Plans for Mandai: Forest Science Crapped in Singapore
beyond price: what is the true value of Mandai forest? on Joseph Lai's eart-h.com
Chestnut-bellied Malkohas: A cuckoo that builds its own nest on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Chek Jawa: jewel of the northern shores
a brief roundup of the treasures on this shore on the singapore celebrates the reefs blog
Stars of Singapore
an introduction to our sea stars and some FAQs about them on the singapore celebrates the reefs blog
2008 is International Year of the Reef!
And many of the groups and individuals active in Singapore marine conservation have come together to consolidate activities and share about our reefs and shores.
You CAN make a difference for our reefs and shores!
Support IYOR Singapore!
Visit our reefs and shores. Come for IYOR events. The first IYOR event is SharkWaters a charity premier in support of the "Say No to Shark's Fins" campaign in Singapore.
Display the IYOR badge on your blog and website.
Tell your friends about IYOR Singapore.
Want to know more about our reefs? Gather a group of at least 50 and invite any of these speakers to give a free talk about our reefs and shores.
Visit the IYOR Singapore blog which will feature regular articles about our reefs and shores, our marinelife, and the people who work for them.
Happy New Year!
Big clean-up underway after countdown party ends
Channel NewsAsia 1 Jan 08;
Besides rubbish, the 5,500 'wishing spheres' that dotted the Singapore river must also be removed. Once the spheres are retrieved from the river, they will be thrown away.
SINGAPORE : With the big countdown parties came the big mess, but clean-up efforts started as soon as the parties ended.
Less than 10 minutes after the fireworks ended at the Esplanade, mechanical sweepers came in to clean up the mess.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) said it's using four such sweepers to clean the party area.
But that's not all. More than 115 cleaners were also deployed by both the NEA and the Esplanade management. Their task is to quickly clear the 1.7 tonnes of rubbish left behind.
"When there's food and all those drinks mixed with all those paper and plastic bags, it's more difficult for us to clean up. We need to clear the rubbish first, then we need to wash up the whole place," said Lim Yee Chang, Resident Manager of Chy Thiam Maintenance.
The mess was left by some 160,000 party revellers during the countdown party on New Year's Eve.
Although 40 additional bins were placed throughout the party area, not everyone used them properly.
Besides rubbish, the 'wishing spheres' that dotted the Singapore river must also be removed.
The 5,500 spheres, with New Year wishes written on them by Singaporeans, form part of the countdown celebrations at Marina Bay.
The job of clearing the spheres was carried out by the same group that installed them. But familiarity with the job is not without its challenges.
"(By the time) it comes to retrieving them, most of us are very tired already, after several days of working day and night non-stop, installing the spheres. Then it also depends on the weather. If the weather is bad, that works against us but we still have to work. And (there might be) strong currents sometimes," said Nicholas Ee, Managing Director of MD Daniel Enterprise.
Once the spheres are retrieved from the river, they will be thrown away. - CNA /ls
Less littering and rubbish collected at party spots
Tessa Wong, Straits Times 2 Jan 08;
REVELLERS at end-of-year countdowns are littering less and generating less rubbish, thanks to stricter enforcement and gradually changing attitudes.
The amount of rubbish collected after New Year's Eve countdown festivities at Marina Bay and Orchard Road has gone down by 40 per cent in the past three years, according to waste management company FME Onyx.
The statistics are telling.
Street cleaners collected an estimated 3.5 tonnes of trash from bins and on the ground yesterday, down from five tonnes on New Year's Day last year and six tonnes in 2006.
There was a similar decrease in rubbish for Christmas Eve countdowns too. Last year's festivities generated four tonnes, compared to five tonnes at 2006's Christmas Eve celebrations.
One reason for the reduction could be the differing crowd sizes. Another reason could be the increased efforts by the National Environment Agency (NEA) during the countdowns to catch illegal street vendors peddling food and party products, said Mr Tan Chen Wai, FME Onyx's assistant division manager of street cleaning.
NEA officers caught 90 illegal hawkers at 2006's Christmas and New Year's Eves countdown celebrations. Figures for last year were unavailable at press time.
Street peddling has fed a littering problem at such events.
Foam or confetti spray cans and their plastic caps, plastic bags, party poppers, drink bottles and cups are the most common items littered by party-goers.
This is according to informal surveys done by environmentalist group ECO Singapore for the past two Christmas Eves.
Party-goers' attitudes seem to be changing for the better.
ECO Singapore volunteers stood at four spots along Orchard Road to observe party-goers' littering habits from midnight to 2am.
They found that the frequency of littering is going down.
During the last Christmas Eve, volunteers observed that one to two people littered per minute at each spot. This was 'significantly less' compared to the year before, said Mr Wilson Ang, head of ECO Singapore.
He thinks the decrease is down to Singaporeans becoming slightly more responsible for their rubbish.
Said Mr Ang: 'There's been a change in attitude compared to last year, but more needs to be done. People shouldn't just throw rubbish at the bins, they should throw it into the bins.'
Flashy yuppies paint themselves into a corner
Letter from Philip Lee Seck Kay, Straits Times Forum 2 Jan 08;
MANY young Singaporeans, gainfully employed in a booming economy, have expressed anxiety about building a large enough nest egg for a comfortable retirement. This is rather disturbing.
The reasons are not hard to trace, though, if one steps back and observes the lifestyles of these so-called 'yuppies' who hold lucrative jobs that promise much.
Today, Singaporeans' consumption habits more or less mirror those of Americans who have traditionally been consummate spenders. And like Americans, many Singaporeans discount the future in order to consume today. They are hooked on what sociologist Thorstein Veblen termed 'conspicuous consumption', which used to be the affliction of the rich.
To be sure, they get a lot of help in this respect. Crowded malls for drop-dead shopping with foodcourts to give respite to continue shopping; colourful full-page ads that tell you how good you look in that suit, how macho it would be behind the wheel of that new BMW, or hey, wouldn't that DaVinci sofa look great in our living room?
And if shopping at the mall is not your cup of tea, you can always let your fingers do the walking - relax and shop on the ubiquitous Internet. Everything to your heart's desire, from watches to motorcycles (spam notwithstanding), no problem as long as your credit is good.
Keeping up with the Joneses has given way to keener appetites: affordable luxury; living well with a vengeance; we have it, let's flaunt it; you can't take it with you; and the rest. All of which keeps the cash register ringing and, of course, an unhealthy growth in credit card debt.
One can argue that consumption is normal desire made possible by a successful economy. But if you think about it, how much do you really need?
And if you think again, there is actually nothing natural about consumer desires. They are fabricated to relentlessly stimulate these consumption habits with but one objective: to make a buck. Advertising agencies know this only too well and exploit it to the hilt.
So, a sizeable number, including the nouveau riche and even those who can ill afford it, become needlessly weighed down by a tsunami of debts as they continue to spend what they have yet to earn.
What one sees is an ethos of consumption that really did not exist a couple of generations ago, when the norms of the lower class and middle class dictated thrift and austerity, living within one's means, saving for the future and for one's children, and not being conspicuous, really, about anything.
The picture looks different now and it's not pretty. Overindulging Singaporeans are in a predicament of their own making and they must, for the sake of their retirement, find a way out unaided - and the sooner the better.
New year resolution, anyone?
Flashy yuppies? Lifestyle choice a personal one
Letter from Faye Chiam Pui Hoon (Ms), Straits Times Forum 5 Jan 08;
I REFER to the letter, 'Flashy yuppies paint themselves into a corner' (ST, Jan 2) in which Mr Philip Lee wrote about the conspicuous consumption patterns of so-called 'yuppies'.
While I agree that young Singaporeans ought to plan early for their retirement, clearly, it is neither fair nor feasible to place limitations on how, what or why one's money is spent.
It is this question of choice that sets our generation apart. Whether these yuppies really 'need' that new BMW or DaVinci sofa, why they want it, or even how they choose to finance it, is irrelevant. What is important is that we should be responsible for the choices we make.
Mr Lee points to 'an ethos of consumption that really did not exist a couple of generations ago'. But the fact is circumstances and societal values have changed over time and the austere lifestyle that he advocates appears anachronistic today.
Ultimately, it really boils down to personal choice. It is not the job of the Government or anyone, for that matter, to impose a moralistic view of the right lifestyle to lead.
Letter from Agnes Tan Suan Ping (Mdm), Straits Times Forum 2 Jan 08;
I REFER to Ms Arti Mulchand's article, 'They're still feeding the monkeys' (ST, Dec 31).
Any visitor to the Lower Peirce Reservoir would have seen the sign - 'Stop feeding the monkeys'. When my children aged nine and 11 read the sign, they questioned why people were still feeding the monkeys.
So, if an educated man such as Mr Joseph Ng (an engineer) alleged that he did not know it is an offence to feed the monkeys since the words are in fine print, then he must have understood the sign in its plain English.
As an adult, he should educate the young ones and not simply justify his own actions by saying it was only natural to feed the monkeys and help entertain 'the kids'.
How would Mr Ng react if the monkeys were to attack him and the family members who were with him? Will he sue the National Parks Board for the monkeys' acts of aggression or will he learn his lesson, albeit the painful way?
If educated people fail to grasp the rationale of not feeding the monkeys, how does NParks attempt to educate park visitors?
We are all creatures of habits. If park visitors continue to feed the monkeys and, hence, turning them to be more aggressive, we become killers when the monkeys are culled because of our ignorance.
Anyone who spots those feeding monkeys should capture the act on cellphone or camera and post clip on Stomp
Goh Sock Hoon (Ms), Straits Times Forum 2 Jan 08;
I REFER to the report on rampant monkey feeding in parks, 'They're still feeding the monkeys' (ST, Dec 31), and congratulate The Straits Times team for capturing people like Mr Joseph Ng and family in action.
My family are regular visitors of parks in Singapore, and continue to count our blessings for a wonderful job done by the National Environment Agency (NEA).
At the Botanic Gardens, visitors blatantly disregard signages about not feeding pigeons. Warnings about fines do not work because these culprits do not believe they will get caught.
Neither do we believe that the NEA should spend more of taxpayers' money patrolling the parks. We believe the best patrollers are other park-goers who want to enjoy the serenity, beauty and safety of our parks.
Anybody who spots a culprit should capture it on his cellphone or camera and post it on Stomp.
The NEA could use the help of the public to identify these people, whether online or through published pictures in the papers.
With increasing affluence in Singapore, fines by itself may not be the best remedy. These culprits should be sent to stand next to these signages to give out leaflets telling why we should not feed the pigeons or monkeys.
It takes a lot of green to go green
Warren Brown, Business Times 2 Jan 08
We'll guzzle petrol and recycle paper and plastic - just like we've always done
(NEW YORK) It's time to make a few bets. They are written here to determine the accuracy of my prognostications at the end of 2008.
# Petrol prices are going down and will remain down throughout this year. The decline will be attributed to the fine work that US Congress did last year in drafting a truly comprehensive national energy bill. At least, that is what we will be told, especially by Democrats who championed the measure signed into law last month by President George W Bush.
Some other causes will be cited for the fall in pump prices. They will include a slowing world economy that needs less oil; the prospective exploitation of bountiful new sources of oil, such as Canadian tar sands; military and diplomatic progress in Iraq; and the growing prospect of peace in the Middle East.
We will witness the dawning of an era of exuberance regarding matters petroleum, a time of optimism comparable to the Roaring Twenties and the recently expired housing boom that was inflated by phony mortgages.
Peak-oil theorists, those people foolish enough to believe that a nonrenewable resource is eventually exhaustible, will be vilified as alarmists. American consumers, mollified by falling petroleum prices and the promised availability of more exploitable oil reserves, will breathe sighs of relief.
And they will spend the summer before November's elections wrestling with issues of gravitas, such as whether our presidential candidates, Democrat and Republican, support the right of adults to marry whom they choose to marry.
# We will see more gas-electric vehicles. This is guaranteed. Even automotive companies such as Audi and Nissan, which long have resisted gas- electrics, will introduce or announce the planned introduction of gas- electrics, although their engineers generally concede that fossil fuel- battery technology will do little to reduce our overall consumption of petroleum and might even present a few 'downstream' environmental problems of its own. No matter. In the world of automotive marketing, reigning public perception, erroneous or not, is reality. It pays handsomely to develop cars and trucks accordingly.
# Product schizophrenia will remain evident at the 2008 car shows worldwide, where environmental green will be the dominant exhibition theme but where the pursuit of market share and balance-sheet green will be the underlying reality. Look for all major car manufacturers to tout their fuel-sipping, clean-air green prowess. But also look for all of them to go after the other kind of green with V-8 and larger engines aimed at pulling maximum dollars from the pockets of consumers who remain very much in love with high horsepower and high performance.
Japanese car manufacturers Honda, Nissan and Toyota will be front and centre among those pushing horsepower. Nissan already has entered the fray with its 450 horsepower GT-R sports coupe. Toyota is planning to answer with its V-10 Lexus LF-A. And Honda, long the greenest of the supposedly green car companies, is eyeing the introduction of a V-10 NSX sports coupe. Both the prospective Toyota and Honda super- cars reportedly will boast 500 horsepower.
Environmentalists should not be alarmed by this any more than they should be surprised by Toyota's push to take as much big-truck market share from Detroit as it possibly can. Despite the supposedly easy availability of off-the-shelf technology to make cars and trucks use less fossil fuel and spew fewer tailpipe pollutants, the truth is that it takes a lot of green to go green. And Toyota, to cite an example, has mastered the art of dealing with the devil to gain more ground in paradise.
# Finally, overall petrol consumption in the United States will continue to increase. This will happen despite a borderline recessionary national economy. It will happen despite a move by some consumers to smaller cars, and despite a measurable decline in the sale of big pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles. It will happen because irrational exuberance has a way of producing seemingly rational economic consumer behaviour. It has something to do with the insatiable human desire to get more for less, or something for nothing, which, of course, is the underlying promise of the recently approved energy bill.
It promises consumers everything without asking them to do anything. They will have more energy efficient washers and dryers at attractive prices. Their light bulbs will burn longer and use less energy. Their new cars and trucks will average 35 miles per gallon, because a politically savvy and technologically intelligent Congress has forced those nasty old car companies to go to their bank of on-the-shelf parts and put them together in a way to get better mileage and cleaner tailpipes at rock-bottom prices. (Indeed, because this off-the-shelf engineering is so very easy to do, one wonders why those silly car companies didn't do it years ago and seize market advantage. Imagine, a 35 to 50 mpg, non-polluting, fun-to-drive, high- horsepower, tank-safe car replete with amenities and enough space to accommodate five people and their luggage! Who wouldn't want that?)
Put all of this together - increased technical efficiency, cheap petrol, the prospect of always more oil to be had somehow somewhere, and the promise of another economic boom around the corner - and you have what we've always had, including increased vehicle miles travelled and increased consumer demand for more horsepower, faster cars, wider roads and longer, mass-transit-free distances between work centres and mini-mansions (all of those foreclosed houses will be bought by someone, albeit at substantially lower prices than the rip-off mark-ups that helped their original buyers get into trouble in the first place).
We'll guzzle petrol and recycle paper and plastic. We'll celebrate. -- The Washington Post
The Evening Standard 1 Jan 08;
A major supermarket chain has outraged human rights activists by selling fish from Zimbabwe.
The campaigners said it is wrong to fly in food more than 5,000 miles from a country where millions are on the brink of starvation.
They are planning to mount protests at Waitrose outlets, all of which stock the Zimbabwean tilapia fillets.
Buyers for the chain say that selling the fleshy white fish helps preserve threatened species such as cod.
It is not known whether Robert Mugabe's dictatorial regime has benefited from any share in the deal through business taxes and export levies.
Last night, Wilf Mbanga, editor of The Zimbabwean, a UK-based newspaper, said: "People are starving in Zimbabwe. There is no food in the shops, there is no fish to be had there for the ordinary people.
"It's incredibly cruel taking food out of the mouths of starving people. It is very ill-advised of Waitrose. It is morally wrong.
"I find it very disturbing that they are taking fish from Zimbabwe at a time when millions are starving and surviving purely on international aid."
Professor Terence Ranger, president of the Britain Zimbabwe Society and a fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford, said: "Zimbabwe has a tremendous food shortage. It seems inappropriate for food of any sort from there being exported here.
"But on the other hand, Zimbabwe is badly in need of cash for hospitals and schools and it is a question of where this money is going."
Leaders of the Zimbabwe Vigil Coalition - human rights group with 16,000 members - are discussing a possible protest against Waitrose.
Dennis Benton, a spokesman, said: "We will try to arrange a vigil against Waitrose to protest against this. This is completely wrong."
Despite widespread condemnation of the Mugabe regime, there are no restrictions on the import and export of food.
Instead, there is an arms embargo and an order freezing of the assets of the dictator and 131 of his associates.
Zimbabwe once had a thriving agricultural-based economy but food production collapsed after Mugabe's land seizure from white farmers in 2000.
The country now suffers from critical food and fuel shortages, rampant inflation, chronic unemployment. It also has an appalling record of violent political repression and human rights abuses.
Waitrose's critics also pointed out that flying the tilapia fish 5,160 miles to Britain from a farm on Lake Kariba is bad for the environment. They said supplies should instead be bought in from the Netherlands.
Dara Grogan, a Waitrose spokesman, said that Zimbabwean tilapia - which sells at £11.99 a kilo - is of higher quality than elsewhere and from a sustainable source.
"This is a question of trying to encourage our customers to try species that aren't threatened but are just as tasty as cod," she said.
"Secondly, we source the tilapia from a fair trade supplier called Lake Harvest, which is majority-owned by native Zimbabweans.
"The company and its tilapia product contribute directly to the support of 450 workers and their dependants."
She said Lake Harvest pays workers substantially more than the minimum basic wage and offers performance pay, pension schemes and medical insurance.
"In Zimbabwe in the current political climate it's not unrealistic that each wage earner will be supporting up to 20 people," she said.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "There are no restrictions on a UK supermarket stocking Zimbabwean produce."
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 1 Jan 08;
An international campaign has been launched to help save the world’s amphibians from extinction.
Scientists fear the largest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs because of a deadly virus which is sweeping through populations of frogs, toads, newts, salamanders and caecilians across the globe.
Amphibians have thrived for hundreds of millions of years but as many as half of all species could perish unless a solution is found.
The spread of the parasitic fungus amphibian chytrid, which has proved deadly for hundreds of amphibian species, may have been made worse by the effects of global warming. The disease has so far proved unstoppable in the wild and can kill 80 per cent of native amphibians within months once it has taken hold.
Amphibians are important as an 'indicator species’ - similar to canaries in a coal mine - who serve as a warning when there is something wrong with the environment. Now 2008 has been designated Year of the Frog by conservationists to raise awareness of the plight of amphibians and to raise the funds needed for a concerted worldwide effort to save them.
The Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP) aims to protect the habitat of the amphibians while at the same time finding answers to the environmental problems they face.
The biggest initiative will be an amphibian version of Noah’s Ark costing an estimated £30m where the most vulnerable species will be moved into protected areas in zoos, aquariums and other institutions around the world so their future survival can be guaranteed.
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The ambitious rescue plan is being organised by the IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, the IUCN/SSC Amphibian Specialist Group, and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA).
“Widespread extinction of amphibians would be catastrophic,” said Jeffrey P. Bonner, chairman of Amphibian Ark and president and CEO of the St. Louis Zoo.
“In addition to their intrinsic value, they offer many benefits and are a critical part of a healthy world. They play an important role in the food web as both predator and prey, eating insects which benefits agriculture and minimizes disease spread. Their skin also has substances that protect them from some microbes and viruses, offering promising medical cures for a variety of human diseases.
The conservation groups hope the captive management plan will buy time for the most endangered species which will eventually be reintroduced back into the wild once the threats they face have been removed.
It is hoped the Year of the Frog campaign will raise awareness of the crisis among media, educators, corporations, philanthropists and governments and will generate the funding needed to make the campaign a success.
Sir David Attenborough, who is patron of the campaign, said, “The global zoo and aquarium community has taken on this challenge with enthusiasm and is providing appropriate facilities and breeding grounds within their institutions. But implementation calls for financial and political support from all parts of the world. Without an immediate and sustained conservation effort to support captive management, hundreds of species of these wonderful creatures could become extinct in our own lifetime.”
Amphibians are severely affected by habitat loss, climate change, pollution and pesticides, introduced species, and over-collection for food and pets.
Jörg Junhold, Ph.D., chair of the Amphibian Ark Year of the Frog campaign and director of Zoo Leipzig, said: “It is of utmost importance to raise awareness among national governments, world media, school educators, corporations, philanthropists, and the general public about the fragility of amphibians and the enormous responsibility that each of us has in trying to rescue the amphibians in danger.”
“The outcome of the Amphibian Ark project will be that we will have saved hundreds if not thousands of species from extinction. We also will have developed a capacity both within our institutions and globally to continue to provide amphibian species with care and protection when needed, formed a true partnership between offsite and onsite components of conservation, and demonstrated to the world that zoos and aquariums are essential conservation organizations.”
LINKS
Amphibian Ark: 2008 Year of the Frog website
Sydney Morning Herald 31 Dec 07;
Environmentalist and 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery believes the Japanese cull of 1000 whales is sustainable.
Professor Flannery told News Ltd newspapers the greater concern for marine life and biodiversity was with krill and small crustaceans, which were essential in the marine food chain.
Krill populations are declining as a result of over-fishing and rising sea temperatures killing off their food sources.
Professor Flannery was more concerned with issues about which the future was most under threat. He said Japan's plans to kill 935 minke whales each year would not threaten the species.
"In terms of sustainability, you can't be sure that the Japanese whaling is entirely unsustainable," he said. "It's hard to imagine that the whaling would lead to a new decline in population."
The influential scientist said he was relieved Japan had scrapped plans to kill up to 50 threatened humpbacks this year, but was worried about how whales were slaughtered and would like to see them "killed as humanely a possible".
Professor Flannery's views have not changed since 2003 when he argued in a journal that smaller-brained whales, such as minkes, could be hunted sustainably.- AAP
Flannery's views on whales 'curious'
Sydney Morning Herald 31 Dec 07
The crew of a protest ship searching for Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic have described as "curious" claims by prominent scientist Tim Flannery that a sustainable whale cull is possible.
Professor Flannery - a principal research scientist at the Australian Museum in Sydney - said the current Japanese annual target of 935 minke whales was possibly entirely sustainable.
He said there were more important environmental concerns in the Antarctic including fishing pressure on low-end food sources such as krill.
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza has now arrived in the iceberg zone and is searching for the whaling fleet.
Esperanza media officer Dave Walsh said crew members had discussed Professor Flannery's comments on Monday and were generally puzzled by them.
"Given the Japanese government's stated objectives in their science program...is to restart commercial whaling and one of the target species is an endangered species and they have doubled their quota in the last few years... shows they have no interest in sustainability," Mr Walsh told AAP.
"It's just a matter of killing as many as they can.
"There's nothing there to show any plan forward for a sustainable hunt.
"(Professor Flannery) was talking in particular about a sustainable minke population in terms of the sustainable hunt.
"But at the moment there are no agreed figures for the population.
"You can't claim to do a sustainable hunt of a population that is unknown."
He said the whales were already under pressure from hazards including impact with ships and pollution.
"It was so unexpected in seemed to be a curious statement to make," Mr Walsh said.
"He did mention that there aren't any humpbacks being killed.
"The fact of the matter is 50 of the whales being targeted are in fact endangered - fin whales, the second largest living animal.
"It seemed to us to be a strange statement to make."
Mr Walsh said Esperanza was in sight of icebergs inside Antarctic waters.
"We're starting our search now, starting a search pattern through the whaling areas," he said.
"They don't want us to know where they are and until we find them, we don't want them to know where we are either."
The Japanese Whaling Association (JWA) on Friday responded to criticism from the Australian government that there was no credible scientific justification for the hunting of whales.
"In the proper context of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) and the International Whaling Commission, these comments of the government of Australia are provocative and absurd," JWA president Keiichi Nakajima said.
"The fact is that the ICRW is about properly managing the whaling industry by regulating catch quotas at levels so that whale stocks will not be diminished.
"The convention is not about protecting all whales irrespective of their abundance."
Antonella Ciancio, PlanetArk 2 Jan 08;
MILAN - Drivers will have to pay a "pollution charge" to enter Milan's city centre from Wednesday in what the Italian financial capital bills as a trend-setting way to cut smog.
Milan's "EcoPass", launched as a one-year trial, is aimed at the 89,000 vehicles that each day clog the middle of the northern Italian city, where pollution readings often top European Union (EU) limits.
The charge is being billed as the first of its kind among European cities. London, which took the lead in congestion charging in 2003, is preparing a pollution fee on lorries, buses and coaches entering its first "low-emission zone" from Feb. 4.
Other Italian cities are taking steps to control smog stemming from one of the world's highest levels of car ownership. Rome launched measures on Tuesday that include limits on the most-polluting diesel vehicles and Turin is considering a pollution fee for its city centre.
"This is a new way to deal with the problem of pollution and health," Milan mayor Letizia Moratti told Il Giornale newspaper in an interview published on Monday.
"This is a model that a lot of cities are looking at with interest," she said. Moratti added she would outline the programme to United Nations officials in the next few weeks.
ENGINE CLASSES
The fee will be measured on pollutants emitted by vehicles, based on five engine classes.
Drivers must pay between 2 and 10 euros (US$3-$15) during weekday daytime hours to drive in the congested inner city, an area of just over eight square km (three square miles).
Cameras at 43 electric gates will monitor vehicles to ensure they have paid, or to levy fines of 70 euros and more. Estimated revenue of 24 million euros this year is earmarked for buses, new bicycle paths and green vehicles.
Milan is often shrouded in haze and its residents often complain of sore throats and itchy eyes from pollution.
Many European cities are struggling to meet EU limits on fine particulate matter, a major cause of respiratory illnesses. Milan estimates the charge will cut the pollutant in the area by almost a third.
Vehicles using alternative power such as methane and electricity as well as ambulances, motorcycles, buses, taxis and vehicles delivering perishable goods will be exempt. Residents of the zone can seek a discount.
Some critics argue that the pollution charge should not just be an extra tax on drivers. Others want wider action.
"Car exhaust is an important source of particulate matter but it's not the only one," Guido Giuseppe Lanzani, head of the air quality department at Lombardy's regional environmental protection agency, told Reuters. (Writing by Antonella Ciancio, Editing by Keith Weir)
Yahoo News 2 Jan 08;
Three German cities, including the capital Berlin, began implementing a new air pollution system on Tuesday that bans the dirtiest vehicles from their centres.
Drivers in Berlin, Cologne and Hanover are now required to display a coloured badge showing the level of pollution caused by their vehicle, with a scale of red, yellow and green.
Some vehicles, notably an estimated 1.7 million old diesel cars and vans, will not qualify for even the most polluting red badge and will be prohibited from driving in central areas.
Drivers without a badge caught in the city centre will face a 40-euro (60-dollar) fine and will be docked a point on their driving license.
The system is to be extended to about 20 German cities in the course of the year, including Stuttgart and Munich.
It applies to all vehicles, including those registered outside Germany, but some officials have indicated that foreign cars will be treated with leniency.
In Berlin, city authorities have decided not to punish errant drivers until the end of January.
The reform "is the most serious attempt until now to get to grips with the most serious source of air pollution, which causes 75,000 premature deaths per year," said German green group Deutsche Umwelthilfe.
David Hughes, Business Times 2 Jan 08;
ABOUT a year ago, this column ventured the opinion that 'green' issues would be an increasingly important factor in shipping in 2007. It hardly took the powers of a clairvoyant to predict that.
And indeed, environmental issues have been prominent. The talk has largely been about emissions, though the year ended with a demonstration of what effect an old-fashioned, big crude oil spill can have on the environment and the politicians.
As South Korean officials have demonstrated, it is not only EU officials who need to be seen to be 'doing something' when the sticky stuff hits the beaches and fishing-based economies start to fall over.
The Hebei Spirit was involved in a particularly unlucky accident - you don't get much more unlucky than being hit while at anchor. Owners of single-hull tankers could rue the day a tow wire parted at the wrong moment, as South Korea now looks set to take a tough line on phasing out this class of ship.
But really, most of the arguments over tankers and oil pollution are finished. That is yesterday's battlefield. Today's is sulphur in fuel - and thus sulphur dioxide or SOX - in the atmosphere. But the big one is going to be about carbon dioxide or CO2.
The sulphur debate is now entering the end-game. A comprehensive study commissioned by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has been completed. The 'informal cross government/industry scientific group of experts' set up in July 2007 by the IMO secretary-general was tasked with reviewing the impact on the environment, human health and the shipping and petroleum industries, of applying any of the fuel options proposed to reduce SOX and particulate matter generated by shipping.
The study was basically prompted by the fierce debate that followed a proposal by tanker owners' group Intertanko to replace residual oil with distillate as the bunker for the entire world fleet.
The study was also asked to look at the consequential impact these fuel options could have on other emissions, including CO2 emissions from ships and refineries.
The group's report will be presented to IMO's subcommittee on bulk liquids and gases next month and to its marine environment protection committee in March/April.
At the moment, the recommendations of the study group are a remarkably well kept secret. After some leaks in the initial stages of the study, all involved have been exceedingly tight lipped about the group's progress. Even the most persistent journalists have found themselves up against a wall of silence.
So we will have to wait a couple of months before we know the next step on sulphur. I, however, would not lay odds on the Intertanko proposal being accepted in its original, uncompromising form. And if I had any shares in the manufacturers of emission abatement technology or 'scrubbers', I would not be selling them just yet. Incidentally, Singapore was among the countries that nominated experts to take part in the study.
Once the sulphur issue has been sorted, and that would probably be this year, the really difficult battles will start. For all sorts of reasons, CO2 is a much more difficult issue for the shipping industry. For a start, the philosophical approach of the Kyoto/Bali accord and discussions is very different from that of IMO. Kyoto acknowledges differences between the economic development of countries and makes allowances. IMO does not. It makes rules and expects everybody to keep to them.
There is also going to be massive debate over whether shipping is with the good guys or bad guys on CO2. Various figures have been produced but the overwhelming consensus is that shipping is by far the most CO2-efficient form of transport - push-bikes and trishaws probably excluded.
Logically, the best way to reduce global emissions from transport would be to move cargo and passengers from aeroplanes, lorries and trains to ships. There would be big reductions in CO2 that would be only modestly offset by increased production of ships.
In fact, shipping has already been put somewhat on the back foot by claims like 'shipping produces more CO2 than aviation' (it might do, just, but it carries something like 90 per cent of all international freight).
Over the next year, the shipping industry is going to have to become much more adept at putting its case on CO2 emissions. But that is not going to be easy. In this region, it is going to have to get used to the fact that while logs used to be the cargo that attracted the attention of the environmentalists, the new target will be palm oil tankers. To the extent that shipping is carrying palm oil, it will be seen as the enemy of the rainforests and, by implication, complicit in global warming.
There are going to be some difficult debates, but it is important that shipping fights its corner. In that context, it's good that the Asian Shipowners Forum now has a permanent secretariat. Green issues will dominate its 'in' tray.
Straits Times 2 Jan 08;
TOKYO - JAPAN took over the presidency of the Group of Eight (G-8) club of the world's leading economies yesterday, with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda determined to focus on climate change and environmental issues.
Japan - the world's second biggest economy after the United States - is also the home of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark 1997 treaty that launched the fight against global warming.
So when leaders of the rich club convene for a summit in July in Toyako, a northern resort in the Japanese island of Hokkaido, it will be with climate change on their mind.
'Environmental issues will be a big agenda' item at the summit, Mr Fukuda said in a New Year statement.
'Japan hopes to lead the worldwide discussions in order to hand over clean skies to our children.'
It has announced four main topics for the summit: environment and climate change; the world economy; development and Africa; and broad political issues such as nuclear non-proliferation and the fight against terrorism.
Apart from Japan and outgoing president Germany, the G-8 club also comprises Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and the United States.
China is not a member but habitually gets invited.
Mr Fukuda plans a 'global climate change' summit immediately before the G-8 leaders meet and has reportedly invited the leaders of China, India, South Korea and Indonesia.
Last week, Mr Fukuda vowed to use Japan's presidency to promote eco-friendly technology, saying 'we must promote our technologies to the rest of the world'.
Japan has proposed a goal of cutting global emissions by half by 2050 from what they were in 1990.
But Tokyo is far behind on its own Kyoto obligations to slash emissions by 6 per cent by 2012 as its economy recovers from a 1990s recession.
Japan also aims to use its lead role to spearhead a health drive aimed at getting the world back on track to meeting UN targets on poverty and disease, the government has said.
The goals, adopted at a UN summit in 2000, seek progress in eight areas by 2015, including cutting child mortality rates and halting the spread of Aids.
In the New Year statement, Mr Fukuda also pledged to resume naval operations near Afghanistan after he resolves a political dispute over Tokyo's role in the global fight against terrorist groups.
Japan was forced to call its ships home on Nov 1 after legislation expired due to the deadlock in parliament. The opposition has insisted that pacifist Japan should not be part of 'American wars'.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
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