Huge rise in shipping sparks emissions alert

Danny Fortson, The Independent 11 Dec 07;

It is hard to see a way to avoid a huge increase in shipping emissions – more than 90 per cent of world trade is conducted by sea. Unsurprisingly, China is the primary driver. The biggest of the world's ships are getting bigger to feed the massive demand from the country.

Commercial shipbuilding may be a vestige of what it once was in the UK, but it is a different story in Shanghai, where along 5 miles of coastline on Changxin island the China State Shipbuilding Corporation is building the world's largest shipyard. The site is crucial to China's fight to claim the mantle of the world's largest shipbuilder from South Korea.

Yet this is far more than a tussle for regional supremacy. The global shipbuilding industry is in the midst of its biggest boom ever with the numbers of tankers and bulk carriers expected to increase by 50 per cent by 2012.

Huge tankers, bulk carriers and container ships – the largest ships in the world's fleet – are sliding out of the dry docks in Asia at a rate of nearly four a day. They are responding to growing demands for anything from authentic soy sauce in supermarkets to the Chinese steel industry's insatiable appetite for iron ore.

The global order book for container ships, tankers and bulk carriers to be built by 2012 stands at 6,100, according to Philip Rogers, head of research at the London ship broker Galbraith's. "This is the largest volume we have ever seen," said Mr Rogers, "It is unprecedented for the industry."

The coming deluge of new ships has the world's largest ports scrambling to expand capacity, and politicians, finally, beginning to take notice of what environmentalists argue is an industry that is already doing as much damage to the environment as aviation, and which could do much more.

Nearly as many ships will come into service over the next five years as the number of jumbo jets – 6,900 – expected to hit the skies over the next decade. Yet while airlines and aeroplane makers have been pilloried by environmentalists and drawn into the European emission trading sheme, shipping has thus far escaped the controversy. This is despite the generally accepted view that it generates emissions at least equal to the 2 per cent of global emissions generated by airlines.

By several estimates, including that of BP Marine, the shipping arm of the oil giant, shipping emissions could account for more than twice the greenhouse gases that flying does. Like aviation, shipping emissions fall outside the Kyoto protocol.

Later this month, an international panel of academics and industry magnates will make their final submissions in an inquiry, commissioned by the United Nations International Maritime Organisation (IMO), into the pollution caused by the world's 47,000-strong global fleet. Yet by the time their recommendations are implemented, in 2009, they will be in danger of setting targets long since passed.

This has happened before. An annex to its international Marpol treaty regulating air pollution from shipping was passed in 1997 and came into effect in 2005. However, because the targets were eight years old by the time they came into effect, the IMO launched an immediate effort to revise the targets as soon as they became binding, leading to the inquiry now just wrapping up.

The IMO will publish its pollution recommendations in February. Campaigners want shipping emissions lumped in now with aviation. "Emissions from international aviation and shipping are increasing and must be tackled urgently if we are to stop the worst impacts of climate change," said Richard Dyer, transport campaigner at Friends of the Earth. "The UK Government must also include [shipping emissions] in the new climate change law from the start."

It is hard to see a way to avoid a huge increase in shipping emissions – more than 90 per cent of world trade is conducted by sea. Unsurprisingly, China is the primary driver. The biggest of the world's ships are getting bigger to feed the massive demand from the country. The Chinese steel industry produced 66 million tons in 1990. This year, production is projected to come in at 488 million tons, creating a huge demand for iron ore shipped in bulk carriers.

World Shipping Must Act on Air Emissions - ICS
Stefano Ambrogi, PlanetArk 12 Dec 07;

LONDON - The trillion-dollar shipping industry must set global targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants by the end of 2008 or risk having regional solutions imposed on it, the International Chamber of Shipping said on Tuesday.

Tony Mason, secretary general of the influential industry body, called on the sector that carries 90 percent of the world's traded goods by volume to act in a comprehensive way and as quickly as possible.

"We at ICS believe it is absolutely vital that conclusions are reached and improved standards adopted during 2008," Mason told a ship emissions conference in London.

"If governments and industry cannot between them deliver bankable solutions within this deadline, we shall see a serious disenchantment with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) process, and a proliferation of local regulations, led in all probability by the EU and the United States," he said.

PRESSURE BUILDING

Shipping, unlike aviation, has largely escaped close attention over emissions, but pressure is building. In late November, the European Commission urged the IMO to do more.

Commission Vice President Margot Wallstrom said both shipping and aviation were "lagging behind" and were not helping European Union plans to extend its carbon market.

The United Nations' IMO, the world's top maritime body responsible for regulating the industry, is due to report by the end of this year on a way forward to combat emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas.

The shipping industry, with a fleet of up to 60,000 ocean-going vessels, also accounts for about 10 percent of sulphur dioxide emissions and large amounts of toxic nitrous oxide, gases which cause acid rain and deplete the ozone layer.

Ships also produce particulate emissions.

The IMO is busily reviewing current marine pollution laws, known as MARPOL Annex VI, adopted by countries in 1997, but that only came into force globally in 2005.

Because of the delay the regulations are seen as inadequate and unable to address huge concerns over how much sea-based transportation contributes to global warming, industry experts say. IMO's review is expected to set out far more stringent standards on completion.

One problem the industry has is establishing how much CO2 fuel-burning ships create. A further obstacle is that like aviation, emissions from shipping are not covered by the Kyoto protocol on global warming.

A figure that is frequently cited by the industry is a report by former World Bank chief Nicholas Stern, which estimated emissions at just less than two percent in 2000 compared with 15 percent made by transportation as a whole.

Critics say the level is much higher and figure fails to take account of fast expanding seaborne trade, which by the industry's own admission surged by 50 percent in the last 15 years.

"The worst case I've seen is 3 to 4 percent of emissions, which is credible - there's no scientific basis for the others," Mason said.

"Projections are outside our control and that's half the problem. The weakness that we have as an industry is that we can act to reduce CO2 emissions, but do not have mathematical models to say what they will be," he said.

"It's rather like running on a treadmill and then trying to stand still." (Editing by Anthony Barker)

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Animals, plants need help adapting to climate change

Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters 11 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Humans must help animals and plants adapt to a warmer world, environmentalists said on Thursday, because it is too expensive to rebuild entire ecosystems and their loss makes people even more vulnerable.

Conservation efforts should focus on protecting a variety of the most resilient or adaptable communities, and providing protected corridors of land or sea to allow species to shift habitats if their old range becomes unliveable, they said.

"The scale of the problem means we cannot effectively intervene. We have to look to nature to help itself," Rodney Salm, director of tropical marine conservation at The Nature Conservancy, said on the sidelines of U.N. talks in Bali on tackling climate change.

Traditionally, protection efforts often focused on the best-preserved areas of plant or animal life, but these are not always the best positioned to adapt.

For example, mangrove swamps at the edge of plains might be overlooked by environmentalists because they are easily accessible to people living nearby and so often in bad condition, while remote outcrops below steep hills can seem better havens of biodiversity, Salm said.

But to survive warming seas, the plants will need the room to retreat slowly inland that flatter areas offer. And experts say humans need mangroves to protect them from storm surges and slow the impact of rising oceans.

"Nature is relying on us. In addition to reducing emissions, we need to help natural systems adapt to climate change in order to sustain the processes that make life liveable," said Stephanie Meeks, President and CEO of the Nature Conservancy.

"No matter how successful mitigation efforts may be, this planet and its people are already committed to a substantial amount of warming and associated impacts of climate change," she said.

Coral reefs, which nurture fisheries and have already suffered mass die-offs or "bleachings" because of warmer waters, are another system in urgent need of protection, Salm said.

Rather than trying to farm heat-resistant or adaptable corals, protection efforts should focus on reefs in water cooled naturally by shade or currents, and those positioned to supply larvae to repopulate damaged areas after a bleaching.

Pacific islanders already suffering the impact of global warming are working on projects to protect the ecosystems that support their traditional way of life, the President of the tiny South Pacific nation of Palau said.

Tommy Remengesau said fishermen and farmers already found it hard to judge weather patterns in a country that also lost vast swathes of its coral reefs in a massive global bleaching late last decade.

"The resiliency of our biodiverse natural systems will be critical to our ability in our efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change that we all know are coming," he said.

(Reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison; editing by David Fogarty)

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World Bank launches forest carbon fund

Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters 11 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - The World Bank on Tuesday launched plans for a $300 million fund to fend off global warming by preserving forests, but protesters said it risked turning homes of indigenous people into an asset for the rich.

The new financing mechanism, launched at U.N. talks on tackling climate change, aims to turn better forest management into a tradeable commodity to try to halt destruction so rapid it accounts for around a fifth of annual carbon emissions.

"If we don't focus on retaining the world's remaining tropical forests, we drastically narrow the options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions," World Bank President Robert Zoellick told the project's launch.

"Deforestation and changes in land use are the second leading cause of global warming," he said, adding the project was just the start of tackling the problem.

He quoted economist Nicholas Stern's estimate that more than $5 billion a year was needed to halt deforestation.

A $100 million "readiness" fund will provide grants to around 20 countries to prepare them for large-scale forest protection under a future climate change deal, also known as reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in developing countries.

Grants will fund projects including surveys of current forest assets, monitoring systems and tightening governance.

A second $200 million "carbon finance mechanism" will allow some of these countries to run pilot programs earning credits for curbing deforestation. The credits will belong to the countries or groups that put up the cash for the fund.

Of the $300 million, they already have $160 million pledged from seven developed countries, the World Bank said.

Emissions cuts from forest areas are not yet eligible for formal credits because they were excluded from the Kyoto Protocol's first round, which runs out in 2012, but they may be able to sell them on voluntary markets.

The projects could include anything from straight forward reforestation and better zoning of agricultural and forest lands, to paying people for environmental services or improving management of forest areas, said the World Bank forest and climate change official Benoit Bosquet.

There is interest from around 30 countries for projects that many in the carbon trading industry and developing nations fighting deforestation hope could provide a model for financing forest protection in a successor deal to Kyoto.

The World Bank had previously said it was in talks with Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica and Indonesia, and regional bodies in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

INDIGENOUS CONCERNS

But indigenous and environmental groups say they are worried deals to prioritize the carbon-retaining value of forests might exclude some of the people who have most at stake.

"While the facility can be a good thing, we are very apprehensive on how this will work because of our negative historical and present experiences with similar initiatives," said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chair of the United Nations' Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

An indigenous person herself, she said the forests targeted by the initiative were home to 160 million people who were custodians of forest biodiversity and should be involved in the design and management of the projects as equal players.

"The success of efforts to lower carbon emissions from reduced or avoided deforestation hinges primarily on whether indigenous people throw their full support behind these mechanisms," Tauli-Corpuz said.

Outside the conference centre, protesters were handing out cartoons of worried indigenous people massed outside a fenced off forest, thinking of their homes, religious sites, food and fuel that were now off limits.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

$160million plan to save forests launched at Bali talks
Yahoo News 11 Dec 07;

Wealthy countries and a US green group donated 160 million dollars Tuesday for a new climate-change project aimed at encouraging poor developing nations to conserve their tropical forests.

The World Bank-led plan was launched in Bali amid negotiations over a new framework on climate change once Kyoto Protocol commitments to curb gas emissions end in 2012.

Emerging nations are demanding greater help to cut down on their own greenhouse-gas emissions as their economies catch up with the rich world.

"This initiative is a practical pilot to expand the tools for climate change negotiations," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.

Around 1.2 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods and deforestation accounts for a fifth of global greenhouse-gas emissions, according to figures cited by the Bank.

The Kyoto Protocol allows developed countries to meet their obligations by funding green projects in poor economies but in its present format does not offer specific help for reducing deforestation or forest degradation.

One of the issues on the table at Bali is how to provide such support in the post-2012 pact.

The new programme aims to assist 20 countries, among them some of the poorest in the world, with incentives to discourage illegal logging and forest clearance for agriculture.

Countries that complete a first step under the new Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) would then be eligible to a "carbon finance fund" under which they would be financially compensated for the carbon emissions saved by preserving their forests.

Germany, the outgoing president of the Group of Eight (G8) wealthy nations, is the top contributor to the fund, offering 59 million dollars of the 160 million dollars pledged by nine countries and a US group.

The other contributors are Britain (30 million dollars), the Netherlands (22 million), Australia and Japan (10 million dollars each), France and Switzerland (seven million dollars each) and Denmark and Finland (five million dollars each).

In addition, the Nature Conservancy, a US environmental group, has pledged five million.

"We must not lose another day when it comes to climate and forest protection," German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said in a statement. "Forest protection must be a central element in a future agreement on climate change."

The World Bank said that indigenous groups who live in tropical areas would be given observer status in the governance of the mechanism.

Deforestation is a factor in the global-warming equation partly because of the carbon gases released from trees that are burned after clearance. Water vapour and methane rise from cleared land that is given over to irrigated crops and cattle rearing.

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Johor floods: More than 11,000 flood evacuees

Nelson Benjamin, The Star 11 Dec 07;

JOHOR BARU: The number of people fleeing the floods in Johor has reached 11,246.

According to figures from the state police flood operations room, there were 2,760 families housed in 68 flood relief centres state-wide at of 10am this morning.

Segamat is the worst hit district with 7,150 victims in 70 centres, followed by Johor Baru with 3,537 victims in nine centres and Kluang with 397 victims in four centres.

Mersing has 113 victims in one centre, followed by Batu Pahat with 23 victims in two centres, while Kota Tinggi and Muar each have 21 victims and 10 victims respectively in one centre.

The overnight downpour in most parts of the state also caused the closure of 11 roads, mainly in Segamat.

Thousands more flee rising floods in Malaysia
Straits Times 12 Dec 07;

KUALA LUMPUR - FLOODS in three Malaysian states have worsened, with the number of evacuees increasing in Johor, Pahang and Kelantan as of last evening.

The death toll from flooding rose to nine on Monday after a teen drowned in Kelantan as he was swimming in a canal, local papers reported.

More relief centres were opened up to deal with the increased number of evacuees as the Meteorology Department issued red alerts for more rain in parts of the three states.

The number of people fleeing the floods in Johor rose to 12,629 from 10,370 yesterday morning. A total of 78 relief centres have been opened up in Johor.

Segamat was the worst-hit district, with 8,381 victims in 57 centres. Seven main roads in Segamat were closed completely to traffic, while five more were open only to heavy vehicles.

In Pahang, three more districts were inundated, raising the number of flood victims to 4,725 yesterday evening from 1,367 the night before.

The number of flood victims in Kelantan rose to 1,312 yesterday evening from 1,222 in the morning due to heavy rain in Kuala Krai and Pasir Mas.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK, BERNAMA

Malaysian flood death toll rises, thousands more evacuated
Channel NewsAsia 11 Dec 07;

KUALA LUMPUR - The death toll from widespread floods in Malaysia has risen to six and the number of people evacuated to relief centres increased sharply as heavy rains continued to fall, officials and reports said Tuesday.

A 15-year-old boy is thought to have drowned after he went swimming in a canal in north eastern Kelantan state, the official Bernama news agency reported.

Bernama on Sunday had reported five dead and three missing in the floods, which have hit three states in the peninsula.

More than 15,000 people in total are now housed in relief centres, compared with about 10,800 on Monday, Bernama said Tuesday.

As well as Kelantan, the floods have also hit southern Johor state and Pahang state in the east.

The meteorological department warned that the torrential downpours will continue until the end of the week as the flood alert for Johor and Pahang remained at the highest level of red after it was raised the previous day.

"During the monsoon season, it's normal to have heavy rains. It will remain the same until the end of the week," deputy science minister Kong Cho Ha told AFP.

A year ago, floods in Johor left more than 110,000 people displaced in a disaster that caused at least 1.5 billion ringgit (452.8 million dollars) in damages. -AFP/vm

RELATED ARTICLES

Fresh flooding in Johor: 2,851 people in 30 Johor evacuation centres
Meera Vijayan, The Star 10 Dec 07;

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Shell seeks to make diesel fuel from seaweed

Tom Bergin, Reuters 11 Dec 07;

LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell is to fund a project that aims to produce transport fuel from algae, as biofuel production from palm oil and crops are increasingly criticized for causing deforestation and higher food prices.

Oil major Shell said on Tuesday it would build a pilot facility in Hawaii to grow marine algae from which it would extract vegetable oil that would be converted into a form of diesel for use in trucks and cars.

The Anglo-Dutch company said the research plant, which is being built with Hawaii-headquartered HR Biopetroleum Inc, would only use non-genetically modified algae.

Climate change and oil prices that almost reached $100 per barrel are driving strong interest in biofuels.

Scientists are excited about algae as a feedstock because they overcome the key shortcomings associated with the current generation of biofuels such as ethanol.

Palm oil or sugar cane plantations, cornfields and other feedstocks require land that would otherwise be used for food crops or left as forest.

However, algae grow rapidly, at any time of year, are rich in vegetable oil and can be cultivated in waste or sea water.

Shell has said it wants to develop one significant business in renewable energy, and in addition to advanced biofuels, it is also researching solar and wind power.

Although the company continues to make almost all its multi-billion dollar profits from producing and refining oil and gas, high oil prices in recent years have improved the economics of alternative fuels, which generally remain more expensive than hydrocarbons.

Shell is also motivated by government mandates in the United States and Europe that will require a small percentage of road fuels to be derived from renewable sources in coming years.

Environmentalists are cynical about such investments by oil companies, describing them as a fig leaf aimed more at greening a company's image than solving the world's energy needs in a ecologically responsible manner.

Despite the attractions of algae as a feedstock, no one has yet proven it as an economic proposition, although a number of other companies including private-equity-backed Massachusetts-based GreenFuel Technologies Corp. are also conducting research.

In the late 1980s the U.S. government-funded National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researched the use of algae to produce biodiesel.

However in the mid 1990s, the Department of Energy cut funding to the research, choosing to focus resources on researching production of ethanol, which is produced from sugars in crops such as corn or cane.

In October, NREL said it was to collaborate with U.S. major oil company Chevron on research into producing road fuel from algae.

(Editing by Quentin Bryar)

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Cambodia plans hunting safaris for VIP tourists

Ek Madra, Reuters 11 Dec 07;

Dany Chheang, deputy director of the Agriculture Ministry's Wildlife Protection Office, said allowing foreigners to pay to shoot game was far better for conservation than having poachers take it illegally.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia is considering laying on hunting safaris for well-heeled foreign tourists in its remote jungle-clad northeast, to the consternation of green groups who say it could be a recipe for disaster.

Officials said on Tuesday a Spanish firm called Nsok Safaris had already drawn up plans for a five-star jungle camp to house hunters after trophies on a list of 30 mammals, birds and reptiles in a 100,000-hectare (250,000-acre) forest reserve.

The area, in Mondulkiri and Rattanakiri provinces, is home to several indigenous hill-tribes whose first main contact with the outside world was during the Vietnam War when their territory was crossed by the myriad paths of the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Dany Chheang, deputy director of the Agriculture Ministry's Wildlife Protection Office, said allowing foreigners to pay to shoot game was far better for conservation than having poachers take it illegally.

"Illegal hunters are burning dollars every day," he told Reuters. "We have not explored all the potential of our natural resources. Now is the time to do so."

"The money we net will be invested in preserving the animals and forest. It is better for sustainable development than letting local hunters deal with cheap black markets."

He did not say what the 30 approved species were. The forest area is thought to be one of southeast Asia's last wildernesses and is home to wild elephants and tigers.

Environvmental group WWF, which has been promoting wildlife conservation in war-scarred Cambodia since 1998, said it was concerned about the plan, which has been in the pipeline for two years but which has remained shrouded in secrecy.

WWF's Cambodia program manager, Bas van Helvoort, said little was known about animal population numbers in the two provinces, and so allowing them to be hunted could be disastrous.

"Putting species up to be hunted is not going to contribute to making them safe," van Helvoort said. "This has been done in Africa but it is very carefully selected and very controlled."

So far, Phnom Penh -- which is routinely accused of allowing rampant illegal logging -- appears oblivious to the concerns.

"These are our natural resources. We do not need permission from wildlife conservation experts to run our business," Dany Chheang said.

The Finance Ministry was still working with agriculture officials on the finer points of the plan, such as trophies and fees, he added.

Madrid-based Nsok Safari's Web site advertises hunting expeditions in Cameroon and Tanzania.

(Editing by Ed Cropley and Roger Crabb)

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How do you plug a hole in a ship? 'Band-aid' and 'refrigerator magnet' approaches

Band-Aids for Oil Tankers
How do you plug a hole in the side of a ship?
Michelle Tsai, Slate 10 Dec 07;

Stormy weather forced a barge to collide with an oil tanker off the western coast of South Korea on Friday morning, puncturing the side of the tanker and causing the worst oil spill in the country's history. By Sunday, the South Korean coast guard said all three leaks in the tanker had been plugged.

How do you seal a hole in an oil tanker?

First, wait until the oil stops gushing. Then, if it's a tiny hole, plug it up with cork, cloth, plastic, or pieces of wood. There's not much special knowledge when it comes to small openings: Just fill it with whatever material you have at hand and use a mallet to pound it all in.

(If the damage is underwater you'll need divers to do this job.)

This method can work even for gashes up to about ten feet long and two feet wide, although these situations might require patching together timber columns.

In rare cases, the crew might instead use a sheet of magnetic material that functions like a giant refrigerator magnet, covering a hole on the side of the ship. In addition, concrete is sometimes used to plug holes.

Collisions like the one near South Korea can cause jagged craters that are dozens of feet long—too big to stuff up with a cork or cover over with a magnet.

In the recent spill in San Francisco Bay, a container ship hit a major bridge and lost a chunk of its side that was 212 feet long and 12 feet wide. In these cases, divers or other repair workers would need to measure the hole, radio the dimensions to shore, and wait for a shipyard to create a steel patch of the appropriate size.

Once the oil has stopped leaking, the patch can be installed. A crane would hold the steel plate in place while underwater workers bolted or welded it to the boat.

(In 1989, divers reinforced the damaged bottom of the Exxon Valdez with rivets before the ship left Alaska for full repairs.)

Welding can be dangerous, though, since volatile gases like butane and propane may be present in the tank. If workers decide to proceed, they'll take extra precautions like opening the air vents at the top of the tank so the gases won't accumulate.

Why wait for the oil to leak out before fixing the hole? It's very difficult to install a plug or patch while liquid is pouring out at high pressure.

That means that patching usually takes place after the spill has stopped, though small amounts of oil can continue to leak as a tanker shifts in the current. (This is called "weeping.")

The gushing might stop when so much oil has flowed out that the level inside the tank lies below the hole, possibly within hours of the initial breach. If emergency workers manage to reach the tanker soon enough after an accident, they'll start "lightering" the boat, that is, pumping the remaining oil over to another vessel.

They might also attempt to shift the cargo around so that the boat lists away from the damaged side.

Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Capt. Richard Hooper of Naval Sea Systems Command, Robert Urban of PCCI, and David Usher of Marine Pollution Control.

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A Malaysian cycles 1,200km to rediscover his country

Across the country
John Cheong, The Star 11 Dec 07;

Tired of reading bad news, a Malaysian cycled 1,200km over 36 days on his trusty Wheeler 910 to rediscover his country and reaffirm his faith in people.

I’ve lived away from Malaysia the last 18 years. In that time, my links have become a little tenuous.

Still, my trips back home for family gatherings, get-togethers with old friends, correspondence with fellow alumni of SM La Salle Petaling Jaya in Selangor, and reading the online news give me a perspective of Malaysian life that saddens me.

There’s rising crime, corruption, questionable use of public funds, and so on. Hearing all this from afar, I feel more than a little helpless and impotent.

I see us losing touch with the values our founding fathers envisioned. The conundrum is that I have about as much influence as a gnat on an elephant’s back, yet to do nothing did not sit well with me.

And so, at 42, I planned to ride from south to north of the country, and meet with ordinary Malaysians.

I would record my encounters in my blog and search for the values Malaysia was founded upon: warmth, kindness, honesty, a moral sense of right and wrong, and a brotherhood that cuts through religion and race.

From Melbourne to Malacca, my idea was warmly received by friends and family. All voiced their support and a number generously made the ride financially possible. And so on Oct 15, I set off from Tanjung Piai, the southernmost point of the peninsula in Johor. My target: Padang Besar in Perlis.

The big adventure

It was the height of the Hari Raya festivities. As I cycled past kampungs, people in their Raya best turned up and waved at me. Kids ran out to give me high-fives, men in coffee shops looked up and smiled: I could not have asked for a more encouraging start.

My first night was in Kukup and I stayed at Oliver Lee’s Floating Chalet.

Gemuk (Fatty) is an undeserving nickname for Oliver, unless chubby equals happy, for he seemed a contented and easy-going man indeed. He confidently gave me the keys to the house on stilts I stayed in and declared Kukup to be very safe. When I wandered around, I noted that many houses were not locked. A far cry from the remote-controlled gates and multiple locks I’m used to in PJ.

Oliver grew up in the nearby Pekan Nenas, lived five years in Kuala Lumpur during the late 60s and went to Kukup when he married a local girl. He has lived there since and loves the peaceful, honest nature of the place. He told me the various races, even the Orang Laut, all mixed together freely.

Kukup is popular with visitors from Singapore and the southern Malaysian towns and it’s easy to see why. The lure of seafood, the novel spectacle of a town on stilts and the generally slow pace all give the place a genial and welcoming air.

Travelling on the trunk road to Pontian and then to Batu Pahat, I continued to be received warmly. People on the roadside would wave, and truck drivers going in the opposite direction would toot their horns in encouragement.

My arrival at the numerous stalls I visited over the five weeks on the road were almost always greeted with smiles and a warm, “Dari mana?” (Where are you from?)

One particularly inspiring morning was spent in Pekan Seri Menanti in Johor where I had breakfast with a DAP and an UMNO representative. Chinese and Malay, they were old friends who just happened to have different political loyalties.

Despite their differences, they each considered the other a good friend and often met up for breakfast. In this modest shop, everyone – Chinese, Malay and Indian – greeted everyone else with a smile and a handshake. Here, in just the first week, were the ideals I was searching for!

I dropped by to see old friends in Malacca and found more. I’ve always liked the place but never really figured out why. Perhaps it was that old and new existed side-by-side, and various places of worship – temples, mosques and churches – were built in the same area.

In nearby Pantai Kemunting, I spent an afternoon with some World Wildlife Fund friends who were working hard to save the Hawksbill Turtle. Young and passionate, Min Min, Arvind, Grace and Hafiz work against the odds – out of 14,000 eggs collected last year, only seven are expected to reach adulthood, they tell me. But they battle on, even having to deal with physical threats from poachers. Certainly admirable.

Port Dickson was nice, but Morib, less so. A general air of disrepair greeted my return to my home state. From cracked and sunken concrete steps to pavilions sitting in pools of stagnant water, and wooden lookouts with broken steps and railings, Morib kind of dampened the good feelings I’d picked up thus far.

In the Klang Valley, I found less affability than I had become used to: it seemed that friendliness and cities were mutually exclusive. A few days later, I felt glad to leave the dust, pollution, curtness, hustle and bustle of Selangor and hit the road again.

# Next week, John Cheong will relate how he encountered abundant kindness and warmth up north. Read more about his exploits at john-budakkampung.blogspot.com.

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Shrinking lake highlights Bali's water woes

David Fogarty, Reuters 10 Dec 07;

BUYAN, Indonesia (Reuters) - Every year since 2000, the water level of Bali's Lake Buyan has been falling, leaving many locals puzzled.

Some believe deforestation in the surrounding mountains is to blame, while green groups suspect the shrinking lake is emblematic of looming water shortages the Indonesian island is likely to face as more and more tourists visit.

"I don't know why but it looks like the trees have been cut down," said vegetable farmer Nyoman Suarjaya, standing near an embankment now several hundred meters from the lake's edge. "So there's no water catchment," he added.

He pointed to a pavilion built a few years ago for tourists to launch canoes onto the lake. It now lies abandoned near an expansive stretch of land that once used to be the lake bed and now has become fields for vegetable growers.

Lake Buyan, one of Bali's deepest, no longer draws tourists, just locals curious to see the receding lake which has faced a 3.5 meters (11 feet) drop in water levels since 2000.

In the densely populated south of Bali, tourism and the construction industry are fuelling a boom in the island's economy, which serves as a regional business hub.

About two-thirds of Bali's 3.5 million people live in the main city Denpasar and further south to the tourist areas of Seminyak, Legian, Kuta and Nusa Dua, where environment ministers are meeting this week to try to agree on the outlines of a broader pact to fight global warming.

Tourism has rebounded this year after a series of bomb blasts. The recent construction boom involving factories, malls, luxury villas, spas and high-end resorts has led to ever-greater demands for water, electricity and waste management.

But some parts of the island, named in a recent Travel + Leisure magazine poll as the world's best, are already facing water shortages or salt-water intrusion into wells.

Environmentalists and some government officials say the problems could become worse unless significant investment is made and people started conserving water.

"If there's no change in this fast-growing tourism development, it's not impossible that Bali will suffer from a water crisis in the next 10 years," said Agung Wardana from Wahli, a leading Indonesian environment group.

"The current emphasis is the development of the tourism industry which results in changes in productive and open lands that reduce the ability to provide ground water. This is made worse by neglect of river system," he added.

ALL IS NOT WELL

Many Balinese rely on wells for water but in some areas, particularly in the tourist centre of Kuta, so much is being extracted that salt water is fouling supplies. Rubbish and sewage being dumped into rivers was also affecting water quality.

Bali has few reservoirs and many of its rivers are used to channel water to an intricate traditional network of channels to feed the island's iconic emerald rice fields.

"Since the development of tourism industry is very fast, in the future we will have a big problem," said Ida Cakra Sudarsana, head of the mining and energy division in the Bali Department of Public Works.

He said Bali's problems were not lack of ground or river water but one of development and he urged an expansion of reservoirs and tree-planting schemes in Bali's volcanic mountains to curb deforestation and water-conservation schemes.

"We're supposed not to face a water shortage until at least 2025," said Raka Dalem, a senior lecturer in environmental management and ecotourism at Bali's Udayana University.

"But in actual situation we do face a shortage situation because of bad management of water resources.

"During the wet season, lots of water flows to the sea and then in the dry season we face a bad problem. That's the main issue, how we manage the water so that it can be used throughout the year," he said.

While tourist businesses and farmers diverting water from Bali's lakes were partly to blame, there was also significant damage caused by the felling of forest trees near catchment areas for cash crop cultivation, experts said.

A lack of trees meant water and silt rushed into the lakes during downpours but there were less regular river flows during the dry season. It also meant that water was not being absorbed into the ground to fill underground basins that will provide for Bali's water needs in the future.

Water conservation is crucial.

Already at Nusa Dua, an enclave of five-star hotels and a major conference centre, the government has banned deep-well water. All big hotels in Nusa Dua used recycled waste water for watering gardens.

Many luxury villas also used water-recycling systems, said Nils Wetterlind of ecovilla developer Tropical Homes.

But most villas also have large swimming pools filled from well or town water. And very few villas used solar/natural gas electricity systems now widely available or used certified plantation timber, meaning they weren't very green.

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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Antarctica's penguins threatened by global warming

Sugita Katyal, Reuters 11 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Antarctica's penguin population has slumped because of global warming as melting ice has destroyed nesting sites and reduced their sources of food, a WWF report said on Tuesday.

The Antarctic peninsula is warming five times faster than the average in the rest of the world, affecting four penguin species -- the emperor penguin, the largest and the grandest in the world, the gentoo, chinstrap and adelie, it said.

"The Antarctic penguins already have a long march behind them," Anna Reynolds, deputy director of WWF's Global Climate Change Programme, said in a statement at the Bali climate talks.

"Now it seems these icons of the Antarctic will have to face an extremely tough battle to adapt to the unprecedented rate of climate change."

The report, "Antarctic Penguins and Climate Change," said sea ice covered 40 per cent less area than it did 26 years ago off the West Antarctic Peninsula, leading to a fall in stocks of krill, the main source of food for the chinstrap and gentoo penguins.

In the northwestern coast of the Antarctic peninsula, where warming has been fastest, populations of adelie penguins have dropped by 65 percent over the past 25 years, it said.

The number of chinstraps decreased by 30 to 66 percent in some colonies, as less food made it more difficult for the young to survive, while the emperor penguin has seen some of its colonies halve in size over the past half a century.

Warmer temperatures and stronger winds mean the penguins had to raise their chicks on increasingly thinner sea ice which tends to break off early while many eggs and chicks have been blown away before they were able to survive on their own.

Scientists have predicted that global temperatures could rise sharply this century, raising world sea levels and bringing more extreme weather.

A 2005 study showed that most glaciers on the Antarctic peninsular were in headlong retreat because of climate change -- and the speed was rising. Scientists say that most of the rest of the ice on the giant continent seems to be stable.

"The food web of Antarctica, and thus the survival of penguins and many other species, is bound up in the future of the sea ice," said James P. Leape, director general of WWF International.

"After such a long march to Bali, ministers must now commit to sharp reductions in carbon emissions for industrialized countries, to protect Antarctica and safeguard the health of the planet."

(Editing by Alister Doyle)

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Best of our wild blogs: 11 Dec 07

Nature Calls
mr brown comments on plans to develop Mandai.

Otters sighted on Chek Jawa!
and other encounters on the tidechaser blog

Singapore's role in climate change
and other climate issues discussed on the Champions of the Environment blog by Geh Min

2008 TeamSeagrass monitoring dates
Ordinary people CAN make a difference for our shores on the teamseagrass blog

More e-cards
for a paperless Chrismas on the ashira blog

Sungei Buloh Anniversary Walk
a fabulous celebration of Buloh on the justin dive blog

A bit of dirt doesn't kill
Green Tip #3 - It’s not necessary to be always clean and spotless
on the AsiaIsGreen blog

Wild Insects
some of our forest insects on the for the future of our forests blog

Feather Maintenance
How the Heron Chick does it on the bird ecology blog

Daily Green Actions: 10 Dec
sickly monkey ponders tissues and other impacts on the leafmonkey blog

How can I recycle teddy bears and soft toys?
on the how can I recycle this? blog

Read more!

Australia offered to help win World Heritage listing for Coral Triangle

Canberra to help Asia in heritage list
The Age 10 Dec 07;

Australia has offered to help six Asia-Pacific countries win World Heritage listing for a massive coral reef brimming with marine life.

The Coral Triangle spans 5.7 million square kilometres from the northern tip of the Philippines to the Indian Ocean below Singapore and as far west as the Solomon Islands.

While it covers just two per cent of the world's ocean, it contains 76 per cent of all known coral species and 53 per cent of the world's coral reefs.

It is home to more than 3,000 species of fish, more than 600 species of coral, and supports more than 120 million people.

But the precious resource is threatened by global warming, overfishing, destructive fishing practices and pollution.

The six countries in whose waters it falls - Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and East Timor - agreed on Monday to establish a new international partnership to protect the fragile reef system.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett sat in on the meeting, on the sidelines of the United Nations climate change conference in Bali, and pledged Australian support for the conservation plan.

"We've offered support in the event that the six governments want to apply for World Heritage listing for a part or all of the reef," Mr Garrett told reporters after the meeting, which included Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

That help could include financial aid, but would more likely take the form of expert advice in putting any submission together.

Australia will also host a workshop next year in Townsville to provide additional scientific expertise to those involved in the Coral Triangle initiative, he said.

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Singapore on the back of an envelope: Ngiam Tong Dow

Business Times 11 Dec 07;

Ngiam Tong Dow, a former senior civil servant who served in various ministries including as permanent secretary in the Finance Ministry, is known for his insight and wit. As usual, his talk to the NUS Economics Alumni Annual Dinner last week sparkled. In this first of a two-part excerpt from that speech, he talks about economic policy-making.

WHEN I joined the Singapore Administrative Service in 1959, all of us had read the humanities at university. George Bogaars, Head of Civil Service, read history. The two heads who came after, Howe Yoon Chong and Sim Kee Boon, read economics. Pang Tee Pow, who succeeded Mr Bogaars as Permanent Secretary (Defence), also read economics. Three out of the four heavyweights in the service then were from the economics department.

Our most outstanding alumni are Singapore's first two prime ministers: Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong; and Singapore's first Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee. Across the causeway, Tun Abdul Razak, Malaysia's second prime minister, also read economics, as did Tan Siew Sin, Malaysia's second finance minister.

As economics alumni, we can say with some pride that the founding political and administrative leadership of Singapore and Malaysia came largely from our department. It can be said that they received what can be considered a modern classical education - a 'PPE' education, in philosophy, politics and economics. The question is whether such an education can equip us to lead and develop our countries.

First, let me disavow any claim that economics is a profession in the traditional sense that doctors, lawyers, accountants and architects are professionals. Professional colleagues in the medical, legal, accounting and architectural services have to be registered to practise their professions. Registration gives the public some assurance that they have a threshold level of competency to practise their discipline. This exclusive right carries with it personal liability. They can be sued personally for negligence and deregistered for serious breaches.

Economists, on the other hand, cannot be sued for negligence. There is no threshold level of competence to practise economics. A BSc is as good as a PhD. Indeed, some of the best stock analysts have never heard of Adam Smith, or his book The Wealth of Nations, or abstract ideas such as the 'invisible hand'.

Though economists cannot be sued, they can be sacked. Even then, it depends on where you work. In the mid-1960s, I attended an economics seminar in Baguio in the Philippines sponsored by IBM. The chief economist of IBM, Dr Grove, had worked in the Federal Reserve Bank. He was asked the difference in the accountability of the Fed chairman and the IBM chief economist.

As IBM's chief economist, he would be invited by Tom Watson, founder of the company, to lunch once a quarter. He would be asked by Mr Watson to brief him on the state of the economy. Dr Grove had to make a forecast of the number of mainframes that IBM can expect to sell in the next quarter. At each quarterly lunch, actual sales would be matched against forecasts. Dr Grove told us that whatever ego he had as an economist was completely dissipated by the actual sales numbers.

Forecasts soon forgotten

At the Fed, highly paid central bank economists would draw deeply on their pipes and pronounce with gravitas what interest rates are likely to be. They would even forecast what the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate would be for the calendar year. Central bank forecasts of interest, exchange and GDP growth rates are soon forgotten. They make for good headlines in the morning newspaper only the day after. Unlike IBM economists, Fed economists are not held accountable for the central forecasts they make. Mr Watson had no time for Fed economics, or economists. Woe betide his chief economist if the sales forecasts were way off the mark.

As a policy outsider, it is interesting to note that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) eschews the interest rate as a policy instrument. Instead, the MAS focuses on the exchange rate as the key instrument of monetary policy. The MAS intervenes directly in the foreign exchange markets, buying or selling the Singapore dollar against a basket of currencies, predominantly the US dollar. While such a policy may be effective against disruptive short-term inflows of foreign currencies, I question whether it is adequate as a long-term policy instrument.

All of us learn in Economics 101 that the underlying bedrock for growth is total factor productivity. In comparing GDP growth rates, we need to differentiate between expansion and growth. The economy expands when the labour force increases.

Singapore's GDP has expanded largely on infusions of foreign labour. Secular long-term growth can only be sustained if Singapore's productivity increases. Our productivity performance has been mediocre. MAS's 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. The central economic challenge for Singapore is therefore raising productivity. At its core, productivity is a mix of efficiency and effectiveness. The key ministry in the present phase of our economic growth is the Ministry of Education, not the Economic Development Board (EDB) or the Ministry of Finance.

Under the strong intellectual leadership of our first Finance Minister, Goh Keng Swee, the Ministry of Finance practised what became known as a robust brand of economics. Dr Goh established Singapore's Bird Park in Jurong before the Zoo at Mandai because, as he points out, birdseed cost considerably less than meat for the tigers and the lions at the zoo.

The Ministry of Finance also rejected flood alleviation works at the Bukit Timah Canal. As it flooded only three or four times a year, it was too costly to enable motorists to arrive home in time for dinner. We would rather give a schoolboy 50 cents bus fare to go to the beach to swim rather than have a swimming pool built at Tanjong Pagar. The cost per swim would be much higher than the bus fare.

But such a robust approach can also turn out to be myopic. In the early years, the lift at some Housing Board (HDB) blocks only stopped on alternate floors. As the lift shaft went through all floors, the savings - if any - were marginal. Retrofitting of such lifts under HDB's current lift upgrading programme is costing much more.

In public administration, the economic tool I found most useful was cost-benefit analysis. Its simplicity is disarming. In evaluating the host of projects submitted by operating ministries in the annual budget exercise, the Ministry of Finance simply totes up the capital and operating costs of the project and compare the costs with the benefits on the other side of the ledger. The devil is in the details.

For instance, should we add indirect cost such as damage to the environment on the cost side? An environmental project that reduces pollution is clearly of benefit to the community. The problem is, how do we value clean air? Does its value lie in protecting the population against a high incidence of asthma? Should not the asthma sufferer pay for clean air?

In the very public debate on the proposed MRT in the mid-1970s, Dr Goh agreed that a mass rapid transit system would add to the employment capacity of the central business district. Assuming that the MRT can bring an additional 250,000 workers into the city each morning during peak hours, the capital cost alone to have each additional worker arrive on time for work would be $200,000, as the whole system would cost us $5 billion to build. He asked whether an all-bus system would be cheaper and less risky to undertake as the bus fleets can expand incrementally bus by bus. It was a disruptive piece of reasoning. Those in the opposing camp argued that a rail-based system would open up almost every corner of Singapore. With access to rapid mass rail transport, new towns can be developed in every region of Singapore: north, south, east, west. The development potential would increase and land values would rise, yielding more property taxes which can finance the capital cost of the rail system. Economists call such benefits external economies. External economies generated by a less land-intensive rail-based mass rapid transit system far outweighs its high capital cost.

The alternative would have been an all-bus mass transit system. There is simply no land to build or expand roads to accommodate the thousands of buses which would be on the road each day during the morning and evening peaks. The outcome would have been severe congestion and gridlock. Congestion pricing would reach heights which would provoke a political backlash. There would also be the external diseconomy of petrol fumes and pollution. Finally, a rail-based transit system provides a strong physical backbone for integration of all transport modes, whether private cars, taxis, buses, vans or lorries.

The great MRT debate of the 1970s is an outstanding example of cost benefit analysis in public decision-making. But not all public policies are amenable to straight cost-benefit analysis. For instance, can we apply cost-benefit analysis in the Great Marriage debate of the 1980s to produce the desired outcome of more intellectually compatible marriages and birth of intelligent babies? It was a piece of social engineering that did not succeed. My guess is that it failed because there was too much cost-benefit analysis. The government targeted the purse more than the heart. Winning hearts is not about cost-benefit analysis.

Cost-benefit analysis can be done either on the back of a used envelope or in the bowels of super-computers. When I was appointed permanent secretary (Budget) in 1987, Dr Goh asked to see me. I thought that he wanted a bigger budget allocation for his ministry. I was dead wrong. He told me simply that as permanent secretary (Budget), I would continue to make mistakes. Only this time, I would be making them in the bowels of super-computers instead of the backs of used envelopes, which was what I did when I was his young adjutant. This was the best piece of financial advice I believe a minister can give to a newly minted permanent secretary.

In the early days, a $1 million project proposal would be put through the meat grinder by the Finance Ministry using paper and pencil. In fact, Dr Goh told us, the young finance 'aristocrats', that we should just reject out of hand any and every spending proposal received the first time. If the supplicant ministry persists, only on the third try, we would give them half of what they wanted.

Super-computer help

These days, any project proposal less than $100 million is not considered respectable. Worse, we need to have super-computers to crunch out the numbers. But I wonder whether decisions made by super-computers are any sounder than those made the old fashioned way, based on calculations on the back of used envelopes? If our basic thinking is unsound, no super-computer can help us.

Super-computers produce effortlessly reams of statistics. Though statistics help to buttress our conclusions, Dr Goh, an outstanding statistician himself, told me that all statistics have to be subjected to reality checks. In the early 1960s, I accompanied the Minister to attend an Economic Commission for Asia & the Far East (ECAFE) meeting in Bangkok. After dinner, the minister insisted on an evening walk.

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. He told me that he wanted to see whether the shops were well stocked. As they were, he was satisfied that the economic statistics put up by the Bank of Thailand, headed then by Puey Umpakorn, his London School of Economics (LSE) college mate, were credible. By Dr Goh's compass, all statistics have to be checked against reality. Particularly GDP estimates. More so in Singapore when civil service annual bonuses are tied to GDP growth rates.

Another lesson I learnt in statistics was from Albert Winsemius, our economic adviser in the 1960s and 1970s. One figure that he watched like a hawk was our unemployment rate. In the early days, we did not have the resources to do labour force surveys on a regular basis. Instead, he asked us to subscribe to The Straits Times to be delivered to him by airmail in the Hague where he lived.

When I asked him what he found so interesting in The Straits Times which was, after all, a parochial Singapore newspaper, he said that he did not read The Straits Times for world news. As our economic adviser, he was more interested in the density of the jobs vacancies columns. He got his young grandson to plot the changes. He told me that 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. So, back of the envelope calculations can sometimes be more useful than calculations by a super-computer.

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Read more!

Responsible holidays: trends in Singapore

Sandra Leong, Straits Times 11 Dec 07;

No, that's not the name of a travel agency. It's the emerging trend of travellers being ecologically aware and giving back to the places they visit

A TREKKING trip to Nepal in 2000 opened engineer Goh Khoon Hua's eyes to a new way of travel. A self-professed 'beach bum', the 36-year-old was accustomed to sand-and-sea allures.

Then, for a taste of something new, he signed up for a trek to the Everest Base Camp. He was humbled by the simple ways of the Nepalese people, many of whom struggled to make ends meet.

He realised there were 'little things I could do to help them. By engaging them as porters, guides, cooks, kitchen boys, we can give them jobs'.

He was especially moved by the efforts of the porters, usually young men hired to carry supplies. Despite living in cold climes, many were too poor to afford warm clothing.

He has since been back to Nepal twice in the past seven years, each time with Blazing Outdoor Adventures & Co (BOAC), an adventure travel operator here whose ideals gel with his.

Its owner Sim Tim Suan, who organises treks to places like Nepal, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Machu Picchu in Peru, deals only with licensed porter-protection agencies.

He honours a code of ethics laid out by them and is required to protect the welfare of the porters he hires. One of the things he does is to take them warm clothing from Singapore. Small as the gesture may be, it has an 'immediate impact on the people helping us get up the mountain', he says.

Respect and benefit the locals

TRAVEL may be a booming industry, contributing to both economic prosperity and employment worldwide, but it has also long been associated with gas-guzzling jets and self-indulgence rather than a desire to do good.

These days, however, responsible or sustainable tourism are the new buzzwords in a world of Live Earth and Live Aid concerts, where it's now fashionable to champion a cause to save the poor, trees or polar bears.

Travellers are encouraged to do anything from offsetting their carbon emissions when they fly, to visiting places in need of a tourism boost, to simply giving back in any way to the folk who have made their trip enjoyable.

According to British company Responsible Travel, which has over 2,700 packages, the new tack is for those who have had enough of mass tourism.

It says: 'It's about respecting and benefiting local people and the environment - but it's about far more than that. If you travel for relaxation, fulfilment, discovery, adventure and to learn, rather than to simply tick off 'places and things', then responsible travel is for you.'

Checks here show there are no travel operators equally dedicated to the cause. With Singaporeans only just trying to grasp environmentally friendly ways in everyday lives, the concept of responsible tourism is still relatively new.

In a nod to growing awareness and interest, however, Responsible Travel's public relations manager Kristina Pentland notes that out of the 250,000 visits the site receives from Asia, nearly 20,000 are from Singapore.

Still, there are players, most of them niche outfits specialising in more exotic destinations, who have incorporated ethical dimensions to their businesses.

X-Trekkers has organised community service trips since 2002. Early this year, owner Wong Yuen Lik focused his efforts on a Tibetan village called Napahai.

An agricultural community of 42 families, they rely on logging and are slowly depleting the natural resources. So far, X-Trekkers has taken about 50 Singaporeans there.

'Travellers give the villagers a chance to earn an income by hosting them in their houses and preparing meals. We give them the clients and they, in turn, promise to reduce their reliance on logging.'

At least one of the 42 families has stopped logging, he says. The extra income has helped send 11 out of 16 children to a nearby town to attend school.

Mr Wong plans to help the community for seven to 10 years so that any change is sustainable and long term.

Another agency, Country Holidays, undertook a project in 2000 that helped raise US$2,000 to build a school in Bhuka village in Nepal, says its spokesman Jess Yap.

For every trekker that it sent to traipse through the village, it donated $5 to a school fund. The school was built in 2002.

In Vietnam, it worked with an operator who paid the locals in buffalos rather than cash. The idea was to promote a more sustainable lifestyle for the area's ethnic minorities.

Offset your carbon footprint

It also partners safari lodges in Africa which employ only local folk so tourism dollars enrich the community.

X-Trekkers' and Country Holidays' business has grown over the years but both are unable to give specific figures with regard to ethical travel because of the wide definition of the term. But Ms Yap adds that Country Holidays' volume has grown 'more than 50 per cent' over the past five years.

Others like Eco Adventures and Atrium Eco Travel are less overt in their approach but share the same philosophies.

At the former, trips include stays at longhouses in Ulu Ai in Sarawak which benefit the Iban community.

In Koh Yao Yai and Koh Yao Noi, off Phuket in Thailand, operators work with fishermen and families to provide homestays in an attempt to stave off the big boys planning to establish resorts and hotels on the island.

Mr Andy Yeo of Atrium Eco Travel says: 'We don't have a category of tours called 'ethical'. I simply turn away requests for anything I feel is irresponsible. Recently, that has included hunting trips and four-wheel-drive trips in environmentally sensitive areas.'

To him, responsible travel is not always about the grand gestures but also about exhibiting considerate manners, such as not littering and showing respect to locals.

Says Mr Yeo: 'We're fooling ourselves if we think that as tourists we can give back more than we take. If we're able to minimise the impact of our visit, that's the best we can ask.'

Admittedly, the whole concept of holidaying with a conscience may sound mind-boggling to a newbie. So how does one get into the groove of things?

Control carbon emissions

ONE of the easiest ways is to start offsetting your carbon emissions when you fly. British Airways, for example, has a voluntary carbon offset scheme on its website. A flight calculator helps you determine the financial cost of the harm your flight has done to the environment.

You can make a contribution to a Climate Care trust project. The donation on a return flight from Singapore to London Heathrow will cost £18.43 (S$54).

Climate Care, set up in 1998, spearheads projects in renewable energy, energy efficiency and forest restoration. Other airlines that have carbon offsetting schemes include Qantas and Jetstar.

For now, followers of responsible tourism say it's good enough that you know you can do things differently and ethically.

Certainly, the movement has its fair share of detractors who feel that travellers can only do so much amid the myriad issues facing the world today.

Doctorate student James Wong, 28, is one. He says: 'Yes, you can give back to the destination you visit, but surely many people do so just for one 'feel good' moment and may not truly reflect a desire to change the world.

'They probably go back to driving SUVs and using plastic bags after they return from their holiday.'

But Eco Adventure's Mr Timothy Tan sees it another way. 'I call it ABC - awareness before change. Once travellers discover there are alternatives, where one can travel more responsibly, they will usually choose that route.'

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Do-gooder trips not the best way to volunteerism?

Braema Mathi, Straits Times 11 Dec 07;
New NVPC head wants a culture of giving that goes beyond 'voluntourism'

VOLUNTEERS would achieve a whole lot more if they performed fewer 'superficial activities', said the new man at the helm of the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC).

In businessman Stanley Tan's books, these include making short do-gooder trips to other countries to stay with the poor, dig wells for villagers or get immersed in the lives of the less fortunate.

These short trips with a charitable element - referred to as 'voluntourism' - have become increasingly popular with student groups as well as adults, but he feels this may not be the best way to teach young people the meaning of giving or inspiring them to be volunteers.

Mr Tan, 51, the new chairman of NVPC, told The Straits Times: 'We need to give them a value-system in giving.'

By that he means helping the young to see that 'giving' need not mean grand gestures and big commitments.

'Giving is also about helping an elderly lady to cross the road, to take photographs of events for a charity here and helping it to archive its history,' he said.

A volunteer since his schooldays, he believes that Singaporeans are generous and always willing to give to victims of disasters or anyone in trouble, including injured foreign workers.

They showed amply that they cared during the Sars crisis of 2003 and after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, he said.

'We have the fundamentals for a compassionate society.'

But what troubled him was how to reach out to a younger generation that 'wants more and more': a problem not only in Singapore, but also in other economically successful societies.

So it will be a challenge for the NVPC to attract the young to become life-long volunteers.

He thinks this can be done by identifying everyday gestures that the young do - helping a classmate, helping a neighbour, helping out at home - and appreciating them as acts of giving.

'This way, the young will see that volunteerism is not an external act, but something that comes from within,' he said.

The NVPC, the home and the school can be consistent in emphasising the 'giving' aspect of volunteerism and work in harmony with other public efforts, such as the Singapore Kindness Movement.

At the same time, Mr Tan feels that, when volunteers come forward, they should be used well. This does not always happen.

'We ask them to sweep the floor when there's something better that they could do,' he said. 'The important thing is to get this matching of needs right.'

One effort that the NVPC is undertaking is to establish a 'vertical kampung spirit' by introducing volunteerism to residents in Housing Board blocks and estates, as it was in the old days.

It will work with other agencies to get the volunteerism message to residents.

'Volunteering is a very simple act, one of giving of oneself in terms of time, expertise or to just fill a gap as there is simply no one else to do it,' he said.

Read more!

Singapore taxis cruising empty waste $73m in fuel every year

Christopher Tan, Straits Times 11 Dec 07;

HERE'S another reason why cabs should stop cruising for passengers - it can help save the earth.

Each of the 23,000 taxis here covers at least 300km a day - many, 500km - and they are cruising empty up to one-third the time.

If empty cruising can be eliminated, Singapore stands to save on 175 million kg of carbon dioxide emission a year - as well as loads of other pollutants.

If that does not grab you, it will also potentially save $73 million in wasted fuel every year.

A multi-ministerial work group is targeting this wasteful practice.

Last month, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) published the National Energy Policy Report, with inputs from other ministries such as Transport, Finance and Environment and Water Resources.

Under the land transport section, the report zeroed in on empty cruising by taxis.

'Due to the high mileage of taxis, diesel taxis contribute a significant amount to our CO2 and PM2.5 emissions,' it read, referring to carbon dioxide and ultra-fine particulate matter produced by diesel engines. 'To address this, we are exploring ways to reduce the empty cruising of taxis and increase the proportion of green taxis.'

When asked to elaborate on its plans to tackle empty cruising, MTI directed the query to the Transport Ministry which directed it to the Land Transport Authority.

An LTA spokesman said the authority will build more taxi stands. By the end of this year, it will erect 15 more taxi stands in the Central Business District. There are currently 80 taxi stands in the CBD.

The thinking is that with more taxi stands, cabbies will be less likely to wander aimlessly looking for fares.

But the LTA declined to elaborate on how it would tackle cabbies who leave their engines running while at these taxi stands. Nor did it provide details on other ways to address empty cruising.

Its spokesman, however, pointed out that cab operators are required to cater to a high percentage of call bookings.

Cabby L. S. Chew, 37, said that of the 300km he clocks a day on a 12-hour shift, he gets 20 to 25 fares. Each fare averages 10km. Which means he cruises 50 to 100km a day without a passenger.

'Every 10km we go without a passenger, it's $1 down the drain,' Mr Chew said.

On average, if the cabs are empty one-third of the time, it works out to at least $10 of wasted fuel per cabby per day.

Leading taxi company ComfortDelGro agrees that empty cruising is wasteful and detrimental to the environment.

'To minimise empty cruising, we have put in place a technologically advanced call booking system,' ComfortDelGro spokesman Tammy Tan said.

'We are constantly looking at ways to make it more efficient so that commuters will be encouraged to book a taxi instead of resorting to street hail.'

In places such as Europe and Australia, hailing a cab from the street is rare. Commuters either phone for one or go to a taxi stand.

The authorities have long sought ways to encourage the practice here.

Singapore Environment Council's executive director Howard Shaw said one way this could be done would be to drop the booking charges.

'Maybe we should reduce charges on bookings and make it more accessible and convenient to book a cab,' he said.

Mr Shaw also suggested a centralised booking system, where commuters dial only one number to get a cab from any of the six taxi companies here. This would shorten the waiting time and thus encourage more to book a cab by phone, he said.

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Something to beach about: ZoukOut on Sentosa

Why do people brave the elements to be at ZoukOut every year?
PHIN WONG realises that it's a matter of national pride
Today Online 11 Dec 07;

I am not what you might call an "outdoorsy" person.

Some people love the feel of sand between their toes and the wind blowing in their hair. I would rather my toes stay in my shoes, while a gentle breeze from an air-conditioning unit rustles my hair a tad.

Yet, year after year, I find myself choosing to battle our dastardly humid climate on a beach in Sentosa for ZoukOut. Why would someone allergic to Mother Nature and her allergen-filled arsenal willingly put himself in the middle of harm's way? It just doesn't add up.

My mother doesn't get it either. And judging by her recent adventures in whittling down price tags in Bangkok, she's really good at math.

Having read sordid reports splashed across the papers about the drunken shenanigans that happened at last Saturday's ZoukOut at Siloso beach, she wondered aloud — in the patented Chinese-mother style that elicits immediate guilt from anyone listening — why anybody would attend such a hedonistic event filled with booze, skin and public make-out sessions.

Even though I had groped only my plastic cup of vodka, I was immediately cloaked with guilt from having shamed my entire clan just being at the scene of the crime, sandy evidence still caked in the rubber crevices of my soles.

I reassured her the sin reports were exaggerated and that I didn't witness any more amorous frolicking than one would see at an 18-year-old's all-night soiree at an East Coast park chalet. "Still," she tsk-ed, signalling more guilt ahead, "Fun, meh?"

Ordinarily, I would never entertain the thought of slumming it outdoors with a cargo-load of strangers. More than 23,000 people showed up on Saturday — an all-time attendance high. That's 3,000 more sweaty bodies that transferred their cooties to me compared to last year.

There were drunk louts getting on the general public's collective nerves and random young people vomiting on trees and other unfortunate foliage.

And let's not forget the attention-seeking girls in their attention-seeking bikinis and cheap shoes — chest out, stomach in, and intelligence bared naked for all to see by wearing high heels at the beach.

And I had a blast.

It took what could be the end of ZoukOut as we know it to make me understand why I've been venturing out of my comfort zone of walls, a roof and an artificially enhanced climate all these years. Because the party might have to move to the city due to the rapid development of Sentosa, "ZoukOut as we know it might never be the same," said Zouk marketing manager Tracy Phillips.

So, maybe it was with these fresh eyes that had just received bad news that I saw my epiphany. I haven't been showing up at ZoukOut every year because of the music. No, I'm a little more rock 'n' roll than I am into the bleeps and blips of electronic music. Neither had I shown up to "be seen". Trust me, I'd rather be seen dry and smelling of roses. I have stuck it out every ZoukOut because it actually stirs up some nationalistic pride.

Check out this party on my beach, on my tourist-bait of an island, in my country.

Last year, more than 7,000 people flew in from the rest of the world to party in my home — yes, my home known more around the world for our ban on chewing gum than having fun. Saturday's figures haven't been released yet, but it sure looked like the party tourists came to pay a visit again.

We've got a lot to be proud about in Singapore, but a lot of it has to do with science and numbers and buildings and things. You can't love a bio-hub, or take a picture of a low crime-rate and post it on your blog. ZoukOut has a heartbeat. You can touch, smell and taste it. It lives on in silly digital photos snapped on mobile phones and, more important, in memory, which is a lot more than a statistic can do — no matter how spiffy your pie charts.

I'm going to miss ZoukOut as we know it. I like it on the beach. I know it's just Sentosa, but it feels like escapism. Having it in an urban environment will just remind me of the work waiting for me tomorrow. Though there is a certain consolation knowing that I was there all those years when ZoukOut was a beach party before it becomes Swing Singapore 2008 — you can't put a price on bragging rights.

Also, if ZoukOut leaves the beach, I can't be blamed for no longer venturing outside to play in Mother Nature's garden of bugs and humidity. It's the IRs' fault coming in and cutting the beach in half. I am the first victim of legalised gambling.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

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Empowering the poor, saving the planet: interview with Ashok Khosla

Today Online 11 Dec 07;

He's an environmental thinker and one of the world's leading experts on sustainable development. Dr Ashok Khosla taught Harvard University's first undergraduate course on the environment back in the '60s.

For the last 25 years, he has been chairman of Development Alternatives, a non-profit organisation that develops and promotes environmentally-friendly and commercially viable businesses. These include companies that manufacture low-cost roofing tiles and transform agricultural waste to fuel.

In 2002, he was awarded the United Nations-Sasakawa Environment Prize — the Nobel Prize of the environment world.

He spoke to Esther Ng (estherng@mediacorp.com.sg) recently about his passion for the green movement at Indochine's roundtable talks on corporate social responsibility.

What was it like to champion the green cause way before it became popular?

My professor, Roger Revelle, was the first person in the world to discover the effects of global warming as early as 1958.

But because the study was very early, it was something unfamiliar, and therefore something that people didn't quite relate to. But what was known was that species were beginning to disappear; DDT (Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane) was getting into the bodies of penguins in the South Pole; and pollution from factories was affecting the quality of our air and land.

You've been described as "an individual who personifies the hopes and dreams of billions trapped in the indignity of acute deprivation". Give us an idea of what this "acute deprivation" is?

Living in Singapore, it's hard to imagine the kind of poverty some 2 or 3 billion people live in. They face hunger, crime and marginalisation. Many people die from malnutrition and disease.

The fact is half the people in the world live on less than $3 a day — it's very hard to live on that anywhere in the world.

You're one of the few academics who put what they teach into practice. Tell us what you have done for the rural poor.

I set up Development Alternatives 25 years ago. We've developed technologies that have enabled communities to set up small businesses to supply things that everyone needs like roofing tiles, unfired bricks, recycled paper, toilets and energy.

How is your development scheme different from the Grameen Bank?

The Grameen Bank is about giving microcredit of say, $500, for people to set up a cottage industry.

Our work is the next level up from the Grameen Bank. We help small entrepreneurs generate eight to 10 jobs and profit to improve their business.

How do you go about convincing governments and businesses that it is in their interest to implement environmentally sustainable practices?

It's been pretty hard to create not just the awareness but the intention to make a change in those sectors.

I wouldn't say every government feels the same way, but I think in the next 10 years this is going be a major commitment of every government.

Part of it is because these issues are more visible simply because things are getting worse — you can't hardly avoid seeing the problems of managing waste and pollution — and part of it I think is we are beginning to be more demanding about the quality of our lives.

What are the stumbling blocks for sustainable development?

I'd say greed and short-term self interest. Having said that, I believe we can make this world a better place with the help of the media.

What do you think about your former student, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore's efforts in raising environmental consciousness on a global scale?

He's done a terrific job — I think he's single-handedly gone out and proselytised and preached for a better world.

But I do think that we need other Al Gores to deal with issues of loss of species and the lives of the poor. The biggest problem I think today continues to be the existence of poverty and we do need to address this.

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Knocking Out Top Predator May Not Save Prey - Study

PlanetArk 11 Dec 07;

HONG KONG - Removing what appears to be a predator at the top of the food chain may not necessarily save an endangered prey, a study in New Zealand has shown.

The study involved the Cook's petrel, a burrowing seabird on New Zealand's Little Barrier Island which faced extinction from the late 1990s after being hunted by cats and rats brought in by settlers from as early as the 10th century.

The island decided to get rid of its cats in 1980 but instead of reversing the declining numbers of petrels, their population dwindled further, the researchers wrote in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While 32 percent of breeding burrows fledged a chick when both cats and rats were around, only 9 percent produced chicks after cats were removed from their breeding areas.

"The cats were suppressing the rat numbers, so the removal of the cats allowed rat numbers to increase and as rat numbers increased ... they (hunted) petrels more heavily," Matt Rayner at University of Auckland's School of Biological Sciences said in a telephone interview.

The island finally got rid of its rats in 2004 and the breeding rates of petrels shot up to 59 percent.

But at lower altitudes, petrel breeding rates were little changed even after the rats were removed -- which the researchers attributed to the availability of other food sources for the rodents lower on the slopes.

Cook's petrels used to be found everywhere in New Zealand, but they disappeared from the mainland in the 19th century due to encroaching human developments.

The size of pigeons, petrels are now found in only one other island in New Zealand, on Whenua Hou at the southern tip.

"They are poorly adapted to predation by mammals but can live up to 30 years. They live a long time but breed very slowly ... one egg every couple of years," Rayner said.

It was important for conservationists to fully understand ecological systems before carrying out eradication exercises, Rayner said.

"You had better be sure that you understand what is going on in the community ecology between introduced predators and native prey. In a lot of cases, these introduced species have been introduced for quite some time, so they have been here for 50 to 150 years ... the result could be quite unpredictable," he said. (Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn, Editing by Rosalind Russell)

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Indonesian Pulp Output Hit by Logging Curbs

PlanetArk 11 Dec 07;

JAKARTA - A drive to clamp down on illegal logging in Indonesia could cut supplies of raw materials to the pulp and paper industry and slash output by two-thirds next year, an industry official said on Monday.

Environmentalists blame timber groups in the country for illegal logging and the destruction of forests. The pulp and paper groups have denied that they use illegally logged timber.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said last month that illegal loggers and their financial backers were "common enemies" and must be brought to justice.

Muhammad Mansur, chairman of Indonesia's pulp and paper association, cited cases where firms had got permits from the forestry ministry to cut down trees in a concession but had then been targeted by the police for illegal logging.

"The conflict between the forestry department and the police department has hurt raw material supplies," Mansur told Reuters.

Since the start of the year, police have tried to catch illegal loggers in areas including forest concessions owned by companies supplying wood to PT Indah Kiat Pulp & Paper and PT Riau Andalan Pulp and paper in Sumatra island, a director at a parent firm said previously.

Mansur said pulp producers were expected to produce 1.68 million tonnes of pulp next year, down from an estimated of 5.2 million tonnes this year and 5.67 million tonnes in 2006.

He said that in order to ensure supplies, the companies had been cutting down immature trees on their plantations, but he estimated this would only be possible until the end of the first quarter of 2008.

Indonesia has 84 integrated pulp and paper mills, with a total capacity of 6.5 million tonnes, according to data from the association.

The country exports about half of its production to Asia, including China and South Korea.

Indah Kiat is a unit of Asia Pulp and Paper, part of the Sinar Mas group, while Riau Andalan is a subsidiary of APRIL, which is part of the Raja Garuda Mas (RGM) International group.

The two companies account for 65 percent of the country's total output of pulp and require a total of 9 million tonnes of wood per year.

According to Greenpeace, Indonesia had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000-2005, with an area of forest equivalent to 300 soccer pitches destroyed every hour. (Reporting by Mita Valina Liem, editing by Ed Davies)

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Researchers find new deep water coral

Yahoo News 11 Dec 07;

Researchers have discovered what they believe is a new deep water coral and sponge beds found several thousands of feet below the ocean surface, officials said Monday.

The a lemon-yellow bamboo coral tree and a giant sponge were discovered last month in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument by the Pisces V submersible operated by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL).

Samples of the corals and sponges were collected for taxonomic identification and DNA analysis. They were found in depth from 3,000 to 6,000 feet.

Christopher Kelley, the principal investigator of the project, said the monument is potentially protecting so many new species and new records of species that many will not be revealed for decades to come.

The vast national monument, nearly 100 times larger than Yosemite National Park, was created by President Bush last year out of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which stretch out 1,000 miles from the main Hawaiian Islands.

"Most of the monument is below scuba diving depths," said Randy Kosaki, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research coordinator for the monument. "It's important to find ways to explore these deep water ecosystems where the inhabitants are virtually unknown."

Researchers returned from their 22-day expedition on Nov. 19.

HURL was established by NOAA and the University of Hawaii to study deep water marine processes in the Pacific Ocean.

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Saving tigers needs more global money

Ashok Sharma, Associated Press, Yahoo News 11 Dec 07;

Saving the world's remaining tigers will require as much as $500 million a year, but average annual international funding only comes to $5 million, a conservation group said Monday.

Most of this was given to non-governmental organizations, while governments of 12 countries with tiger populations were expected to come up with funding themselves, S. C. Dey, secretary-general of Global Tiger Forum, told reporters.

While Russia and India get up to 20 percent of money they spend annually on tiger conservation from international funding, for other countries it was as low as 1 percent, Dey said after the release of action plans for 12 countries with wild tiger populations.

"As the world's wild tigers have dwindled to as few as 3,000, it is time for a concerted effort to save the big cat from extinction," a Wildlife Trust of India statement said.

Fred O' Regan, president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the tiger was facing one of the worst periods of its existence.

"Having these national action plans in one document will make it easier for conservation organizations around the world to understand the requirements of range countries," he said in a statement.

The 12 countries where tigers live in the wild are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

While Nepal and Bhutan did not require much international funding, countries like Russia, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia each need up to $20 million annually for their efforts to save the tiger, Dey said.

India alone needs $200 million to relocate thousands of people from the vicinity of tiger reserves, Dey said.

"China has been demanding compensation for stopping commercial farming of tigers for their parts," he said. Tiger parts are prized in traditional Chinese medicine.

In India, the wild tiger population is roughly half of what it was estimated to be five years ago, a government study has found.

India's tiger population may be in the range of 1,300-1,500, according to a survey by the Wildlife Institute of India. The institute's last study, in 2001-2002, estimated 3,642 tigers were left in India's jungles and reserves.

Wildlife experts have long warned that poaching and encroachment on the big cats' habitat has savaged their population, which a century ago was believed to number in the tens of thousands.

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How Desert Dust Feeds the World's Oceans

Pien Huang, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
LiveScience.com, Yahoo News 9 Dec 07;

Given the dearth of iron in the Southern Ocean, some have even suggested adding a fourth, artificial source of iron. Earlier this fall, a conference at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution spotlighted “iron-seeding” as a potential vehicle for carbon sequestration.

In mid-February, at the height of Austral summer, the sun in the Antarctic never sets. Nor did the work ever stop for University of Hawaii oceanography professor Chris Measures and his team of trace-metals oceanographers, who worked around the clock measuring dust from the decks of the Scripps Insitution of Oceanography research vessel Roger Revelle.

The researchers affixed bouquets of trumpet-shaped filters to the ship’s mast to trap dust from the air, and for every degree of longitude, they sampled the sea, plunging a contraption of cylindrical bottles to the depths of the upper ocean, screening water for remnants of dissolved dust and the trace amounts of iron and aluminum they contain.

Measures is taking part in a leg of the Climate Variability-CO2 repeat hydrography program (CLIVAR), a series of cruises funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration seeking to document and comprehend the ocean’s role in climate change.

CLIVAR research cruises have surveyed representative sections of the ocean on a decadal scale since the 1990s, focusing primarily on better understanding the carbon cycle. In collaboration with William Landing at Florida State University, Measures is running an adjunct program for trace metals on CLIVAR. Since receiving NSF support in 2003, Measures and Landing have led dust-measuring teams on six CLIVAR cruises in the Atlantic, Pacific, Southern and Indian oceans.

Which all begs the question, what exactly does dust have to do with carbon?

Unlike land plants, aquatic plants can permanently remove carbon dioxide from atmospheric circulation; some sink to the ocean floor after death, and the carbon in their bodies remains subsumed in the deep ocean for thousands of years. Dust, as a process, holds a place in the ocean carbon cycle as a source of iron for those plants.

As chemical oceanographers, Measures and Landing are interested in how chemicals enter and cycle through the oceans. They are particularly interested in iron, a micronutrient necessary for plant growth. Just as pill supplements are a way to get vitamins into human bodies, dust from continental deserts is one way to get iron into the oceans, where phytoplankton use the dissolved form of iron, along with inputs like carbon dioxide, to process sunlight and make food for themselves.

In quantifying dust deposition, the researchers hunt for trace amounts of iron and aluminum in the water column. Aluminum is not directly used by plants, but it exists in proportion to iron in desert dust, and its presence in the oceans shows the origins and the paths of iron, long after the iron has been absorbed by plants.

For all the effort the researchers spent collecting water and running samples in their shipboard laboratory, not much iron or aluminum was to be found off of Antarctica. Even by trace metal standards, where concentrations are measured in nanograms (billionths of a gram) per liter, there were only the slightest traces of iron. Low iron levels have long been suspected of limiting productivity in the Southern Ocean; as a region, it has an unusual excess of general nutrients that are, in most oceans, completely consumed by plants.

It’s not the amount of iron that matters to Measures’ team, so much as what the existing iron can illuminate about process. While inland Antarctica receives rains sparse enough to qualify as the world’s largest desert, much of the continent’s dirt is locked under ice, and prevented from becoming dust.

What iron exists in these waters comes from two additional sources. In shallow sections, iron may be churned up from underwater plateaus and continental shelves. Throughout the ocean, iron can be recycled from the breakdown of dead materials. Knowing the sources of iron, and how much each contributes, helps in creating accurate climate prediction models.

Given the dearth of iron in the Southern Ocean, some have even suggested adding a fourth, artificial source of iron. Earlier this fall, a conference at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution spotlighted “iron-seeding” as a potential vehicle for carbon sequestration.

The theory is simple: dump iron in the ocean where plant productivity is iron-limited, and it will encourage plant growth. More plants would take in more carbon dioxide and, on death, more carbon dioxide will sink out of the reach of atmospheric circulation. While greater ocean productivity has coincided with major drops in CO2 during past ice ages, iron-seeding experiments are so far yielding more caveats than green lights. Adding iron has stimulated plant production, but it has also altered other parts of the biological pump. In iron-saturated conditions, for instance, the dominant phytoplankton use less silica; being lighter, they sink less directly, throwing off the efficiency of the carbon pump.

Some members of CLIVAR’s trace metals team have worked on iron-seeding experiments, but their work on CLIVAR cruises focuses on the existing world. From the CLIVAR series, and from an upcoming cruise series for chemists called GEOTRACES, Measures, Landing and colleagues are pooling efforts to create an unprecedented map that shows the distribution of chemicals in the oceans.

For weeks, the team plodded through their time at sea. They raised and lowered the air filters in a daily ritual, ran vials of seawater through yards of plastic tubing. They warmed their stiff fingers over mugs of espresso, entranced by a perpetual dusk that faded to blue-black nights as they steamed north. Every so often, they found minute traces of earth metals which, while invisible, hold one in a set of many keys to understanding how people are changing the planet.

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

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