Bangladeshis kill tiger

Reuters 18 Dec 07;

KHULNA, Bangladesh (Reuters) - A female tiger in Bangladesh wandered out of a mangrove forest on Tuesday and was surrounded by villagers and killed, officials said.

Four people were injured in the confrontation with the Royal Bengal tiger, an endangered species. Villagers attacked it with weapons as a woman shouted for help in panic when she spotted the animal stalking near her home, officials said.

"The tigress might have strayed into the village in search of food," said Sundarbans mangrove forest official Amalendra Shaha.

In a separate incident, four people were killed, 25 others were injured and at least 25 bamboo-made houses were damaged when a herd of elephants strayed into a village near a forest the Cox's Bazar district, 400 km (250 miles) southeast of Dhaka.

With these new victims, at least nine people have been killed by wild elephants in southeastern forest regions over the last month, forest officials said.

The Sundarbans, southwest of Dhaka, and other forests were hard hit by Cyclone Sidr, which struck the Bangladesh coast on November 15 with winds of 250 kph (155 mph) and killed about 3,500 people and made millions homeless.

The Sundarbans is a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to the Royal Bengal tiger.

At least 60 percent of the 6,000 sq km (2,320 sq mile) mangrove swamps that lies within Bangladesh, home for more than 400 Royal Bengal tigers, was devastated by the cyclone.

The Sundarbans stretch for a further 4,000 sq km (1,545 sq miles) into India's eastern state of West Bengal.

(Reporting by Enamul Haque and Mohammad Nurul Islam in Cox's Bazar; Writing by Nizam Ahmed)

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Bangladesh: Where tigers and people fight for space
Alastair Lawson BBC News 9 Dec 07;

Read more!

More to find in Indonesia's "Lost World": scientist

Yahoo News 18 Dec 07;

Many more species are probably yet to be found in pristine jungle in Indonesia's Papua province, where two mammals believed to be new to science were discovered in June, an Indonesian zoologist and a conservationist said.

Scientists found the two mammals -- a pygmy possum and a giant rat -- during an expedition involving Indonesian and American scientists in Papua's Foja Mountains.

In late 2005 the same team discovered dozens of new plants and animals on their first trip to the region.

The Foja mountain range is part of the great Mamberamo Basin, the largest unroaded tropical forest in the Asia Pacific region, and has been described as a "Lost World" because of its deep isolation.

"Very few scientists have entered the area because of extremely difficult access. The likelihood of finding more new species is very high," said Martua Sinaga, a zoologist from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences who took part in both expeditions.

Sinaga told Reuters the two-week expedition in June was part of project initiated by U.S.-based Conservation International and CBS television to film the region and its wildlife.

Such scientific explorations are not a high priority for the Indonesian government because of funding constraints, he said.

"The appreciation is different at home. Here people react coolly to news of new species discoveries," he said.

Nev Kemp, a program manager for Conservation International, said that there was "a lot more to discover" in the region.

"We've only done two survey, so a large number of habitats remain unexplored," he told Reuters.

The area is 95 percent untouched and almost uninhabited by humans, he said.

With 104 million acres of tropical forests and some of the richest bio-diversity in the world, Papua is considered the country's last rainforest frontier. But it is under threat from increased cutting and clearing for palm oil plantations as well as rampant illegal logging.

(Reporting by Ahmad Pathoni and Adhityani Arga, editing by Ed Davies and Alex Richardson)

RELATED ARTICLES

Two new mammals found in Indonesian 'lost world': Conservation International
Yahoo News 17 Dec 07;

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Thai Dam break worsens Malaysia's floods: report

Channel NewsAsia 18 Dec 07;

KUALA LUMPUR - Floods in Malaysia's north-eastern Kelantan state worsened after a dam burst in southern Thailand as the nationwide death toll rose to 23, reports said Monday.

Deputy prime minister Najib Razak said water levels at the Golok river, which marks the boundary between Malaysia and Thailand, rose above the danger level of nine metres (29.53 feet) to 10.51 metres.

"I was told the broken dam has caused a higher volume of water to enter Golok river and move towards Rantau Panjang and other adjacent areas," Najib was quoted saying on The Star newspaper's website.

The official Bernama news agency reported that among the latest victims was a six-year-old girl who fell into flood waters while playing in the backyard of her family home in Kelantan.

It reported the number of flood evacuees in Kelantan rose sharply to 6,039 on Monday from 3,772 the previous day, while in central Pahang state 21,699 were being housed in relief centres.

But in southern Johor state flood conditions improved steadily, with 3,500 people remaining in relief centres after the weekend, compared with almost 5,000 last week.

- AFP /ls

Read more!

Five illegal traps found on Pulau Ubin since September

Channel NewsAsia 18 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE: Five illegal animal traps have been found on Pulau Ubin since September.

Two were found by the National Parks Board and three by a non-profit organisation, Nature Trekker, Singapore.

NParks will be removing the traps, which are believed to have been set up to trap wild boars. The culprits used coconuts to lure the animals.

It is understood that boar meat fetches between S$10 and S$12 per kilogramme.

NParks said that taking the animals away from their natural habitat will not only decrease the number of animals in that species, but will also adversely affect Singapore's natural heritage.

It said poaching on Pulau Ubin or in parks and nature reserves is illegal under the Parks and Trees Act. Offenders can be fined up to S$50,000, or jailed up to six months, or both.

Since September, NParks has brought three people to court. The trio had been caught for poaching birds and monkeys in its parks and nature reserves.

Since 2000, over 300 people have been fined for poaching fishes and animals in parks and nature reserves.

NParks conducts daily patrols along the main roads and tracks of Pulau Ubin. Ad-hoc patrols are also carried out along more inaccessible trails and areas.

If you see any poaching incidents, you can report them to NParks at 1800-4717300 or you can call the Police. - CNA/vm

Read more!

San Francisco to adopt global warming offset plan

Adam Tanner, Reuters 17 Dec 07;

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco will become the first U.S. city to offer a program to offset the impact of global warming by funding local green activities, the mayor said in an interview on Monday.

Under the program to be announced on Tuesday, city officials would calculate the carbon cost of their travels and contribute to one of several city programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions -- or forego the travel altogether.

"What we are trying to do by this is to set high standards to show carbon offset programs that work," Gavin Newsom told Reuters, adding he was wary of offsets with little accountability that promise action in distant lands.

For official travel, that means a round-trip flight from San Francisco to New York would cost an additional $80 to $90, officials say, to be paid into the city's offset programs such as converting restaurant grease into fuel, installing solar energy devices or investing in energy conservation.

The program will not cost additional funds, which means city departments would cut out some travel to pay for other trips with carbon offsets, Newsom said. A second phase of the program would also allow residents to buy offsets.

With growing worldwide focus on the climate change impact of carbon emissions, entities from companies such as Google and Yahoo to organizations including the United Nations and countries such as Costa Rica, Norway and New Zealand are implementing carbon offset programs with the ultimate goal of becoming carbon neutral.

Such plans seek to plant trees (which soak up carbon dioxide, the most common man-made greenhouse gas) or encourage a switch from high carbon-emitting fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy such as wind and water to cut emissions.

WHERE DO THE OFFSETS GO?

The problem with many such programs is that those who pay carbon offset fees often do know what, if anything, becomes of contributions, the San Francisco mayor said.

"Right now, my offsets, I don't know where the hell they go. They might be going to the Amazon," Newsom, a Democrat, told Reuters. "There are some scam artists doing nothing other than banking on this goodwill."

He said he personally favored paying carbon offset fees for all his travel, whether he is stumping for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as he did last weekend in Iowa, or jetting off to the exclusive wedding of Google co-founder Larry Page in the Caribbean earlier this month.

In 2004, Newsom set a goal of cutting the city's annual carbon dioxide emissions by 2.5 million tonnes by 2012, a 20-percent reduction below 1990 emissions.

Newsom said officials were studying proposals to reduce emissions from transportation -- which account for more than half of the city's carbon emissions -- that could include new taxes or restrictions. "The whole movement in the United States is going to be towards congestion management," he said.

San Francisco has long embraced initiatives to encourage conservation. Earlier this year the mayor barred city officials from drinking mineral water because of concerns about pollution from plastic bottles. The city also banned plastic shopping bags in large supermarkets to encourage recycling.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 18 Dec 07

Dugongs drowned in gill nets
in Abu Dhabi but it could happen here too, on the teamseagrass blog


Possible extinction of an endemic freshwater crab
Possible collapse of population at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve on the johora singaporensis blog

There's something wrong with our culture
of playing the Economic Growth game and more on the AsiaIsGreen blog

Daily Green Actions: 16 Dec
Leaving on a jet plane on the leafmonkey blog

Bee-eater at Ubin
eschewing Buloh overkill, a focus on bee-eaters instead on the ashira blog

Honey-buzzard snacking on wasp larvae
on the bird ecology blog

Read more!

Malaysia: Pahang, Johor floods worsen

The Star 18 Dec 07;

KUANTAN: The floods in Pahang are showing no sign of letting up, with the number of evacuees increasing to more than 20,000.

As of 1pm yesterday, the number of evacuees statewide stood at 22,549 from 4,788 families in 184 flood relief centres. This was a slight increase from the 21,199 people from 4,384 families on Sunday.

Pekan still recorded the highest number of people with 9,364 in 45 centres, followed by Temerloh (4,649), Maran (2,677), Rompin (2,472), Bera (2,204) and Kuantan (1,183).

A spokesman for the flood operations centre said the relief centre in Jerantut was closed with the remaining 19 people returning to their homes after water receded at 8am yesterday.

He said certain stretches along the road between Muadzam Shah and Rompin and the trunk road in Lanchang were still under water.

There were no new reports of missing persons, he added.

In Kedah, more than 400 people in two districts were evacuated as rivers burst their banks following heavy rain.

At least 79 families from 12 villages in Padang Terap were evacuated yesterday as the Sungai Pedu water level reached 18.71m, above the 17.01m danger level yesterday.

In Kubang Pasu, at least eight families from Kampung Alur Biak were also evacuated.

The road between Padang Sera and Kodiang was closed as of 6pm.

In Sarawak, residents in the flood-hit central part of the state were warned to prepare for more rain in the upper reaches of the Rejang River basin.

Kapit recorded abnormal rainfall of 112mm on Dec 12 (normal is 70mm), which resulted in floods in Kanowit, Song and Sibu.

In Johor, Bernama reports that the number of flood evacuees in the state went up again yesterday as more people returned to the relief centres due to rising water levels in affected areas.

As at 10pm, the number of evacuees was 3,633 from 927 families at 46 relief centres, compared with 3,109 people at 6pm.

The highest number of evacuees was recorded in Muar, totalling 1,621 at 14 relief centres, followed by Segamat with 1,230 evacuees at 19 relief centres.

Following heavy rain yesterday, seven relief centres in Johor Baru, which had been closed earlier, had to be reopened to provide shelter for 685 people.

Two relief centres in Kota Tinggi were also reopened today to cater for 34 flood victims, while 64 people were evacuated to three relief centres in Batu Pahat.

Flood round up: Thousands more forced to flee homes
New Straits Times 18 Dec 07;

KUALA LUMPUR: Another two men died, two persons are feared dead and thousands more were forced to flee their homes as deadly floods continued to plague several states.
For the first time, the Royal Malaysian Air Force used a C130H transport aircraft to air-drop food supplies in the Pekan district of Pahang yesterday for distribution to relief centres cut off by floodwaters.

At press time yesterday, the number of deaths caused by the floods stood at 26 and the number of evacuees in Pahang, Kelantan and Johor at 34,411.

Kelantan, meanwhile, continued to suffer the most as the number of evacuees in the state more than doubled.
A police spokesman said 8,066 residents had been moved from their flood-hit homes to relief centres. On Sunday, the figure stood at 3,501.

Pasir Mas recorded the highest number with 6,216 people, followed by Tumpat (894), Tanah Merah (567), Machang (248), Kota Baru (136) and Kuala Krai (5).

He said Jalan Pantai Cahaya Bulan near Penambang had been closed to light traffic after it was submerged by 1m of floodwaters.

The two roads in Gua Musang at Km55 Gua Musang-Kuala Krai near Paloh 1 and Km65 Gua Musang-Kuala Krai near Sungai Lakit, which were closed to traffic following landslides on Sunday remained closed yesterday.

"Motorists, however, can continue using the Dabong road as an alternative route," the spokesman said.

He said three of the eight main flood assessment points in the state at the Sultan's pier here, Sungai Golok and Sungai Kusial recorded waters above the danger level as at 5.30pm while waters in other areas had receded to below the danger level.

The number of flood victims forced out of their houses in Pahang also increased from 21,000 on Sunday to 23,102 yesterday.

Pekan, the worst hit district, recorded a total of 9,379 evacuees compared with 7,955 the previous day.

There were 4,649 evacuees in Temerloh, 3,086 in Maran, 2,581 in Rompin, 2,217 in Bera, 1,190 in Kuantan and 160 in Jerantut.

A spokesman for the state flood operations centre in Kuantan said most of the new evacuees were from villages along the main rivers in the state.

"The weather here may seem to have improved over the past few days, but the rivers keep on swelling due to the huge volume of water."

Main roads still closed to traffic included the stretch between Km24 and Km30 of Jalan Pekan-Kuantan near Ubai and that between Km3 and Km6 of Jalan Temerloh-Bera.

The stretches near Nenasi and Leban Condong along Jalan Pekan-Rompin are still closed to light vehicles.

There was better news for Johor, however, as more people continued to slowly return to their dwellings.

Receding waters enabled relief centres in Johor Baru, Kluang, Kota Tinggi, Pontian and Mersing to close and victims to return home.

According to a state flood operations centre spokesman, 3,169 victims from 831 families are still seeking shelter at relief centres in Muar, Batu Pahat, and Segamat. On Sunday, the number was 3,602.

Muar now has the highest number of evacuees in the state at 1,767 at 15 relief centres, followed by Segamat (1,311) at 22 centres and Batu Pahat (91) at four centres.

However, four roads are still closed to all vehicles, namely Jalan Pogoh (Kampung Bukit Senggeh) and Jalan Pogoh-Tekam (Sungai Labis), Segamat; Jalan Muar-Pagoh-Labis (Bukit Kepong); and Jalan Yong Peng-Parit Sulong, Batu Pahat.

Read more!

As the climate changes, so should businesses adapt: Prof Watkinson

Lin Yanqin, Today Online 18 Dec 07;

WHEN France and several other parts of Europe were hit by a heat wave during recent summers, the number of heatstroke and dehydration victims swelled significantly. But with many healthcare professionals on their annual vacation, many did not receive adequate care.

Simply changing such practices, said climate expert Andrew Watkinson (picture), would demonstrate what it means to effectively adapt to the effects of climate change, such as more floods and droughts.

In the case of the heat waves, in which thousands were killed, Professor Watkinson said the medical professionals could reschedule their vacations, traditionally taken in August across much of Europe.

Since the effects of climate change are "here to stay", businesses and institutions need to start taking adaptive action, said the director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

"The Bali climate change talks have been about mitigation, but we also have to look at the gases we have already emitted ... the effects are almost pre-determined," said Prof Watkinson, who spoke at the Climate Change Symposium yesterday at the National University of Singapore.

For instance, the warmer weather in the United Kingdom could make the country a more attractive tourist destination — but the industry will need to look at building the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the increased number of visitors, he said.

And while businesses should take the initiative to deal with climate change, Prof Watkinson emphasised the importance of the role of governments.

"In the UK, the retailers are very interested in addressing the issue of climate change, but they're waiting for the government to steer it," he said. "Governments need to clarify and give clear signals."

Echoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — who said at the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali that there was no "silver bullet" for climate change issues — Prof Watkinson pointed out that adaptation was not a "final process" and it was important to keep learning from experience.

"You need a road map that will give you choices," he said. "You have to take into account that something might or might not happen, and your policy should be able to deal with a broad range of possibilities."

Read more!

Rising population adds to climate woes: Andrew Watkinson

Socio-economic factors play big part in global warming
Matthew Phan, Business Times 18 Dec 07

He praised Singapore's stance on climate change, as expressed by PM Lee Hsien Loong earlier this year, as 'the most sensible from a leader that I've seen'.

THREE-QUARTERS of the problems associated with global warming have to do with socio-economic factors like rising population, and only a quarter has to do with the climate itself, according to Andrew Watkinson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK.

'The population debate has gone off the agenda,' he said on the sidelines of a conference on climate modelling at the National University of Singapore.

'Climate change is not the major issue. It is the socio-economic scenarios, the demographics, that are driving major changes. Its a population problem, primarily,' he said.

Even in the UK, a developed country, demographers once thought the population would stabilise at 60 million, but the latest projections suggest that the number could hit 75 million. 'That would make meeting the emissions obligations that much more difficult', said Dr Watkinson.

The issue of growing populations and consumer behaviour could prove even harder for governments to deal with than straightforward climate change, because they are politically contentious, he also said.

Meanwhile, government policy must be flexible enough to accommodate the inherent uncertainty and wide range of climatic predictions.

The error term in climate forecasts can be significant, 'because there might be something in the model that means the outcome is not as bad, or is worse than anticipated', he said.

Government policy should be able to respond in either case.

Ideally, policy should not consist of a single solution, but a 'road map' or series of measures that give options down the line. For example, policy could allow for further steps to be taken after initial mitigation, if outcomes turn out worse than expected.

But neither the UK nor any other government has yet been 'realistic' about the efforts needed to combat global warming, said Dr Watkinson.

The UK has a target of reducing emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. Its climate change bill will get 'nowhere near' the target, which requires a 9 per cent drop in emissions every year. Including aviation and shipping, the bill is more in line with a scenario of a probable four-degree rise in global temperatures rather than the two-degree rise that scientists recommend, said Dr Watkinson.

He praised Singapore's stance on climate change, as expressed by PM Lee Hsien Loong earlier this year, as 'the most sensible from a leader that I've seen'.

The National Environment Agency has commissioned NUS to conduct a two-year study on the likely effects and impact of climate change on Singapore for the next 100 years, according to Rosa Daniel, deputy secretary of the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.

The government is also working to reduce flood prone areas on the island to less than 66 hectares by 2011, from 124 ha today.

Read more!

Governments urged to adopt integrated approach: Prof Watkinson at Singapore climate symposium

Channel NewsAsia 17 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE: An environmental expert has urged governments to adopt an integrated approach to tackling environmental issues.

Professor Andrew Watkinson, director of the UK’s Tyndall Centre, made this point on Monday at the "Climate Change: Modelling, Impacts and Adaptations" symposium organised jointly by the Tropical Marine Science Institute, the National University of Singapore’s Department of Civil Engineering and the British High Commission.

While scientists and politicians agree that climate change is a long-term problem, opinions differ as to how nations should respond to the problem.

Prof Watkinson called on governments to look beyond issues like lowering carbon dioxide emissions and using alternative energy sources.

He suggested adopting an integrated approach to adapt to the new climatic realities in fields such as town-planning, especially in areas prone to natural disasters, and healthcare services for those susceptible to temperature extremes.

However, for effective private-public partnerships, he pointed out that governments need to set up clear guidelines.

Prof Watkinson said: "Government in California brought in increasingly stringent emissions targets on the various gases in exhaust emissions to clean up the atmosphere in places like Los Angeles.

"And the automobile industry responded very positively, responded very quickly, and actually got the levels far lower than people anticipated... But they have to be given confidence, and the regulatory framework helps give that." - CNA/ac

Read more!

Red-dye deposits not a health hazard

Reply from Mindef, Straits Times Forum 18 Dec 07;

I REFER to the letter, 'Wanted: Answers to Red Dye saga' (ST, Dec 12).

On Nov 23, the Republic of Singapore Air Force conducted a ground-trial which involved producing red smoke from one of its stationary aircraft at Tengah Airbase. This was in preparation for a forthcoming aerobatics display. The dye used to produce the smoke is a standard dye used in aerobatics displays.

Investigations were conducted in the surrounding areas by the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) and the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA). Six vegetable farms located in the Sungei Tengah Agrotechnology Park were affected by red-dye deposits.

As the red dye is not an approved dye for use in food, the vegetables in the six farms were destroyed as a precautionary measure. Mindef and AVA have addressed farm owners' concerns and the farms have resumed operations.

The National Environment Agency and PUB, the national water agency, have tested the soil and water at the Kranji area and have concluded that both are safe and do not pose a health hazard.

Independent tests by the Inspectorate (Singapore) Pte Ltd and DSO National Laboratories on the red-dye deposits confirm that the deposits are not harmful. Medical professionals from the National University of Singapore have also confirmed that the deposits will not cause adverse health effects.

Mindef will continue to work with the public to render any assistance. Members of the public with further queries can call us on 1800- 760-8844.

Col Darius Lim
Director, Public Affairs
Mindef

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Singapore vegetable farms hit by dye get cash payout
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 10 Dec 07;
Farmers satisfied with money ranging from $10k to $25k

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Recycling company building $50m plastic-to-fuel plant

Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 18 Dec 07;
Enviro-Hub's plant will be able to convert into fuel 30,000 tonnes of plastic waste a year

AN EXCITING new use has been found for the annoying plastic waste that often washes up on beaches and clogs rubbish dumps: fuel.

It may sound too good to be true, given the soaring price of crude oil and the global hunt for alternative fuels, but mainboard-listed Enviro-Hub Holdings says it is building the world's first large-scale, commercial plastic-to-fuel plant.

The waste management and recycling firm yesterday announced the construction of Singapore's first $50 million plastic-to-fuel plant - which converts waste plastic into useable fuels and gases.

Its executive chairman, Mr Raymond Ng, told The Straits Times that Enviro-Hub had been researching a long-term environmental solution for plastics since 2005.

Success came only last month, when a pilot plant it built proved that the technology imported from India worked.

This patented technology, for which Enviro-Hub now holds an exclusive licence, heats waste plastic with a special catalyst that breaks it down into 85 per cent diesel, 10 per cent liquid petroleum gas and 5 per cent coke.

'This plant is a historic milestone for the company,' said Mr Ng, formerly the co-founder of waste recycler Citiraya Industries, now known as Centillion Environment and Recycling.

'Plastic waste has always been a big problem for the world. The commercial potential in this technology is huge,' said Mr Ng.

Enviro-Hub's new 200,000 sq ft plant in Tuas, which will cost an initial $30 million to build, will be able to convert into fuel 30,000 tonnes of waste plastic a year.

Mr Mohamed Gani Mohamed Ansari, business development director of Enviro-Hub unit Cimelia Resource Recovery, said the diesel produced - unlike in older technologies - would have low sulphur content and also lower carbon dioxide emissions. The heating process of converting the waste plastic into fuel would also be emissions-free, said Mr Ansari.

Enviro-Hub is now looking into seeking carbon credits from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

These credits are savings in carbon dioxide emissions - largely blamed by scientists for global climate change - that can be traded on the carbon market.

Enviro-Hub's facility - equivalent to a 24MW plant - will use about 5 per cent of the fuel it generates to power itself.

The rest will either be used to power the rest of Enviro-Hub's plants nearby or sold to industries.

The plant will start operations by the second quarter of next year, with its capacity expanding to 50,000 tonnes a year at an additional cost of $20 million by end-2008, said Mr Ng.

Enviro-Hub yesterday incorporated a new unit - Enviro-Power - to operate the plant.

Funding for the plant is internal, the firm said in a statement to the Singapore Exchange.

Singapore is estimated to generate more than 300,000 tonnes of waste plastic a year - a capacity Enviro-Hub hopes its plant will eventually reach.

Enviro-Hub also announced late yesterday that it would invest US$4.2 million (S$6.1 million) in a 30 per cent stake in Enviro Energy - a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

Enviro Energy, through a unit in Thailand, will also be looking to set up a similar plastic-to-fuel plant in Thailand.

The setting up of Enviro-Power and the investment in Enviro Energy are not expected to have any financial impact on the company's current financial year.

Enviro-Hub's shares was 0.5 cent higher at 57.5 cents at yesterday's close.

jcheam@sph.com.sg

Putting waste to good use

HOW ENVIRO-HUB'S PLANT WORKS

# Mixed waste plastic is fed to a reactor to be melted at 350 deg C.

# A special catalyst is added at controlled intervals, whereby a process called depolymerisation starts.

# The catalyst 'cracks' the polymers of the waste plastic, producing three by-products: diesel, liquid petroleum gas and coke.

# The process takes an initial three hours to start up, after which waste plastic can be fed continuously into the reactor all day.

QUICK FACTS

# The first phase of Enviro-Hub's plant will be able to take up to 100 tonnes of waste plastic a day.

# At 30,000 tonnes a year, the plant is expected to produce 20 million litres of diesel, four to five million kilograms of gas and 1,500 tonnes of coke.

# The plant will operate 330 days a year.

Enviro-Hub to build commercial PTF plant
Lynette Khoo, Business Times 18 Dec 07;
Construction of Tuas plant expected to be completed by second quarter '08

RIDING on the success of a pilot project, electronic waste solutions provider Enviro-Hub Holdings is proceeding to build Singapore's first commercial plant for the conversion of waste plastics to fuel.

Enviro-Hub said construction of the plastics-to-fuel (PTF) plant in Tuas will begin immediately and is targeted to be completed in the second quarter of next year. Commercial production is expected to start the same quarter.

'The plant has the capacity to convert 30,000 tonnes of waste plastics into fuel annually,' Enviro-Hub said, adding: 'It is fully automated and requires less than 20 workers to operate. The initial capital investment is estimated at $15 million. The investment will be mainly funded by internal source.'

Enviro-Hub aims to increase the annual process capacity to 50,000 tonnes by end-2008.

During the building of the plant, Enviro-Hub will be marketing this new service and similar plants globally, having received expressions of interest from Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines, Germany, New Zealand, Australia and Brazil.

Enviro-Hub said the latest technology know-how, which is patented and licensed to the group, allows waste plastics to be broken down into fuel at significantly lower temperatures. It also ensures a yield of 85 per cent commercial quality fuel, with the remaining 15 per cent ending up as liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and coke.

'The successful completion of our pilot PTF plant is a historic milestone for Enviro-Hub Group. This project is able not only to give an alternative solution to the plastic components found in electronic wastes, but could also be expanded to resolve the long-outstanding problems many countries face with the municipal or general plastic wastes,' said Enviro-Hub executive chairman Raymond Ng.

Analysts at the Asia Pacific Recycling Conference held earlier this year in India had estimated that by 2009, global consumption of plastics in packaging will reach US$190 billion, second to paper and board which exceeds US$210 billion. The disposal of plastics is a global problem given the lack of land for landfills.

'Not only will our PTF plants solve the growing environmental issue of plastics ending up in landfills, but they will also enable us to produce commercial quality fuel, LPG and coke,' Mr Ng said.

Enviro-Hub noted that the size of the Singapore market is substantial as the volume of waste disposal here allows for the construction of up to 10 such plastics-to-fuel plants. Its current contracts provide guaranteed regular supply of waste to the first plant as some 40 to 50 per cent of the electronic waste that the group collects consist of plastics.

This new plant is expected to have a financial impact on the group next year but the actual impact will depend on how fast its operations take off, the group said.

Read more!

All HDB blocks, 43% of condos have recycling programmes

Today Online 18 Dec 07;
Letter from ONG SENG ENG, Director, Resource Conservation Department, National Environment Agency (NEA)

We refer to Ethan Guo's letter "Done that, bin where?" (Dec 10).

We would like to apologise to Mr Guo for the delay in responding to his earlier feedback and for the inaccurate location of the recycling bin at Temasek Tower on our website.

Due to construction works in the area, the bin had to be relocated to the walkway along Wallich Street (Tanjong Pagar MRT Entrance/Exit B). The new location has since been updated on our website.

In his letter, Mr Guo suggested that recycling bins be provided at every HDB block, condominium and shopping centre. We wish to highlight that under the NEA's National Recycling Programme (NRP), door-to-door recycling service is provided for all HDB blocks and landed estates through the appointed Public Waste Collectors (PWCs).

To make it even more convenient for the public to recycle, the NEA has worked with PWCs, Town Councils, CDCs and other agencies to provide at least one centralised recycling depository for approximately every five blocks of HDB flats for residents to recycle their household waste and to supplement the NRP.

In order to reach out to more people, the NEA has also placed recycling bins in public places with high human traffic. Some of these public places include MRT stations, bus interchanges and shopping malls.

As condominiums make their own arrangements for waste collection, the NEA also works closely with condominium managements to set up structured recycling programmes for the residents.

About 43 per cent of the condominiums already have recycling programmes. We have, meanwhile, contacted Mr Guo and the managing agent of his condominium to look into starting a recycling programme soon.

We would like to thank Mr Guo for his feedback and support of the recycling programmes.

Read more!

Blue in green: It's time to put greens in their place

Economist.com 10 Dec 07;

EVERY day the world we live in seems to get a little greener. There are green politics, green economics, green living and, well, Green.view. The colour is used as a synonym for environmentalism.

This is bad. Whilst chlorophyll is, without doubt, hugely significant to life on this planet, the anthropocentric, terrestrialist view of the world that dubs those that care as "green" needs to be challenged.

Simply because those who would save the planet have feet and not flippers, and breathe air rather than water, they've called themselves greens rather than blues. Yet Earth is mostly water. As any schoolchild can tell you, the planet is blue. When did you last hear of the Earth from space described as the "Green marble"? Never, that's when.

Such terrestrialism has had serious consequences. We've spent decades following a green agenda that has ignored some of the biggest environmental issues and most important places on the planet.

We've spent years listening to greens complaining about the loss of the rainforests, acid rain, and extinctions of mammals, birds and plants. All serious issues. But while we’ve been worrying about them, we have eaten 90% of the world’s large fish, destroyed much of the world’s coral and nurtured algal blooms the size of entire American states.

The trouble is that because people don't see what goes on in the water, they don't identify with it. Caring about green stuff, even green stuff on the other side of the planet, is a kind of planet-scale nimbyism.

Green stuff is in our back yard, and blue stuff is not. Green stuff is recognisable and feeds our drive to conserve. Given the choice, what conservation flagship species would you chose to cosy up to: the cuddly giant panda or the slimy giant squid?

This columnist would happily eat deep-fried panda nuggets if it would help draw attention to the absurd lack of focus on ocean conservation. Luckily she might not have to, because the agenda is starting to change anyway, thanks to technology that is allowing us to open up the black (or maybe very dark blue) box that is the ocean.

Overhead satellites, diving robotic probes, buoys, sonar mapping, floating and underwater observatories and tagged ocean animals (whose tags email scientists every day with an update as to where they've been and what they've been doing) allow scientists to see more of the oceans than ever before.

Today scientists are starting to map the planet's living marine highways, as well as the ocean's physical environment. As a result, a new, blue agenda on over-fishing, pollution and ocean warming is emerging. Really big issues are starting to swim into focus.

Concern about destructive fishing practices such as trawling and blast fishing is mounting. Trawling cuts the living material from the sea bottom, and reduces the future productivity of the ocean. It stirs up a lot of sediment: sediment plumes can now be seen on Google Earth.

Blast fishing involves blowing up reefs in order to harvest fish. When was the last time someone decided to harvest land animals by blowing up entire forests?

Increasingly, the blues are taking a leaf out of the green book, and campaigning for nature reserves to improve fish stocks and aid marine conservation. Last year, President Bush responded to such concerns by creating the world's largest ocean sanctuary around Hawaii, surpassing the Great Barrier Reef park in size.

Still, marine conservation is in its infancy. Terrestrial conservation has a massive head start: Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, was created in America in 1872. Less than 1% of the ocean is protected by marine parks. That compares with 12% of the land.

One way of getting blue issues on the agenda is to put more effort into finding out what is going on down there. To this end, a group calling itself the Partnership for Observation of Global Oceans (POGO), says it wants up to $3 billion to set up a proper global marine monitoring system which actually looks at what is going on under the ocean. Will it happen? Not if it is up to the Greens to decide.

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The EU Fishes for Sustainable Seas

Leo Cendrowicz, Time Magazine Yahoo News 17 Dec 07;

If you need an example of how thoroughly national politics can still trump the notion of common European interest, look no further than the three-day meeting in Brussels of fisheries ministers that kicked off on Monday.

Every year in late December, the ministers meet for a marathon session to decide the following year's fishing quotas.

The European Commission typically points to scientific evidence showing a collapse in key catches, and suggests that quotas should be slashed across the board. And just as predictably, individual governments within the E.U. ignore these proposals, and raise the quotas - usually around 50% higher.

It is, conservationists say, a policy to fish Europe out of business. "Mocking scientific advice has become standard practice in the decisions made by the European fisheries ministers," says World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Fisheries Policy Officer Carol Phua.

The Commission - using figures from the Denmark-based International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) - has suggested there should be a 25% cut in cod catches for most E.U. waters. Other recommendations include a 32% cut in blue whiting, a 15% cut in North Sea plaice and sole, a 41% cut in North Sea herring, and a full closure of the Bay of Biscay for anchovy fishing.

But when E.U. ministers meet to thrash out the quotas, concerns about the survival of stocks comes in conflict with sustaining the livelihoods of Europe's fishermen. Although the fishing community has seen its own numbers shrink drastically in recent years, its efficiency has improved dramatically thanks to innovations like sonar, trawler freezers, and driftnets up to 1.5 miles (2.5km) wide. The result has been a vacuuming of fish across the seas and a collapse of key stocks.

But these quotas have also upset the irascible fishing community, which claims talk of dwindling stocks is exaggerated. In France, trawlermen have gone on strike to protest rising fuel costs, which have cut further into their profit margins. And at the annual fish quota sessions in Brussels, E.U. governments have shown themselves more responsive to the grumbles of their fishermen than the broader concerns about the state of marine resources.

The E.U. has programs to retire fishing vessels in the E.U. fleet, and offers compensation and retraining for those forced out of work. But it has not done enough to halt the decline in stocks, say critics of the current system. Quotas were first introduced with the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), agreed in Brussels in 1983, and set up a system of quotas for each E.U. member state. But the system is poorly enforced, and cannot maintain sustainable stocks. Also, millions of tons of dead fish are thrown back in the sea because they cannot be landed due to the quota rules. Earlier this month, the E.U.'s Court of Auditors condemned the CFP for incomplete and unreliable catch data, ineffectual sanctions and inadequate inspection systems. But since the CFP is mainly implemented by national governments, there are fewer incentives to crack down on errant fishermen. "Most stocks remain overfished," E.U. Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said before the meeting. "We must make further efforts if we are to achieve progress towards sustainable fisheries."

For example, North Sea cod is one of the many stocks under heavy pressure from overfishing. Yet because ICES noted a slight rise in the number of young cod in the North Sea, ministers are expected to actually raise the quota. "The end result of higher cod quotas will be a total failure of the management of this species," said WWF's Carol Phua. "Scientists have recently announced a slight improvement of the cod stock, because of the growing number of young cod. But full recovery of the stock needs time and it is not by allowing fishermen to take more young fish, through higher quotas, that the situation will improve. In fact, with juvenile fish being caught, in few years the situation will just be worse."

Critics warn that the E.U. could follow Canada, whose fishing industry was ravaged in the early 1990s when Atlantic cod stocks were wiped out as a result of overfishing. If that happens, it would be a sad indictment for Europe, and a triumph of national selfishness over conservation.
View this article on Time.com

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EU fishing quota calls fail to catch the drift

Callum Roberts, BBC News 17 Dec 07;

The dire state of many fish stocks means calls to increase catch quotas are misguided, argues Callum Roberts. Restraint now, he says, could yield major benefits later.

Britain's Fisheries Minister, Jonathan Shaw, goes to Brussels this week for the annual round of haggling over fish quotas.

His stated goal is to allow more cod to be landed from the North Sea.

In the minister's view, there are too many cod today following a modest increase in numbers this year, which is why boats are catching more than their quotas.

Only 20,000 tonnes could be taken legally this year from the North Sea by all comers, and about half this amount by British boats.

The rest that are caught have to be thrown over the side - dead.

By any standards, chucking away good fish after spending time and fuel catching them seems like madness.

It is. But the minister would be deeply unwise to deal with the problem of throwing away fish simply by raising quotas.

Fisheries in Europe are in serious trouble. Catching more fish at a time when stocks of many species, including cod, are at or near all time lows will only aggravate problems.

A little history paints a very different picture of cod's recent "recovery".

Vast riches

I have pieced together the effects on marine life of 1,000 years of fishing in a recent book, The Unnatural History of the Sea.

England's cod fisheries can be traced back to the 11th Century. At this time, falling stocks of freshwater fish and rising demand persuaded people it was worth fishing at sea.

They have never looked back.

For the following eight centuries, the fishing industry boomed, and cod and herring were the mainstay of British fisheries, dwarfing catches of all other species.

At the turn of the 20th Century, UK boats caught six to eight times more cod from the North Sea than today using much more primitive technology. Cod stocks then were at least ten times greater than today.

Rewind another 50 years to the middle 19th century, and stocks were at least twice as great again as in 1900.

It gets harder to estimate population sizes before this time, but anecdotes suggest even higher abundance.

In the early 19th Century, for example, three fishers working with handlines on the Dogger Bank in the middle of the North Sea were said to have caught 1,600 cod in a day.

If they worked a 16-hour day, not unusual at the time, each man would have landed around one cod every five minutes for the entire day.

And the cod were much larger then. Metre-long specimens filled the floors of fish markets in the 19th Century and were sold individually.

Today, most cod landed are only around 45-to-55cm long (six to nine times less heavy than a metre-long fish).

Taken together, these figures suggest that cod was once 30 to 50 times more abundant in the North Sea than it is today.

This is a better lens through which to view recent cod "recovery".

More mouths

Last year's increase in cod stock represents less than 1% of the historical population size.

Estimates of North Sea stocks today are only a quarter to a third of the EU's rebuilding target of 150,000 tonnes. But this target looks decidedly unambitious in view of the fact that it is probably less than 10% of the historical population size.


With an increasing world population to feed, we cannot return the seas to the healthy state they were in before fishing.

But raising population levels from today's lows should boost production of seafood.

Fisheries science predicts that we can maximise the productivity of fisheries by maintaining populations around half their unexploited size, which for cod would be a level 15 to 25 times higher than the present population.

Industrialising fisheries of the 20th Century sustained catches only by inventing ever better ways of catching fish and spreading across the globe in search of less intensively exploited stocks.

But we are near the end of that road. Looking forward today, instead of a prosperous future for the industry, we can see the end of fishing.

Safety catches

European fisheries are in a worse state than many, despite having one of the most sophisticated management systems anywhere in the world.

Every year, hundreds of scientists from across the EU pool their data to recommend safe catch levels. Those data are considered at the December meeting of fisheries ministers.

Over the last 20 years ministers have - year-on-year - exceeded safe catch recommendations by an average of 15-30%, depending on the species.

Ministers claim their decisions generally exceed scientific recommendations because they must take into account the best interests of the fishing industry.

In reality, disregarding science (paid for by taxpayers, it should be added) condemns the industry to slow death.

You can't cut more grass than a lawn grows no matter how many times you mow it.

But under the Common Fisheries Policy, ministers have tried to cheat nature by taking more fish than are produced each year, leading to plummeting populations in the wild.

Their habitual disregard for advice puts them more in the role of doctors assisting the suicide of a patient; because with this decision-making record, stock collapse becomes a certainty.

The only question is: how long will it take?

Restoring sanity

It is possible to end the madness of discarding fish, but this must be part of a wider package of reform to fisheries management.

We must first eliminate risky decision-making by politicians.

In many countries, governments have realised that the economy is too important for decisions on interest rates to be made by ministers and have devolved this responsibility to independent central banks.

We need similar independent decision making on safe catches by a body that respects expert opinion and is free of the influence of politics and industry.


We also need to fish less.

Best estimates suggest we need to cut fishing effort by half to rebuild fishery prosperity. The science is clear - by fishing less we will catch more.

And of critical importance, we need to reduce the footprint of fishing by creating marine reserves in around 30% of the area of our seas where fish and their habitats can prosper.

Those reserves will help supply surrounding fisheries with a steady stream of young fish, and will help habitats recover from centuries of damage by trawls and dredges.

Britain was once one of the world's great fishing nations.

Over time our success in hunting fish has exceeded our ability to protect supplies, and the fishing industry today is spiralling into a near terminal decline.

What Britain needs from its fisheries minister is great leadership in steering our EU partners towards a root-and-branch reform of its dysfunctional management system.

What it does not need is one committed to taking more of the few cod that are left today.

Callum Roberts is Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York, and author of The Unnatural History of the Sea

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

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Many Americans aim to go "green" in 2008: survey

Reuters 17 Dec 07;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three-quarters of Americans, the world's largest polluters, plan to be more environmentally responsible in 2008 by reducing household energy or recycling more, a survey showed on Monday.

Half of those polled said they would make a "green" New Year's resolution, according to the survey by GfK Roper and commissioned by marketing consultancy Tiller LLC.

Two-thirds of Americans plan to cut their use of household chemicals, while 42 percent said they would take reusable fabric bags to the supermarket to reduce the use of plastic bags.

"When it comes to life choices, green is clearly a primary color. Americans are viewing the environmental impact of their actions with increased responsibility and deliberation," said Rob Densen, chief executive of Tiller.

But Densen added: "New Year's resolutions being what they are, let's hope that Americans are more successful at reducing waste and energy consumption than we are at reducing our waistlines."

The telephone survey of 1,004 adults was conducted between December 7 and December 9. The margin for error is plus or minus 3.0 percent.

The United States has faced criticism abroad for refusing to sign on to the Kyoto climate change agreement and for its fossil-fuel consuming habits. But Washington agreed last week to be part of international negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming that will follow Kyoto beyond 2012.

U.N. climate experts say that warming, blamed mainly on greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels, will bring more drought, heat waves, floods and rising seas.

The survey found one-third of respondents felt guilty in recent years about not living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. "Guilt is not going to save the environment, but at least it's a step in the right direction," Densen said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, editing by Philip Barbara)

New Year's resolution: Shed carbon
Reuters 18 Dec 07;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three-quarters of Americans, the world's largest polluters, plan to be more environmentally responsible in 2008 by reducing household energy or recycling more, a survey showed on Monday.

Half of those polled said they would make a "green" New Year's resolution, according to the survey by GfK Roper and commissioned by marketing consultancy Tiller LLC.

Two-thirds of Americans plan to cut their use of household chemicals, while 42 percent said they would take reusable fabric bags to the supermarket to reduce the use of plastic bags.

"When it comes to life choices, green is clearly a primary color. Americans are viewing the environmental impact of their actions with increased responsibility and deliberation," said Rob Densen, chief executive of Tiller.

But Densen added: "New Year's resolutions being what they are, let's hope that Americans are more successful at reducing waste and energy consumption than we are at reducing our waistlines."

The telephone survey of 1,004 adults was conducted between December 7 and December 9. The margin for error is plus or minus 3.0 percent.

The United States has faced criticism abroad for refusing to sign on to the Kyoto climate change agreement and for its fossil-fuel consuming habits. But Washington agreed last week to be part of international negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming that will follow Kyoto beyond 2012.

U.N. climate experts say that warming, blamed mainly on greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels, will bring more drought, heat waves, floods and rising seas.

The survey found one-third of respondents felt guilty in recent years about not living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. "Guilt is not going to save the environment, but at least it's a step in the right direction," Densen said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, editing by Philip Barbara)

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Food costs to rise further as wheat prices hit all-time high

High prices of basic commodities threaten to derail economic growth, analysts warn
Straits Times 18 Dec 07;

NEW YORK - THE price of wheat has risen above US$10 (S$14.40) a bushel for the first time, leading to rises for other grains and oilseeds, in a food price spiral which threatens to derail global economic growth.

Chicago wheat futures has jumped by as much as 30 US cents, or 3.1 per cent, to US$10.095 a bushel as dry weather threatened crops in Argentina, renewing concern that the world's farmers may not be able to grow enough to meet rising demand.

The price of rice has also advanced to a record, while that of soya beans posted its highest level in 34 years and corn prices hit a 11-year peak.

The cost of wheat, used as livestock feed as well as to make bread, cereals and noodles, has more than doubled in the past year as adverse weather reduced output in the major exporting countries of Australia, Argentina, Canada and the United States.

The reduced output comes on top of high demand, particularly in emerging economies - such as China and India - where rising incomes are boosting consumption of meat and dairy products.

Prices have also come under pressures generated by the biofuel industry.

'Global supply is really tight at this time,' said Mr Tobin Gorey, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

'Saying there is a near-term top in the price is a very dangerous thing to do.'

Consumers around the world, including Singapore, already hit by a first wave of surging cereal prices this year, should brace themselves for knock-on effects in the coming months from the latest rises.

The Financial Times yesterday noted that the first round of price increases in the wholesale market earlier this year had fed through the supply chain and contributed to rising inflation in the European Union and elsewhere.

The increase of eurozone food price inflation to 4.3 per cent last month was one of the main reasons for the jump in the zone's annual inflation rate from 2.6 per cent in October to 3.1 per cent last month, the highest in six years.

In the US, annual food price inflation of 4.8 per cent last month contributed to a rise in the inflation rate to 4.3 per cent.

China's food costs rose 18.2 per cent last month, pushing inflation to its highest level in 11 years.

China, the world's biggest grain consumer, yesterday said it would eliminate export tax rebates on a range of food commodities as part of a series of measures to secure domestic supplies and control rising food prices.

Tax incentives on exports of crops, including wheat, rice, soya beans, corn, barley and oats, as well as flour milled from these grains, would be eliminated from Thursday, says a statement on the central government's website.

In an attempt to curb prices, Bejing has sold corn, wheat and vegetable oil from state reserves and asked the local authorities to boost emergency stockpiles.

Many other countries have reacted to soaring food prices by slashing import tariffs on major agricultural commodities to cushion their local markets against rising food inflation.

Cuts have been announced in Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Egypt, Ghana, India, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Taiwan and Russia.

Mr Ali Arslan Gurkan, head of the commodity market division at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, said the tariff reduction is the latest sign that policy-makers are trying to cope with rising food costs.

'Governments are finding it politically inevitable to reduce local food prices and this situation is likely to continue,' Mr Gurkan said.

Mr Sorin Vasloban of the Paris- based cereal trading house Plantureux said: 'The prices of agricultural commodities have stabilised at very high levels and countries need to resort to these measures to control inflation.'

But the reduction in import tariffs has been offset by higher export tariffs - which aim to help keep local markets well supplied - in several key exporting countries.

Farmers, in the meantime, are celebrating.

In the US state of Iowa, Mr Gordon Wassenaar has his eye on a US$300,000 combine harvester to replace the 1990 model he has to repair each winter.

And he has just bought more land to add to his 650-ha spread.

'These are the best couple of years I've probably ever had,' said Mr Wassenaar, who has lived in the same weathered white farmhouse and raised corn and soya beans in the surrounding Iowa fields for 52 years.

BLOOMBERG, REUTERS

Grain prices spiralling up
# Wheat: Has surpassed US$10 (S$14.40) a bushel for the first time.
# Rice: Futures last Friday settled at US$13.1250 per 100lbs, just shy of the previous record price of US$13.40 set in January 1988.
# Soya bean: Jumped to US$11.9225 a bushel, the highest since June 1973.
# Corn: Advanced to US$4.4275 a bushel, a nine-month high.
Source: Chicago Board of Trade


Wheat price surges above US$10 for first time
Business Times 18 Dec 007

(NEW YORK) Wheat rose above US$10 a bushel for the first time, leading other grains and oilseeds higher in a food price spiral that threatens to derail global economic growth.

Chicago wheat futures jumped as much as 30 cents, or 3.1 per cent, to US$10.095 a bushel as dry weather threatened crops in Argentina, renewing concern that the world's farmers may not be able to grow enough to meet rising demand for bread, pasta and livestock feed.

Rice also advanced to a record, while soybeans gained to the highest in 34 years and corn to a nine-month peak.

Kellogg Co, the largest US cereal maker, General Mills Inc, Nissin Food Products Co and Kikkoman Corp are among companies that have raised prices.

'We are seeing a broad-based increase in cost pressures,' Brian Redican, senior economist at Macquarie Group Ltd, said in an interview from Sydney yesterday. 'The increase in soft commodity prices is really the next stage in that process.'

The price of wheat has more than doubled in the past year as adverse weather reduced output from Australia to the US and Canada. Dry, warm weather may hurt yields in Argentina, the fourth-largest exporter, forecaster Meteorlogix LLC said on Dec 14.

'Global supply is really tight at this time,' Tobin Gorey, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said by phone. 'Saying there's a near-term top in the price is a very dangerous thing to do.'

A smaller Argentine crop may reduce global wheat inventories that the US government says will drop 11 per cent by May 31 to 110.1 million metric tons.

Wheat for March delivery, the most-active contract, rose the exchange-imposed daily limit of 30 cents before trading at US$10.05 a bushel, up 2.6 per cent, in after-hours electronic trading on the Chicago Board of Trade on Friday. -- Bloomberg

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Malaysia: Kelantan floods worsen as river overflows

Straits Times 18 Dec 07;
Golok River on Thai-Malaysian border also causes chaos in Thai province of Narathiwat

KUALA LUMPUR - FLOODS in north-eastern Malaysia worsened yesterday after a river bordering Thailand burst its banks, as the country's death toll from annual monsoon flooding rose to 25.

The water level at the Golok River - which marks the boundary between Malaysia and Thailand - has surged past the danger mark, police official Ariffin Ahmad said at Kelantan's relief coordination centre.

In Thailand, officials at the southern province of Narathiwat said that run-off from heavy rain over hilly areas near the border caused flooding in the Golok River.

Heavy rain at the weekend caused other rivers in Kelantan to swell, inundating surrounding towns and villages and cutting off road and rail access in many areas, Mr Ariffin said.

The floods have claimed 25 lives in the past two weeks in Kelantan and two other eastern states that experience widespread thunderstorms during the monsoon season between November and February, said an official at the Malaysian Control Centre, which coordinates flood operations nationwide.

At least one other person was missing in Kelantan, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

More than 33,000 people in the three states were sheltering in town halls, schools and community centres on high ground, he said.

The authorities have forecast a high tide phenomenon on Dec 21, which could aggravate floods in coastal areas. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said yesterday that police and military personnel were on standby to cope with further floods.

Datuk Seri Najib, who chairs the National Disaster Management and Relief Committee, said he would be in Kelantan tomorrow to visit flood victims and survey the affected areas.

The official Bernama news agency reported that among the latest victims was a six-year-old girl who fell into floodwaters while playing in the backyard of her family home in Kelantan.

Bernama reported that the number of flood evacuees in Kelantan rose sharply to 6,039 yesterday from 3,772 on Sunday, while in central Pahang, 21,699 were being housed in relief centres.

But in Johor, flood conditions improved steadily, with 3,500 people remaining in relief centres after the weekend, compared with almost 5,000 last week.

However, Datuk Seri Najib said the infrastructure damage was serious, and repair work would only begin once the flooding situation had improved.

He also warned that a second wave of heavy rain might come soon, which may cause floods when the rain occurs during high tides.

'We are ready to face this second stage of rainfall. The relevant authorities, including the armed forces and the police, have put their personnel and equipment on standby,' he said.

Malaysia has increased flood mitigation efforts after one of its worst periods of monsoon flooding last year in which it suffered estimated losses of RM1.2 billion (S$525 million).

In Thailand, the Meteorological Department on Sunday warned residents in the three southern provinces to prepare for possible flash floods as heavy rain continues.

According to the weather bureau, residents of flood-prone areas in Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat should be prepared for flash floods and run-off over the next few days.

In Narathiwat, dozens of families in Muang and Sungai Golok were evacuated on Sunday as floodwaters rose.

Some roads were impassable to cars and motorcycles.

Narathiwat Governor Karan Supakijwilekkarn has banned boats from the Golok River as churning waters were too dangerous.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, THE NATION/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

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One Million Face Drought in Southwest China

PlanetArk 18 Dec 07;

BEIJING - More than a million people in the southwestern Chinese region of Guangxi have been hit by drinking water shortages in the worst drought since 1951, the official People's Daily said on Monday.

In the last three months, Guangxi, the country's main sugar-growing region, had had less than half the normal amount of rain, the report said, while other parts of the region had seen almost no rain at all.

The government has earmarked 2.29 billion yuan (US$310.8 million) to bring water to thirsty villages, the newspaper added.

Large areas of south China are also suffering from serious drought, with water levels on two major rivers -- the Gan and the Xiang -- in rice-growing provinces dropping to historic lows.

China suffers water shortages of nearly 40 billion cubic metres a year which its water minister has blamed largely on global warming, state media have reported, though severe pollution and rising consumption by both farmers and booming cities have compounded shortages. (US$1=7.369 Yuan) (Reporting by Ben Blanchard)

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Mexico, US Suffer as Rio Grande Sucked Dry

Robin Emmott, PlanetArk 18 Dec 07;

EJIDO LA LAGUNA, Mexico - Julian Rosales' farm is within a stone's throw of one of North America's biggest rivers, but the Mexican landowner fears he will not be able to sow his crops next year for lack of water.

Rusty tractors plow Rosales' parched earth along the banks of the Rio Grande on Mexico's border with Texas where thousands of local farmers say their livelihoods are at stake because Mexico was this year forced by a bilateral treaty to transfer millions of liters of water to the United States.

While farmers and lawmakers in arid northern Mexico seek to challenge the water payment in an international court, the farmers' plight is a symptom of a much bigger problem: the Rio Grande and its underground aquifers are being sucked dry on both sides of the frontier.

The eastern border region is slowly heading toward a water crisis.

"They have taken our water and these lands are dying. Our children are emigrating to the United States, some illegally," said Rosales, who grows the animal feed sorghum in the desert lands of Mexico's Tamaulipas state on the Gulf of Mexico.

Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico is required to transfer water to the United States every five years from the two dams the countries share on the Texas border. For farmers in Tamaulipas, that means ruined harvests and hardship every time the transfer is made.

The landscape is now dotted with abandoned farms and villages unable to enjoy the artificial irrigation that is central to agriculture in a desert region with sporadic rains.

In a last attempt to save the farmers, lawmakers in Tamaulipas have called on Mexico's Supreme Court to rule on whether this year's water transfer was lawful. They argue the treaty stipulates the payment should be made with water from six Mexican tributaries further west along the border that feed the Rio Grande, not with surface water from Tamaulipas.

If they win, lawmakers aim to take the United States to an international court to force it to return the water.

RIVER, SPRINGS RUNS DRY

Water is a scarce commodity across the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) US-Mexico border, with the fight over the Rio Grande mirrored in the west by competition for the Colorado River, which is reduced to a trickle by the time it reaches its delta in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.

In eastern Mexico, the tributaries that feed the Rio Grande are being siphoned off to support vegetable crops for export in the desert. On the US side in Colorado, water from the Rio Grande is so heavily diverted for human use that a section of the river in El Paso on the Texas border virtually stops.

Springs across southern Texas have run dry as aquifers are pumped for water. Most could be exhausted within two decades.

Historically, the Rio Grande, the fifth-longest river in the United States, flowed continuously from Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. But since the 1900s, dams, channelization and overexploitation have endangered its survival.

"The Rio Grande is one of the most stressed river basins in the world and water use is already at its limit," said Casey Walsh, a water specialist Mexico's Iberoamericana University.

That is worrisome given that Mexican cities on the border with Texas are set to double their population over the next 20 years. Trade growth, a retiree boom and the influx of immigrants in south Texas will also substantially increase water demand there, as small towns become cities.

The Mexico-Texas border is also a motor for both the US and Mexican economies. Billions of dollars in trade pass through the frontier every year and the US city of Laredo is one of the United States' biggest inland ports.

LYRICAL RIVER

A dry Rio Grande is unthinkable for Americans and Mexicans. Known in Spanish as the Rio Bravo, or "Rough River," its waters have been famed in Western movies and cowboy ballads and have marked the Texan border with Mexico since the 19th century.

"It is going to be disastrous unless there is a change. Companies, farmers, and government at the local, state and federal levels need to work out a solution," said Leslie Hopper of the Texas-based Sul Ross State University, which has set up a research center to study the Rio Grande.

El Paso, which faced predictions it would run out of water in 2010, has done the most to tackle the water shortages. In August, the city opened the world's largest inland desalination plant to turn brackish ground water into freshwater and ensure decades of water supply.

The city of Brownsville on the Gulf of Mexico is now considering a US$150 million desalination plant, while Mexico's Tamaulipas' state government has proposed a US$500 million plan to build an aqueduct to channel Rio Grande water into pipes.

"Without this, we will continue to lose half of our water to seepage and evaporation," said Jaime Cano, a director at the Tamaulipas state water commission.

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Italy's woodlands dying due to climate change

Michael Day, Telegraph 17 Dec 07;

Italy's woodlands are already dying as climate change starts to bite in southern Europe, experts warn.

A report represented to the Italian government said that eight out of 10 trees across Italy's varied ecosystems were already suffering from the effects of rising temperatures and diminishing rainfall.

Professor Carlo Blasi of the Inter-university Centre for Bio-diversity at Rome's La Sapienza University said the research showed that a third of the country's woodland was seriously threatened, and that 60 per cent was likely to suffer permanent damage.

The warning echoes fears that the Mediterranean, and Italy in particular, is proving highly vulnerable to climate change.

Climatologist Dr Filippo Giorgi of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told a major environment conference in Rome in September that the Mediterranean was warming up faster than the rest of the world.

"It's a climate change hot spot, one of the areas where we actually see the change happening".

Dr Giorgi said that in the next decades temperature rises in Europe during the summer months could be 40-50 per cent higher than elsewhere.

Of the six major droughts to occur in Italy in the last 60 years, four have occurred since 1990. The average temperature has increased by 0.4ºC in the north in 20 years and by 0.7ºC in the south. Earlier report have suggest that 10m hectares were "at risk of desertification".

Prof Blasi noted that many of Italy's tree species were ill-equipped to survive hotter, drier conditions.

"Despite its large Mediterranean coastline, Italy has a relatively low proportion - just 40 per cent - of the shrubby Mediterranean trees that are best adapted to resist the heat waves that are on their way," he told La Repubblica newspaper.

"The other 60 per cent are particularly likely to suffer from increasingly hot and arid conditions."

Most surprising, said Prof Blasi, was how widespread the threat was across Italy.

The regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Puglia and also the islands of Sicily and Sardinia were being hard hit by rising temperatures, with several species of oak and beech tree in particular under threat.

Lack of rainfall was proving the biggest threat to woodland in the Alpine north of the country.

In Sicily and Sardinia, cork trees, the evergreen Holm-oak and even some compact Mediterranean tree species were threatened by the increasingly arid conditions.

In response to the report Environment minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said: "Fewer woodlands mean, among other things, reduced capacity to absorb carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere."

He said that to "break this vicious ciricle" his government had set aside £110m to tackle degradation of forests and woodlands.

Like other Southern European countries, Italy has also lost considerable areas of woodland to forest fires, which although fanned by hot winds, are often started deliberately.

Pecoraro Scanio lamented the failure of Italy's fractious parliament to agree to fund a new body to investigate the cause of such blazes and "defend itself from the criminals that set fire to the forests".

He predicted more woodland and forest would perish from such fires in the summers to come.

It is not not only Italy's forests that are causing enviromentalists concern, however.

Scientists at Italy's Agency for New technology, Energy and the Environment (ENEA), say that failing cold currents and rising water temperatures are exacerbating periodic flooding - and this is causing massive erosion along Italy's Adriatic coast.

As a result they have drawn up a plan in which hundreds of miles of new sand dunes would be created to save it the country's most endangered coastline and its wildlife from rising sea levels.

Dr Edi Valpreda, who led the project, told Telegraph Earth that it was currently being considered by the environment ministry.

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Carbon credits and Indonesia: Silver lining in a dense situation?

John McBeth, Straits Times 18 Dec 07;

IT IS hard enough rehabilitating Indonesia's peatlands and saving its remaining rainforests, but the decision to proceed with a fast-track 10,000MW coal-fired power plant shows the juggling act developing countries face in reducing their carbon emissions.

Coal and oil make up close to 70 per cent of state- owned power utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara's (PLN) total installed capacity of 24,000MW - far more than it should, given Indonesia's abundant natural gas, geothermal resources and biofuel potential.

Ten new coal-fired stations, with a total 6,900MW output, are expected to go online on the Java-Bali grid by 2010 as PLN tries to keep pace with an annual 9 per cent growth in demand. Plants are planned for other islands as part of an US$8 billion (S$11.5 billion) expansion.

So, officials were understandably silent over the programme in the lead-up to the UN climate change conference in Bali this month, but it does underline the problem of getting large developing countries to commit to a set reduction in carbon dioxide emissions if it risks hampering their economic growth.

Why coal? It is the quickest and probably the cheapest to bring into operation. The boost to the country's overall generating capacity will add at least 65 million tonnes to the 45 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent that Indonesia's coal-fired stations already pump into the atmosphere each year.

But while Jakarta is adding more smokestacks, it is also trying to undo some of the damage caused by former president Suharto's ill-fated scheme in the 1990s to convert 1 million ha of Central Kalimantan peatland into productive rice fields.

The resulting ecological disaster helped push the country into third place among the world's biggest carbon emitters - a position it contests, but which was still a source of profound embarrassment to the hosts of the just-concluded Bali conference.

Kalimantan is only part of the problem. More damage has been done by loggers and oil palm planters in Riau - so much so that the Sumatran province contributes 70 per cent of the 516 million tonnes of carbon Indonesia's degraded peatlands emit each year.

In all, that adds up to 82 per cent of South-east Asian peat emissions, 58 per cent of global emissions and twice what Indonesia burns annually in fossil fuels - just some of the statistics trotted out to support the inclusion of reforestation and avoided deforestation in a new addendum to the Kyoto Protocol.

Overall, deforestation, degradation and land-use changes are responsible for 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet there is no incentive in the current protocol for Indonesia and 10 other developing countries to curb them or do more to slow the destruction of their forests.

Jakarta wants peatlands in the proposed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd) pact for a good reason. Simple re-flooding and other rehabilitation will bring far more short-term benefits than reforestation and reduced logging in any global carbon trading market.

'Peatlands are the low- hanging fruit, given their huge value of emissions and the fact that they bring few economic benefits,' said Mr Meine van Noordwijk, regional coordinator for the International Centre for Research and Agroforestry.

'If they are not included, about 50 per cent of Indonesia's emissions will not be within the domain.'

Carbon trading offers financial incentives for businesses not to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It is already a US$30 billion business, but Mr Anthony Moody, executive chairman of Sindicatum Carbon Capital, believes it could soar to US$200 billion over the next three years.

The ultimate goal of climate change negotiators is to map out a two-year path aimed at forging a global system for imposing and enforcing emission reductions.

Some developed countries do not want to pay for actions that are not taken and worry about the difficulty of measuring avoided deforestation, particularly in countries such as Indonesia, where graft is rife and rules notoriously slippery.

Under Kyoto, so-called Annex 1 countries - all developed nations except the US - set a ceiling on the greenhouse gases they can can emit in a year. When Europe implemented its cap-and-trade system, which sets a benchline for emissions, it did not specifically give offset credits for avoided deforestation because it feared they would flood the system, though it did make some exceptions.

London is the financial centre for carbon trading because Britain and the European Union signed up early to Kyoto, and the financiers quickly got to work and figured out how to profit from it.

Indonesian businessmen say carbon credit trading will not work because it is just too difficult. But they said the same thing when the Jakarta Stock Exchange opened in 1988 with 24 listed companies and little else.

'It involved a process, and you had to go through the process and be transparent,' recalled Ms Agnes Safford, director of Singapore-based AsiaWorksAsia.

'You are dealing with the same thing in the carbon market - auditors, accountants and engineers are the only people who understand it.'

In the short term, a lot can still happen because power plants, industry, transportation, landfills - even lighting in city buildings - can all create carbon credits by making efficiency savings and shifting away from fossil fuels.

Mr Moody's Sindicatum recently hooked up with petroleum firm Odira Energy Persada in eight projects that will cut 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by converting flared gas to liquid petroleum gas for use in diesel and coal-fired power stations.

Swiss-owned Indocement, Indonesia's second-largest cement maker, has already introduced substitute fuels and efficiencies in power usage to generate emission credits that can be offset in Switzerland.

The Swiss should be cleaning up their own country, but it is cheaper to do it in Indonesia, which has only nine projects registered so far with the UN Convention for Climate Change.

Of course, for climate change activists, the idea of offsets is not as attractive as absolute cuts which, as the US has stubbornly shown, are tough to attain in an industrialised giant seeking to keep its extravagant living standards.

Indonesia can do it easier, but Ms Safford said the earliest actual credits for reforestation and avoided deforestation will probably not be paid until 2014, two years after Redd is enshrined under a new protocol and Jakarta decides on an emissions cap.

Until then, investors can trade in voluntary emission reduction (VER) credits - private deals in which carbon credits for maintaining a forest can be used - not traded - to offset carbon emissions.

In the first pilot project of its kind, the Borneo Tropical Rainforest Foundation has a deal with East Kalimantan's Malinau district to carry out a study of carbon stocks in 325,000ha of virgin forest. It aims to create a baseline for Indonesia's future voluntary carbon market. That means coming up with a comprehensive assessment of the amount of carbon dioxide a forest absorbs, given the fact that different trees do not suck up the same amount of carbon.

Ms Safford said a VER credit in Indonesia is worth US$2 to US$3 a tonne, against US$20 or more for those traded in Europe. So far, the global VER market only amounts to about US$50 million, largely because the bureaucracy is not involved and a lot of the deals are built on trust.

'But the minute it falls under a new protocol, you will start seeing forest deals done,' said Ms Safford. 'Why? Because all the big funds see the writing on the wall - they see the Western world will pay for this. In the end, I am sure it is going to be a conscience thing.'

But back to that huge increase in coal-fired power generation. What might happen if the price of carbon doubles and suddenly scrubbers and other clean technologies become a profitable part of the electricity business?

Ms Safford said: 'It will happen eventually, but we still have to go through this tedious process to get there. The framework has to be in place before the private sector can pile in.'

That is the good news. The bad news, she acknowledged, could be that polluters are able to buy credits to clean up their mess cheaper than it costs to actually clean up.

Many experts argue that to get over that, carbon should have a floor price of at least US$50 a tonne.

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Bird flu spreading again, WHO warns

Straits Times 18 Dec 07;
Team heads to Pakistan to probe S. Asia's first human cases as outbreaks pop up elsewhere

ISLAMABAD - THE World Health Organisation warned yesterday that countries should be on the alert for bird flu because it is on the move again, with Pakistan reporting new infections and Myanmar logging its first human case.

A three-member WHO team headed for the city of Abbottabad in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province yesterday to investigate how eight people were infected with bird flu, after the country reported its first human death due to the virus.

Health officials confirmed at the weekend that eight people had tested positive for H5N1 in the province since late October, of which one person, who worked in a poultry farm, died.

A brother of the dead person, who had not been tested, also died. It was not clear if he was a victim of bird flu.

The cases are South Asia's first human infections from the virus.

'The team will investigate who the affected people were in contact with, whether they visited poultry farms or affected persons,' Health Secretary Khushnood Akhtar Lashari said.

The team will also visit Peshawar, where patients were treated.

In Geneva, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said on Sunday that human-to-human transmission had not been ruled out, but added that poultry outbreaks had earlier been reported in the area, and it was unclear if all patients had links to sick birds or infected surroundings.

With fresh poultry outbreaks reported in a number of countries, including Germany at the weekend, WHO urged countries to be vigilant in identifying and reporting cases in both birds and humans.

'The key to the public health response is surveillance,' said Mr Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the WHO Western Pacific region in Manila. 'If we do actually get to the cases with antivirals early on, the health outcome is a lot better.'

Myanmar's first human case was reported last Friday in a seven-year-old girl who fell ill last month and survived, while Indonesia, the country hardest hit by the virus, announced its 93rd death from the virus.

Two human cases were also recently confirmed in China, one of whom died.

The H5N1 virus often flares up during the winter months. In some countries such as Indonesia, poultry outbreaks and human cases are reported year round. But many other countries experience a flurry of activity when temperatures drop.

'It starts to pop up at this time of the year, not just in this region where it is endemic, but it starts to appear in the West,' Mr Cordingley said. 'Between now and April is a very dangerous time of the year.'

At least 208 people have died from the virus which began plaguing Asian poultry stocks in late 2003.

Humans rarely contract H5N1, which is mainly an animal disease. But experts fear the strain could spark a global pandemic and kill millions if it mutates to a form that spreads more easily.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS

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Endangered dugongs found dead in Abu Dhabi: drowned in gill nets

Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi Calls on public to help Protect endangered dugong.
Middle East Online 17 Dec 07;

ABU DHABI – A team of field scientists from the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD) this month came across two dugongs trapped in an abandoned drift Gillnet (Al Hayali), close to Abu Al Abyad Island.

“This discovery clearly demonstrates once again the vulnerability of these majestic animals to human threats. We call on the community once again to help support our efforts in protecting this endangered treasure,” said Majid Al Mansouri, Secretary General of EAD.

The dugong is listed as ‘Vulnerable to Extinction’ internationally and is protected locally under UAE Federal Law No. 23 (By-Laws 2001).

The law aims to fully protect dugongs and other marine wildlife, including sea turtles, from any commercial and recreational utilization of species within its range in UAE waters.

Gillnets, particularly drift gillnets locally known as Al Hayali, constitute one of the major threats to the Dugong populations within the UAE and globally.

Studies conducted by EAD experts have indicated that the two dugongs suffocated to death in gill-nets. Drift nets (Al Hayali) and Encircling gill nets ( Al Halaq) are banned by Law in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, however, abandoned nets and illegal use of banned nets continue to be a major cause of dugong mortality in the area.

Moreover, Dugongs are at risk from boat strikes and disturbances in areas, where high boating traffic coincides with dugong habitat.

Dugongs are also indirectly at risk due to the destruction of their main habitat, the seagrass.

Seagrass which occur in coastal and shallow water areas and require light for their growth, are particularly vulnerable from increasing developmental activities along the coast such as dredging, land filling, coastal clearing and land reclamation as well as eutrophication (an increase in chemical nutrients) from sewage and other effluents.

EAD has been undertaking studies on dugongs in the UAE since 1999, with funding from TOTAL ABU AL BUKHOOSH. The initial phase of the studies which extended over a period of four years focused on obtaining information on the abundance, distribution and the conservation status of dugongs in UAE.

The second phase, which is currently being implemented, further focuses on the biological and ecological aspects and stock structure of the species. Current efforts also include implementing of a dugong conservation and management plan and fostering closer regional and international cooperation in dugong conservation.

Efforts towards regional and international cooperation culminated in the signing of a memorandum of understanding involving all dugong range states during a meeting held in Abu Dhabi last October.
Two dugongs found dead trapped in gill net
Rayeesa Absal Gulf News 17 Dec 07;

Abu Dhabi: Scientists at the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) recently came across two dead dugongs trapped in an abandoned gill net, close to Abu Al Abyad Island. The scientists said the dugongs suffocated to death after being trapped in the gill net.

The incident prompted EAD officials to call on the public to lend a hand in their efforts to protect dugongs, which have been listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

Commenting on the incident, Majid Al Mansouri, the Secretary General of EAD, said, "This discovery clearly demonstrates once again the vulnerability of these majestic animals to human threats."

He said the UAE government has taken several steps towards the protection of dugongs and conservation of its habitats.

Second largest dugong population in UAE

The UAE is home to second largest dugong population in the world. The Arabian Gulf and Red Sea hosts an estimated population of more than 7,000 dugongs, which constitutes the largest population outside Australia.

About 40 per cent of this population occurs in Abu Dhabi waters in the UAE making the UAE particularly significant in terms of global dugong conservation efforts.

Dugong population is distributed mainly along 37 nations encompassing tropical, sub-tropical coastal and inland waters of the Indian and Pacific Ocean.

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