this potential - for our energy and economy - into a cost-effective reality. This will be a major challenge."

The government recently streamlined the planning system to help get new energy projects approved more quickly and has changed the way renewable energy is supported to favor offshore wind and wave energy over cheaper onshore wind turbines.

(Reporting by Daniel Fineren; editing by James Jukwey)

UK's huge push for wind power gets cool response
Daniel Fineren and Pete Harrison Yahoo News 10 Dec 07;

Britain said every UK home could be supplied by wind power alone by 2020 by making full use of its wind-swept seas but denied it was backing away from thoughts of more nuclear power.

The target was greeted with wide skepticism, including from the Renewable Energy Foundation, which accused the government of "green exhibitionism."

Britain has some of the best wind conditions in the world for generating carbon-free electricity, but high construction costs and a sluggish planning process have curbed growth.

The UK already plans 8 gigawatts of offshore wind farms but the government thinks another 25 GW could be added.

Putting turbines offshore would reduce their visual impact and ease their acceptance.

"By 2020 enough electricity could be generated off our shores to power the equivalent of all of the UK's homes," Energy Secretary John Hutton said on Monday.

But analysts, environmentalists and power firms questioned the target.

"The scales envisaged are quite unrealistic," said the Renewable Energy Foundation.

"Uncontrollable fluctuations in the output of 33 GW of wind would, if unconstrained, almost certainly place exceptional technical demands on the indispensable conventional generators."

It said a much more realistic target for offshore and onshore wind would be 10 GW.

Analyst David Cunningham at Arbuthnot Securities said building wind turbines at sea made less economic sense than building on land, at 1.6 million pounds per megawatt, compared to around 1 million pounds onshore.

"That's a massive difference when you start running through the return on capital," he said. "And they also have higher operating costs as you have to use boats and helicopters to get out there for maintenance."

Hutton told reporters in Berlin the move did not imply Britain had abandoned the possibility of giving the go-ahead to a new generation of nuclear plants, adding that no decision would be made on that until early next year.

"There will be scope for both going forward," he said. "There is an obvious danger in relying on just one technology."

He said the regulatory regime would be overhauled to put his office in charge of approving the thousands of turbines needed.

"I want to make the UK the best place in the world to do offshore renewable business," he added.

Greenpeace called on the government to guarantee premium prices for clean electricity so the power industry could take the risk of investing in thousands of turbines at sea.

"Hutton is proposing nothing less than a wind energy revolution, but it won't become a reality on the back of a speech," said Greenpeace director John Sauven.

"There will now need to be a revolution in thinking in Whitehall, where the energy dinosaurs have prevailed for too long," he added.

British Gas owner Centrica, which has just completed foundations for a windfarm at Lynn and Inner Dowsing about 5 kilometers off the coast of eastern Britain, welcomed the news, but said it was too early to weigh up the economics.

"We have to consider other factors in assessing our options, for example the cost of raw materials such as steel and copper, access to other supplies such as turbines and cables and the availability of grid connections," said a spokesman.

Dale Vince, Chief Executive of power firm Ecotricity, said: "It's a fantastic ambition to have& but I think it's a mistake to focus all that thought and effort on offshore wind because there is so much more we can do onshore without extra cost."

"All that requires is some changes to the planning system to make it more efficient," he added.

(Additional reporting by Naomi Kresge; Editing by David Cowell)

Read more!

Bali Climate Talks generate 47,000 tonnes of CO2

Climate talks run into carbon conundrum
Sebastien Blanc, Yahoo News 9 Dec 07;

Bicycles, a solar taxi, recycled garbage and even tie-less meetings to help reduce air-conditioning costs -- you name it, the world climate forum is using every trick in the green book to reduce its own contribution to global warming.

But even these and other thoughtful tricks to scale back greenhouse gas emissions will not help the December 3-14 marathon on climate change avoid a horrible fact: it's going to generate carbon. Lots of it.

According to the organisers, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks on the Indonesian resort island of Bali will result in an average "carbon footprint" of 4.7 tonnes per person of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas.

If 10,000 delegates, campaigners and journalists attend the conference, the footprint will be around 47,000 tonnes of CO2, including travel to and from the event and activities during it.

Using an online calculator on the websites of (www.carboncalculator.co.uk) and (www.atmosfair.de), that works out to the equivalent emissions from driving 100,000 cars up to 3,300 kilometres (2,062 miles each) each.

The figure is very big, mainly because of the use of fossil-fuel-thirsty air travel to haul participants from distant North America and Europe.

Then there is the voracious energy cost of cooling the sprawling conference facilities -- clustered in several hotels in the town of Nusa Dua -- to filter out Bali's sultry tropical heat.

"This conference is causing a lot of CO2 emissions. I hope that at the end of the day, it will deliver an agreement that will reduce even more CO2 emissions," UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer told AFP last week.

Greenhouse gases principally come from burning oil, gas and coal, the main energy source for the world economy today.

These emissions hang in the atmosphere like an invisible shroud, trapping solar heat instead of letting it radiate safely back into space.

The Bali talks -- taking place against a background of dire scientific warnings on the amplifying consequences of climate change -- are aimed at setting down a negotiating strategy to conclude a new pact for curbing this pollution.

Faced with the guilty awareness that they are fuelling a problem they are supposed to be solving, some governments, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are turning to carbon "offsets" to diminish their footprints.

Under offsets, a polluter can invest in projects that will reduce his CO2 pollution elsewhere by an equivalent amount.

Indonesia, for one, has vowed to plant 79 million trees that, by growing, will soak up CO2, to help compensate for the pollution engendered by the UNFCCC meet.

Greenpeace says it buys "gold-standard offsets" -- offsets that are certified by experts as having a genuinely compensatory effect, an important point in the voluntary and unregulated offset business.

It also buys renewable energy credits to help counter-balance the CO2 emissions caused by bringing its team to Bali.

"We have to be here, we have to be doing what we can to solve climate change and that means going where the decisions are made and the decisions are being made here," a Greenpeace spokesman John Coequyt said.

RELATED ARTICLES

Pedal power and recycling at UN meet buck the trend in Indonesia
Charlie McDonald-Gibson, Yahoo News 6 Dec 07;

Carbon footprint fears for UN climate summit
Charles Clover, Telegraph 2 Dec 07;

Read more!

Future Zoukouts may still be held on Sentosa's beach

Channel NewsAsia 9 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE: Singapore's top 12-hour non-stop dance music festival is likely to stay on the beach in Sentosa.

There had been talk that Saturday night's Zookout was the last time it would be held on the island due to new developments on the waterfront.

But Zouk said it had been asked to see how new facilities on the beach could be fused with the clubbing event.

Tracy Phillips, Marketing Manager of Zouk, said: "We've got our fingers crossed because we got a last-minute call from Sentosa and I think they're trying their best to see how they can make the attractions along the beach work into Zoukout. I don't know if it's going to work, but we hope so.

"We hope that if there are other partners involved, they would let us do our thing and hopefully they won't eat into too much space."

The annual dance music festival features four different dance arenas, taking up 56,000 sq feet of space on Silosa Beach.

It also has other ways for clubbers to have fun outside the dance floor.

Even though Zoukout is only 7 years old, it has attracted its fair share of fans from around the world.

More than one third of the clubbers come from outside Singapore, from as far as Dubai, the UK and even France, making Zoukout one of the top clubbing parties in Asia.

"We hope that there would be ample sections in the beach for us to use because we really, really don't want to scale it down. We've got to such a point where we made it such a big event. To do an event of this scale, to include four music tents so that the music doesn't overlap, to make sure there's enough party space for everybody, you really need that kind of area – 56,000 sq feet is just not enough, we need more," said Phillips.

Inga Voss, a German working in Singapore, said: "Where I come from, we don't have beach parties at all because of the climate. It's too cold to have (one), so it's somewhat special for me, in particular. And I enjoy it very much."

Khalid Alexander Semper, a tourist from New York, said: "I've partied in South America, London, Amsterdam, New York, and this may be one of my top five experiences of all time. And the fact that it's going to go into 8am, I'm hoping I can stay up till 8am."

Organisers said this year's Zoukout took about six months, 400 people and S$1.5 million to put together – the highest amount since it was first held in the year 2000.- CNA/so

RELATED ARTICLE

Big beach clean-up after ZoukOut dance festival at Sentosa
Straits Times 10 Dec 07;

Read more!

Fresh flooding in Johor: 2,851 people in 30 Johor evacuation centres

Floods cut off 2 villages
Meera Vijayan, The Star 10 Dec 07;

JOHOR BARU: Heavy downpour has worsened the flood situation in Segamat, with at least two villages -- Kampung Jawa and Taman Segar -- cut off from the rest of the district.

The number of people evacuated from Segamat rose to 2,806 in 28 evacuation centres, up from 1,836 people within six hours.

The water in Sungai Segamat rose to the danger level by 2pm Monday, from the normal 8.1m to 11m.

Water levels continued to rise in areas like Simpang Loi, Kampung Tunku Tiga and Kampung Lenga.

However, despite intermittent rains, the flood situation seemed to be improving in other districts in Johor, with Mersing recording 39 evacuees and Batu Pahat reporting six respectively.

The total number of evacuees in Johor stands at 2,851 people in 30 evacuation centres statewide.

Over 4,000 in flood relief centres
The Star 10 Dec 07;

KUALA LUMPUR: Floods in three states have sent more than 4,000 people to relief centres, as forecasters warned of more monsoon rains across the country.

Swollen rivers claimed victims in Pahang and Johor, raising the death toll from the floods to seven after five drowning cases were reported in Kelantan.

There are now 4,046 flood victims in relief centres in the three states.

Some 1,400 of them from 261 families are in 16 relief centres in Pahang; 1,367 from 264 families in 20 centres in Kelantan and 1,280 from 308 families in 20 centres in Johor.

The meteorological department warned that moderate rainfall in central Kelantan and southern Pahang is expected to continue until tomorrow morning while moderate rainfall is expected to continue today in Terengganu. The department said moderate to heavy rainfall was expected in Sandakan, Kudat, and the west coast and interior of Sabah until Wednesday.

The five drowning cases reported in Kelantan so far were two in Pasir Puteh and one each in Kota Baru, Tumpat and Gua Musang.

Three popular trunk roads remained closed. They are Kota Baru-Pantai Cahaya Bulan road; Jalan Rantau Panjang-Jeli road and Jalan Meranti-Pasir Mas road.

Kelantan drainage and irrigation department director Lim Chow Hock said all streams in Kelantan, particularly the arteries of Sungai Kelantan and Sungai Golok remained at dangerous levels.

In Rompin, 15-year-old student Mohd Salleh Mohd Nor of SM Perantau Damai was found floating in Sungai Kampung Inoi at 10.45am yesterday, some 10m from a spot he was last seen fishing.

The Sungai Lembing-Kuantan road and the 71st kilometre of the Kuantan-Muadzam Shah road have been closed to traffic.

In Segamat, the body of Mohd Irwan Mohd Nazam, 13, was found at 7.40am about 100m from the place he went missing in Sungai Chodan in Kampung Paya Pulai.

Irwan was swept away while bathing with three friends yesterday afternoon.

Johor has issued evacuation alerts to villagers living along Sungai Muar, and between Bukit Kepong and Panchor after water levels rose above the danger mark yesterday.

In Terengganu, several main rivers including Sungai Setiu, Sungai Dungun and Sungai Kemaman have risen above their alert levels.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 10 Dec 07

Chek Jawa Check-up
Salinity very low but lots of baby horseshoe crabs
and other checks on the CJ project blog

Appeal to Save Woodland at Sg Ulu Pandan
Designated for HDB Development, on the Nature Society (Singapore) website 7 Dec 07

Underwater 'rock climbing' horizontally
Diving our very own Salu reefs in strong currents
on the colourful clouds blog

Re-use, re-cycle or re-frain
Folks at Seletar have stuff to give away on the postcards from seletar blog

Coral workshop
learning more about our corals on the nature scouter blog

Slideshow of South Korean oil spill
photos from wire news on the yahoo news site

Read more!

Singapore vegetable farms hit by dye get cash payout

Jessica Lim, Straits Times 10 Dec 07;
Farmers satisfied with money ranging from $10k to $25k

SIX farmers received cash payouts last week after their crops, tainted by red dye 17 days ago from an F-16C jet at Tengah Air Base, had to be destroyed.

The farmers at the Lorong Semangka area in Sungei Tengah whom The Straits Times interviewed said they were 'satisfied' with the compensation.

According to Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao, the amounts compensated ranged from $10,000 to $20,000 per farmer. However, the farmers The Straits Times interviewed said they received about $25,000. The amount, they said, covered 80 per cent of their losses.

They explained that the amount compensated depended on factors such as the size of the plot and the types of produce. One farmer said that the total losses incurred by all six vegetable farms were about $200,000.

The Defence Ministry declined to reveal the amount paid out.

The Straits Times understands that the compensation was based on the market value and weight of the vegetables destroyed.

Said farmer Tan Bock Tat, 40, who lost 1.3ha of crops: 'We think this amount is enough. It is not in our place to say what is enough and what isn't. Getting some compensation is good enough.'

The six vegetable farms were told to destroy 200 tonnes - about 10 lorry loads - of leafy vegetables after the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority found that the dye was not approved for use in food.

All the tainted vegetables were destroyed by last Tuesday. The farmers have since started to sow new seedlings.

Said Mr Wong Kok Fah, 45, a farmer with 30 years of experience: 'At first, I was worried I had to wait a long time for the compensation. I was surprised it was so quick. I am just glad it is over now.'

It took 17 family members and farm hands four days to destroy the affected crops on his farm.

They started sowing new seeds last Wednesday, the day Mindef officers showed up at their farm with the compensation. Replanting takes a full week.

The compensation, he said, is being used to buy new seeds, cover operational costs and to tide over the month when there will be no income.

Vegetable prices are not expected to be affected as the produce destroyed comprised less than 1 per cent of Singapore's vegetable consumption.

Apart from farms, some homes and cars were also affected.

Mindef said that since the incident, it had received 89 calls on its 24-

hour toll-free number (1800-760-8844). This provides callers with advice on how to get rid of the dye stains.

The ministry encourages those affected to 'send in receipts and claims' because 'all reasonable claims rising from this incident will be considered'.

Said Mr Jason Sia, 29, unemployed, who contacted the Defence Ministry to remove the stubborn dye stains on his car: 'Considering my car is all right, it is okay. Just that the hassle of going through the whole process was a bit troublesome. But it is good I finally got my car re-polished, paid by Mindef.'

RELATED ARTICLES

After Day of the Red Dye
David Boey, Straits Times 4 Dec 07;

Prices unlikely to rise after destruction of contaminated vegetables: AVA
Channel NewsAsia 2 Dec 07;

AVA says vegetables in markets safe to eat: following checks on vegie farms with 'red spots' Channel NewsAsia 1 Dec 07;

Farmers told to destroy 200 tonnes of greens after red dye from airbase falls on them
Mindef says dye was from an aircraft being tested on the ground last Friday
Jessica Jaganathan & David Boey, Straits Times 1 Dec 07;

Read more!

Is there no place for our very own Albizia?

Letter from Yap Yang Ming, Straits Times Forum 10 Dec 07;

Are we going to fell every single Albizia tree in a knee-jerk reaction to a freak accident that killed a person several months ago?

A FEW years ago, I experienced a magical moment while serving national service.

While waiting for a lecture to start on the fourth floor of a building, I took the chance to soak in the lush greenery around me. Suddenly a flock of dazzling white Goffin's cockatoos flew by and landed on a big, majestic tree.

My heart jumped with excitement as I knew that Goffin's cockatoos are endangered in their native lands in Indonesia and had established themselves in Singapore only in the last few decades.

To my amazement, a flock of long-tailed parakeets (native to Singapore) flew by and settled on the same tree and started having friendly squabbles with the cockatoos in a flurry of intoxicating colours.

On closer inspection, I realised that the cockatoos were actually nesting in one of the holes in the tree and the tree was none other than our humble, native Albizia tree.

Albizia trees are able to colonise on sub-fertile soils as they are from the leguminous group. They harbour useful nitrifying bacteria in their roots which convert nitrogen in the air directly to nitrates which fertilise the soil.

It is therefore not too far-fetched to say that we owe our current lush secondary forests to Albizia trees. Because of their size and height, they also provide nesting areas for cockatoos and hornbills and many other birds which require mature trees to nest in.

They are also majestic, beautiful trees to behold and, most importantly, they soak in vast amounts of carbon dioxide because of their size.

So I was shocked on reading Ms Chong Kuan Mui's letter about the Singapore Land Authority's intention to fell 63 Albizia trees ('Retain scenic trees in South Buona Vista Road'; ST, Dec 6).

Many other Albizia trees have been felled in other locations, including in Bedok Reservoir Park and Yio Chu Kang.

What is SLA and National Parks Board's stand on Albizia trees? Is there no place in Singapore for our very own native Albizia tree?

Are we going to fell every single Albizia tree in a knee-jerk reaction to a freak accident that killed a person several months ago?

Albizia trees have been with us for a very long time and have survived many extremes of weather, including strong winds. What makes the authorities think that other exotic trees from other lands are able to do the same?

RELATED ARTICLES

Are Albizias 'killer' trees?
Sharon Lee Siew Kiang, Today Online 15 Nov 07;

Why were trees cut down?
Letter from Albano Daminato and Lisa Garris, Today Online 6 Nov 07;

Read more!

Foodcourt goes green and brings back tiffin carriers

Marcel Lee Pereira, Straits Times 10 Dec 07;

THOSE old metal tiffin containers are making a comeback - at foodcourts.

The Banquet foodcourt chain plans on offering them to customers in hope this will reduce the use of plastic takeaway containers.

The metal two or three-tiered containers were commonly used in the 1960s and 70s for takeaways, but fell out of favour when plastic containers became easily available.

But they are making a comeback, as hawkers jump on the green bandwagon and try to save money too.

Banquet, for instance, says that its 30 halal foodcourts around the island, which each see 3,000 transactions a day on average. Three in 10 are takeaway orders. This translates to about 27,000 plastic containers going out of each foodcourt every month.

But when it re-introduces the tiffin carriers by February next year, the foodcourt chain is hoping to reduce this by half.

'Plus, it also brings back an air of nostalgia, reminding us of our childhood days, and perhaps help families to bond,' said Banquets's coordinator executive for marketing, Ms Noorhayati Moehd Saide.

Customers will need to pay a deposit - the exact amount has not been fixed yet - but they can return the tiffin carriers for a full refund, she said.

Right now, its hawkers are trying to cut back on the plastic usage, and they are charging customers 20 to 30 cents for each container.

And from today, any customer who comes in with his own container for takeaways can enjoy a 5 per cent discount off food prices.

While Banquet is the first to start touting tiffin carriers, hawkers across the island, both in upmarket foodcourts and hawker centres, say they have been charging for plastic containers for some time.

They say, however, that this is merely to recoup the costs of the containers.

Hawkers pay anything from five cents for a small chilli sauce container to about 20 cents for a large soup bowl.

Most of the customers interviewed by The Straits Times said they do not mind paying for the convenience of plastic takeaways.

Polytechnic student Siti Nabilah, 19, said: 'I can't be carrying a container with me all the time. But if I was at home, and going to eat at a foodcourt, I would consider bringing one.'

To some hawkers, the bring-your- own-container concept is not new.

Take Holland Village XO Fish Head Bee Hoon Restaurant on Holland Drive, for example.

For over a decade now, customers who want to do takeaways have happily forked out $2 to $3 for proper soup containers.

Owner Ricky Lau, 60, said the containers can better withstand hot liquids.

Customers can return them for a full refund, and many have kept the containers to bring it back the next time they do takeaways of the famous fish noodles.

Hawkers and customers agree on one thing, that less is more when it comes to plastic.

As Mr Morris Tiah, 36, a chicken rice seller at Compass Point puts it, 'anything we can do to reduce disposables will be good because it helps us save money and the environment too'.

Discounts for those who do bring their own containers help, said hotel front office assistant Ibrahim Suharman, 26.

'I hope that it will encourage Singaporeans to be less lazy and make it a way of life,' he said.

Read more!

Big beach clean-up after ZoukOut dance festival at Sentosa

Straits Times 10 Dec 07;

In the aftermath of the record ZoukOut dance festival at Siloso Beach in Sentosa on Saturday, all that was left were plastic cups, drink bottles and food wrappers.

An army of about 80 cleaners got down and dirty at the beach at 7am yesterday after the massive 12-hour party of the year.

'We are still not done yet,' a Sentosa spokesman told The Straits Times in the afternoon. They had already trucked off 12 loads of garbage by then.

'There was more rubbish than last year,' said the Sentosa spokesman.

Party Gras
23,000 party people groove to the beat at iconic 12-hour dance festival ZoukOut
Eddino Abdul Hadi, Straits Times 10 Dec 07;

THE party was supposed to end at 8am yesterday. But when you have an action-filled dance event called ZoukOut, which drew a record 23,000 revellers this year, it is no surprise then that some folks just don't want to go home.

So it was that at least 700 party people were still thronging the venue at Siloso Beach in Sentosa at 8am.

The dance festival has built a reputation as one of the premier dance events in Asia, attracting fans from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and even as far as Dubai.

Indeed, this year's attendance at the seventh edition of the event was 3,000 more than last year's.

Diehards included language teacher Sri Ram Ramadas, 32, a Singaporean who flew in from France where he is based.

'I'm actually on paternity leave right now. My wife and baby are joining me in a couple of days but I decided to fly in earlier just so I can catch this party,' he said.

With top-ranked DJs like Armin Van Buuren and Carl Cox helming the decks and local bands like I Am David Sparkle rocking live sets, the four stages featured enough diversions to keep everyone on their toes all night long.

At the stroke of midnight, a parachutist jumped from a helicopter, wowing the crowd with a smooth landing on the beach.

This year might just be the last time ZoukOut is held in Sentosa - and possibly Singapore - as a water park is set to be built on the beach next year.

But that worry was relegated to the back of everyone's minds yesterday as revellers caught up with sleep.

Read more!

Done that, bin where?

NEA didn't reply to request for recycling bin near home
Event organisers should have had bins for paper
Letter from ETHAN GUO
Letter from SAUL SIO

Today Online 10 Dec 07;

I recently moved into a new apartment in the city. Having lived previously in a landed property where I had my own recycling bin, I continued to separate recyclable material from the usual trash at my new place.

I looked up the National Environment Agency's (NEA) website to find out the location of the nearest recycling bin and was disappointed to find that it was at Temasek Tower, which is quite a distance away from my home.

I sent feedback through the NEA's website requesting for a recycling bin nearer to my area but have received no reply.

However, I was determined to continue recycling. One weekday morning, I braved the peak-hour Central Business District crowd and made my way to Temasek Tower with two big bags of recyclable trash. But the recycling bin was nowhere to be found.

Every Housing Development Board (HDB) block, condominium and shopping centre should have a recycling bin.

The ones I have seen are always filled to the brim. Recyclable trash should be collected as frequently as normal trash. And perhaps, new HDB blocks should have another rubbish chute just for recyclables to encourage residents to separate their trash.

Improper or under-utilisation of these bins are the results of the lack of awareness and education. Recycling facilities have to be there for people who care enough to use them. Hopefully, the general population will be more aware of its carbon footprint as efforts to reach out to more people continue.

As our population grows, so too will the corresponding amount of trash. This problem should be tackled now, not later.

It was a good initiative to provide recycling bins for old computer parts during the Sitex 2007 fair from Nov 29 to Dec 2.

However, it was disheartening that there was no recycling bin for paper.

I saw only one recycling bin for cans in the exhibition hall.

Tonnes of brochures freely distributed from all the exhibitors ended up in the garbage bin.

Others ended up littering the floor.

With so much attention on the environment and talk about being socially- responsible corporate citizens, it was discomfiting to note the organisers' oversight on this matter.

May I suggest all venue providers to put this on their checklists in future — to ensure that exhibitors provide recycling bins for plastic, cans as well as paper.

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Facts on the ground more eloquent than statistics: Ngiam

Loh Chee Kong Today Online 10 Dec 07;

Mr Ngiam repeated his concern — which he first made in a People's Action Party newsletter last month — that Singapore should not be obsessed with bumping up the population for economic purposes, given the advances in technology and education standards.

MORE than four decades ago, former top civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow — then a young public officer in the Finance Ministry — was tagging along with former Deputy Prime Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee at a high-level United Nations meeting in Thailand.

After dinner one day during the discussion at the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, the minister insisted that a bemused Mr Ngiam follow him on an evening walk through the streets of Bangkok.

"After sweating up and down the hot and dusty pavements of the street in front of our hotel, I plucked up enough courage to ask Dr Goh what was the purpose of the exercise," said Mr Ngiam last Saturday at the National University of Singapore's Economics Alumni inaugural annual dinner. The event was attended by about 100 alumni from various years.

As it turned out, Dr Goh — widely regarded as Singapore's economic wizard — wanted to see "whether the shops were well stocked" in order to satisfy himself with the economic statistics put forth by the Bank of Thailand.

Mr Ngiam, now 70, also recalled how Dr Albert Winsemius, Singapore's first economics adviser, got his grandson to plot the changes in the number of job advertisements in the newspaper.

The chart his grandson produced "told him far more about the state of the Singapore economy than all the economic statistics I dutifully sent him each month", said Mr Ngiam.

Mr Ngiam was underlining the pitfalls of over-reliance on economic statistics without reality checks, especially in today's age of super-computers.

Another potential trap is how Singapore's "robust brand" of economics could turn out to be myopic, said Mr Ngiam.

Questioning the Monetary Authority of Singapore's use of the exchange rate as the key monetary policy instrument — while eschewing the interest rate as a tool — Mr Ngiam said that long-term growth could only be sustained by increases in productivity.

While wages here have skyrocketed in the last few months, economists have expressed concern over the sluggish growth in productivity.

Describing the Republic's productivity performance as "mediocre", Mr Ngiam pointed out how Singapore's Gross Domestic Product has expanded "largely on infusions of foreign labour".

Said Mr Ngiam: "MAS' catchphrase in its half-yearly review is that it will allow a modest appreciation of the Singapore dollar over time. Such a policy stance is realistic only if there is steady increase in our productivity growth."

And such shortsightedness has come back to haunt Singapore in some instances, Mr Ngiam added.

For example, the ongoing retrofitting of lifts to stop on every floor in HDB blocks is costing the Government "much more" than the intended "marginal" savings when it decided in the early years that the lifts should stop on alternate floors.

And even the top brains can sometimes be wrong — as evidenced by the "great MRT debate" of the mid-1970s, said Mr Ngiam.

Back then, a "powerful" team of Harvard economists assembled by the Finance Ministry had argued for an all-bus transport network instead of a bus-rail mass rapid transit system.

Dr Goh also argued that an all-bus system would be less risky than the $5 billion MRT system as the bus fleets "can expand incrementally bus by bus".

"It was a disruptive piece of reasoning," said Mr Ngiam, who had argued for a rail-based network on the basis that it would provide access to the whole island and push up property prices.

"The increase in the collection of property taxes would probably pay for the total cost of $5 billion to build the initial system," said Mr Ngiam, who added that the Government's final decision to build the MRT has been vindicated.

Reiterating that population issues are the most pressing concerns, cutting across the social, economic and political spheres, Mr Ngiam said he feared that "the tipping point of procreation has been reached" and falling birth rates "cannot be easily reversed".

While he confessed that he was "not clued up enough" to have a complete understanding of the current population policy, Mr Ngiam repeated his concern — which he first made in a People's Action Party newsletter last month — that Singapore should not be obsessed with bumping up the population for economic purposes, given the advances in technology and education standards.

Said Mr Ngiam: "The civil service is more adept at achieving quantitative than qualitative targets. Topping up our population en masse with immigrants may well create a population base larger than what our economy can sustain."

RELATED ARTICLE

Ngiam questions need to boost Singapore's population
Loh Chee Kong, Today Online 12 Nov 07;

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Need to push for more eco-friendly practices in real estate, especially Reits sector: NUS report

Room for more green Reits: study
Michelle Quah, Business Times 10 Dec 07;

'Sustainable development requires us to integrate the environmental considerations into all our development decisions, including our investment decisions, so it is unsatisfactory when the law encourages investment in real estate that has the potential to cause environmental harm without simultaneously providing for compensating measures to avoid or mitigate the harm.'

REAL estate investment trusts (Reits) are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in Singapore, thanks to their popularity. But more could be done to improve their environmental impact, given their growing significance in the property scene.

Dr Joseph Chun of law firm Shook Lin & Bok has noted - in a recent study he undertook while he was then employed by the NUS's Department of Real Estate - that the legal framework in which Reits operate has the likely effect of undermining the Singapore government's efforts to encourage green property development and management.

And he has suggested that there may be a need to consider measures to counteract these presumably unintended adverse environmental effects.

'Real estate is one of the most significant asset classes in Singapore ... However, the land is more than an investment asset to be managed for maximum income; it is also our abode in which we live, work, and play. Investment decisions that enhance or degrade this abode have serious impacts on our lives that go beyond financial returns,' Dr Chun said, in his article Are Reits Built to be Green?.

He suggests that more needs to be done to encourage environmentally friendly practices within the property sector in general, and the Reits sector in particular.

The popularity of Reits as an investment tool in Singapore has encouraged the growth and creation of such trusts. The number has grown from just one - CapitaMall Trust, listed in July 2002 - to 20 Reits now listed on the Singapore Exchange.

There have been estimates that Reits could eventually constitute up to 70 per cent of the listed real estate in Singapore - in line with international trends.

'As Reits increase their dominance of the urban environment, the need to avoid or at least mitigate those aspects of Reit law that encourage unsustainable behaviour will correspondingly become more urgent,' Dr Chun proposed in his article.

He believes the nature of Reits as an investment tool and the legal framework governing them significantly restrict the scope of any green agenda.

He observed that Reits are designed to appeal to investors looking for short-term, steady cash returns - with little to motivate the Reit manager to invest in measures that benefit the public or the occupants of the Reit's properties, ie. green measures, if these do not increase the Reit's income.

'As long as tenants who pay the utility charges are not willing to pay a premium for energy efficiency or healthier indoor environment, investing in green refurbishments that do not provide significant quantifiable financial returns is simply not an attractive use of limited funds,' he noted.

The short-term orientation is further encouraged via the reporting requirements placed on Reits - with managers having to report the trust's financial performance every quarter, value each property of the trust at least once a year and report the annual value in the annual report. These act as a barrier towards a life cycle approach to investing in environmental performance.

There are also funding constraints to pursuing a green agenda, with Reits having to distribute most of their taxable income to unit holders in order to maintain their tax transparent status.

'The legal limit on the amount of its funds a Reit can invest in property development coupled with the relatively risky nature of property development also doesn't help the green cause as it means that a Reit is more likely to seek out existing buildings to acquire rather than opportunities to develop new properties,' Dr Chun said.

Typically, it is easier and less costly for developers to incorporate environmentally friendly features into new buildings than it is to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings.

A cue could be taken from the US, where several states offer tax credits for buildings that meet certain green standards.

Dr Chun believes the law can be amended to encourage the development of more environmentally friendly buildings. He suggests relaxing the legal requirements on the minimum distribution of dividends and limits on borrowings in respect of retained earnings or borrowings invested in refurbishment, retrofitting and renovation activities that lead to a property achieving a green rating.

He also believes that measures could be put in place to mandate annual assessments of the environmental performance of the properties owned by Reits, alongside the current annual valuations needed of the properties owned by Reits. '(This will) help ethical investors make informed decisions about the green value of a Reit, thereby giving the Reit looking to attract the ethical investors' dollar a motivation to upgrade its environmental performance,' he said.

Dr Chun concludes, in his piece: 'Sustainable development requires us to integrate the environmental considerations into all our development decisions, including our investment decisions, so it is unsatisfactory when the law encourages investment in real estate that has the potential to cause environmental harm without simultaneously providing for compensating measures to avoid or mitigate the harm.'

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Persian Gulf tanker rates may rise after South Korean spill

Business Times 10 Dec 07;
Spill involves single-hull, lifting rates of double-hulls that cut risk of spills

(LONDON) The cost of shipping Middle East crude to Asia, the world's busiest market for supertankers, may surge after a single-hull tanker was involved in the biggest oil spill in 4 1/2 years.

The carrier Hebei Spirit spilled 10,500 metric tons of crude off South Korea's coast. Owners of double-hulled tankers that cut the risk of an oil spill responded by asking for higher rates to lease out their vessels, Charlie Fowle, a director at London-based shipbroker Galbraith's Ltd, said by phone on Friday.

'If it's proven that a double hull would have avoided the spill, then I think it will have huge ramifications,' he said. 'Everybody will be clamouring for double-hulls.'

Owners may manage to lease their ships for more than 200 Worldscale points within the next several days, Mr Fowle said. That would be a 16 per cent gain compared with Thursday's benchmark assessment for shipments to Asia of 172.81 points, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange.

Worldscale points are a percentage of a nominal rate, or flat rate, for more than 320,000 specific routes. Flat rates for every voyage, quoted in US dollars a ton, are revised annually by the Worldscale Association in London to reflect changing fuel costs, port tariffs and exchange rates.

Each flat rate assessment gives owners and oil companies a starting point for negotiating hire rates without having to calculate the value of each deal from scratch.

At 172.81 Worldscale points, owners of double-hulled very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, can earn about US$143,618 a day on a 39-day round trip from Saudi Arabia to South Korea, based on a formula by R S Platou, an Oslo-based shipbroker, and Bloomberg marine fuel prices.

Fuel Hedging Frontline Ltd, the world's biggest VLCC operator, recently said that it needs US$30,000 a day to break even on each of its supertankers. Companies' breakeven levels depend on their finance arrangements and fuel-hedging strategies.

Bookings for VLCCs sailing from the Middle East to Asia account for 47 per cent of global demand for the carriers, according to New York-based McQuilling Brokerage Partners LLP. Shipments to the US and Caribbean, the second-biggest market, account for 14 per cent of demand for supertankers.

The accident spurred gains in so-called forward freight agreements, or FFAs, that indicate the future cost of hauling crude.

Contracts for January climbed as much as 8 per cent while those for the first three months of next year advanced 7 per cent, according to Ben Goggin, head of tanker FFAs at SSY Futures Ltd in London.

'All my sellers from yesterday have turned buyers this morning,' he said on Friday. 'This could push rates much higher.' - Bloomberg

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South Korean oil spill leaves aquatic farmers devastated

Straits Times 10 Dec 07;
Fishermen and tourism operators also hit hard as long clean-up begins

SHINBURI BEACH (SOUTH KOREA) - MADAM Chung Hwan Hyang surveyed the damage wrought by a devastating oil slick, her wrinkled face saddened by the knowledge that the oyster farm she and her husband ran for 30 years is now lost.

'My oysters are all dead,' Madam Chung, 70, said yesterday during a break from cleaning oil off Shinduri Beach.

'I cried and cried last night. I don't know what to do.'

She is not alone in her despair, as other residents of Taean county, 150km south-west of Seoul, deal with the shock of seeing their lives and businesses suddenly destroyed by South Korea's worst-ever oil spill.

Maritime Minister Kang Moo Hyun said the clean-up would take 'at least two months', given the size of the oil slick.

'Even if some of the fish and maritime life survive, they wouldn't be marketable for a while,' Mr Kang said yesterday.

The Coast Guard said the last of three leaks in the Hong Kong-registered supertanker Hebei Spirit, rammed by an out-of- control South Korean barge, was plugged yesterday and the extent of affected coastline remained stable at 17km.

A total of 66,000 barrels of crude gushed into the ocean, more than twice as much as in South Korea's previous worst spill in 1995.

The leak is about a third the size of Alaska's 1989 Exxon Valdez crude oil spill, the costliest on record.

About 7,500 people, including Coast Guard, police and military personnel, civil servants and volunteers, were scooping up oil from the beach yesterday as others worked aboard 105 ships along the western coast trying to clean the water.

The central government has designated the oil spill a 'disaster', making it easier for regional governments to mobilise personnel, equipment and material to cope with the situation. Despite pleas, however, it stopped short of declaring the region a 'disaster area' - which would make residents eligible for government financial aid.

The area includes 181 aquatic farms producing abalone, seaweed, littleneck clams and sea cucumbers, said Mr Lee Seung Yop, an official. There are about 4,000 aquatic farmers.

No detailed damage estimates for the overall area have been released, though Mr Lee said officials feared it would be substantial.

About 63,800 people live in Taean, where fishing, seafood farming and tourism are the major industries.

More than 20.6 million tourists visited the area last year, and at least 18 million had arrived by the end of September this year, statistics show.

Motel owner Chun Kwang Ho said news of the disaster was keeping guests away. 'My business is ruined,' he said.

Raw-fish restaurant owner Kim Eung Ku, helping with the clean-up, said he feared the situation was hopeless.

'We have no choice but to leave this place. This ocean is dead,' he lamented.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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Water Summit: Ensuring Asia's taps flow safely and steadily

Tommy Koh, Straits Times 10 Dec 07;

The summit was not well covered by the international media because of the attention focused on the Bali conference on climate change. This is a pity because the summit produced some very important deliverables.

IN 2000, the UN convened a summit that adopted a set of ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Millennium Development Targets (MDT). One of those targets was to reduce by half the number of people in the world without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.

To help advance this aim, the Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF) was launched in September last year. It has two aims: to provide regional countries and organisations with a common platform to articulate strategies and promote achievements in solving water problems; and to showcase the best practices in governance and innovation, and success stories that have had an impact on the lives of people, especially the poor.

The APWF convened the region's first Water Summit, in Beppu, Japan, last week. It focused on three priority themes and five result areas.

The three priority themes are: water financing and capacity development, water-related disaster management, and water for development and ecosystems.

The key result areas include developing knowledge and lessons learnt. Singapore's Public Utilities Board, the Asian Development Bank and Unesco have set up such a knowledge hub in Singapore, which has already trained more than 500 individuals.

Another area is to develop local capacity. A third is to increase outreach by the APWF to the public. The fourth area is to monitor investments and results. The fifth is to support the work of the APWF and the Water Summit.

Real impact

WHEN I was invited to join the steering committee of the Water Summit, I accepted with the hope that it would not be another photo opportunity or festival of speech-making. I exhorted the committee to be ambitious and to make this an action-oriented meeting with a real impact on the lives of the 700 million people in this region who do not have access to safe drinking water and the 1.9 billion people who do not have access to basic sanitation.

The summit was not well covered by the international media because of the attention focused on the Bali conference on climate change. This is a pity because the summit produced some very important deliverables. Let me highlight some of them.

We agreed that people's right to safe drinking water and basic sanitation is a human right and a fundamental aspect of human security. I think such a statement has never been made before.

We agreed to meet the Millennium Development Target on water and sanitation by 2015 and to aim to achieve by 2025 a situation in which every Asian has access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. I would note here that Asean leaders at their recent summit in Singapore said they would aspire to meet the MDT on water by 2010.

We agreed to accord the highest priority to water and sanitation in our economic and development plans. We also agreed to increase substantially our allocation of resources to the water and sanitation sectors. The sad reality today is that most governments in Asia do not accord a high priority to these sectors or fund them adequately.

We agreed to improve governance, efficiency, transparency and equity in all aspects related to the management of water, particularly as it impacts on poor communities. We recognised that while women are particularly vulnerable, they are also resilient and entrepreneurial, hence, should be empowered in all water-related activities. The biggest problem facing Asia today is not technology or hardware, but these soft issues.

We agreed to take urgent action to prevent and reduce the risks of flood, drought and other water-related disasters and to bring timely relief and assistance to their victims. More people in Asia lose their lives and homes to floods and other water-related disasters than those in the rest of the world.

We agreed to support the region's vulnerable small island states in their efforts to protect lives and livelihoods from the impact of climate change. We were moved by the poignant statements of leaders of South Pacific island states that some of their low-lying isles are already submerged.

We exhorted the Bali conference to take into account the relationship between water and climate change, such as the melting of snow caps and glaciers in the Himalayas and rising sea levels, which some countries in the region are already suffering from. It should be remembered that nine of Asia's great rivers begin in the Himalayas and that nearly one billion people could be adversely affected.

We requested that the next Group of Eight Summit commit to supporting developing countries achieve their MDG and MDT on water and sanitation, and to take immediate action to support 'adoption to climate change' by developing countries.

We agreed to empower a high-level coordinating mechanism in our respective Cabinets and, where possible, to appoint a minister in charge of water to ensure that all related issues are dealt with in a holistic manner. At the moment, only two countries, Australia and Singapore, have ministers in charge of water.

We agreed to put in place a system for monitoring investments, as well as policies and projects, to ensure accountability and to make adjustments to policies and projects, if necessary.

Basic sanitation

THE United Nations has designated 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. At the summit, we held a regional launch of this international year. All participants agreed that if the water situation is deplorable, then the sanitation situation is a disaster. Nearly two billion people in this region do not have access to basic sanitation.

The lack of basic sanitation is a threat to human health, a driver of poverty and an assault on human dignity and safety. We agreed that solving the sanitation problem is not only important in itself, but also to the achievement of the other MDGs.

Singapore's own Mr Jack Sim, the founder of the World Toilet Organisation, made an impressive presentation at the meeting. He spoke of his work in Indonesia's Aceh province, rural China, India and other parts of Asia, using low-tech, non-water reliant methods of sanitation.

He also showed photos of two six-year-old boys defecating in public. One was of a boy in present-day Bangalore. The other was of himself, taken 40 years ago. The moral of the story is that with economic growth, political will, good governance and social equity, Asia can solve its sanitation problem.

Thought leader

THERE is difficult work ahead. But the success of the Water Summit shows the way forward. Singapore has been asked to consider hosting the next summit in 2009.

I hope the Singapore Government will agree to do so because, like Japan, Singapore is recognised by the region and the international community as a thought leader in water and sanitation. But much work remains to be done.

The writer is the chairman of the APWF's governing council and a member of the Water Summit's steering committee.

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